The Dharma Warrior

Yogi Shiva Dharma Nath

“The passage of the mythological hero may be over ground, incidentally; fundamentally it is inward–into depths where obscure resistances are overcome, and long lost, forgotten powers are revivified, to be made available for the transfiguration of the world.”
-Joseph Campbell

“You are the hero of your own journey.” We’ve have all heard sayings of the like; intended to spark inspiration, but often having little meaning, little real impact upon the intended audience. I, however have come to take this idiom to heart of late. I have been greatly impacted by this particular quote, and found great meaning and inspiration in its words.

The concept of the Kshatrya, the Dharma Warrior, has become integral to my being in recent days. In the past months and years I have persevered through suffering and adversity I never dreamed I could endure. Looking back, my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual struggles over the past 5 years are almost unbelievable. In recent days the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita has brought me toward light from the deepest darkest recesses of what felt like a personal hell.

My daily Yogic practice has literally saved my life. In July of 2014 my pancreas suddenly stopped producing insulin and I was diagnosed with late onset type 1 diabetes. The past few years have been difficult to say the least. Learning to regulate my blood sugar with diet, exercise and insulin therapy is slowly becoming easier, but still I struggle. Undiagnosed type 1 diabetes has taken a toll on my body in a number of ways. The nerves in my fingers and toes are badly damaged. My bones and the enamel on my teeth are very weak. My vision has deteriorated and I have developed chronic stress, IBS and sexual impotency which come and go with my physical health and stress levels.

Since my earliest childhood I have known my dharma, but like most people I doubt myself. I have suffered indecision. I have suffered illness both physical and mental, but most importantly: I have persevered. Many nightmares have come true, but so too many dreams. Many visions that were once cloudy have become clear.

Always in pursuit of spiritual wisdom since childhood, I found myself exploring many avenues of mystical and magickal practice. From a young age I also developed a keen interest in martial arts. At the age of five my brothers introduced me to the popular film “The Karate Kid”, which spurred a life long pursuit of martial mastery. Having taken the first step on the path of warriorhood in my mind, I began to wear a black bath-robe regularly and could be found practicing made up forms and drills or shadow-boxing around the house day and night. My sister is 17 years my elder and her boyfriend, now my brother-in law, was quite skilled in kung fu. Seeing my ambition and likely knowing my parents were not going to put into any sort of martial arts class, he began teaching me basic blocks and attacks when he was at the house.

I get both the Witchblood and the heart of a warrior from my Mother’s side. My middle name, Douglas, comes from her uncle Doug Odo who was an acclaimed amateur boxer. A small number of my cousins also pursued amateur boxing. Myself, my true initiation to the pugilist arts came in the form of real life self defense. In retrospect, rural Nova Scotia was not the easiest place for a person like myself to grow up. I am not cut from the same fabric as your average rural Nova Scotian. I made life hard on myself growing up. I was a freak by nature, and the older I got, the more I was forced to persevere through the judgement and ridicule of my peers, something snapped and I stopped caring. I started to enjoy the fact that my simple existence could shake the fragile egos of my schoolmates.

I’ve never picked a fight in my life, but I’ve found myself a number of times needing to defend myself physically or sticking up for others who can’t stick up for themselves. I like to think that a life of martial arts training and spiritual practice has prepared me to handle violent situations and aggressive people in a manner I couldn’t without this experiential wisdom. Any true warrior will tell you that the best way to survive in any confrontation is to avoid physical confrontation, but unfortunately not every situation can be resolved with words or by running away. I have been attacked within minutes of my life. I have witnessed acts of violence that I truly wish I had not.

Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia I am fortunate to have had access to the Shambhala Buddhist tradition which has a vibrant community both in the city and elsewhere in the province. A number of Shambhala Buddhists migrated to Nova Scotia after their founder Sakyong Trungpa Rinpoche visited in the 1970’s, declaring these lands a sacred place and founding Gampo Abbey, the home of the Shambhala Monastic Order, on the island of Cape Breton in 1983. In summer of 2006 I began working as a barista at the local cafe Steve-O-Reno’s Cappuccino. Steve-O-Reno (Steve Armbruster R.I.P.) was among a small group of Shambhala Buddhists who emigrated to Nova Scotia in the 1970’s and 80’s from the Western United States in hopes of spreading the teachings of Shambhala.

