#MustRead: Way of the Peaceful Warrior
I spent the day reading "Way of the Peaceful Warrior." It was about 200 pages, a pretty easy read ... but WOOOWWW!! I like LOST MY MIND!!
I "woke up" if you will about a year ago. I very briefly - but very intensely dated a mentalist, whose many ways rubbed off on me. Even though we didn't work out as a couple, the man very literally changed my life. We broke up about 6 months ago, and after we did ... I just went into this tail spin. What do you do when you've taken your first steps down this new path and are then told ... okay, go ahead now! No one in my family has ever even TRIED to wake up, I have AGAPE (my spiritual church) but that only feeds me for a few hours, what do I do with the other 6 days 22 hours?!?! Well nerdy folk, we have the INTERNET! I have been searching FEARLESSLY for just any trace of ANYTHING that has made sense as to why I am feeling the way that I am.
My eyes are WIDE OPEN ... LITERALLY!! I am OBSESSED with touching things!!!!!!! I can spend hours in a room just exploring the textures. (Yes, I have lost my mind ... or rather, detached from it!!) But even as I am sitting here typing this, I can feel the netting in the chair, how it feels against my back ... the hoodie that I am sitting in, and how it feels on my head. I mean just HEIGHTENED awareness!! If you know what I mean, you know what I mean ... if you don't - you prolly think I'm crazy, which is totally kosher too!! I don't expect the world to agree with my little path - frankly, it's mine anyway!! So, you like totally can't have it!!!!! =)
This book was a big part of my path. Reading Dan's journey was like taking a snapshot of my own over the last 6 months. It freaked me out!! Here are some of my favorite quotes. I definitely suggest taking a look at it if you get a chance, and are ready ...
Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is...The only problem in your life is your mind's resistance to life as it unfolds.
Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness--if you had little time left to live--you would waste precious little of it! Well, I'm telling you...you do have a terminal illness: It's called birth. You don't have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason--or you will never be at all.
You haven't yet opened your heart fully, to life, to each moment. The peaceful warrior's way is not about invulnerability, but absolute vulnerability--to the world, to life, and to the Presence you felt. All along I've shown you by example that a warrior's life is not about imagined perfection or victory; it is about love. Love is a warrior's sword; wherever it cuts, it gives life, not death.
"If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free of change. Free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is a law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality."
Moderation? It's mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It's the devil's dilemma. It's neither doing nor not doing. It's the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence-sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It's for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation...is lukewarm tea, the devil's own brew.
“The world was peopled with minds, whirling faster than any wind, in search of distraction and escape from the predicament of change, the dilemma of life and death – seeking purpose, security, enjoyment, trying to make sense of the mystery. Everyone everywhere lived a confused, bitter search. Reality never matched their dreams; happiness was just around the corner – a corner they never turned. And the source of it all was the human mind.”
Click here to check the book out for yourself. I rented my copy at the library (but am definitely going to buy it) - it includes the sequel Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior. Good stuff nerds!!