Join David Gershon as he explores the first quality of the spiritual warrior – courage and bravery – in this excerpt from his recording “Way of the Spiritual Warrior”.
The seven qualities of the spiritual warrior. First quality is the quality of courage, or bravery. Let me read a quote. “It requires courage to come out, reach out, and effect positive change in ourselves and in the larger institutions we serve. It requires courage to love. It requires courage to accept that we ourselves can push the universe into higher states of order.” That’s a quote from Jim Channon, Evolutionary Tactics. Another quote: “For the warrior, the experience of the tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness; it comes from letting the world into your heart. You are willing to open up without resistance and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others. Without the tenderness, the bravery is brittle like a china cup.” From Rick O’ Shea, How to Be a Warrior. And one last quote, before we get into actually talking about courage and bravery: “The warrior’s way is not invulnerability but vulnerability -- to the world, to life, and therefore to the presence”. That’s from a book called, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
So what are the qualities of courage and bravery? First quality that I see of courage and bravery is the willingness to say the difficult things. The willingness to say the difficult things, to be vulnerable. I found in my life, that to achieve is not that hard. But what really became scary for me was to share what made me vulnerable, which was in fact that I might be thought of as less than in the eyes of the world. That is my self-esteem; when that was put into play when that was what was really at stake, that’s where I found my vulnerability or where indeed had fear. The way I came to know about that was through my wife, who is one of my mentors for better or worse.