I was first exposed to the concept of the Dharma Warrior via Sakyong Trungpa Rinpoche’s book Shambhala : The Sacred Path of the Warrior which I found behind the counter at the cafe and borrowed after my first shift. I had developed a sincere interest in religious studies throughout my life but had not yet discovered Tibetan Buddhism or Vajrayana. Shambhala has a very unique take on Buddhism which focuses heavily on the concept of the Sacred Warrior and many aspects of the teachings resonated with me on a deep level.

In the following weeks, in the summer of 2006, I met my good friend and martial arts teacher Glenn Knockwood. Glenn is a true Dharma Warrior, a master of Chen style Taichi, Wing Chun Kung Fu and a black belt in Bujinkan Ninjutsu. Having suffered much hardship and loss in his youth, Glenn has used his martial and spiritual practices to transform his life in a way that I found very inspirational and helped me to spur a great change in my own life. Glenn has been very involved with the Halifax Parkour community who were a great inspiration to me at the time. The philosophy of Parkour is to learn to move freely through one’s environment; to train the body and mind to overcome obstacles with ease.

From the summer of 2006 on I practiced Taichi and Wing Chun Kung Fu daily for a number of years until i fell into ill health in 2014. Looking back there was a time I felt borderline super-human. I had become quite skilled at climbing walls and buildings, jumping from heights I almost can’t believe and landing graciously. Nowadays I have trouble going up and down the stairs at times…

It was the spring of 2014 when things started to change in a bad way. I was beginning to feel waves of lethargy. My mind felt very foggy and my memory was starting to get really bad at times. By early June of 2014 I was starting to crave sugar at night and noticed i was dropping weight. Friday the 13th of June I awoke at precisely 3:33am basically pissing myself and feeling dehydrated and incredibly weak. I crawled the 10 or 12 feet from my bed to the bathroom where I sat upon the toilet urinating for about 3 minutes straight while pounding back cup after cup of water. The following 2 weeks were a living hell. I went to my family doctor who sent me to have blood tests. Before I received my test results, on June 29 I had one of the most profound and traumatic experiences of my life.

I went to bed feeling very lethargic. At some point in the night I awoke but everything was black. There was nothing but my thoughts, a consciousness lost in space….”Is this death?” I remember thinking, “Am I dead? I guess it could be worse…I can think about anything I like…it’s generally pleasant…” This went on for an unknown period of time but I assume hours. Suddenly something happened and I had a realization…I was in a semi-comatose state but could still see. As the sun began to rise and its rays shone through the window I could see the red of blood and the veins in my eyelids. Some time later when the feeling started to come back to my fingertips and toes, and eventually my hands and feet I was slowly overwhelmed with burning pain all over my body. I was totally paralyzed but could still see the red veins on the pink background of my eyelids. I could feel my beloved dog Braxton pawing at me with concern and eventually he alerted my roommate who took me to get a blood test at a local sexual health clinic who do weekly free blood tests.

When the doctor entered the room his jaw dropped. I looked very pale and skeletal. I had dropped from 175 lbs down to about 130 lbs in a matter of weeks. I was urinating every 15 minutes. I forget the ancient Sanskrit term for diabetes but I remember it translates to “flesh falling from the body via urine”…pretty accurate. The Latin term diabetes mellitis also implies the disgustingly sweet and honey-like smell to the urine of the untreated diabetic whose body is attempting to excrete excess glucose by way of urination (it turns out this isn’t very effective.) After explaining my symptoms the doctor said “When I came in here I thought you had…I thought you had something really bad. I’m not allowed to diagnose you for anything in this scenario, but off the record, you have every sign of type 1 diabetes and you have to promise me that when you leave here you’re going straight to the E.R.” He stuck out his hand for me to shake it and I did.

Early in the evening of June 30, 2014 I ended up at the E.R. My blood sugar was 47, which means that there were approximately 47 sugar cells trapped in each hemoglobin cell on average (about 7 times the healthy amount of sugar to have in the blood). I stayed in a bed in the E.R. for about 48 hours on I.V. insulin. This was maybe the most confused and fearful couple of days of my life. After about half an hour of having insulin in my body for the first time in a good couple of weeks I felt like Superman. The will to live, to persevere, is strong in the human organism. I realized at this point that I had been dragging my corpse around for weeks and months as my pancreas was slowly giving up. Late onset type 1 diabetes is a mysterious auto immune disease that is not understood in the depth that normal type 1 or “juvenile” diabetes is understood by the modern scientific community. Where it seems to come out of nowhere there is little known about the factors leading up to late onset type 1 diabetes by nature. All that is known for sure is that the immune system for some reason begins interpreting the insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas as a threat and turns on the pancreas destroying the insulin producing cells. It is believed that this may be due to the afflicted person having been born with a pancreas that does not produce sufficient insulin, similar to juvenile type 1 diabetes, but for some reason the body is able to carry on into later life before the immune system kills the insulin producing beta cells.

