Spiritual Warriors

Welcome 2018!  While there is no telling for certain what this new year might bring, it is pretty safe to assume we will all face challenges of some sort. This quote below inspired me to choose our subject, The Spiritual Warrior, for this first month of 2018.
"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse." — Don Juan, as quoted by Jack Kornfield in A Path With Heart
The Spiritual Warriors task is to win in the war against self-ignorance and fear. The challenge is maintaining awareness, having courage and discipline, and establishing a commitment to transformation.  This can be difficult as we begin to recognize stuff about ourselves and the world we live in. It is when something is recognized, when a truth, or falseness is revealed, we might find ourselves on shaky ground.  We can either push the recognition away using the very popular technique called "deliberate ignorance," or we can stand and face it, toe to toe, with our eyes wide open. 
The way I was trained in this particular battle plan was to continually ask myself "What am I not noticing?".  You see the predicament in that line of questioning, right? When I was training in Karate this was actually a much easier task. For one thing, your opponent was always going to let you know with a well placed kick or punch that you didn't notice you left an opening. You might spar with someone you thought was an amazing mind reader because they always knew what your next move was going to be, until you finally realized you were consistently signaling what kind of kick or punch you were going to throw with a hitch of the shoulder or wiggle in the hips.
If someone chooses to begin training as a Spiritual Warrior  they are probably not going to get kicked in the head if they turn away from a truth. This makes it all the more alluring to distance oneself from a truth as there are seemingly no immediate consequences, such as a black eye.  But those who have an interest in training as a Spiritual Warrior know the possible liberation that can be experienced is worthy of the small battles waged along the way.

Join us this month as we contemplate the possibilities in becoming a Spritual Warrior as we stand firm in Warrior 1 pose, which is our pose of the month. Lets begin 2018 with our feet firmly on the ground, our hearts facing in the same direction as our eyes and our minds awakened to the possibe battles that await us.