Early during the proliferation of COVID-19 there were a lot of pieces I had been coming across that assembled themselves into a strange puzzle inside of my mind. After much research and reading, I had come to the conclusion that this was not merely a “pandemic” as we were told to believe, it was an all-out war on the spirit of humanity itself.
It may be egregious of me to state such a claim without providing evidence that is convincing enough to believe, but in the interest of maintaining a positive and hopeful state of mind, I feel that such exhibits will do little else than to demoralize and demoralization is not what we most need right now.
Let’s look at the words for a second. Spiritual warfare. What is triggered in your mind when it enters your consciousness? Bombs? Death? Horror? Boots on the ground? Good vs Evil? Jesus and Satan arm wrestling? Chances are that whenever the word “warfare” is introduced into a conversation, the subliminal associations it carries can induce a wide range of negatively charged thoughts that cross over a vast spectrum of ideas.
But really, what does warfare mean precisely? War as I define it, is a campaign waged against a person, place or ideology with the goal of reversing, suppressing, dominating, neutralizing or out-right eliminating a defined target of focus. The war on drugs. The war on terrorism. The war for democracy. Star wars, thumb wars, the list goes on.
It is important that we understand when “war” is used in the context of spirituality that it does not necessarily need to involve aggression, cruelty, dismemberment of limbs or force of any kind. Not even the firing of a single bullet or a judo chop to the back of a neck.
War is simply an active opposition to an ideology. With this in mind, we can envision “weapons” to be of both material or immaterial substance. Why is this important to acknowledge? Because a war does not have to follow the pattern of “an eye for an eye” or to embody the principle of “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.”
Should one think briefly about the above, the natural conclusion is that of passive aggressiveness. It is the flower placed in the barrel of a gun, peacefully protesting in the streets, writing stern letters to your local representative and complaining on social media from the safety of your couch.
But it does not have to be that way, either.
In each of these cases, many who are hungry or desperate for change will dismiss such approaches as being ineffective and in some ways, they are correct. Passive aggressiveness is not the way in which we fight.
What does it mean to go into war on the spiritual level? What weapons are used? How may we train ourselves to be effective soldiers and able to bring about real change without resorting to the use of violence or passive aggressiveness?
Here I shall unveil a partial selection of the arsenal from which you may draw equipment from. Choose well soldier, or choose all if you wish. I give you the first of three weapons for your consideration.
Awareness
When it comes to utilizing the weapon of awareness, one must understand how it functions and what effects are caused. Awareness is the spreading of information, an idea or a vision to a mass number of people.
A powerful ally on the battlefield, awareness is able to inspire, motivate and strengthen the resolve of a vast number of people who have been made informed of who and what they are up against. For in order to defeat an enemy, one must know their motivations and strategies.
When one is in ignorance of crimes being perpetuated against them, they do not often resist but instead, comply and thus become a party to their own persecution. Fear is the byproduct of ignorance, in that one’s confusion and lack of understanding contributes inadvertently to giving MORE power to the oppressor.
Let us consider fear of the unknown as one example. When we stare into the darkness of a forest and feel afraid, we may be doing so out of ignorance. Think of an area in your city that is dark at night but safe during the day. For myself, it would be trails near my home that I often go for walks on. During the day, there are no dangers but what changes at night? The “dangers” do not simply appear due to our inability to see what is in the distance. We change. We feel the uncertainty that comes from being denied the ability to visually assess the environment that we are in, and thus, we become scared of noises and potentialities that may or may not exist. In short, we often become afraid of nothing but our own imagination.
A fun way of developing your courage and resolve should fear of the dark be one of which you harbor — would be to regularly place yourself in locations at night (that are safe during the day) so that you can develop confidence. Choose someplace where few people go and experiment with walking in absolute darkness. The more often this is done without incident, the easier it will become to develop assurance and confidence enough in overcoming fear of the unknown.
Should you be fearful of other things, such as heartbreak, consider the practice of loving and accepting yourself enough to know that the love of another does not dictate your worth. Examine other fears that you may have and look into what is known as “shadow work” in which the negative qualities of yourself is brought into the conscious state of mind so that it no longer lurks hidden in the depths of your soul accumulating power that it does not deserve to have.
To further one’s awareness involves also the need to stay informed and educated about the world around you. Study philosophy, psychology, spirituality, politics… Recognize if you are inside of an echo chamber and ask yourself on any given day if you have a reasonable awareness of what is going on around the world. If not, turn off the video games and sports and clear away any distractions. Although the numbers are on our side, this war cannot be won should we decide to live in complacency and ignorance.
