She read some books that became her armor and now fancies herself a “spiritual warrior.” She had spent her life struggling with herself. This, she has reconfigured into a spiritual struggle, with psychic demons outside of her who are responsible for any negative impulses she carries internally. Changing the verbiage and the onus of the problem may have provided some temporary relief, but her problems continue to mount no matter how intensely she buries them in someone else’s spiritual concepts.
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The concept of the spiritual warrior comes from Vajrayana Buddhism. The word “warrior” was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s translation of the words “pawo” (when referring to a male) and “pamo” (when referring to a female). The words mean “brave,” and while it is brave to understand oneself in a world that barely comprehends one-self, bravery does not a warrior make. In fact, the term invites duality, not oneness. It invites struggle and implies you somehow rising to the occasion and conquering yourself and then, usually, cornering strangers at parties and annoying them with your crazy wisdom. Pretty sure that’s not what Chögyam Trungpa had in mind when he coined the term.
When we invite war we get war, and this is our lives. Does Spirit have anything to do with war? Or is war the product of thought? Of desire?
War is conflict; Spirit is the absence of conflict. Where one is the other is not.
Being a spirit warrior is not a waste of time, it is a use of time—and a proper use of time at that. This is exactly the type of thing thought wants you to do or you wouldn’t be doing it. Seek. Destroy. Learn. Advance. Get to the next stage. Always the next stage. Always a new dangling carrot, a new adventure, a new ignorance to overcome and bit of knowledge to receive that makes you feel empowered over it.
Empowerment. That is the way of the warrior. And in the end, the way provides no power at all. All of this is a giant distraction keeping you in chains. If you were to put virtual reality gamer goggles on a prison inmate to “set them free” this is what that would look like. At the end of the game they may take off the goggles and be a changed person, a “better” or more confident person. But they’re still in prison.
And prison life has a way of catching up with you.