The path of the warrior

[sword-of-aris-mysticwargr]

What is the ultimate goal of existence? I think it is evolution (though I will allow you to think otherwise, lol). Anyway, I believe that life is like a mountain meant to be climbed. And like in all mountains there are many paths to do so. There is the alchemist, the astrologist, the philosopher, the mathematician, the lover, the artist path etc. One path, is called the path of the warrior. All traditional ancient cultures had this in mind and opened this path for the good of the society and for the good of the souls meant to walk upon it. Socrates in a phrase said that "Victory is to defeat ourselves, losing is to be defeated by him", and Buddha said "From a man that has conquered 1000 men, greater is he who has conquered himself". This is the esoteric aspect of the warrior, no matter what he does, his goal is to defeat himself. In the past this kind of warriors, esoteric warriors could ride to war and it was easier then to have both war inside and outside, because things connect more easily that way. From the jaguar warriors in America, to the Spartans in Greece and the Samurai and Ninja to the East all were warriors on the same path. I was hoping you could post if you think this path can be walked today without eny external war?

[MythMath]

'External war' ain't what it used to be... ;)

[m1thr0s]

I can recommend several good books on this subject:

to begin with: Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior (Tibetan perspective) is quite good...

the classic: Sun Tzu's The Art of War is another (Zen perspective) is always insightful...

In general, there is a huge difference between being a warrior and a soldier...a soldier follows orders and (anymore) doesn't ask questions. A warrior chooses his own battles and questions everything...

I think it is not only possible to walk this path today but is very possibly unavoidable to walk a path of consciousness in these times without becoming a warrior.

m1thr0s

[Amur]

For me the path is to heal myself up completely from all emotional turmoils and thus make me strong in every way and after that I would like to get all the ancient energetical systems of the body up and functioning again and after that I would like to create a super-mind that I could use to take over the world :laugh: Nah seriously, I would just like to create a super-evolved consciousness that would be lightning fast and basically give all answers in existence and perhaps work like a internet search-engine for those that are conscious enough to be able to use it in the first place. I'm quite sure I'm going to have the idiot who made the 'Fall' happen to have his head on a stick plunged into intense fire as I hate to see humans in their crippled retarded state with only a few ones actually doing anything about it in the first place...

[sword-of-aris-mysticwargr]

Thanks mithros, these are some good books, I've read them. In the ideal city of Plato, these warriors are mostly guardians of the law in the city. In esoteric teachings it is said that a warrior-guardian could be so good that he could guard an area of several km without moving, through the force of cooperating with local elementals and other beings. In a greek war (i can't quite remember names) an army tried to invade a country but when they passed through a narrow passage strange things begun to happen and they fled in panic. Does a guardians training involve such things? Mithros i'd appreciate some books on this one.

[m1thr0s]

shoving big armies through narrow mountain passes is never a smart idea...a freaking herd of goats could incidentally wipe the slate clean...

we hear all kinds of weird shit as to what mystical warriors can do...there's always a thread of truth to it but a real warrior has to have an abiding attachment to reality that is able to transcend the bullshit on a dime...

otherwise it's fun to play around with and who knows...bits of it at least can be true and I think that more than that is also possible...but not through fantasizing or romanticizing or any of that kind of crap...

I'll have to think about the books you're looking for...seems like I might know of something...

m1

[Darin Hamel]

I was a soldier in the Army for 8 years and I think the difference between a soldier and a warrior is one of intent. Out of one hundred soldiers your said to find one warrior. Thats the guy who takes being a soldier to the next level. Everything from shining his boots to bayonette practice is raised to an artform. In everything he does he takes it above and beyond what he need to. I think the Marine Corp has a large number of "warriors" since they promote those qualities while the Army prefers soldiers.

