Carlos
Castaneda - "The Fire From Within"
FROM: http://www.volny.cz/castaneda/en/books/
CONTENTS:
1.
Foreword The New Seers
2.
Petty Tyrants
3. The
Eagle's Emanations
4. The
Glow Of Awareness
5. The
First Attention
6.
Inorganic Beings
7. The
Assemblage Point
8. The
Position Of The Assemblage Point
9. The
Shift Below
10.
Great Bands Of Emanations
11.
Stalking, Intent And The Dreaming Position
12.
The Nagual Julian
13.
The Earth's Boost
14.
The Rolling Force
15.
The Death Defiers
16.
The Mold Of Man
17.
The Journey Of The Dreaming Body
18.
Breaking The Barrier Of Perception
Epilogue
Foreword
I
have written extensive descriptive accounts of my apprentice
relationship with a Mexican Indian sorcerer, don Juan Matus. Due to the
foreignness of the concepts and practices, don Juan wanted me
to
understand and internalize, I have had no other choice, but to render
his teachings in the form of a narrative, a narrative of
what happened,
as it happened. The
organization of don Juan's instruction was predicated on the
idea,
that man has two types of Awareness. He labeled them the
right side and
the left side. He described the first as the state of normal awareness,
necessary for everyday life. The second, he said, was the mysterious
side of a human, the state of Awareness, needed to
function as Sorcerer and Seer. Don
Juan divided his instruction, accordingly, into
teachings for
the right side and teachings for the left side. He conducted his
teachings for the right side when I was in my state of
normal awareness, and I have described those teachings in
all my
accounts. In
my state
of normal awareness don Juan told me,
that he was
a sorcerer. He even introduced me to another sorcerer, don Genaro
Flores, and because of the nature of our association, I logically
concluded, that they had taken me as their apprentice. That
apprenticeship ended with an incomprehensible act, that both
don
Juan and don Genaro led me to perform. They made me jump from
the top
of a flat mountain into an abyss. I have
described in one of my accounts what took place on that mountain. The
last drama of don Juan's teachings for the right side
was played there by don Juan himself; don Genaro; two
apprentices,
Pablito and Nestor; and me. Pablito, Nestor, and
I jumped from that
mountaintop into an abyss. For years afterward I
thought, that just my total trust in don Juan and
don Genaro had been sufficient to obliterate all my rational
fears on
facing actual annihilation. I know now, that it wasn't so; I know, that
the secret was in don Juan's teachings for the left
side,
and that it
took tremendous discipline and perseverance for don Juan, don Genaro,
and their companions to conduct those teachings. It has
taken me nearly ten years to recollect what exactly
took place
in his teachings for the left side, that led me to be so
willing to
perform such an incomprehensible act: jumping into an abyss.
It
was in
his teachings for the left side, that don Juan let on, what he,
don Genaro, and their companions were really doing to me and
who they
were. They
were not teaching me sorcery, but how to master three
aspects of an ancient knowledge they possessed: Awareness,
Stalking,
and Intent. And they were not Sorcerers; they were Seers. And don Juan
was not only a Seer,
but also a Nagual.
The
Explanation of What it is
to 'See' Something, which is not Visible to the Ordinary Eyes
Don Juan had already explained to me, in his teachings for the right
side, a great deal about the nagual and about Seeing. I had
understood Seeing
to be the
capacity of human beings to enlarge their perceptual
field, until they are capable of assessing not only the outer
appearances, but the essence of everything. He had also
explained, that Seers
See
a human as a field of energy, which looks like a Luminous Egg.
The majority of people, he said, have their fields of energy divided
into two parts. A few
men and women have four or sometimes three parts.
Because these people are more resilient, than the average human, they
can
become Naguals after learning to See. In
his teachings for the left side, don Juan explained to me the
intricacies of Seeing
and of being a Nagual. To be a Nagual, he said,
is something more complex and far-reaching, than
being merely a more
resilient human, who has learned to See.
To be a Nagual
entails being a
leader, being a teacher and a guide. As a Nagual, don Juan was
the leader of a group of Seers,
known as the Nagual's Party, which was composed of eight female Seers, Cecilia,
Delia, Hermelinda, Carmela, Nelida, Florinda, Zuleica, and
Zoila; three
male Seers,
Vicente, Silvio Manuel, and Genaro; and four couriers or
messengers, Emilito, John Tuma, Marta, and Teresa. In addition to leading the
Nagual's Party, don Juan also taught and
guided a group of apprentice Seers,
known as the New
Nagual's Party. It
consisted of four young men, Pablito, Nestor, Eligio, and
Benigno,
along with five women, Soledad, la Gorda, Lidia, Josefina, and Rosa. I
was the nominal leader of the New
Nagual's Party,
together with the Nagual-Woman Carol.
About
the
State of Hightened Awareness
In order for don Juan to impart to me his teachings
for the
left side,
it was necessary for me to enter into a unique state of perceptual
clarity, known as Heightened Awareness. Throughout the years
of my
association with him, he had me repeatedly shift into such a state by
means of a blow, that he delivered with the palm of his hand
on my upper
back.
Don
Juan explained, that in a state of Heightened Awareness apprentices
can behave almost as naturally, as in everyday life, but can
bring their
minds to focus on anything with uncommon force and clarity. Yet, an
inherent quality of Heightened Awareness is, that it is not susceptible
to normal recall. What transpires in such a state, becomes part of
the
apprentice's everyday awareness only through a staggering effort of
recovery. My
interaction with the Nagual's party was an example of this
difficulty of recall. With the exception of don Genaro, I had contact
with them only when I was in a state of Heightened Awareness;
hence in
my normal everyday life I could not
remember them, not even as vague characters in dreams. The
manner, in
which I met with them every time, was almost a ritual. I
would drive to
don Genaro's house in a small town in the southern part of Mexico. Don
Juan would join us immediately and the three of us would then
get busy
with don Juan's teachings for the right side. After that, don
Juan
would make me change levels of Awareness and then we would drive to a
larger, nearby town, where he and the other fifteen Seers were living. Every
time I entered into Heightened Awareness, I could not cease
marveling at the difference between my two sides. I always
felt, as if a
veil had been lifted from my eyes, as if I had been partially blind
before and now I could See.