Faith
Weapon #2 deployed in the battle against evil and darkness is the ability to have faith. Faith in your cause, faith in a higher power/principle/value, faith in others of like mind and faith in yourself.
Faith, like warfare, also carries associations that undermine the usefulness of the word. What is faith? A belief in a higher power? Yes, but it can also be a belief in yourself. Do you have faith in democracy? In the right to free speech and thought? Those are beliefs with no religious or spiritual connotations attached and yet our society functions on expressions of faith.
My personal definition of faith is one that is palpable and easily grasped when the word is substituted for “confidence”. Confidence does not have any negative attachments beyond the anti-thesis of “arrogance” which is a clear boundary to become aware of crossing into. Confidence is a simple, discreet and easy to deploy version of “faith” that is inclusive of all belief systems. Atheist and believer, alike.
When using this weapon of spiritual warfare, faith thought of as “confidence” must be given further adjustment by the incorporation of humility. Humility is the recognition of power without the urge to abuse it. The use of humility in tandem with faith/confidence will not only keep arrogance at bay, but acts as an amplifier of the power that faith/confidence provides.
Think of the powerful men and women of history who have gone to their deaths (and effected tremendous change) without fear due to their convictions. Jesus, Joan of Arc, William Wallace, Che Guevara and Adolph Hitler all achieved what they did through the power of faith. Was the ideology of Hitler misguided? Perhaps from a certain point of view, but to him, it was necessary to restore Germany to the position of power it held prior to WWI. On one level, he succeeded, but because humility was not used, he failed. For humility is the use of restraint and as we know, Adolph showed little to no restraint at all in amassing the power that he did.
So how then must we cultivate faith? Often times when it comes to possibilities we wish to realize, it is necessary to believe with conviction that such a possibility may come to pass. This conviction is buttressed through direct experience and results. Should we “believe” strongly that we will find a coin on the street, and when we do — we are then given the choice to believe in the power of faith or to dismiss such a result as coincidence. True faith however, is not so quick to dismiss in the face of positive results. It fuels itself even further when such occurrences are made manifest with regularity but it is up to you to believe it.
However, in order to properly steer our faith towards the goals we wish to achieve, we must pair faith with weapon number three.
Discernment
Merriam-Webster defines “discernment” in the following way:
1: the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure : skill in discerning
2: an act of perceiving or discerning something
The quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure.
As it next says, it is a “skill” to discern. It is connected to one’s ability to perceive that which may be hidden.
I however, feel this definition to be a bit lacking. To me, discernment is not just the ability to be able to grasp and comprehend obscure information (intelligence/perceptiveness would be more fitting) but rather, the ability to give consideration to that which challenges a strongly held narrative without allowing for emotions to distort the interpretation of the data being considered.
Kind of a mouthful, I know. Ultimately what discernment is, is a balance between the left and right parts of the brain, the willingness to allow information inside and the ability to engage and assess this information using both logic and intuition to come to a conclusion about what is presented.
In short, to discern is to evenly apply rationality and intuition outside of the influence of the ego which is a filter that bends the world to fit only the narrative we wish to see. Discerning fact from fiction means also to do so with a desire to comprehend and arrest the truth.
How can we strengthen our ability to discern? We find a clue in the words of Aristotle. A badass Greek dude who looked great in a toga.
Now why is discernment an important weapon to have in your arsenal? Because it will become much more difficult for you to be deceived by those who wish to shape reality to their own ends. A common tactic used in spiritual warfare is to present a compelling narrative that you feel obliged to accept. This can take many forms and often looks enticing in that such narratives appear to be compassionate, benevolent and beneficial at first glance. They may not be. There is no greater way to demoralize and defeat an opponent than to convince them to fight against themselves. Read that again — to convince an enemy to fight against itself is one of the most powerful attacks in a spiritual war. This can be done through elements of subversion as Yuri Bezmenov, a KGB defector describes in the following video:
Discernment is how we fortify ourselves from falsehood. It emboldens and en-flames faith. It produces conviction and certainty once information has been thoroughly vetted and examined under the auspices of logic, intuition, direct experience and learned knowledge.
To develop this quality, we must try and keep an open mind. To objectively assess information that we are emotionally reactive towards. To not allow the ego to construct a false narrative in order to appease its fears with. Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves and others are more painful than the truth itself.
However, discernment is but simply the scope attached on top of a rifle known as…
Honesty
To be discerning is also to be honest. When we can freely admit to not really “knowing” something is true, we make progress towards truth itself. We no longer pretend for reasons of insecurity caused by our egos.
Let us be realistic. How many of us here believe that there is a heaven or a hell? I mean, REALLY believe it? Be honest! I can safely say for myself that I don’t know for sure, although I do have my own opinions about what I think exists after death. I’m sure you do, too.