[Apopheros]

Get your hands on The Hagakure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagakure)

[m1thr0s]

that's a useful perspective Darin...makes good sense...

it must be difficult for real warriors to summons that kind of commitment when their own leaders do not.
these days I think a good many warriors are finding themselves having to take the real battle to the top.

complicated world.

m1

[rzk]

Also, check out "IMPERIVM" by Vira Saturnio.

http://www.lulu.com/author/display_thumbnail.php?fCID=955367&fSize=320_&1218446004

IMPERIVM - Grimorium Imperialis or the Book of Eternal Ghibellinism "This is what I believe and what I have experienced. I have had, and have, the gift of living side by side with real warriors of the spirit, brothers who have been leaders and comrades, and I wish the same to the true seekers reading this inspiring pages by Vira Saturnio, old comrade in magic and action. This book is a journey through the manifestation of the Spiritual Empire through the ages, and a journey for those who sincerely long for the comprehension of war as a metaphysical concept, which ultimate goal is the transfiguration of the Self. The Path of the Wolf, was just the prologue to this milestone, a practical handbook of self-enlightenment for those adepts of self-strife who can read between the lines. The word grimoire in the title isn’t there by mere chance." (from the Preface, by Alberto Brandi, Ph.D.)

[Wolfman]

I was a soldier in the Army for 8 years and I think the difference between a soldier and a warrior is one of intent. Out of one hundred soldiers your said to find one warrior. Thats the guy who takes being a soldier to the next level. Everything from shining his boots to bayonette practice is raised to an artform. In everything he does he takes it above and beyond what he need to. I think the Marine Corp has a large number of "warriors" since they promote those qualities while the Army prefers soldiers.

Darin, you nailed it. I served as well, and I saw much the same thing. A Warrior and a Soldier are not necessarily the same thing and Warriors are less populous than soldiers.

The Warrior path, which I myself follow, is a constant uphill trail. Being part Native, I have Warrior relations on both sides of my family and any will tell you that being a Warrior is not easy. It demands much of a person and they must have that special 'fire within'. One is either born a Warrior or not. They cannot, in my opinion and in my traditions, be made.

Sadly the word Warrior is bandied about quite casually these days by many who are not worthy to shine a real Warrior's boots. We get these 'rainbow warriors, warriors of peace, spirit-warriors, and the like. Being a Warrior is about being a person who is ready to die for an honorable cause and until that time, living as honorably as possible. War is dirty and scary and terrible. It is no place for these 'rainbow-peace-wheatgrass drinking-luv bunnies' who dain to call themselves 'warrior'.

We live in a PC world, currently, that rejects us because they are deluded with visions of woolly 'sheeple' peace & happiness ;-) Yet when they need us again the bleating will begin - until next time.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

Wolfman

[Kuroyagi]

A soldier is -as the name says- someone who is paid for his service, he is "enslaved" and used by something he cannot control (e.g. by a government). A warrior is - in my opinion- something else, namely one who is more self reflective and self aware, this doesnt preculde him from government service yet he will serve because of moralistic or opportunistic and/or even more philosophical reasons: he will see that in the greater scheme of things he is fighting life itself (cause life is the path the warrior has chosen) and thereby he will strive to make things subordinate to this course.

For me the ideal archetype of the warrior is Odin.

I myself do not follow this path but I am sympathetic to it, if its followed with honesty and dedication.

[m1thr0s]

seems more a path of action anyway...I don't think I know any warriors that spend any time at all considering their warrior-ness...

If we assume that one is either born or not born to such a calling...what the hell is there to reflect upon really?

very few battles are won through excessive introspection, save those that are specifically targeting internal limitations. And even these have to find some way to impersonalize things enough to be able to focus on a task-at-hand vs getting all hung up in appearances. Just isn't a very efficient use of time or energy...

m1

[frater luciferi]

i personally dont think a warrior even has to pick up a weapon. there are battles that are fough everyday without even a single bullet flying through the air. in a lot of ways i think abby hoffman was as much a warrior as any grunt in the trenches.
and in the trenches the real difference between a great warrior and a soildier is the solidarity of will of resolve vs. the foe that they face.

when one is faced with grave consequence and peril you have to transcend your own natural instincts and desires to push yourself to retain focus in obtainment.
the nature of a soildier is suffering, and the nature of a warrior is imho a practicum thinker who's resolve of will plays not to blindness, but absolute clarity of perception and a constant mind to see which move must be made next.

your weapon is not a weapon it is an extention of you. your action is not action it is an extention of your will.

now for some reason i want to want "last samurai", as much as i hate tom cruise now, i really like how that movie snuck in some bushido ideas.

