In Tibetan Buddhism, as well as our own Native American traditions and other traditions, there is the concept of the spiritual warrior. A spiritual warrior is someone who lives from spiritual principles and whose strength and courage manifest peace and compassion in each situation of life. We can be spiritual warriors when we don the armor of gentleness and kindness toward all of our fellow beings. The spiritual warrior expresses fearlessness because when we feel one with everything, there is only peace, harmony and order. As Bob Dylan put it, this warrior's "strength is not to fight." We realize that the apparent outer obstacles in our life derive from inner forces of self-doubt, fear and distrust which we need to overcome through our own soul-searching and inner meditation. As spiritual warriors, we don't do battle with the world as such. Ours is the way of inner clarity and realization, enlightenment and illumination which leads to freedom from outer constraints and opposition. When the spiritual warrior enters a room, the room is suddenly filled with light. 

It is easy to be so caught up in our mental processes that we forget the way of the heart. It is through our heart that we make our deepest connection to all that matters in this life. The intellect is a great tool, but it is through the heart that we discover the love and joy of this life. Through the heart we open a door into a world we never knew. Are we following the dance of our heart, or are we too busy analyzing and trying to figure everything out? The heart releases us from the need to know how it's all going and how we are doing; when we dance and put ourselves into the dance with all our heart— we no longer need to know how we are dancing. Let go to your heart dance now— all that you need will follow. 

Lao Tzu once wrote, "Bend and you need not break." Too often in life we seem to think that the only way to get anywhere is through force, struggle or manipulation. Life often seems to resemble the struggle to get on a cable car at Powell and Market Streets in San Francisco: everyone shoves and elbows his or her way on, as if that's the only way to make it. Yet the way of wisdom is oftentimes the way of yielding; trees which are supple and yielding bend to the wind so that they do not break. Running water (in rivers and streams) yields to obstacles in its path, surrounds them and engulfs them. It is said that to win in the Japanese game of Go, one must practice the virtues of patience, courtesy and gentle yielding. In our lives right now, perhaps we are pushing too hard, trying to make something happen or fighting against things. Maybe we have adopted, consciously or subconsciously, an adversarial attitude toward our life. Why not try yielding and letting go and see if our breakthrough doesn't happen without effort, struggle or strain? 

T.S. Eliot said, "At the still point of the turning world, there the dance is." It's interesting that we can find our way into our own dance, our deepest longing for the real, the good, the beautiful and true, not by forcing our way, but by becoming quiet and still. In that stillness deep within our being, we discover our way to our heart's desire. As Rilke says, "What we owe to silence makes our ripening exact." And a Zen master once said, "Truth only reveals itself when one gives up all preconceived ideas." We can find our way in the outer world by letting go and letting ourselves be inwardly still. The Buddha said, "Don't just do something, sit there." So when trying doesn't work, we can stop trying, relax, turn within and let our innermost being reveal the path forward. Let's let our stillness lead us into the dance. 

The Buddha said, "The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground." We all live in relationship. We don't exist in a vacuum or in a void. No matter, at times, how alone we may feel, we are each part of the vast interwoveness of all life on this earth and in this universe. The people in our life, particularly those closest to us, offer us the gift of a mirror through which we see ourselves reflected through their eyes. As we react and respond to our family and friends and coworkers, we become aware of blind spots, things about ourselves we never noticed. When we hear our voice on a tape recorder for the first time or see ourselves on a video screen— we are shocked and say, "Is that really me?" So, too, in our reflected interactions with others: when we lose our usual way of seeing ourselves, we say, "Is that really me? " We grow through our relationships as we allow them to show us who we really are. See yourself anew through the people in your life. 

There is a story of a baseball manager who was having a talk with his shortstop. The manager said, "The first baseman is becoming too lazy and complacent. From now on whenever the ball is hit to you, I want you to throw it as hard and fast as you can at the first baseman— this should put him back on his toes." Someone who overheard this conversation asked the manager later on in the season, "Did the aggressive playing of the shortstop help the first baseman's playing?" The manager replied, "There was nothing wrong with first baseman's playing; it was the shortstop who needed to get on the ball, which he did." Often in life when something isn't working, we tend to think it's someone else who needs improvement— but it may just be us who needs it. A young woman who had much anxiety received a prescription for tranquilizers from a doctor. A friend asked her, "Are you less anxious after taking the tranquilizers?" "No," said the woman, "but everyone around me is a lot calmer." 

When I was working on my doctoral dissertation, I found myself floundering until I realized that I was seeing the people on my dissertation committee not as helpers or allies but as adversaries. Once I adopted an attitude of cooperation with my committee members, my dissertation process opened up and flowed into harmonious and successful completion. We don't have to fight with the people in our lives— we can literally see our family, friends and colleagues and associates as part of our own consciousness. None of us walks the path of life alone. We live in relationship. We can cooperate with fullness of heart with all of those who are accompanying us on our life walk. Some stay with us all our days. Some are with us only a short while— but all leave the impress of their love and concern for us. The easiest and simplest way for us to complete our goals and fulfill our dreams is by allowing others to help us. 

