Ruthlessness

If joy is the emotion that accompanies and encourages the freeing and opening of the heart then what is the emotion when the heart closes and bears in to finish a task? Ruthlessness, if that is indeed an emotion. Ruth is the noun from the verb to rue – to regret, and is usually taken as pity, distress or grief. So ruthless is the lack of these – no pity, no compassion, no feeling, no sentiment, but also no regret, no blame, no clinging attachment. There is a clean clarity to ruthlessness – it just gets the job done with no fuss and no concern, allowing you to pass uncluttered to the next. My teacher is always at pains to point out that the only real enemy for the student is themselves, especially those parts getting in the way of natural functioning. To tackle and fight these requires real ruthlessness because the one thing we are all generally in love with is ourselves, especially those parts keeping us the way we are – those parts we assume define us. The great master uses the Natural Process, not his self-image, as his reference. The Natural Process cannot really be felt or observed so in a way the great master is operating constantly in the dark – blind. The only thing he has to guide him is his heart which, through years of work, he has cleared and developed. The heart knows, much more than the mind, and yet for the average person the mind is constantly overriding it. The master doesn't let this happen – he has abandoned the internal dialogue in order to dwell permanently in the world of energy. To get to this state he has had to regularly apply the knife of ruthlessness to excise those aspects of self that reveal themselves, through the work, to be impeding his spiritual progress. When the heart is worked it will move on, into new relationships and out of old ones; this is the natural way. The ruthless warrior refuses to be fettered, but he also knows that any fetters are of his own making, so he doesn't have it in him to apportion blame.

Ruthlessness is the mood that immediately precedes the battle. It is a drawing in, a marshalling and gathering of energy so that you have something to explode with when the enemy is upon you. Your ruthlessness loads the spring, your abandon releases it. Breathing, or more accurately, reverse breathing.