[m1thr0s]

sure...bushido...
but the game has changed...
it's all about whole systems now or nothing at all...
nothing relevant at any rate.

I liked that movie too but the intended message is skewed. The Samurai were overlords to a feudal society in which common laborers were not even allowed to own their own names...not allowed to have names, legally...were not regarded as highly as horses or even the personal pets of the Samurai themselves...

It failed because it was destined to fail over time...all these aristocratic systems succumb to entropy...erosion from within...obsolescence from without.
It's a romantic image but that is all. In the battle raging right here and now the Samurai have nothing new to offer.

...and a warrior must attend to his time.
there are many such *romantic warriors* who do not grasp that strength and weakness are both vital to whole and balanced systems.

So I agree that it is not about the mastery of conventional weapons or fighting styles.
Nevertheless, weapons still pave the way...still mark the page and dominate the art & science of war.
The question is...what kind of weapons do we require today?

m1

[frater luciferi]

sure...bushido...
but the game has changed...
it's all about whole systems now or nothing at all...
nothing relevant at any rate.

I liked that movie too but the intended message is skewed. The Samurai were overlords to a feudal society in which common laborers were not even allowed to own their own names...not allowed to have names, legally...were not regarded as highly as horses or even the personal pets of the Samurai themselves...

It failed because it was destined to fail over time...all these aristocratic systems succumb to entropy...erosion from within...obsolescence from without.
It's a romantic image but that is all. In the battle raging right here and now the Samurai have nothing new to offer.

...and a warrior must attend to his time.
there are many such *romantic warriors* who do not grasp that strength and weakness are both vital to whole and balanced systems.

So I agree that it is not about the mastery of conventional weapons or fighting styles.
Nevertheless, weapons still pave the way...still mark the page and dominate the art & science of war.
The question is...what kind of weapons do we require today?

m1

i actually think a lot of the "warriors" of the future will basically be rouge lawyers. it may be an uneven playing field to battle the system within the system. but if it itself defied its own rules it'd be guilty of commiting the same crimes it says it is trying to stomp out. i think that the future of war will shift toward corporate takeovers and clans of lawyers..and i think a lot of the next revolutions--being as the military force of the goverment is too powerful, must and should be fought using combat of memes and such..

perhaps in the future we will see warrior mages once again?

[m1thr0s]

when I look at the horrendous crimes against humanity being perpetrated by government in collusion with multinational corporations on a scale so grand that most people just turn away from even looking at it...then look at the people who are taking a stand against that crap in any way they can...it is startling to find economists, engineers, educators and scientists not just among those fighting back but actually leading the charge in many cases...

not soldiers...not clergy...not journalists...not politicians...not cops...not lawyers (save only in very rare cases) and not working class people who may tend to bitch the loudest but typically do the least to affect any change that might upset their way of life...democracy not only *dodders* but now appears to be completely impotent.

so I do think we are evolving a new class of warrior fighting a new kind of fight, though for the most part I suspect their resistance comes a little too late to meet the challenges they face. I could be wrong about this and I hope I am but the point is that the information age moves in different kinds of ways than before so that people who have a greater command of real knowledge are being more and more called upon to do what is both morally correct and economically sound in the longrun, for the largest number of people.

and what do occultists do? not very damn much as an organized group that's certain but occultism is rooted in the quest for *hidden knowledge* and this is still a player in the scheme of things...a dark horse sure...a wild card...but still very much in the game. Unfortunately occultists tend to be lousy networkers so this decidedly undermines their ability to affect positive change in organized kinds of ways. They tend to be in it for themselves alone and this cannot inherit...it will take a new kind of occultist to rise above that limitation...people willing and able to tackle whole systems and respond to global and universal needs as an integrated *self* identification.

This in itself is one very old and very compelling definition of what it means to be a warrior to begin with...this whole notion of accepting responsibility for the whole world and everything and everybody in it. It's one thing to declare to have done this *spiritually*...it's quite another thing to have put this into action in some real and tangible way.

