Fortitude

Fortitude is linked to honor in a way that you may not have thought about before. If you are covertly dishonorable there will be a fracture in your etheric like a diagonal line that moves very fast in a shifty way across your chest and head, cutting you in half, so one part of you becomes truncated from the other part. It’s represents a variance between what is real and what is phony. In a sense the fracture is the slash bar of denial, or it is sometimes the effect of the arrogance of ignorance that we have talked of before. Or sometimes when the ego decides to benefit itself at the expense of truth and other people then that in itself sets up a break down of etheric stability. The emotion of holding up the lies causes an internal wince that fractures the stability of the field.

Dishonour makes you vulnerable and weak, and it destroys your fortitude as you can’t hold yourself up well on an energy level when you know deep down the essence of you is false. This detrimental view of self may be deep in the subconscious but it causes your etheric to bend, as you seek to suck in people and energy that you are not entitled to it is the energy vampire or etheric predator, say. Or, sometimes in the nervousness of getting caught out an individual’s etheric takes on a zigzag, skittish quality and you become vulnerable. You can see it is people’s eyes.

The zigzag etheric is why liars are programmed to eventually fail. It is not a judgment on them in anyway, it is just their dark sentiment has to follow or track along the co-ordinates of the liar’s perfidious ways. So he or she is constantly bumping into their own energy coming back at them via the karma loop, it is like bouncing over waves in a speedboat, there is a perpetual propensity to be unmasked or to be exposed, or to be thrown out of the boat completely -bankruptcy, imprisonment or violent attack from irate creditors say.

Many of you have fortitude in good measure and a few of you have a selection of fine words instead of fortitude. In social settings fines words are enough to get by on but you can’t con the aluna and you can’t con yourself forever. You see, it is like those that to pretend to be brave, which is easy when one is cosy and safe and life is guaranteed, but once the scaffolding of their  illusion falls then you see if they are brave and calm in a crisis or not.

Now, all of this would not be important if we were not all going to the next step – ‘slowly, slowly, catchee monkey’. Fortitude is the resilience and resonance of your power, in its fineness form, for it is a silent thing, the ability to hold your ground and properly evaluate a situation in front of you. It is the mahogany panel that lines the solidity of your soul.

To arrive at that place you have to give up on the tussles of the ego with others for bits of turf and control, and petty concerns about living and dying. That is the first point of power of your inner warrior that I wrote about decades ago. Only the scared and weak and those so inured in their importance worry of these things. It is not necessary. First agree to die that is the honorable way, the warrior’s way, then go through the mental ‘clunk, clunk’ of realizing that your presence here on earth is more or less irrelevant, as is mine. Each of us is just one in 7 billion, nothing more.

To realize and accept your irrelevance takes time because we have been programmed by egoists to believe otherwise. Here in the West we are manipulated to be important and special, and you were probably taught that you did not have to do very much to achieve that importance. For example, Americans are taught that they are important because they were born the USA. The British feel the same way, they feel more aristocratic and intellectually superior to others; Australians are told they are special because they were born in the ‘lucky country’. To a Frenchman there is no question of his superior cultural place in the world. But importance is irrelevant and fortitude is not linked to importance or status for it is a silent, hidden thing, it is not achieved by importance or an accident of birth.

I have said before it is all backwards. Those that think they are important set themselves up to be crushed, and those who think they are special create a humiliation that shows them how un-special they really are. To be silent about your power and knowledge and strength, or to be silent about your money if you are wealthy, or your achievements if you have been very successful in some way, is the path to a greater fortitude. This is because you are not destroying your energy by boasting or talking about yourself, or by being needy, craving people’s admiration and attention. Only very rarely would you ever need talk about yourself and who you are and what you have achieved, there is usually no reason to mention anything at all. It is of no interest or concern to others. You listen and let them talk, that’s best.

