After reading Way of the Peaceful Warrior, I see a lot of connections from the book and our lessons thus far. I do not think I would have noticed the true meaning of the warrior’s story had I read this book prior to the class. Life is filled with psychological ideas and concepts that we do not take the time to interpret. Dan, a guy who thought he had it all, is tested of everything he thought he knew about life and himself up to the point he met a man named Socrates. Danny unknowingly met his teacher one night at a gas station, of all places. A series of synchronistic events lead him to the station one cold December night. It all began with Dan choosing to go to college at the University of Berkeley, where the gas station he would end up spending …show more content…
Most of his transpersonal experiences were because of Soc, how this happens is still a mystery to me, but he would touch Dan’s head and he would “go for a trip” as they called it. One of the first experiences himself and Soc were in the beams of the ceiling during a gymnastic meet and he could hear everything, although it was silent in the gym. Whatever someone in the crowd or a gymnastics was thinking, he could zone in and hear it. Another experience was when he was a fish and rocks came crashing in the water from the surface. Everything Soc had him experience was for a reason, and whether Dan understood the meaning of the experience right away or not contributed to further his teachings and understandings of a warrior. While reading, the transpersonal experience I could relate to of Dan’s the most was of his National Gymnastic Championship meet. That feeling of electricity in the body and the feeding off of each other, when one person does good it seems to boost and pump everyone up and the whole team does well. I have experienced what Dan did, right before you perform everything comes at you all at once. Thinking about previous meets, who is watching, a race that you preformed bad and do not want this one to be the same, all the training etc. And then it all stops. Your mind forgets about the past and the future and lives in the “now,” just like Soc explains. With a clear mind, your body does what it needs to do without much thought. You do not hear the crowd or feel the pain until you are done. I remember from one of the videos we had to watch that showed people talking about different experiences. One was a man talking about the time he took LSD and his experience with it. We learned from our readings that states are experienced and interpreted differently, I thought about how if I were to experience the same trip as that man, depending