The Warrior's Path is a bit like having to scale a sheer cliff face - at first glance it seems impossible, but then we see a handgrip, a foothold and we begin to climb, only to find more grips, more footholds. But the golden rule in such a climb is never to look up except to find another grip, and never to look down, to avoid being overcome by fear of failure. It is a long haul to the top of the cliff, but what an accomplishment, what a freedom and what a power, and it all starts with the very simplest of exercises. Yet this is exactly where every apprentice discovers the first difficulty; namely that it all looks too easy and too simple. It is a Toltec axiom that everything which has power rarely, if ever, attracts attention, for man's rational mind is geared towards academic complexity. Here lies the difficulty of the Warrior's Path, not in its academic complexity, but paradoxically, in its utter simplicity. Many of the teachings are so subtle as to be quickly and easily overlooked by the overly enthusiastic novice. Perhaps this point will be more firmly grasped if it is pointed out that in having read this far the reader has already taken his first step upon the Warrior's Path.

We are whatever we believe ourselves to be.

In this respect it is important to know that our intent will activate and empower whatever it is we are focusing upon. If we place our attention on failure, we intend failure; but if we concentrate upon success, then we likewise intend success. This sounds so simple that the natural reaction is to think that it cannot possibly be so easy and so simple. But by thinking this, we are already intending that it should be more difficult and complicated. The warrior, on the other hand, knowing that the secret of being successful lies in saving as much personal power as is possible, always aims for simplicity, since complications are an unnecessary drain on personal power.

A warrior cuts out all unnecessary acts; in this way he saves his personal power. To assume that something must be difficult in order to be worthy of consideration is to be prejudiced, and prejudice, for or against, is an unnecessary act. The warrior, knowing that nothing in the world is what it appears to be, does not make the mistake of assuming that if something looks simple it cannot be true, or for that matter, that it really will be so simple in practice. To say that we intend success or failure may appear to be very simplistic, but there is nothing simple about the way in which the human mind works. Likewise, intent itself appears to be simple, and in a way it is, but the great many ways in which we use it are extremely complex.

Through watching himself at work, John is soon struck by the chaotic mixture of thoughts and feelings he experiences during a prospective sale. He notices that from the moment he confronts a client, a whole interaction takes place - an interaction in which feelings of hope mix with feelings of inadequacy to produce a thought pattern which is totally erratic. Under such conditions it is actually quite amazing that John makes any sense at all, and the fact that he does occasionally manage to sell his clients something is equally astonishing.

Obviously if John is aiming at succeeding as a salesman, then he cannot allow himself to indulge in such a chaos of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Instead, John must focus his attention and direct his thought patterns. This means that he must keep a constant watch upon his feelings and his thoughts. It is precisely for this reason that the warrior aims for simplicity, for by doing so, he also cuts out all unnecessary thoughts and feelings. By economising on his thoughts and feelings the warrior not only saves personal power, but also finds it easier to keep in check those thoughts and feelings he does use.

In Volume I it is stated that the difficulty of the Warrior's Path does not lie in its academic complexity but, paradoxically, in its utter simplicity. This is particularly true with regard to stopping the world, because this technique is comprised of so many subtle nuances as to appear completely insubstantial. If these nuances are looked at individually, each one appears to be vaguely interesting, but nevertheless comparatively insignificant. This happens to be true of everything warriors do, for average man's rational mind is so geared towards complexity that he mostly never notices acts of true power.

The Stalker's Rule

Simply by using the law of Light and Reflection, and by practising the interrelationship of life, the warrior in time becomes a truly invincible being with considerable power at his or her command. However, this is a statement which every apprentice at first mistakenly looks upon as being perhaps naive or, at best, overly simplistic. Yet it is typical of everything warriors do, in that although all of their actions are deceptively simple and appear to be so common-place and harmless, they nevertheless hold within them unimaginable power. This is particularly true of the strategies devised by warriors, for although they will always appear to be harmless, because of their utter simplicity, they are in reality lethal. But in order to see how this works, we will now return to our example of Sean and his brother Willis. In having to devise a strategy for handling this battle with his brother, Sean has to take into account the second aspect of the stalker's rule, namely, by striving for simplicity, a warrior discards all unnecessary acts. From what we have learned concerning mirrors, this aspect of the stalker's rule should now not be so difficult to grasp. Simply by bringing everything back to himself and his own progress upon the Path of Knowledge, the warrior eliminates a vast amount of actions, emotions, feelings and thoughts that can only arise and have any meaning within the context of self-importance and self-centredness.

This is not something that needs any further explanation because even just a little thought upon the concept of mirrors will be enough to speak volumes. The vast majority of people's actions, their emotional state, their endless circling thoughts and higgledy-piggledy mess of feelings, all stem from their self-centred approach to life and the victim mentality. Therefore, from the warrior's point of view, every battle is as simple as fighting for his honour as a warrior. Not at all concerned with trying to perpetuate his social conditioning through not wanting to own his shortcomings, or by trying to defend his behaviour in attempting to justify actions he himself does not approve of, the warrior has very little to consider other than how best to uplift himself into becoming an even more honourable being.
Nothing could be simpler than this, although accomplishing such a feat is not simple at all, for all of us are mysterious creatures and, because of that mystery, tend to operate with a truly astounding complexity. In this respect, it is important to note that people generally always make the mistake of assuming that they know themselves, when in effect they only know their behaviour. But even here, people normally do not even have the vaguest understanding of what causes that behaviour, or why they should have the shortcomings they do have. If people do claim to have an understanding, then even just a little probing soon shows that what they term to be understanding is invariably nothing more than some personal version of the blame game.

The implications here are such that we can choose to make them as complicated or as simple as we wish. My own particular preference is for simplicity, for when one is engaged in fighting for survival upon the battlefield of life, it is invariably the simple things in life that become the most profound, and which convey the most poignant meaning. Therefore, from my perspective, the nicest way in which to enter into battle is with knowledge, with daring and, of course, with humour.