There's an old Rosicrucian saying, "Two may go where one dare not." This life seems to be meant to be lived in relationship. While there are those who become hermits or recluses, most of us seem to thrive and flourish when we are sharing our life path with others of like mind and heart. 'Significant Other' is an interesting expression we hear these days. When someone is sharing our life, that person is significant to us, but he is also 'other' than us. The significant other is significant not because he or she is the same as us but because of the differences between us. Yet even though there are differences, we can still share the life journey together. Perhaps it is the very differences that make it possible for us to travel our way together. So sharing our way means recognizing and affirming the uniqueness and individuality of the people who have chosen to walk together with us. 

J.D. Salinger once said, "I'm a reverse paranoiac. I keep thinking that people are conspiring to make me happy." How do we see the people in our lives? Are the people in our lives a problem to solve, or are they with us for us to appreciate, love and enjoy? Do we enjoy them, or are we too busy trying to fix them? Do we see our friends and loved ones as basically OK as they are, or do they need our help to get better? Someone said that nothing is so impatient as watching our loved ones' lack of progress in life. If they would only change, then we would be doing just fine. Perhaps if we just let go of our need to change the people that are with us, we would discover how really OK they already are. And what a great relief it would be not to have to carry our worry and concern for them around with us everywhere. We can come to realize that we are in relationship to the people in our lives simply through love, appreciation, respect, kindness and trust. So we can relax and let our friends and loved ones reveal the beauty of who they are to us. 

We know of romantic love, paternal and maternal love, love of country, love of home— but what is spiritual love? Spiritual love is when, in the instant, through no apparent cause, we feel incredible joy and wonder at the sheer fact of being alive. There is no predictable pattern, ritual or routine that can lead us to spiritual love. There is a sudden inexplicable opening of our heart to the universe— we feel a cosmic freedom, a tremendous clarity, energy and harmony existing in us and outside of us simultaneously— and we are simply at peace with all. This experience sometimes comes to young children, or it can happen to young adults or to the elderly. It can come at any time and in any place. There is no rhyme or reason to spiritual love. It just somehow gathers us into itself, and we are free, and we breathe the air of an infinite openness of the heart. Don't worry if it hasn't happened yet— it will. The next moment may bring it, or maybe, even this moment.... 

A couple once rushed into a dentist's office. The man said to the dentist, "We need a tooth pulled in a hurry. We don't have time for novacaine or gas; we just want it pulled right now." The dentist replied, "You are a very brave man, sir. Let me see the tooth that needs extracting." The man turned to his wife and said, "Show him the tooth, honey." While we may all be part of the oneness of all life, it can be very useful to establish boundaries between ourselves and the people in our lives. No matter how close we feel toward another person, we are not that person, and there are areas of difference between us. We don't have to always agree on everything. Personal integrity means that we establish limits in our relationships. We are each unique individuals in this life; it's OK and even healthy to be different; if we were all the same, how dull and boring this life would be. As we walk our path on this earth as separate beings, it's OK to share our journey with each other as long as we remember that we're not joined to each other at the hip. 

Someone once said, "If you won't let me alone, I'll find someone who will." How deeply do we want to know and be known by another or others in this life? When we fall in love, our ego boundaries dissolve, and we feel an oceanic merging with another person. Yet, after awhile, our boundaries reappear, and we find ourselves again individuated— not merging but, as D.H. Lawrence said, "two individuals orbiting around each other." Intimacy does not mean that we lose ourselves in the other. True intimacy means that we remain true to ourselves, and therefore we can allow ourselves to deepen our connection with those in our life. There is a kind of openness which comes from discovering our own unique way of being in this life. And that openness carries over into all of our relationships. Intimacy becomes a condition of our being, and openness becomes the way in which our heart responds to this life. 

Ramakrishna tells a story about a man who is carrying flowers to his girlfriend. He is so concentrated on his love for her and so absorbed in his concern to bring her these beautiful flowers, that he accidentally stumbles across the body of a meditating yogi. The enraged yogi jumps up and yells at the man, "How can you be so clumsy to disturb the peace of my meditation?" The man replies, "I was so absorbed in the thoughts of my love that I didn't even notice you— how come your meditation is so shallow that it can be disturbed so easily?" The point, of course, is that what we love, we pay attention to. Love is the motivating force that gives us the ability to move ahead in our pursuits in this life with singleness of purpose and unbroken concentration. When we really feel great love for some person, we find that it is easy and simple to do the right thing to bring beauty and joy into that person's life. 