It is in the silence and when you have no outward importance that you accumulate safety and you protect your fortitude because you are not being interfered with by the thoughts and emotions of others and their jealousy and/or their competitive nature. You come off as neutral and supportive. As I say, agree to be last. Then all of you is hidden away, and it only comes out very rarely when needed. So there is no need to be showy and to attract attention, the trick is to move through life more or less unnoticed. The Tao says the tallest tree gets chopped down first. That is very true.

Women essentially have more fortitude than men because they have the ability to endure pain better than men, but they often lose their fortitude in guilt and self-depreciation, they think others don’t see that but that is not always the case. There is a subtle selection process here, for those that detest and mistreat themselves, or those women that compete with other women in a nasty way, lose their intrinsic balance. And those that sell their femininity and their sexuality down the river to buy protectors, by the very act of their misuse create the attackers and abusers they seek to avoid. Their actions stem from an inner fear and self-loathing, or it is just a lack of respect for their femininity and the feminine spirit (Gaia) and that feeling then becomes the basis of a break down in fortitude.

Fortitude is on the outer edge of your etheric. It forms a solid line that curves around your body in a defined way, like an etheric parenthesis that contains the inherent beauty of an authentic person. It comes in part from your courage and the force of your will, a tenacity say, but it is also the product of a gracious soul. One that is beautiful and reconciled to its fate come what may. It comes in is part from trust. But essentially it is the solid edge of what you know, and so a lack of belief in self destroys your fortitude. You don’t have to be very wise but you do have to believe in what you do know, and be true to that for the moment knowing it may all change later. And you have to have a respect for your ideals without making a song and dance about it.

Silent power comes from knowing and watching and not rushing headlong when others plunge themselves and their fate over a cliff. When they run, you walk. When they cry you laugh, when they eat, you fast. When they rush forward you wait at the back and watch and evaluate circumstances carefully. When they talk, you remain silent. When they panic you sit still inside the eternity of your mind and offer them strength. And when people sell fear and uncertainty, you see it for what it is, brainwashed propaganda.As you go quietly amid the waste (a Stuieism) and you are still and you release your fear of death, a huge shift takes place, but one other thing has to happen for you to acquire real fortitude, real silent power. Yo have to give up on your desire for foppish things, the act of striving and wanting things of little value that cause you to lean forward etherically, all of which destroy the integrity of your power. The man or woman that wants nothing from life is in control of self, they have no yearning or needs that they can’t easily and quietly fulfil for themselves, so their stand in Zen way at one and at peace with themselves and with all things.

Once you have settled your mind into a quiet acceptance, a reconciliation that says you are happy with what you have and your circumstances right now (even if they are not a good as they could be), and once you are not struggling with circumstances, then a celestial calm descends upon you and that calm will intensify as time progresses. But you have to stand straight etherically and not get sucked into situations that are untenable or emotionally fraught.

For example, if you fall in love with a person that is already married, your desire for them controls you, and while they may agree to a secret liaison, you have to give yourself away in that, and you would have to wonder if you eventually married your lover that you wouldn’t become the next victim of his or her deceit. Romance is wonderful but destructive, it is a disease that comes from concentrating on another to the detriment of yourself and daily life; you often have to give your power away in the illusion of it all. You can be in love but silent power does not allow you to own the other person or to give yourself away.

Sexual desire can force you to lean, or it can become demented and drift into pornography and various anti-social perversions. It is okay to be attracted to others just don’t offer yourself up because you need approval, and don’t be so over whelmed that you can’t act rationally. Ages ago, I said that love is like the number 49 bus that winds through Chelsea’s famous King’s Road, and over the river, there will always be another one along in a minute!

Money can fuel an obsession with self and destroy your balance, it is best to have your money situation well under control and that is not necessarily earning more money, it is usually the act of bringing your expenditure below resources and income. That requires you to control the ego and its incessant demands for more and more stuff. Once you control it and your finances then no one can push you about, or threaten you, or harass you for payment of debt. Avoid debt if you can or reduce your debt to where it is manageable. When you are under pressure and broke you will lose your power and lean in panic trying to fix things.

