300SPARTANWARRIORS.COM

These words from the philosopher Cicero echo the spirit and courage of the Greeks at the Gates of Fire—Thermopylae in August of 480 BCE. The Spartans exemplify the heights of legendary heroic warriorship and inner spirit. These qualities were born of a culture that honored and promoted virtues such as courage, valor, perseverance, honor and loyalty over cowardice and fear. Sparta was not a merchant culture but a warrior society lead by two kings of the lineage of Herakles and a council of elders. 

 
How can we describe America’s culture? Definitely, ours is not one comparable with Sparta. America’s culture is capitalistic and money oriented. As a culture and people, we are spiritually bankrupt. This in my mind leads to great fear and to great unhappiness. We have become a culture of shop keepers and consumers banking our existence solely on the money lenders. Money rules in this culture. It is a society that has little use for heroic virtues. In warrior cultures of the past such present day things as business and the identification as a merchant would have been despised. Leading a life with the singular purpose of making and spending money would have been ludicrous, dishonorable and a waste of ones precious gift of life.

Money, real or illusionary (i.e. stocks), is purely and simply a spiritual obstruction. It has been said many times before that a person can not have two masters. “Psychologist David Myers sees this pattern of soaring wealth and shrinking spirit as ‘the American paradox.’ He observes that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Americans found themselves ‘with big houses and broken homes, high incomes and low morale, secured rights and diminished civility. We were excelling at making a living but too often failing at making a life. We celebrated our prosperity but yearned for purpose. We cherished our freedoms but longed for connection. In an age of plenty, we were feeling spiritual hunger. These facts of life lead us to a startling conclusion: Our becoming better off materially has not made us better off psychologically.”[i]

Additionally, ours is also a culture solely based on external signs of power and success—big cars, big houses. I remember once seeing a license plate that said Immortal. I liken this to the analogy of “if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” In other words external signs, such as this license plate, mean that if a person needs to broadcast this, then in reality they are the exact opposite of what they are proclaiming.

Is there a solution to our money focused power driven consumer culture? Is there a way to ‘light a fire’ of the heroic warrior spirit within America? Would awakening people to the legitimate heroic spirit of the Spartans help? I believe so.

The Spartans were not shop-keepers or merchants sacrificing their lives at Thermopylae. They were heroic warriors who lived their lives based on virtues such as courage, fearlessness, honor and loyalty and not on the corrupt power of money. Ownership of silver or gold was banned in Sparta and land divided equally “so that merit – not money – became the only measure of a man's worth. The rich had no advantage over the poor because wealth was useless. Due to their law against frivolous occupations, there was no preoccupation with business. In a nation where wealth commanded no respect, that would have been a waste of time anyway. Those who were under thirty were not even allowed in the marketplace, and it was dishonorable for the older men to be seen there often.”[ii] I would imagine that Walmart would have had a hard time surviving in the Spartan lands.

Please understand that I am not degrading or diminishing the service of our troops and the effort of our citizen soldiers who may be shop keepers who have served and still serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. On the contrary, I’m talking about the generalized philosophical mindset that people have about money. In addition, their total focus on money as their saviour against the fear of loss and the fear of the future. To this we must also add a dash of, in the moment, power illusions and concepts of success that are all based on a dualistic way of thinking i.e. success or failure.

Was the sacrifice at Thermopylae a success or failure—a win or a loss? Both can be augured as to the resulting conclusion. But the reality is so much different and not based on dualistic thinking as you will come to see further on.

The ego loves dualistic thinking. But a dualistic mindset provides fertile ground to sow the seeds of fear. To the dysfunctional ego everything is a potential threat to its existence. And with threat comes self-serving protection, separation and the fear of loss. It has been said many times, but it is so true, that life is a journey. The journey to the Spartans was not about success or failure but about the steel of ones spirit and the heroic virtues that accompany the spirit. The only failure to the Spartans would be to ‘turn tail and run’ and the abandonment of your shield. The shield was all important, not the sword or even the spear but the shield. The shield was the soul of the Spartan knight as it was the protection not solely for each warrior but most importantly for the other peers—their brothers-in-arms.