*rainbow warriors* (as originally prophesied) are a very real possibility here...the problem comes with defining things too superficially vs what this has to mean to amount to anything useful. The term as originally used only refers to a different kind of warrior anchored at a higher rung of nature.

m1

[fr.novumorganum]

In a way, it would seem that true occultists are ideally suited for handling the inforamtion age. True training requires us to find connections between things, kernels within husks, stars as relatives...we are researchers, writers, weacers, and skeptics. We understand pulling the wool over one's eyes...

[frater luciferi]

In a way, it would seem that true occultists are ideally suited for handling the inforamtion age. True training requires us to find connections between things, kernels within husks, stars as relatives...we are researchers, writers, weacers, and skeptics. We understand pulling the wool over one's eyes...

yes..more and more the structure of culture/control and interaction are becoming more and more "Streamlike. even as we create the new virtual electronic creative conciousness..ie the internet. It would definately make a lot of sense if in the near future as the media/meme machine gets more of a grip on the collective that the occultist becomes more empowered in his/her interpritation of the collective paradigm and finds a sort of power in "battling it"?

whos to say that the powers that be dont already have mages working for them..abeit using a modern method of magick ie pycology.. WE as occultists i think by nature understand to some degree how the great beast works and how it functions..

the hippies of the sixties would have a hay-day with how wired modern society is to the "meme-machine".

i think their is potential for new wars that only feed on ideas. warring ideas..in some strange cyberland.

definately though...it would'nt take much to see the future fought over with battling mages of sorts. its kinda ironic how the new techonolgy fits so well with the ancient arts. teh egyptians would be proud of how well saturated modern society is with "IT">

[frater luciferi]

sure...bushido...
but the game has changed...
it's all about whole systems now or nothing at all...
nothing relevant at any rate.

I liked that movie too but the intended message is skewed. The Samurai were overlords to a feudal society in which common laborers were not even allowed to own their own names...not allowed to have names, legally...were not regarded as highly as horses or even the personal pets of the Samurai themselves...

It failed because it was destined to fail over time...all these aristocratic systems succumb to entropy...erosion from within...obsolescence from without.
It's a romantic image but that is all. In the battle raging right here and now the Samurai have nothing new to offer.

...and a warrior must attend to his time.
there are many such *romantic warriors* who do not grasp that strength and weakness are both vital to whole and balanced systems.

So I agree that it is not about the mastery of conventional weapons or fighting styles.
Nevertheless, weapons still pave the way...still mark the page and dominate the art & science of war.
The question is...what kind of weapons do we require today?

m1

yes yes, i know that fuedal japan has some bullshit, well a lot of bullshit to it..but compared to the west in the same stage of cultural "evolution" the japanese were far far advanced..of course their treatment of the working class was wrong--i have heard of the old cliche of the samurai who would lop off a peasants head just to test his blades sharpness etc etc.. but the culture itself seemed a lot more pure to me...the japanese never seemed to suffer in any sort of dark ages , and at least to some degree the overall manifest of its moral code..well it was a lot more pure.

we may never really know how they would of evolved..due to the invasion of the west...the aristocratic system in any light, yes was greatly flawed. but i will always prefer the east to the west.

of course my own perspective is tinted by my socialist leanings.

[m1thr0s]

I'm not prepared to toss out the good because of the bad...there were certain built-in limitations to the whole Samurai thing...just as there were limitations to all cultures that resisted the development of a strong middle class...

doesn't make everything they did or thought useless or anything. What we often seem to benefit from these cultures is an unobstructed artistry...the flourishing of a creative esoteric not dependent upon any sort of democratic consensus. Even though these things may often come down over time, it seems as though it is more important the kinds of standards that were raised at their height...these things can still move into the future, even if economic realities prohibit their empirical continuance...

Egypt went along like this for nearly 5000 years for instance...just because things finally dissolve doesn't mean that nothing at all was accomplished.

I think it's more about reviving the best of the past in the present really...not looking back so much and not romanticizing things so much as a clean distillation of the best of these great epics into the moment at hand.

m1