Now, you can work diligently towards your dreams but usually when you dream and aspire from a low energy that dream is often heavily influenced by the ego’s silly needs, and often you get what you want only to find you don’t really want the things that your struggled so hard to get. Things you thought you wanted have less value once you get them, and often you find it is all rather disappointing for the effort you put in was not worth the burn out required in making it happen.

Learn to dream for only a few things and not to lean and pine for them, and realize that it is hard work to materialize your dreams when you are chasing after them, it is best that you stand straight and let them materialize you; in the sense they find you, you don’t trash yourself trying to find them. If they come, they come, and if they don’t come you are happy and stable anyway.

Then fortitude is also a solid patience, an ability to control frustration and irritability, so your etheric doesn’t zigzag and become erratic. All that comes naturally once you don’t need things from others, or once you have scaled down your life so it is clean and simple and easy and ecologically sound. In one of my books I talk about the concept of the professional waiter, the man or woman that can wait forever for they are strong and they have no emotion in the act of waiting. They can wait in the eternity of their soul because they are not emotionally tied to the end result. Be like a stone Buddha, and learn to wait forever.

Then last but not least you have to give up on the ego’s desire for itself. This is harder to understand. Human’s go to the lake and they fall in love with their reflection, that egocentric narcissism folds the etheric in towards you as you seek to sustain the scaffolding of self and the ego’s desire for itself. It often comes from perpetual thinking about self to the detriment of feelings and life that is outside you. It is as if the edge of your etheric is turned in on itself, dog-eared like the pages of a well-worn library book. So we seek admirers, or acknowledgement, or sex partners and glamor, or money, or fame, or we want a new set of breasts, fast cars, or promotion, or recognition and reward, or we want others to consider us clever and/or important, whatever silliness the ego seeks. Or we endlessly churn through the irrelevance of our mind and our life as if it really is the only thing of worth in the whole planet. It is so silly when you think a about it.

In the egoism of a narcissistic obsession one has little fortitude and if the narcissist meets a defeat as we all do from time-to-time, he or she may react badly, and in extreme cases they kill themselves to prove a point of their specialness, which of course proves nothing, but it keeps the defeated ego happy for bit anyway. But once the bullet goes through their ear and it hits the back wall, they suffer from a sudden decompression of importance that is usually rather fatal. Also, in the throws of a narcissistic defeat even a mild one, the ego will act covertly to destroy your plans for if it can’t have all the things it wants when it wants them, it will lay waste to the temple of your soul in a vengeance just to placate its mood.

In the silent power of detachment you detach from yourself first, that is a huge step for you soon see the ego’s demands as often unreasonable, and then you detach as much as possible from the desire to posses and control others, and you detach from the need for acknowledgment and recognition, and you acknowledge yourself, and you affirm your good qualities and you ameliorate or avoid adding to your karma via your bad qualities.

That is fortitude, a self-discipline and silent knowing and that comes with trust.

Being strong is natural, being weak takes an extraordinary effort, you have to deliberately allow life and circumstances and your emotions to tow you around like a rag doll. It is jolly tiring. Stand straight and people will gradually respect you, and they will know to treat you properly as you can’t be pushed around. And remember you can’t like everybody and they cannot all like you or agree with you, so allow them to be and walk away intact and pristine when circumstances are adverse.

Be strong and make no show of it, be spiritual in ways no one will ever notice, be wise and never mention what you know, be brave without displaying your courage, be resolute without being brash, believe in yourself while never boasting, and stand straight etherically by needing nothing that you can’t provide for yourself. In this way you will acquire a great power, one that you will never use. Acquire it anyway.

Do these things and you will have a fortitude; one that very few ever achieve … bye for now.

Copyright Stuart Wilde 2012 (www.stuartwilde.com)