What is a warrior? A warrior is a way of life, a way of thinking, a way of being. Carlos Castaneda says we choose only once, to be warriors or ordinary. We choose only once. Because choosing to be a warrior alters your fundamental approach to life. While others will view everything as a blessing or a curse, you see only challenges. And a warrior lives to overcome challenges.
Every warrior has a code, an ethos. It is an invisible thread that connects him to all of his warrior brothers and sisters since the beginning of time. Steven Pressfield asks “How do we find our true calling, our soul companions, our destiny? He answers, “In this task, our mightiest ally is the warrior ethos.”
A warrior never hopes, but he must have faith. Hope is powerless, useless... The longer we sit and hope the more time we waste, because the universe gives only what is sought, what is believed! But yet a warrior must have faith. Because at times not every path is clear, and not every enemy a fiery dragon. When the forest is dark the warrior holds his ground with faith that if he remembers the warrior code, the light to illuminate the darkness will come.
For the warrior, the body is as important as the mind, because the two are inseparable. Danielle Bolleli writes “ A person who knows there is a wild wolf living under the skin has less reason to be intimidated by reality. Even when the power of the mind is in doubt, the body can provide tangible proof.”
A warrior is not an ascetic. He does not deny himself the pleasures of conquest simply for the sake of denying them. He realizes that in denying oneself it is easy to think he is doing great things, when really he is just focused on himself. But neither is the warrior attached to these pleasures. He can walk away from them at any time, and sometimes he does, just to prove it to himself.
The warrior is a natural leader, and he leads under one principle-- Follow me. When Alexander the great was threatened with mutiny after years of a brutal campaign in India, he stripped down naked, so all the men could see his scars. “Bring forth a man who has bled more than me, and we will go home.” No one came forth, because it was Alexander, riding his horse Bucephalus with a double plumed helmet who led every charge. Instead, his men erupted in cheers and pounded their shields.
The Warrior is a Believer. As Paulo Coelho says, “Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears.”
A warrior is highly tuned to sense danger, but he does not fear. He does not fear because pain is temporary and death is an illusion. What is eternal cannot die, and the warrior knows that he will laugh, he will love, and he will fight for all eternity, in this world or some other.
If he errs, if he wanders, if he indulges in self pity, if he complains... He does not despair. He knows that he is human, and he remembers the choice he made. He picks his sword back up from the ground, and resumes the path of the warrior.
A warrior fights for one reason alone: love. Love of life, love of what is good, love of family, love of tribe, and love of our infinite soul on the quest for impeccability. He lets love swell in his heart, flushing through every cell in his being until he cannot help but proclaim, like Cyrano De Bergerac, “I am going to be a storm -- a flame -- I need to fight whole armies alone. I have ten hearts! I have a hundred arms! I feel too strong to war with mortals. Bring me GIANTS!”
What is the psychedelic experience? Aldous Huxley believed it was the fundamental craving of the human spirit. A desire to turn off the survival biased filter of perception just for a moment... and catch a glimpse beyond the bars of our cognitive prison.
The psychedelic experience does not require drugs. Religious history and spiritual traditions are built upon these sublime moments. Messiahs hear the voice of God after a 40 day fast. Holy men, having isolated themselves in a cave, suddenly emerge with visionary truth.
But to indulge in a 40 day fast to reach this heightened state is like burning your house down to bake a loaf of bread. One hour in a salt-water isolation tank quiets the noise of sensation until awareness becomes the mirror that reveals you to yourself. A single session of holotropic breathing restricts our mental chatter long enough to plunge you into the zero-state of visionary Inspiration. Then there are the earth movers... The plant medicines at the core of many religious sacraments, which according to Graham Hancock were integral to inspiring the earliest known art in caves throughout Europe.
These plants are technologies. In a recent placebo controlled study completed by Johns Hopkins university 18 healthy adults were given Psilocybin, the active ingredient in ‘magic’ mushrooms. Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of their top five most positive experiences; 40% said it was the single most meaningful experience of their life.
Ayahuasca, long called the Master Medicine by the healers of the rainforest, offers an experience with the most visually powerful and mysterious of all molecules endogenous to life, DiMethyltryptamine.
Iboga, the root of an African shrub, confronts you with the voice of your own inner truth for 24 waking hours and is being used to treat Heroin addiction with relapse rates reported at a shockingly low 7%.
Why doesn’t the world embrace these technologies? Terrence Mckenna has an answer, “It takes courage to take psychedelics – real courage. Your stomach clenches, your palms grow damp, because you realise this is real – this is going to work. Not in 12 years, not in 20 years, but in an hour!"
What can the Psychedelic Experience be?
The cloth that wipes clean our lens of perception,
The compass that points true north to our life’s calling,
The lantern in the catacombs of our subconscious,
The sword stroke that unfetters the muse,
The sunlight that dispels the shadows of our past
Or simply a respite of eternity, in the fast flowing river of time.
I’ve been to the other side, stared unflinching into the eyes of my eternal soul and seen a matrix of a thousand possible destinies. I’ve witnessed the span of our current universe contained in an unceasing heartbeat, each world a single bloodcell and each contraction a new existence for life itself. I’ve learned of humility on the back of a dragon, felt the terminal extreme of heaven and hell in the marrow of my bones, died and been reborn anew. What will your psychedelic experience be?
Courage to you all.
vuelvo a sentirlo mucho si no entendeis ni papa de inglés, esta vez por lo menos podreis usar el google translate para enteraros
RPV: si eres un vago no merece la pena que te enteres de que va.
