Live As A Warrior

To Live as a Warrior is a spirit that defines how we act. A spirit of will, discipline, focus, determination, and an indomitable spirit that refuses to give up no matter how insurmountable the challenges in front of us appear to be. Hercules when tasked with his Twelve Labours, who was simply not capable of being daunted by the fact that each were impossible.

The Way of the Warrior idealized as that of the Spiritual Warrior assumes also a compulsive integrity to who we are, and to our ideals. The inherent understanding inside of us that we have to be what we are, be true to our nature, and for some, to align with a power greater than ourselves. All of this imbued with an intensity that we bring to what we do that is not found to the same degree in any other mentality.

Discipline

Fundamentally, the Way of the Warrior is the path of discipline. Discipline itself is a conflict that takes place within. A battle against a part of us that we are trying to change because we don’t like what it brings to our lives.

Every path that a human can possibly take in their life involves walking the line between these two aspects. Between the version of ourselves defined by society and our personal history until now, and the version we can see within as a possibility. A perception of ourselves closer to the true expression of who we are, and what we can be. It really is a battle because we must earn every inch. There is a force within that resists us at every turn, which is the cumulative voice of our limited self repeating its narrative until we either believe it, and succumb to its force, or break free, to become something new.

This battle, and to engage in this battle consciously, in each moment and day of our lives, is to live as a warrior. To fight for the dream with discipline. Disciplining ourselves into alignment with what we desire, every single day. Seeking mastery and self-control in the suppression and redirection of our lower impulses, but more importantly, in the liberation of our full potential. Learning over time to direct our energy, mind, and emotions with greater purpose in our life.

Master Your Domain

The concept of Mastering Your Domain is one that I have written about separately in the context of Mastery of the Self. It is the extension of discipline into our immediate physical space. The organization and synthesis of our material life into an expression that has been minimalized and simplified to the point of maximum efficiency, productiveness, and effectiveness.

I have always been inspired by accounts of monks who lived across thousands of years from Europe to China, India and everywhere between. One of the aspects that always appealed to me on a practical level are the descriptions of the monastic living conditions. Irrespective of culture, religion, or time period they were described in the same fashion: essentially living in a small room, a cell, furnished usually by the most meagre of bed or sleeping mat, cushion for meditation, and a small writing table where they studied the scriptures, wrote, performed their intellectual or creative work, or whatever their daily tasks were.

More than the practical appeal of this description is the inherent spirituality that seems to exude from the idea of living in this fashion. As if the simplicity itself, and the complete absence of materialistic attachment gifted the spiritual seeker with a freedom of mind, heart, and spirit to touch worlds apart from that of everyday things, which would otherwise be inaccessible.

To me this ideal is the pinnacle of what it means to master your domain. To have your material possessions and your physical space down to a science of minimalism. Where you are in possession (within your immediate vicinity) of only what you need for your tasks, and nothing more to distract the mind and heart.

To me there is real beauty in this way of living. A sensibility that is lost in our modern world. Of course it is no longer strictly necessary, practical or even possible to live in such a way today. Yet we can still practice this minimalism, and practice the organization of our space and our minds in this fashion. For the fact remains that we lose something precious within ourselves when we don’t bring this simplicity and focus to our lives, because it is so easy to lose touch with what is truly important.

That is why the cultivation of this extreme focus found in the concept of Mastering Your Domain is a principle practice for those who strive to Live As A Warrior. An essential lesson in clarity that we experience directly through the movement towards simplicity and efficiency.

Mission Orientated

The last principle to Live As A Warrior that we are going to cover here has to do with being mission orientated. One of the ideals that I love more than any other about the Warrior’s Way has to do with the mindset and definite purpose of having a mission. A deeper intent to our actions found in a clearly delineated objective, and the linear organization of tasks in order to complete our objective, and fulfill our mission.

I have spent years attempting to bring this same awareness into my daily work and daily life because I have always appreciated the power of this mindset. There is an intensity and level of engagement to genuinely having a mission — a purpose — that cannot be found anywhere else. The challenge is that it is not always so easy to know what our mission is, first of all, and secondly, the ability to look at a complex task and make it linear through thought and planning does not come easily to everybody. But the fact that something doesn’t come easy is a poor excuse. Do it anyways, and you will get better at it over time. Because if you don’t do it, you won’t.

