An excerpt from my book, written to help men, "The Way: An Ancient Map for Modern Men."
Available exclusively in the Brothers of Wisdom Community.
Now that you have some foundation of truth, and you can see your place in the cosmos, you can begin to behold the wonder and awe of existence, its vastness, its immensity, and its mystery. Only then can you begin to honor life instead of trying to take from it, possess it, control it, or judge it. Then you can see how misguided you have been in your past attempts to get what you want. What was before seen simply as who you are and what you want is now seen as selfishness, craving, desire, fear, and negativity.
Next, once you have enough perspective, you will see that you need to bring repair, truth, and love to the mistakes and injury you have caused while under the possession of your unconsciousness. What you’ll find is that the part of you that is designed to handle this flavor of challenge is your honorable masculinity. Whereas the previous exploration on truth took you out of yourself, out of your body, and placed you into the greater context of the cosmos, showing you your relative insignificance, the exploration of honor and its restoration is a deep venture into the body, even into the past. Its doorway is courage.
Contained within your body is memory. The memories of your ancestors, your grandmothers, grandfathers, their children’s children, and all those in your lineage who came before you. Your ancestors experienced many terrible and great things. From the death of infants, the loss of clan, rape, and genocide. They may have migrated from Eurasia to the Americas seeking religious freedom, toiled tirelessly for a generation to pay for the education of their children, or secretly fought against brutal regimes to protect the lives of innocents. There is contained within the flesh of your body deep ancestral memory. This memory continues to drive you, to shape your actions, to inform your thoughts, and to create you as an individual. This is the primary engine driving societies and the world. The yogis and Buddhists call it “karma.” Karma literally means “cause and effect.” The karma of today is simply the echo of yesterday, unresolved. It is the man who has decided to take responsibility for his pain that will bring resolution to the effects of karma within him, ending generational trauma, and riding universal energies into liberation.
Whereas in the exploration of truth we made no comment to who you are as a man, when it comes to honor it is all about who you are as a man. How do you treat others? What kind of a life do you lead? How do you feel, deep down inside? What’s it like to be you? Are you afraid? Are you hurting? Are you isolated, abandoned, rejected? How do you handle challenge when it arrives on your doorstep? Do you dissociate, intellectualize, and blame others? Or do you rise and meet life with integrity, dignity, and honor? Can you hold the tension of a moment within your body without giving into rationalization, fruitless action, and resentment? Many people will look to the external as an indication of what kind of a man you are. In reality, the external is merely a reflection of what is inside of you. If your insides are chaotic, hurt, and sorrowful so too will be the life that you live. If your insides are flowing, joyous, powerful, and great with love, so too will be the life that you live. This is no great secret, yet men live as if they don’t know it.
Who are you as a man? What does honor mean to you? Do you bring honor to you and your family? Have you begun to excavate your history and learn about your roots so that you may heal the trauma that was given to you by your forebears? Will you have the courage to cease the manipulation, fighting, and control of the external and instead take the honorable path of working directly with your internalized and unacknowledged shame, guilt, rage, apathy, and grief? For to do this is to take responsibility for the pain of all your family and by extension the entire world. And that is the single most honorable thing a man can do. What could be more honorable than transforming your genetic inheritance into a legacy of presence, peace, and power?
Most of the mental health issues that plague our current masculine population such as addiction, depression, and suicide are mere symptoms of this deeper suffering. This suffering is not something that will just magically remove itself from the depths of your being. It requires work, it requires confrontation. Until a man has sufficiently entered the layer of his own shadow, the shadow given to him by those he holds dearest, and brought love, courage, and honor to the darkness within, he will never be free from his pain. And a man that is not free from and at relative peace with his pain will become a source of pain. His unresolved vindictiveness, resentment, and grief will destroy himself and those he loves. This is evident by the symptoms of male dominance, greed, sexual abuse, depression, mediocrity, violence, addiction, cowardice, impotence, and suicide that are rampant in modern western men.
These words are not intended to discourage but rather to challenge you into your greatness. May you realize the reality of suffering and the way it shapes your existence. May you find the courage to seek help, to grow, to let go, and to be liberated. It all exists within you, including the potential to become a truly positive force. What will you do with it? Before you can honor life, a woman, a family, and the depths of a moment fully, you must honor yourself. No more lies. No more distractions. No more deception. Sit. Be with yourself as you actually are. Feel completely, beyond sentiment, and bring honor to your being. Cease violence, rape, and destruction and turn inward to the great healer, Love. This is the warrior’s path.
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