One would think feeling like Superman physically in that moment would be encouraging or provide some comfort, but really it just put into perspective how much change was on the horizon once they took that I.V. out of my arm. I was destined for a life of blood letting, injections, lifestyle and dietary restrictions. I had never looked at the nutritional information on a package in my life; I had no reason to; I was healthy and active my whole life. I spent my life fighting, skateboarding biking, hiking, climbing and generally just being really hard on my body I guess, but energetically I was always very healthy. I always ate well (well enough anyway…), I would eat junk food in my youth but by my early 30’s I had spent much time on a vegetarian diet, and cooked most meals at home. I was very committed to my yoga and martial arts practices as well as my spiritual practice. Ultimately none of this could have prepared me for the struggles I would face in the following years.

July 1st being Canada Day I had to stay in E.R. for an extra day as none of the specialist I needed to see were on duty. I had to have an appointment with a diabetes specialist and a nutritionist to teach me the basics of diabetic nutrition and blood-glucose regulation via insulin therapy before I could be released into the world to live my new life. Though it felt like a long 2 days it was brightened up by my parents and a few friends visiting. I remember texting my friends and trying to get them to bring me burgers and cigarettes. I was starving and totally addicted to nicotine at the time so i was starting to crawl out of my skin. A good friend walked me home the following day. I was never so happy to see my dog Braxton in my entire life. Braxton was an incredibly intelligent and perceptive dog. He knew something was wrong with me. In the weeks prior to my diagnosis he began acting very defensive of me when walking on leash and was constantly looking at me with anxiety. He was incredibly happy to see me come home, and I’m sure happy to see a spark of life in my eye.

It is difficult to summarize the way my life has changed in the past 5 years. I am slowly learning to better manage diabetes but there have been many bumps on the road. The better I get at keeping my blood sugar in range, the more I experience episodes of low blood sugar, leaving me a sweaty shaky mess of a human until I consume enough glucose to bring me back around. Twice I have experienced low blood sugar in my sleep and was lucky my hyper-intelligent canine friend Braxton was there and somehow understood that he had to awake me and call for help. Living in a small servant’s house attached to the back of a Victorian home, I live alone but next to a family of dear friends who include Braxton’s niece Audrey. The first time this occurred was the worst. I awoke to Braxton’s nose in my armpit as he was growling and barking and rocking my body trying to wake me. I was convulsing and dripping sweat. My feet and hands were cramped and useless. As soon as I showed signs of consciousness Braxton ran down the stairs and barked at the back door to alert Audrey who promptly headbutted my kitchen door open from outside and the two of them began howling to alert Audrey’s owners. The second time was pretty much the same but a bit less dramatic as I still had feeling in my feet and was able to walk downstairs to say I’d be okay once the packs of granulated white sugar kicked in. I recently learned that glucose injections exist, that’s nice to know.

If I had all of the time and money in the world to properly manage my blood sugar, eat properly and live a healthy and active lifestyle perhaps my challenges would not seem so severe, but unfortunately that is not the card I was dealt. I have had to continue working full time to support myself. I have been working a job for the past 2 years that was stressing me almost to death because I had health benefits to assist with the cost of prescriptions. By Autumn of last year, 2018 things were getting really bad. I had developed I.B.S. and adrenal gland dysfunction from chronic stress. My adrenaline and cortisol were through the roof and my testosterone was through the floor. I had developed total erectile dysfunction, my muscles were deteriorating and my weight was dropping. In September I suffered the loss of my cousin to a fentanyl overdose and at the end of November my dear dog Braxton passed away suddenly. My mental health took a turn for the worst and by Christmas time I was a frail skeleton person. I had an appointment with my endocrinologist on December 15 and I weighed in at a cool 122lbs. At 6’4″ I was far beyond underweight. For over a year my endocrinologist was telling me that my health problems were badly exacerbated by my chronic stress. My dietician was starting to agree with him as I had tried everything I could to remedy my IBS and nothing made a lick of difference. I was starting to agree with them too. I’d heard it my whole life: “stress will kill you”, and now I can tell you first had it is true beyond what I ever could have imagined. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office thinking to myself “You’re supposed to be a Yogi…you know how to de-stress…”

