A “Download” From An Old Friend
BREATHE!
“Remember to breathe. It is, after all, the secret of life.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton
If you start trying to "figure out" life, or people ("what is true? Who am I?) logically, through your mind, you can never reach the end. Eventually you run into a wall.
But if you start at the other end, the breathing itself containing the meaning of life, everything else builds on it beautifully. You start with survival, and go from there to love, and from there to understanding and transcendence. Body leads you to mind, but mind is often in denial of body.
###
One of my greatest friends (call him T) is also, arguably, the most evolved human being with whom I have personal contact. I am deliberately not mentioning his name, for reasons I don't totally understand. Some of you will know.
I got a "download" from T this morning. A "download" is a term for one of the intuitive flashes you receive (in TAGR, this would be the "Sixth Sense", the individual mind integrating a "packet" of intuition and understanding, a state that produces high-level artistic and creative expression. This is a beautiful state at the very peak of many paths of personal development. It is best approached through the body, or the heart. But if approached through the heart, the SECOND action must be anchoring this energy to the body. Those who got "heart to head" neglect their root and can become beautiful victims. Those who go from head to heart can trigger pathological narcissism and sociopathy)
I know that I've struggled all my life to reach a specific place, and once in that place, the tools I used to get here must be put away, and new understandings and tools evolved.
It is also true that there is a need to understand that others are walking their paths, in their ways, and have understandings appropriate to their positions. We are all equally distant from our horizons.
I exchanged emails with my friend, and he told me of dreams he had had he wanted to share with me. T is a VERY advanced martial artist, but also a family man, a successful business man, and now a spiritual warrior. And I mean that term in a very pure sense: a man of spirit, capable of giving you all the "war" you can handle. Exceptionally dangerous. Exceptionally loving. My kind of human being.
###
His dreams had often been martial in the past, violent and deadly combat. But in the specific dream he shared with me, a female martial artist came to him and said that her special gift was to heal the root CAUSE of wars and conflict, so that there can be peace. Out of the countless things T COULD have said to me, he chose this one.
I didn't really think about it much, but watched a video he created for a small group of aspirants he has worked with for the last 40 years, and it was T's usual amazing clarity applied to very high-level thought. I didn't think much about the specifics, because if information is not knowledge, if "knowledge" is the connection BETWEEN facts or wisdom the space BETWEEN thoughts, I had to let it go. Trust. And when I awakened this morning, I couldn’t' wait to perform my yoga, and while doing it, and giving thanks, I got my "download." And it was, briefly:
"Your war is over, Steve. But now it is your path to joyfully teach others to be awakened warriors. That means teaching the awakened to be warriors, and warriors to awaken.
"You must prepare your son for HIS lifetime of battles, before HE makes peace with his demons, and will in turn teach HIS children, of the flesh or the heart."
My battle is over. Wow. What a concept. To fight and fight and fight, and finally not need to fight any longer. Understand: that means there is a real connection with my life and death drives. This means that, in a REAL confrontation, I would be the most dangerous I've ever been. And the utter confidence in that sets me free.
Who would I have been if I'd been raised in a loving, unbroken home? If raised within a culture that loved and supported me in my growth, protected me until it was my turn to become a protector, and then grow in wisdom until I left my place on the wall and trained the next generation to that role?
Your war is over Steve. You have earned your peace. And from THAT place…ensure that the next generation of Steves has an easier way to that goal."
###
I have a hard time expressing how powerful this is for me. And it will affect my teaching from this point onward.
If you doubt that the Three Gates allows you to protect yourself, to accomplish, to transform, even in direct conflict with those who would take your life, you are seeing a different world, and I wish you peace.
We all have to explore the world we see, with all its pain and beauty. All its seductive duality. My task was to be safe, to love, to gain enough power to protect my family, to understand, to teach, and then to transcend. ONLY if I doubt any of these foundational steps would fear throw me back into them. The task is to simultaneously rise, and take no pride in having risen, to remember we all walk our own paths, in our own time and way. And be grateful beyond words that my pains and fears did not exceed my capacity to grow from them.
Life…is so wonderful. If you breathe properly, you connect with that survival drive, and the stress will never cripple you, only motivate your evolution.
Thank you world. For all of it. For everything. And a special thanks for friends like T. Above me. But never, ever taking an ego position about it, only one of joy and service.
And that is the path, you know. Escape Suffering. Embrace joy. And be of service.
This year, 2025, I ask for understanding that that journey Little Stevie began, so long ago, is complete, to NOT live in the illusion of lack or separation.
And in that realization be of service.
Namaste
Steve
