I was just watching the movie ‘Peaceful Warrior‘ and it is a wonderful introduction to doing the spiritual work. I found snippet particularly informative:
Socrates: “Everyone tells you what to do and what’s good for you. They don’t want you to find you own answers – they want you to believe what’s theirs.”
Dan: “Let me guess, you want me to believe yours?”
Socrates: “No. I want you to stop gathering information from outside yourself and start gathering it from the inside.”
Dan: “What, are you part of some cult or something?”
Socrates: “People are afraid of what’s on the inside and that’s the only place they’re going to find what they need.”
For millennia, there has been the phrase which has been ignored for just as long:
Nosce te ipsum.
Know thyself.
Of course, when people read this, they will naturally assume that they know themselves pretty well. How funny this seems to me nowdays (since it seems that I barely know myself at all)!
For instance, when someone says they know themselves, all you need to do is ask the simple question:
“Why do you get angry?”
More often than not you will get an answer,
“Because someone has done something to piss me off!”
Of course, when I first started out on this work, I thought:
I know myself pretty well, why should I study anger when I’m a very calm person? In fact, people have always commented about how calm and relaxed they feel in my presence!
This work, of course, goes much, much deeper than that.
Since starting I have found seething levels of rage within myself. I have found frustration and swallowed anger and much much more (and much much worse).
Dare to look inside.
There is another phrase (from Flight of the Feathered Serpent) which is equally helpful (but equally likely to be ignored):
The Path starts in the physical body with the five senses.
To awaken is to use them, and not to confuse them with you.
Are you a peaceful warrior?