I had booked a week off for the holidays and decided to take up my old Yoga and meditation practice. Every time I thought of my ill health or my financial struggles I would think about something else. I would wake up at sunrise daily, and for 45 minutes to 1 hour I would practice simple breathing and postures followed by meditation. I repeated this same practice every night before bed. Within 2 days my IBS had become noticeably better. Without getting into the messy details I was either suffering with constipation or diarrhea for 3 or 4 days back and forth for well over a year at that point. The doctors were right, I was literally killing myself with stress. I usually see the endocrinologist once every 3 months or so, but with my state at the time he scheduled a follow up appointment for one month later. I continued my daily Yogic Practiced and was seeing gradual improvement in every aspect of my life. I had more energy in the morning, my blood sugar was much easier to manage, I was becoming more flexible, but most importantly I was gaining weight and putting on muscle. By January 20th when I returned to the endocrinologist’s office I weighed 149 lbs. I had put on 27 lbs in just over a month. “We’ll have to get you on the scale again…” he said as he looked at the results of my weigh-in. I remember the look of deep confusion in his eyes as he looked down at his clip-board. “No, that’s right!” I replied “I’ve been weighing myself daily.” I went on to inform him of the changes I’d made to my daily routine and how quickly I began seeing my health turn around. At that moment the look on his face changed to one of joy. With a big smile my endocrinologist lightly punched me on the shoulder and exclaimed “See! It was stress!”. I still look back on that moment and laugh regularly, both with the amusement that accompanied being given a brotherly shot to the arm from my doctor and with a warm feeling that accompanied seeing him overjoyed with my sudden improvement. I am very lucky to have a wonderful team of specialists including a dietician, diabetes specialist and endocrinologist who have been integral to my survival of late onset type 1 diabetes and the associated struggles. I am forever grateful for the miracle of modern medicine. Prior to the successful synthesis of insulin in the 1920’s diabetes was universally fatal.

In the early months of 2019 as my physical and mental health improved, something began stirring in me. My old self still felt far away, but I was starting to see glimpses of a light at the end of the tunnel. I was moving forward again and could not afford to turn back. I was starting to feel more and more inclined to get out and be more active. Yoga was really helping rebuild lost muscle and gain more mobility and flexibility in my spine and joints, but still I get easily winded. My blood pressure has been low for the past few years and I get light headed easily. This is mostly to be credited to my lack of muscle mass and the associated lack of blood flow. When the snow cleared that spring I began biking to and from work to get a bit more cardio exercise. I bought some resistance bands and a 20 lb kettle bell and began working out at home more regularly.

I was starting to read books regularly again. I always loved reading but in the past years the head fog of chronic stress, high blood sugar and un-diagnosed mental illness made it borderline impossible to get through a few pages and retain the knowledge. I was so happy to be doing Yoga again regularly and I was starting to dream of training martial arts again. My old self wasn’t feeling so far away anymore.

Looking for inspiration to keep the ball rolling with my recent improvements I picked up my copy of the Bhagavad Gita and decided for the first time in many years that I would read it cover to cover. The Bhagavad Gita takes place on a battlefield in India’s far distant past as a dialogue between Arjuna, a Kshatrya, or warrior, and Krishna, the living Avatar of God manifest as Arjuna’s charioteer.

An ancient warrior tradition once existed within Yoga, used to prepare the body and mind of the warrior for battle. Many of the avatars of the ancient Vedic pantheon are Kshatryas, or warriors. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna himself is incarnated as a Kshatrya the charioteer of Arjuna, the leader of a great army who is having doubts and is reluctant to lead his troops into battle. Throughout the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna encourages Arjuna to rise from his depressed state and lead his troops into battle.

