The Path

Faith without spiritual discipline is an unfulfilled promise. The failure is not in the spirit, but in mankind. No matter what you seek in spirituality; power, forgiveness, whatever - it will be lost to you if you are not physically ready to receive the gifts of the spirit.

The ancient texts tell us to first prepare the body, to become strong and skilled in the ways of the flesh. You are then to take those tools and use them to cultivate heartfelt human relationships. This means all relationships - of action, of mind, of the body, and of the spirit. And finally you will arrive at the realization and understanding of the fundamental principles of the Universe. You will become as the storm; formless, holding nothing and drawn to nothing. You will move through life as a force of nature, making no distinctions between correct and incorrect or like and dislike. In the words of my teacher, all of this is "to foster fighting skills not just for their own sake, but as a means to a more sublime end: the completion, the fulfillment of one's human potential." (1)

Now, there are pitfalls that arise from one’s own undisciplined mind. Each distinction, each trap, comes from the line between pain and pleasure or gain and loss. For wherever there is form there is opposition. There is the other. When there is no form in one’s heart, there is nothing able to oppose you. The opponent fails before the conflict ever begins.

“No form” does not speak to the tragic negation of the self that is mandated by the major religions of the world. It is the natural spirit that is without form; it stores nothing. This is very different than the retreat from the world so widely advocated. This is a real world event, with incalculable benefits. Transcendence cannot be realized without a fit vessel for the holy to inhabit. This is the key to the kingdom, and the kingdom of God is spread upon the earth and men do not see it.

So, with such a discipline as this, the world becomes your own world. The line between the humanity and divinity blurs till you can move instantaneously between the poles of God and man. Divine compassion is your compassion. Your forgiveness is divine forgiveness. Your righteousness is a holy righteousness. Your anger is the wrath of God. For He is as you are, and you are as He is.

This is, in a phrase, the art that looks upon the profound and clarifies life and death