I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of the spiritual warrior, and what that means in the context of feminist consciousness raising and a continuing evolution in spiritual awakening.
There are a variety of philosophies on this topic. Some preach that the spiritual warrior’s battle is to convert or condemn all who fail to agree with them. This belief breeds zealots who lose their humanity as they sink into fear and hate, while forgetting the divine path of love, support, tolerance, forgiveness, acceptance, and peace.
Others say that the spiritual warrior’s only fight is within oneself, to lose the ego, and attachment to desires and aversions that cause suffering. This way harvests personal serenity, and lends some transformational yet undirected energy of the change we’d like to see and be in the world. As long as this way is focused on personal spiritual development, it may be passively participating in the continuation of the problems of privilege and injustice.
As a mental intuitive and shamanic practitioner / coach, my view is that a spiritual warrior’s role is to see the patterns of disharmony that create dysfunction within individuals and society, so that both may be mended.
I think the warrior’s responsibility is to alert those who will listen to the dangers of being out of alignment with higher natural Truth. This is tricky in the daily walk and always challenged by conflicting factors. Ethically, when dealing with individuals, boundaries must be maintained towards not imposing viewpoints before requested to do so in some way. Societally, logic and integrity must be used when supporting or opposing policies, laws, and leaders.
Shamanic practice is full of opportunities to learn from all forms of energy – the sweet and gentle as well as the sharp and turbulent. The so-called positive alone can become stagnant and shallow. The so-called negative alone becomes blind destruction. The light and the dark, the yang and the yin, both are needed to create balance and harmony.
And Truth at the Center of this dynamic of Life’s dance.