“Arise Arjuna!”
-Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita

By the time of the relatively later writing of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Puranas many Yogis were retired kings and nobility, who were encouraged to practice Yoga upon retirement. A popular ancient title for the practice of these more metaphysical aspects of Yoga is Raja Yoga: “Royal Yoga” or “the Yoga of Kings”. By this point in history the focus of Yoga was placed upon the metaphysical aspects, purporting that the more physical aspects of the Eight Pillars of Yoga (right and wrong action ,postures and breathing) are said to be employed to prepare the body and mind of the Yogi for prolonged periods of meditation. Of the last four pillars of Yoga, focused upon meditation, the first three pillars
(Pratyahara-withdrawl from the senses, Dharana- one-pointed concentration and Dhyana- meditation) are seen as preparation of the mind for Samadhi, the eighth and final pillar of Yoga, a liberated state of union with the absolute.

Throughout history Yogic practice was used by soldiers and other fighters to condition the body and mind for battle and other challenging aspects of warriorhood. Many soldiers would have to travel long distances on foot, often with injuries and often while carrying cumbersome loads. It only makes sense that these people would have used any tools they could to their advantage, and Yoga would have been a very powerful tool. The ancient Indian martial art of Kalaripayattu is perhaps the most obvious example of a tradition which incorporates Yogic practice into its teachings. Originally used by royal guards to defend the kings and nobles of Southern India, Kalaripayattu is questionably the world’s oldest known martial art. Many would argue that the teachings of Kalaripayattu have influenced some of the more popular Asian martial arts of the modern day.

It was upon discovering the teachings of Goraknath, the 10th – 11th Century CE founder of the Nath Sampradaya, that the vision of my Dharma was given to me in recent days. Gorakhnath is considered a saint in modern Hinduism having numerous temples and even the town of Gorakhpur named in his honour. At the time of Gorakhnath’s founding of the Nath Sampradaya, the ancient Yogic teachings were at risk of falling into obscurity. It is Gorakhnath who is single-handedly credited with reviving the ancient practices from obscurity at this time. Gorakhnath is often credited with writing the Shiva Samhita, being the earliest known text on Kriya or Kundalini Yoga. The Shiva Samhita outlines many aspects of Yoga which have greatly influenced the modern day practice. It is the Shiva Samhita which first introduces the human energetic system of the Nadis and the Chakras. Gorakhnath is also commonly credited with translating the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali which have become the most influential text on Yoga of today. In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali outlines the ancient system now commonly known as Ashtanga, the Eight Pillars of Yoga. Many attribute the origins of Hatha Yoga itself to the Gorakhnath and the Nath Sampradaya, or to Gorakhnath’s teacher Matsyendranath, but this is a point of contention among many scholars.

I felt very inspired by Gorakhnath’s vision upon founding the Nath Sampradaya as a universalist band of warrior-monks influenced by Hindu Shaivism, Buddhism and Sufic Islamic practices alike. I saw parallels between the state of Yoga in Gorakhnath’s time and my own. Though in recent days Yoga has seen an incredible rise in popularity as a physical and spiritual practice, the warrior tradition of Yoga has once more been lost to the sands of time. The theory lives on in the pages of ancient texts, but only skeletal remains of the ancient Yogic martial practice have survived into the modern day. Aspects of various Yogic postures, or Asanas, give insight to some of the lost ancient Yogic martial arts. So too we can look to the ancient martial arts of India and the East which have survived into the modern era. These ideas will be explored in greater depth in a future essay.

At Spring Equinox of 2019 I decided to begin to focus more seriously on my Yogic practice in every way. I was beginning to feel very inspired to do more both for myself and others, having seen great progress in the weeks and months prior, thanks to my newly reinstated daily routine of morning and evening Sadhana, daily exercise, proper glucose management and diet. Though my initiation in Yoga is through the tradition of Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, I began to formulate a personal daily practice based on my growing aspiration toward the priesthood of the Nath Sampradaya, which exists to this day in India and abroad, tracing its roots back to the earlier mentioned Gorakhnath. In the spirit of the Nath Yogis of old I dyed my grey jogging suit and a beloved white Indian cashmere scarf the traditional bright orange popularly worn by Yogis dating back to ancient times. This colour has been sacred in Hinduism or Sanatana Dharma since earliest history because the ancient Yogis would dye their garments with tumeric and saffron flowers. Honestly, prior to this orange was among my least favourite colours. Since youth I preferred black and a choice few colours which still I seldom wear. It was an initiation for me to wear orange, the colour of the Bramhacharya or student, every day even in my house let alone thinking of wearing it in public. Over the following days and weeks I would wear the jogging suit and the scarf as my outfit for practicing Kriya and Puja. With time as my practice began to take up a great portion of my day, I began to acquire more clothing in the traditional orange and even yellow! The bright colours began to possess me. I still sometimes find tones of orange belligerent. It is certainly a powerful colour, and one that I have come to embrace as an outward expression of the divine, solar, creative and healing forces of nature.

