Spirituality vs. 'Strength'

[DEEJ]

Hello all, this is my first post in the spirituality forum....

I'm having a certain degree of conflict with this at the moment... I am on the spiritual path and enjoy reading spiritual material and practicing it in my life, meditate daily ect. However, I have conflict in the fact that I also want to develop my strong, masculine side more as I feel the sensitive spirituality side of things can be of detriment to this. Is it possible to live a spiritual life and live as a modern man attaining success, power, money, strength, setting big goals ect?? How would I go about this? I realised this yesterday when I went from reading 'Power Of Now' to '48 Laws Of Power,' quite a contrast and good metaphor to explain this lol!

I suppose this corresponds to the Chinese idea of Ying and Yang being in balance? My perception at the moment seems to be that I can only do one or the other or there wouldn't be any conflict but is it possible to balance the two?

EDIT: Just found this artice, very interesting and sees to sum up my thoughts nicely. What do you all think? Truth: the Fourth Archive: The Problem with Wayne Dyer

[Jarrod]

There is no conflict.

It is only in your ideas of what it means to be 'spiritual' or 'masculine'.

I find some of the more traditional martial arts are good at demonstrating this (I am thinking of Iaido in particular, as I have experience with it). But then again, it depends how deep you delve into it.

[Elrond]

I know what you mean. Alot of the spiritiual virtues that are preached seem to be pretty feminime. Not anything wrong with both women and men to attain those qualities, but I can understand why you are missing something.

There are people that teach more masculine values in a spiritual context. David Deida is one. Yeah, he may be primarily about relationships between women and men (I don't know), but the esoteric side is obvious.

[Mato Kinze]

In many Native American Traditions, the Path of the Warrior is a highly spiritual path, but nothing if not "Masculine."

I agree with Jarrod in that there is no conflict. Iaido, Tai Chi, Aikido, ANY martial artform really, is a very physical, experiential teacher of how energy flows in, through, and around us and how that energy can be used to either help or harm.

Understanding that Spiritual Energy is no different than Tonal Energy allows us to use the same excercises to strengthen both aspects of our being.

Some of the most spiritually enlightened, loving people I know have physically kicked my ass in more ways than I knew possible. Nothing "mamby pamby" about 'em.

[WhiteLight]

You have to embrace both the feminine and masculine side, they are in essence one in the same in the light of spirituality, two sides of the same coin. By neglecting one you are inhibiting your spiritual growth. Instead of a full circle, you would only represent half, and you would only feel complete if you were in a relationship with another person who represented the second half. This in itself is destructive, because you have two 'half-people' who are co-dependent on each other, instead of two complete beings who grow together.