To be honest is to admit that we sometimes do not have all the information required to form an accurate conclusion with. Someone halfway around the world right now can look at the colour of the sky and announce with conviction that it is gray and dull but where you are, it is clear and sunny and appears blue. Who is wrong? Who is right? The answer is that you both are right and wrong at once. People are only able to describe what they have access towards, such as the tail of an elephant.
Honesty means truthfulness. It means integrity. It can mean loyalty. There are many branches of the same tree.
Why is this a useful weapon to have? Because to live in Truth means that you will accept no less than that. You will want to keep your word. To be loyal. To be humble, faithful to your values, vulnerable and yet strong, optimistic but realistic… All that has arisen from the foundation of a character that honors Truth are qualities that have served humanity well throughout the ages.
On an occult level, we see this as “Order From Chaos” or as George Santayana once said:
Thanks JuicyQuotes. What a disturbing website name that is.
Truth is the most powerful weapon of all in this war we are facing. When we are unafraid to stand up and speak the truth, falsehoods hold no power over us. Chaos no longer causes confusion and we begin to produce order.
And yet, as the word “warfare” suggests, we are expected to engage against an “enemy”. In this present situation, the enemy we face is both a spiritual and ideological one. One side that favours the inversion of truth and the other that will stand for nothing less than Truth itself.
Do we want to live in a world based on lies? On hedonism and pleasure at all costs with no regards for the pains and sufferings of others?
Or are we willing to stand for what is right and true?
But what is Truth, exactly? How can we know if there is good or evil? What about moral relativism? Aren’t all laws made by humans and not God? When we go down the rabbit hole deep enough what can we hope to see at the bottom? What is the one ultimate truth by which we can hang our hats upon?
This then brings us to our goal and the revealing of the one universal law by which all laws and morals are governed.
Love
Anything that acts in accordance with the principle of love moves towards order and cohesion, whilst anything that does not, moves into chaos and disarray.
This is the universal principle by which we are governed by. Those that abide and believe in love and those that do not.
When we are able to love another human being, to accept them fully and to open ourselves up to them in all of our weaknesses and uncertainties, we have bridged the separation that barricades us from one another. Love is the reason why we should engage in this war against an “invisible” enemy that does not understand what love is or how to give and receive it. An enemy that has a distorted view of what love is meant to be. In our modern society, sex is often used interchangeably with love as it was in the 60s with the “free love” movement and the glorification of promiscuity. Polyamory also, is a perversion of love and the act of sex which can be a powerful expression of such.
The Greeks had eight words for love but we do not need to know about the complexities and nuances of what love is and involves to comprehend its core function. Love is as Rumi says, the bridge between ourselves. Love is a form of recognition and acceptance. I am you and you are me. Your idea of love may not match my own, but I love you just the same because I understand who and why you are the way you are and I choose to accept it. Even if you pee on the toilet seat from time to time.
Love is the recognition of the one ultimate Truth. That we are each divine expressions of an intelligence much greater than ourselves and bound by a camaraderie that permeates the entire universe. We are unique lenses by which the Creator is able to view creation. Not only that, but we are the Creator itself. We all come from the same source. The same intelligence responsible for all that there is, was and ever will be is as much a part of us as we are of it.
The Art of Spiritual Warfare has only one objective in mind. One task only. And that is to learn how to love. To recognize it, to give and receive it and to understand its importance so that others too, can integrate and impart this knowledge. This mission, should you choose to accept it, will be challenging. You will endure ridicule, disbelief, scorn and perhaps be ostracized from certain circles for honoring this Cosmic law. You will be righteously enraged when asked or compelled to betray this inviolate principle. You will not be treated mercifully by those whose pains and sufferings are so great that they desire their misery to become your own.
You will no longer be racist, homophobic or xenophobic as you recognize and accept each human being as another aspect and version of yourself.
Love will be your greatest teacher and guide in life. It is the map by which we navigate wherever we march. In darkness and in light, love always knows the way forward and where to go, how to be and continually reminds us in the expression of the beauty found in nature and in others, that love is always worth fighting for and believing in.
It is worth preserving and protecting.
For without love, comes chaos.
And with chaos, we descend into darkness. Into a state of disorder.
Into a hell of our own making. Individually and collectively as we become further and further separated.
Love is the reason why we fight.
Love is the reason why we are here.
And in these troubled times, we need soldiers of love marching relentlessly in its defense. For there is nothing else worth fighting for more than love itself.
Chin up soldier and get your gear upon your person. Awareness, honesty and discernment in the service of love.
The war has already begun.