My daily regimen having taken a central position in my life I began to seek a more traditional Hindu perspective to my practice than I had developed through my initiation into Kundalini Yoga. My research on this subject was assembled and presented as lecture and class entitled Kundalini Yoga as Taught by the Ancient Yogis. A written version of this lecture was prepared including all original artwork comprising a 40 page booklet given to each student. During my research, via strange circumstance, I was introduced to two different gurus of the Nath lineage who have both had a tremendous impact upon me since early 2019; namely Sri Gurudev Mahendranath (founder of the International Nath Order) and Sri M (founder of the Satsang Foundation). The teachings of these most enlightened teachers greatly aided me in developing a powerful personal Kriya practice through which I have begun to transform my physical and mental health for the better.

The answer to many of my questions as a spiritual seeker were under my nose the entire time. I needed to look no farther than the traditional Hindu texts: The Vedas, The Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads and the Yoga Sutras. With this recent rejuvenation to my Yogic and martial arts practices I have been reaching out to my community and beginning to teach lessons which feels great after years of ill health. I certainly still have daily health struggles but it feels amazing to be in good enough shape to train, teach and fight again.

Nothing makes me feel better than helping another person become a better version of themselves; helping to inspire others to transcend their personal struggles. I’ve never felt a better feeling than watching a dream come true before my eyes, whether mine or that of another. For this reason when people speak to me of their dreams I always encourage people to chase them with vigor.

“Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”
-Oscar Wilde

I do my best to practice what I preach. I have always known I was meant to be a priest in one respect or another, though I have always struggled with taking on the role of the teacher. I like to think this is due to an acceptance of the fact that I will ever be a student. This is the beauty of life’s mysteries, one could spend a thousand lifetimes in seeking and still find themselves with plenty to see, plenty left to learn. For this reason many great minds have agreed that it is important as a seeker of truth to maintain a childlike state of unknowing, of learning and self examination. So too for this reason it is important to seek one’s personal Dharma; to find one’s true Will and to follow it like a beacon homeward. Each one of us is a unique individual with personal needs and desires which deserve to be analyzed and brought to fruition.

Where I often have found myself in life standing at a fork in the road, in recent days I look back to see paths once thought stray to have merged beneath my feet. I have come to know my Dharma; my will; my destiny. I have come to accept my task in this life. I have come to guide others toward their personal goals. All of my struggles, be they physical, mental, emotional or spiritual have all served to thicken my skin and open my heart. These challenges have earned me the necessary experience to help others who find themselves in a like situation. A devotion to the raising up of the spirit of my fellow man, this I have come to realize as my Dharma. Upon accepting this task in recent days, I have found myself growing more and more useful in this respect; becoming more and more helpful to the people in my life who are experiencing suffering of one kind or another; or even just those around me who are trying to improve their lives in general. “We can only help others once we’ve helped our self”…”You have to love yourself before you can love anybody else”… We’ve all heard these sayings, maybe even come to understand them to a degree, but until we are able to look upon the self non-objectively, until we find self-love, we can not truly know their meaning and virtue.

I’ve always felt a sense of purpose but now I feel it in my bones. I’ve always known life was short and sweet but now it seems ever more so. A new sense of purpose has granted me a new strength. A new way of looking upon my past has granted me a more clear vision of my future. I’ve come to not believe in wasted time or wasted energy…”There is nothing lost or wasted in this life” as Krishna says unto Arjuna in the Gita. A life of addiction, illness both physical and mental, poverty and struggle have made me who I am. My skin has grown hard and thick, but my heart has become soft and open. Fear and doubt have slowly transformed to strength and vigour. The chains have been broken. The Dharma Warrior emerges from the fires of transformation. Block not my path. Out comes the Wolf….

Life is short and precious. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is not promised. Look deep within, find what you love and pursue whatever that is relentlessly. To those of us who search for meaning in this modern dark age, the self can be your worst enemy or your greatest ally. Will you live your life with fear and doubt in your heart or with love and courage? The choice is truly yours.

“…So with thy all, thou hast no right but to do thy will.
Do that and no other shall say nay!”
Aleister Crowley
“The Book of the Law”-Liber AL vel Legis Chapter I:42-43