Take a moment right now to look at what your intention is as a Spiritual Warrior. You may want to ask yourself these questions (other relevant questions will suggest themselves to you as well): Is there anything I have left undone or unsaid? What are my incompletions? How can I bring them to completion before I die?

You may have thought that Spiritual Warriors would be feisty and combative, easily destroying all the obstacles in their path with a type of psychic kung-fu. But by this point we've all realized that Spiritual Warriors are not combative at all; they are as patient as they are feisty; and the battle they are fighting is far more difficult than any physical contest. Take away the limitations you have placed on how the Soul can function. The Spiritual Warrior can do anything. If you have decided to be a spiritual bushido or samurai warrior, you're limiting yourself.

You are probably thinking that you'll have plenty of time to think all this over, and that you'll be a Spiritual Warrior another day. Welcome to the human race. Observe the slow evolution of human beings. Sure, we have advanced enormously technologically, but as a race we are still doing the same destructive things that were reported in the Bible thousands of years ago. Our thinking that we have all the time in the world prevents us from maturing. Procrastination is like pollution: It's wasteful and sloppy and depletes your energy.

Since Spiritual Warriors are always looking for challenges to take them to the next level of strength and awareness, knowing yourself and being able to trust yourself is essential, because you will be going into dimensions where you will be the only reference point.

If you look at a road map of how to get from New York to Jasper, Canada, you'll see just a series of markings on a piece of paper. Jasper is unknown to you. You can sit and look at that map forever, but it will never physically take you there. But once you get in your car and drive, the map becomes a reference point of what really exists. And seeing what is really there lets you know the accuracy or inaccuracy of the information on the map. After you have been over the territory and experienced it for yourself, you see how it fits together. Then you can trust the map enough to give it to someone else and say, "This can get you there." Spiritual Warriors follow the map to its outermost edges, testing and experiencing all for themselves. So remember that what has been written here is unknown to you and you can't trust the unknown. You can have a sort of faith in it, a sort of hope in it, a sort of belief in it, but you cannot yet trust it until you do it and it works.

If you practice the inner work of meditation, contemplation, prayer, and spiritual exercises, all this will gradually become familiar, and the way of the Spiritual Warrior will become second nature to you.

Alignment with Spirit is an ongoing challenge. But remember, your intention sets your direction, and as long as you are moving in the direction of your intention, you are doing all you need to. There is no need to make excuses, no need for apologies, just do what you can do.

The Spiritual Warrior deals in experience. When you have experience with God, you will realize that God is existence, and that in reality, you don't live God as much as God lives you.

Imagine for a moment a tremendous canvas hung in a narrow corridor. You can only look at a bit at a time. As you shift your eyes, the part you are looking at is known and the rest of the picture is unknown. You will never see the picture in its entirety; and so it is unknowable. Yet you do know it intimately, in fragments. In the same way, Spirit, the unknowable, becomes in a manner known to you, though its fullness remains forever unknowable.

Alignment with Spirit involves detachment from the world; but it does not mean hatred of the world. The joy of alignment flows over into everything you do, including the most mundane aspects of your day-to-day life. How few people realize that it is actually easier to live in alignment through loving, caring, and sharing. You automatically touch others. You don't have to search them out or puzzle over how to help them. It just takes place.