A warrior has a mission, because a warrior is a person of incredible will, determination, and focus. Those born with this attitude almost require a mission, since they need something to fight for because their spirit demands it. When they set their mind to a task, there is nothing else but the task. Their mind is consumed by it. They live it and breathe it. And every one of their actions are specifically chosen for the purpose of completing that task.

This single-minded engagement is one of the fundamental definitions of a warrior. Somewhat ironically, because a warrior is directly associated with combat — violence and aggression — this single-mindedness is a truth that saints from ancient times of every religion have been telling us is precisely the path to liberation of the mind, to enlightenment, and to knowing god in our lives. This single-minded engagement is echoed in the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, meant to be practiced in each action. It is for these reasons that the ideas of the Way of the Warrior have found synergy and compatibility with concepts like the ideal of a Peaceful Warrior or Spiritual Warrior.

In life we have two main aspects of our mission: the Greater Life Mission which is our own individual life purpose and reason for being here, the mission of our life itself. And the short-term missions along our path that may or may not align with the Life Mission, at least on the surface, but generally be in alignment in some way when viewed from a higher perspective.

To be truly mission-orientated, our actions must be aligned to both. Even if you have not yet found or realized your greater life mission, do not worry. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are, do not worry. Seek it through meditation. Yet while you do so, since this process might take years, choose small missions, goals, and projects along your path that you have a deep personal, spiritual resonance with. Even just passing curiosity and passion for something is good enough because these emotions have their own reason for being, and in my experience, direct us to the life experiences that shape, form, and guide us along our path. Moreover by pitting against such challenges, we learn the spirit of a warrior — determination, focus, discipline, the will to never give up, mastery over our fear (but never fearless, because only fools and madmen have no fear).

Being mission-orientated is a mental and emotional approach essentially to goals. Nothing more. Be calculated and intentional in your efforts. Think and plan and make up your mind definitively, then act on your plan with fierce single-minded intensity.

Live As A Warrior In Your Daily Life

Learning to Live as a Warrior, to cultivate that spirit, and to understand exactly what it means to be a warrior in your own life, can be abstract. Especially when we attempt to apply these principles to our tasks themselves, rather than to the organization of our minds, emotions, and spirit in our internal engagement with whatever we do. It is a spirit that we have to discover and cultivate which, once understood — understood deeply in practice through the application of the mentality — it is not complex or abstract. It is imminently practical.

The three principles I brought to you in this piece were Discipline, Mastering Your Domain, and learning to be Mission Orientated. There are many more principles and subtle layers than these three, some of which I touched on, but discipline is always the starting point. All three of these ideas are manifestations of discipline. Discipline in the organization of your physical environment where you consciously remove the excesses and equip yourself only with what you need. And discipline in your mental and emotional approach to a task: clearly define the mission, isolate the finite number of objectives, and move through them as linearly as you can with single-minded intensity and an indomitable attitude that doesn’t shy from challenge or obstacles.

None of these shifts are easy, because they each require extreme discipline over time. Not just to make the shift, but to maintain it, and then forge it into an unconscious way of life. But more than this, the intensity of the spirit of a warrior is foreign to the majority of us. We only know it through stories of the actions of real heroes, and in the form of fantasy in movies and television. The character that fights through unendurable pain with sheer will, against all odds.

Most of us have no idea what that feels like. We have never been pushed to those limits, let alone attempted to push ourselves to them. Our society is too civilized, and we have become weak — weak of mind, heart and spirit — because of it. (But perhaps kinder too, less blunt of objects, except that our aggression has been shifted to the verbal and emotional because we are cowards whose laws and the internet tend to remove real consequences.)

To live as a warrior you have to actually fight for something in your life. Fight for a dream, a goal, a purpose that gives your life meaning. Thrust yourself against your limitations so that you can feel the pain of going beyond them. Set your sights on an objective that you have to struggle for. In the best case scenario, that you have to fight over years to move towards. The pain and the obstacles will teach you what it means to be a warrior, the toughness of your mind and spirit, and test you, how easily you will give up at first. But over time you will learn through the experience itself.