Warrior

During the war in Vietnam, American pacifists invited Thich Nath Hanh, a Vietnamese monk, to teach peace to our war culture. He soon discovered the desultory nature of the American peace movement and decided to work with them first. For they were full of anger, conflict, and negativity. "In order to make peace with others," he taught, "we must first be peace in ourselves." Thus his classic book, Being Peace. 

There are pacifists whose deep anger makes them passive. There are warriors who are moved by compassion. Pacifists can create conflict, and warriors can make peace. Who are we to judge the mysteries of the heart?

The Warrior archetype is part of every healthy human being, as much a part of us as Mother, Healer, Child, Trickster, Maiden or Crone. When we attempt to destroy or suppress the Warrior in ourselves, we become passive-aggressive, frustrated by an anger whose energy we don't know how to use, and cannot even name.

The wisest healers teach us not to suppress the Warrior, but to sublimate and integrate the Warrior into the wholeness of our personality, with all the other archetypes. The Warrior makes us vigilant and energetic. We train the Warrior in us to be assertive rather than aggressive, protective rather than destructive, inspiring rather than intimidating. When our culture cultivates dominators rather than defenders, aggressors rather than knights, the problem is not just in our soldiers but our politicians, coaches, educators, and the leaders whom the people elect.

Our national psyche projects into the world the energies of a racist sexist Conquistador, not a true Warrior. That is our problem. Don't blame the troops. They are us.

In the Bhagavad Gita, God reveals to the Warrior the science of skillful action, which is Yoga. Even when we interpret the Gita allegorically, as Gandhi did, we use archetypal Warrior imagery. 

The Gita was Gandhi's favorite book. Gandhi did not reject the Warrior archetype, but sublimated it as inner warfare between Truth and falsehood, courage and despair: in his words, "an allegory in which the battlefield is the soul and Arjuna (represents) man's higher impulses struggling against evil." Arjuna is passive and dejected; he wants to give up. Then Krishna tells him to fight, inspiring the Warrior archetype. "Therefor fight for the cause of Truth, Arjuna: this is your duty as a warrior."

In the Republic, Plato writes: "You must be compassionate, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Let us judge not. For at the end of the battle, God welcomes the true Warrior into his heart with the same embrace as the true Peace-maker.

You enter my kingdom by ten thousand paths of dying,

each wheel of the chariot rolling toward its center.

No restless search for honey in some other garden

brings you here to lay your head in the broken wheat,

but this dark syrup, wine of your heart, you offer me.

Some men pray until dawn; some ask, "Who listens?"

But you become a wondering without words,

dazed, worshiping the lance that pierced you.

You never cry, "Withdraw it!" and seek no immortality.

There is only the whisper of ebbing breath, the Name

I gave you, this song that swells your throat, a voice

that is yours and not yours, the way smoke curls

from a wick just blown out: then you return to my lips.