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The Hidden Spirituality of Men
We can see that the warrior not only undergoes these four stages in ever-deepening ways but becomes them. Look and see. Look at the warrior in yourself as you practise these ways and become them.
Often, to be a warrior, we must let go of our privileged status in life, no matter how hard won. Putting aside the cloaks of accomplishment, one goes into darkness alone and vulnerable. Nothing guarantees that at the other end one will emerge as the same person or fit to play the same roles in society ever again. Friends and relationships, achievements and titles, salaries and retirement plans may all be left aside.
The warrior knows about death, doesn’t deny mortality but carries it like a shield, a guard by which to defend self and others. Knowing our mortality urges us to live fully and defend what’s beautiful now, not tomorrow. The warrior doesn’t wait to live, doesn’t put off living and loving and defending and creating for another day.
Having learned to let go, the warrior doesn’t harbour resentments or become motivated by revenge to chase after others. Forgiveness, another word for letting go, is learned drip by drip, day by day, not as an act of altruism but as a necessary cleansing of the past, so we can live and function effectively in the now. The soul doesn’t grow into its potential fullness when it harbours past hurt and turns it over and over. That’s the way to grow bitterness, not soul. The warrior is committed to growing the heart and soul, not to freezing it in the puny size it was yesterday or in years past.
The warrior also becomes the artist and creative being, expressing the creativity and aesthetic bias for beauty that the universe demands in all of its actions. The warrior bears ongoing evolution on his or her back, becoming an instrument for evolution, an agent for change and transformation, for the creativity and healing that bring about that evolution. Evolution isn’t accomplished at the expense of the past but brings the past along, folds it into the new forms, the struggling new seeds of plants or beings, ideas or movements, structures or languages that are yearning to be born.
The warrior serves. This service isn’t coerced, as with a slave, but offered. Service is love of strangers. The warrior finds ways to love the stranger. The warrior gives and gives generously. And he gives to himself as well as to the greater community the gifts of love of life (Via Positiva), of stillness and letting go (Via Negativa), of creativity (Via Creativa) and of justice and compassion (Via Transformativa).
The spiritual warrior uses anger and aggression, containing it at the same time. Anger becomes moral outrage within his heart, fueling actions. However, these actions aren’t violent, aggressive or deadly. The spiritual warrior seeks to change others and so his decision-making is rational and compassionate, in service of results, not just a discharge for personal anger.
We men have been allowing others, including corporations, the media and politicians, to define our manhood for long enough. It’s time for us to take our manhood back. And we must do this before it’s too late—before excessive yang energy (which is fire) literally burns the Earth up. The history of the distorted masculine goes back thousands of years to around 4500 BCE with the overthrow of matriarchy and the triumph of patriarchy. This led to what Riane Eisler, University of California in Los Angeles professor and president of the Center for Partnership Studies, calls “the dominator trance,” which reveals itself in empire-building and witch-burning, in inquisitions and crusades, in banishing the goddess and Divine Feminine, in making a scapegoat of pleasure and sexuality and in a modern philosophy that promised to “torture Mother Earth for her secrets,” to quote Francis Bacon. The male soul has been profoundly wounded by this history—as has the female soul. Today, the stakes for finding a Sacred Marriage of the Divine Feminine and the Sacred Masculine have never been higher. Our survival hangs in the balance.
When a healthy masculinity returns, both men and women will rejoice. So too will animals, plants and generations not yet born. We’ll not only be lovers but also the beloved. We’ll rediscover friendship and the value of alliances over hostilities. Beauty will return. The Goddess will return. We’ll find God within ourselves and within creation. Life will become a celebration more than an unending struggle.
Ultimately, men aren’t “problems to be solved,” but deep, impenetrable mysteries. Each one of us carries many stories, many ancestors and many archetypes in often-hidden places. We’re diverse. There’s no single “man problem.” Our unique DNA assures us that each of us came through this long, 14-billion-year journey with our own tales to tell and work to do. We’re wondrous and surprising and full of creativity. And we’re evolving still. We’re green and blue, warrior and hunter, father and son, husband and lover, spiritual and sensual, free and bound. That’s the adventure of it.