I am not a stranger to the Spartan land, philosophy and warriorship. In August of 2006 twenty-one of our students and families, my wife and I and our two adult children journeyed to Greece in celebration of my 60th birth. Our warrior pilgrimage took us from the sacred sites of Athens onward to the Eleusian Mystery School and finally to the oracle site of mountainous Delphi. On the day of my birth, we journeyed to the Hot Springs where I walked barefoot the sacred and hallowed grounds of Thermopylae. The sparsely treed ground was hard and scorching as if the memory of that time 2500 hundred years ago was embedded in the earth beneath my feet. Even the purified waters of the flowing volcanic hot springs that I dipped my feet into were indiscernibly hot.

The waters and the rocky ground mirrored to me their witness of that heroic battle. Not deterred by the sounds of the modern highway that now separates the battlefield from the monument of Leonidas, I carried my tears. Reaching the mound of the last stand, my tears flowed even stronger as if a dam had busted within me.

Hero’s become legendary under a story tellers musings or a writer’s pen while the true heroic emotions are buried beneath layers of bravado and myth—witness the sham movie the 300. The Spartans were par excellent detachers. Their detachment to fear and pain did not mean that these emotions were still not present within them. But as Spartan knights, they had learned not to attach to them. Fear was put aside only to be purged later on.

Virtues such as courage and perseverance do not indicate the absence of emotions such as fear. On the contrary, the most courageous acknowledges the fear and the reaction of the adrenal glands but has developed the inner strength to detach from the fear while keeping the body and mind relaxed and in the moment with no concept of past or future.

The false impressions of ‘manly’ behaviour that we are taught in society are exactly the opposite of the state of being demonstrated by the Spartans at Thermopylae. No chest-beating, no bravado, no arrogance on the brow just pure immovable heart/mind where emotions are not the problem but the attachment to them is counterproductive, potentially destructive and robs us of being in the present moment. The problem is not to be hyped up for battle but to be totally relaxed in body, mind and spirit for battle. The Spartans grooming of their long hair before a conflict was evident of this relaxed state of being. This reveals to us a totality of humanness—the presence of emotions but the detachment to them. With this type of detachment, our divine spirit will let us do what others will not do or even considering doing.

Emotions carry great energy; just observe a person extremely angry. The renowned Hawaiian priest-sorcerers, the kahuna, knew this knowledge and put it into practice. Their training would involve extreme states of emotion such as anger while training their apprentices’ body and mind to be totally relaxed.

Very difficult training; to experience the difficulty of this try the following exercise: Stand, spread your arms and feet wide, smile, relax and try to become angry. It is very difficult to feel anger in such a relaxed body and facial state. Next, shift your body into arms folded, legs together and scowl your face into a tense frown and be angry. I would think that it is much easier in this tense body state to generate anger.

The Hawaiian kahuna were not alone in this knowledge. The Northwest Coast shamans had and still have a similar philosophy that involves immersion in a flowing stream or river. The late Vince Stogan, a modern day John the Baptist, passed on to me the knowledge and power to conduct this symbolic death and rebirth baptism, called bathing, as well as his other shamanic healing and ceremonial practice, knowledge and authority.

An advance practice of bathing involves beating your face and body with a cedar bough after your fourth submersion. If you are not familiar with cedar, it is like having rough sand paper rubbed over your skin. After the stress of four submersions in cold water, in the dark and in pain from the cedar, your body is still totally relaxed with great energy freely flowing within and through it. 

We may wonder what thoughts and emotions would have been coursing through Leonidas’ body and mind before the first clash of arms and then when he realized that his position had been flanked. Of course, he would have been detached to them but still he would have recognized their presence. As a Spartan King, Leonidas—the Lion was also a chief priest of Sparta. The decree to “return with your shield victorious or return on it” was the vow of every Spartan knight. However, there was an exception. There is no doubt that religion was important and a unifying factor in Sparta. Spartan social, military and political institutions intertwined together under the uniting influence of the gods. It has been said before that the Spartans were pious while the Athenians were scandalous.

And this leads us to the fact that “the most important priests in Sparta were the kings. They were regarded as descendants of Herakles and therefore of divine ancestry. Sparta had an interest and awareness of oracles and portents. Official officers dealt with oracles from Delphi and state ministers kept records of signs from the gods. If a Spartan king had a reasonable religious excuse, he could be forgiven for not winning a battle or even for not fighting one in the first place. The gods were to be obeyed unquestioningly. They stood at the very top of the chain of command which all Spartans were taught to respect completely.[iii]

Was there anything about the environs of Thermopylae that was deemed to be religiously sacred which would have provided an ‘out’ for Leonidas? There was: “Thermopylae had several quasi-religious advantages for its choice as the point of resistance. Mount Oita nearby was the Spartan-beloved Akhaian Herakles' site of suicide by immolation and nearby Doris was the mythistorical Dorian homeland.”[iv]