Who do we really love in this life? Most of us begin our lives with parental love for either our parents or those who bring us up. Then many of us experience adolescent love and then, later, marital love or love of a significant other. We may also experience the joys of spiritual love with people with whom we share a deep spiritual bond and kinship. Yet with each kind of love experience, be it parental, romantic or spiritual, we don't really decide to fall in love or to be in love— our hearts suddenly open and we feel a deep inner connection with the other person. We let go to love as we let go to water while we are swimming. Love has its own momentum, its rhythms and its own wisdom. We may not be able to choose how or when love will come to us, but we can always choose to be open and receptive to love when it does come our way. We can even decide to trust love to guide our way in this life. As Thoreau once said, "The only remedy for love is to love more," and Thomas Traherne said, "We can never love too much." Be open for more love in you life. 

U.G. Krishnamurti once told me, "Other people really aren't responsible for our problems—we really can't blame them." Perhaps maturity comes to us when we actually quit blaming others for our problems. It's so easy to blame the people in our lives for the situations in which we find ourselves. And we can always find support for our feelings of outrage or indignation. "Of course you've been mistreated and that no good so-and-so is to blame," some well-meaning friend will tell us. But commiseration does not heal. And holding on to a grudge beyond its time only makes us feel worse. We finally reach a point where we realize that other people are what they are— we can't hold them responsible for not being the way we want them to be. If our feelings get hurt, it's because of our expectations about others. We can release others from our need for them to make everything all right for us. And when we do so, we find that we really are all right— we can enjoy and appreciate the people in our life by letting them be who they are. 

What is it about our deepest and closest friendships that is of such profound and lasting value in our lives? A friend, a really close friend, is someone we can share our deepest thoughts and feelings with, without fear of ridicule or judgment. We can share anything with our friend without worry that we might somehow hurt his or her feelings. There is a perfect meeting of the mind and the heart with our friend. There is no winning or losing, no competitiveness, between us. We like being with our friends because we can relax and let go with them. Yet, as Emerson suggested, a true friend can and will point out our weaknesses and blind spots, our self-delusions, to us. A friend who can only agree with us would be a weak friend indeed. Our friend is always there to support and strengthen the very best that is in us, never our illusions or subterfuges. Our friend wants to see us strong and happy, and that's how we see our friend. 

I have a friend who, no matter how I'm feeling, when I talk to him, even if it's just for a few moments, I immediately feel better. If I'm feeling so-so, after speaking with my friend, I feel peaceful, open, alive and awake. If I'm already feeling good, when I talk to my friend, I feel very, very good. It's interesting how some people somehow always bring out the best in us. They make us very happy that we are not all alone on this earth. Sometimes the best thing we can do is connect for a few moments with a friend who brings us the joy of life. Sometimes it may not even be a human being: a dog or a cat may be the friend who reminds us of the goodness of our life. We are lucky that our hearts have drawn such friends. No matter who, let each of us have such a friend and call on him or her often. 

In his book Grist For The Mill, Ram Dass says, "In India when we meet and part we often say, 'Namasté' which means I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us...Namasté." Sometimes we feel so alone in this life, as if we are separate and apart from everyone and everything. Then, one day, we discover that place inside of ourselves in which we feel connected to all. Suddenly, we feel a part of the interwoveness of all life everywhere. From the farthest galaxies of outer space to our innermost thoughts and feelings, we realize there is no separation. Instead of separating us from everything, our skin relates us to everything in this world. When we feel this inner connection to all life everywhere, it's as if the pulse of the universe courses through our veins and the vast energy of the earth moves through our nervous system. We are suddenly and inexplicably one with the oneness of all life, and we know it, and we are at home in this life. 

Chuang Tzu, the great Taoist Chinese philosopher, once said, "That which is one is one. That which is not one is also one." Charles Williams, a great Christian mystic, once said, "We are each part of a vast web of interrelatedness." Sometimes we seem to forget our place in the scheme of things. We feel separate and apart— cut off from the flow of all things. As Lily Tomlin says, "Just remember, we're in this all alone." Sometimes we do feel as if there is no one here but us and that we have to make our way through this life ourselves, without help or support. But then there comes a shining moment of realization, and it dawns on us— yes, we are alone, but we are also infinitely connected. How could we not be a part of eyerything? If we are part of everything, then we have access to the allness of life. A Zen monk who humbly holds out his begging bowl is staking claim to the allness of life. We, too, can claim our share of the oneness of this life. 

Let's turn within for a moment and recognize our oneness with all life. We sometimes feel that we are all alone, separate and apart and that we have to make our way through this life unaided, all by ourselves. This feeling of separation can seem very real to us, but there is a deeper reality that unites us to this life, and we can consciously connect with this unity right now. In the Hindu tradition, there is a story about Vishnu, the creator/sustainer of the universe. One lazy summer day, Vishnu falls asleep and dreams the universe into being. The whole universe, everything and everyone, is simply Vishnu dreaming the illusion of separation. Let's wake up to our oneness with each other and with all life.