Time isn’t on our side. But our ancestors are. They and creation itself are cheering for us to make the right decision. To be real men to ourselves and generations to come.
It’s time for men to grow up spiritually. As a species, we can no longer be stuck in our adolescence. We need to explore ancient wisdom and deep teachings about the spiritual life of men, and how we touch it and how it touches us. If it’s true that the spiritual life of men is, for many, hidden or concealed, buried or covered up, repressed or forgotten, secret even from ourselves, then great things might follow if we dare to unbury and open up, reveal and unveil, uncover and herald, and speak out loud.
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Candace I couldn't agree with you more. I'm not a mother however there are a lot of momma's boys out there. They need to learn the balance and understand the cycle of a woman. All most of them do is compare us to a female dog. IF they understood the menstrual cycle and menopause tehy might understand us a little better. My partner right now we think is experiancing peri-menopause and we'll find out in 2 weeks and if she is I can help her because I've been there. She can't go to her family because they all had hysterectomies so they don't know about it either but I do because I was going through it ebforw my hyterectomy last November. She got to Experiance that with me. It was awesome for both of us and a great learning tool fo both of us.
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Great article, but I fear the promise of change lies with the forthcoming generations and their parents, specifically their mothers. My grandmother used to say that the first women some men learn to use and exploit are their mothers. And she is right, a lot of women today are still spoiling their sons ridiculously, being over attentive, 'helicoptering' I believe is the term, and are not teaching their sons proper balance. And though I will probably get hit over the heads for saying this, simply making the choice to have children without the benefit of having a man around in some way, shape or form, doesn't help either.
I would like to the mothers of future generations give their sons a better education of what it is especially like to be a woman; (there are still some men that don't understand why a woman has a menstrual cycle) and with that, teach the values of love, patience, individuality, balance, intuition, trust, vulnerability and an abhorance of violence. Women have aided and abetted men's behavior for too long, and now that we have more power in this century than ever before, if there are young males in our lives, the power lies within us, to form warriors, instead of soldiers.
But even before making the decision to have children, women must learn TO BE BALANCED AND WHOLE........
And that's a whole nother' story!
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Dear Donald, :)
...but whenever the warrior fights, he assumes that it is necessary for him to fight. Is your male archetype, 'the guardian' , who doesn't fight 'unnecessarily', any different at all ?
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I think that it is important to go beyond the warrior and towards the guardian. Merriam Webster defines warrior as: "A man engaged or experienced in warfare." Does anyone see the problem here? How are we to go beyond a destructive, conqueror society if we still uphold the warrior model as ideal? I believe we need to look towards the original male archetype - the guardian. He protects and defends his family, or in the case of society, the weak, the underdog. A great guardian doesn't fight unnecessarily. He doesn't have false bravado. He knows himself. He is calm, filled with inner peace, and assertive. He can be true to himself.
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I think you can find a good start in the website www.ishafoundation.org (i.e.) if you have no spiritual practices to get you on your 'WAY' right now. I am deeply impressed by Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev and his methods.
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As a woman in recovery I am constantly in awe of some of the mens spirituality. Some of these men put some o the women I know to shame with their spirituality. When I see a man show true emotion I have great admiration for them. I just wish all men could show their feelings w/o shame. There is nothing to be ashamed of and I know a lot of it is from their upbringing. Real men DON'T cry. So the message that's being sent is if you show emotion and cry, you're weak. That is so wrong. When I see a man struggling by not crying I tell them it's ok to cry it helps cleanse the soul and the truth will set you free. So listen up men it's ok to be spiritual, emotional and show it. Blessed Be and God Bless you all.
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Very Nicely Done Veronica!
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Thank you for your spirit and your insights.
It is great to see men seeking out the feminine side of themselves. Women are fighting their corner to have the feminine recognised more in society and in economic life but they too have to explore the masculine in themselves and love it rather than rebel against it. We need to see both sides in ourselves, and love it so that we can recognise it in others and love them for it too.
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