During the first two days of the battle, the Greeks repulsed and dealt devastating blows to King Xerxes and his Persians including his elite troops—the Immortals. However, “after the second day of fighting, a local shepherd named Ephialtes defected to the Persians and informed Xerxes of a separate path through Thermopylae, which the Persians could use to outflank the Greeks.”[v] Sometime during the night or before dawn of the third day, “warning came to Leonidas… runners brought word that the Persians had broken through and would soon begin their descent, Leonidas knew that time was short. A last war council was called, and scholars have debated ever since over what exactly was said or decided…. What is most likely is that the Spartans stayed as a willing rearguard and that Leonidas accepted the Thespian and Theban volunteers but was not able or inclined to sacrifice the whole of the Greek army….”[vi]

In the end Leonidas chose to stay even though he always knew that he had two honorable choices: stay and it would mean his death but more importantly the death of his brothers-in-arms—his bodyguard—the 300 or retreat and save his brothers. As king and chief priest he knew within his heart that no one would question his decision to fall back to the Isthmus of Corinth where many in the Spartan Senate wanted him to defend in the first place.

There were other mitigating factors that he would have had to consider in making his decision. Leonidas at sixty years of age[vii] would have spent his years in the Agoge[viii] with many at his side and probably personally knew many in his guard. However, not all of his guard was here with him. There were young knights who had been substituted for veterans—older knights who had no living sons and would have had their family line die out at Thermopylae. Young knights who had not witnessed as many winters or summers as the others. And then there was the Delphi oracle’s pronouncement that Sparta would be sacked or Sparta would mourn the death of a king from the house of Hercules.

The complexity of being human is many times seldom explored in today’s world especially when we are dealing with such ‘manly’ things as business, politics and the martial arts. Emotions are frowned upon within all three of these arenas. But in past spiritual and martial cultures and traditions, emotions were embraced so as not to be delusional about our humanness.

Fear is normal just as joy and sadness are as well. Many in our society little realize that a focus on retirement is nothing more than fear of the future. But this fear rules so many people’s lives and they don’t even recognize it. On the contrary, the Spartans recognized the totality of human emotion always striving to achieve harmony within oneself and within the Spartan community even to the extent that there were religious cults based on such things as fear (Phobos) and desire. The importance to the Spartan mind of understanding fear and the detachment or the ‘pressing down’[ix] of it is revealed by the evidence of a temple in Sparta devoted solely to Phobos.

When we speak of fear, we must recognize the virtue of fearlessness. Leonidas’ fame and name have lived on as an example of not only heroic warriorship but also as an example of a fearless spirit. But he was more than just a fearless heroic warrior. We may wonder what would have been the totality of his last thoughts and feelings. Of course, he would have voiced words within his mind to his wife, the Queen Gorgo, and to his son. But would there have been other emotions at the last minute? Possibly tears of regret, sadness and possibly, a feeling of betrayal to his knights. It was his decision that would cost the lives of his brothers, friends and most especially the young knights that he barely knew?

If this was the case it would only make Leonidas even more heroic, even more human and as an example to follow in the possible trying times to come.  

[i] James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World, pp. 137 - 138

[ii] http://www.e-classics.com

[iii] http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:PVdUzAG8XU8J:www.boredofstudies.org/courses/arts/history/

ancient/1101256501_2004_Ancient_History_Notes_Renee.doc+greek+spartan+honor+loyalty+courage&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=29&gl=us

[iv] http://www.michiganwarstudiesreview.com/2007/20070101.asp

[v] http://littledailyprophet.wordpress.com/300-spartans-battle-of-thermopylae/

[vi] Rev. Dr. JC Husfelt, The Return of the Feathered Serpent, p. 16

[vii] According to Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History and former Chairman of the Classics Faculty at Cambridge University, Leonidas was born in 540 BCE, which would have made him sixty at Thermopylae. This has also been conferred to me by a Greek friend from Delphi who has extensively researched the connection with Delphi to Thermopylae and the battle at the Hot Springs.

[viii] Spartan martial training academy

[ix] It refers to the process of the acknowledgment of fear but fear is ‘pressed down’ only to be purged later on after battle. This is not the suppression or denial of fear where fear stays hidden but is still active within a person’s behaviors, patterns of being and actions.