The freedom, the sheer joy, that used to
possess me on those occasions cannot be compared with anything
else I
have ever experienced. Yet at the same time, there was a frightening
feeling of sadness and longing, that went hand in
hand with that freedom
and joy. Don Juan had told me, that there is no completeness without
sadness and longing, for without them there is no
sobriety, no
kindness. Wisdom without kindness, he said, and knowledge without
sobriety are useless. The
organization of his teachings for the left side also
required, that
don Juan, together with some of his fellow Seers, explain to
me the
three facets of their knowledge: the Mastery of Awareness,
the Mastery
of Stalking, and the Mastery of Intent. This
work deals with the Mastery of Awareness, which is part of his
total set of teachings for the left side; the set he used, in order to
prepare me for performing the astonishing act of
jumping into an abyss. Due
to the fact, that the experiences I narrate here, took place
in
Heightened Awareness, they cannot have the texture of daily
life.
They
are lacking in worldly context, although I have tried my best to supply
it without fictionalizing it. In Heightened Awareness one
is minimally
conscious of the surroundings, because one's total
concentration is
taken by the details of the action at hand.
In
this case the action at hand was, naturally, the elucidation
of
the Mastery of Awareness. Don Juan understood the Mastery of
Awareness, as
being the modern-day version of an extremely old tradition,
which he
called the tradition of the ancient Toltec Seers. Although
he felt, that he was inextricably linked to that old tradition,
he considered himself to be one of the Seers of a new
cycle. When I
asked him once,
what was the
essential character of the Seers
of the new
cycle, he said, that they are the warriors of total freedom,
that they
are such Masters of Awareness, Stalking, and Intent, that
they are not
caught by death, like the rest of mortal humans, but choose
the moment and
the way of their departure from this world. At that moment
they are
consumed by a Fire
from Within and vanish from the face of the
Earth,
free, as if they had never existed.
1. The New Seers
1
I had arrived in the city of Oaxaca
in southern Mexico on my way to the mountains to look for Don Juan. On
my way out of town in th early morning. I had a good sense to drive by
the main square, and there I found him sitting on his favorite bench,
as if waiting for me to go by. I joined him. He told me, that he was in
the city on business, that he was staying at a local boardinghouse, and
that I was welcome to stay with him, because he had to remain in town
for 2 more days. We talked for a while about my activities and problems
in the academic world. As was customary with him, he suddenly hit me on
my back, when I least expected it, and the blow shifted me into a state
of heightened awareness. We sat in silence for a very long time. I
anxiously waited for him to begin talking, yet when he did, he caught
me by surprise.
"Ages before the Spaniards came to Mexico," he said, "there were
extraordinary Toltec Seers, men capable of inconceivable deeds. They
were the last link in a chain of knowledge, that extended over
thousands of years.
2-3
The Toltec Seers were extraodinary men - powerful sorcerers,
somber, driven men, who unraveled mysteries and possessed secret
knowledge, that they used to influence and victimize people by fixating
the awareness of their victims on whatever they chose." He
stopped talking and looked at me intently. I felt that he was waiting
for me to ask a
question, but I did not know what to ask. "I have to emphasize an
important fact," he continued, "the fact that those sorcerers knew how
to fixate the awareness of their victims. You didn't pick up on that.
When I mentioned it, it didn't mean anything to you. That's not
surprising. One of the hardest things to acknowledge is that awareness
can be manipulated."
I felt confused. I knew that he was leading me toward something. I felt
a familiar apprehension - the same feeling I had whenever he began a
new round of his teachings. I told him how I felt. He smiled vaguely.
Usually when he smiled he exuded happiness; this time he was definitely
preoccupied. He seemed to consider for a moment whether or not to go on
talking. He stared at me intently again, slowly moving his gaze over
the entire length of my body. Then, apparently satisfied, he nodded and
said that I was ready for my final exercise, something that all
warriors go through before considering themselves fit to be on their
own. I was more mystified than ever.
"We are going to be talking about awareness," he continued. "The Toltec
seers knew the art of handling awareness. As a matter of fact, they
were the supreme masters of that art. When I say that they knew how to
fixate the awareness of their victims, I mean that their secret
knowledge and secret practices allowed them to pry open the mystery of
being aware. Enough of their practices have survived to this day, but
fortunately in a modified form. I say fortunately because those
activities, as I will explain, did not lead the ancient Toltec seers to
freedom, but to their doom."
"Do you know those practices yourself?" I asked.
"Why, certainly," he replied. "There is no way for us not to know those
techniques, but that doesn't mean that we practice them ourselves. We
have other views. We belong to a new cycle."
"But you don't consider yourself a sorcerer, don Juan, do you?" I asked.
"No, I don't," he said. "I am a warrior who sees. In fact, all of us
are los nuevos videntes - the new seers. The old seers were the
sorcerers. "For the average man," he continued, "sorcery is a negative
business, but it is fascinating all the same. That's why I encouraged
you, in your normal awareness, to think of us as sorcerers. It's
advisable to do so. It serves to attract interest. But for us to be
sorcerers would be like entering a dead-end street."
I wanted to know what he meant by that, but he refused to talk about
it. He said that he would elaborate on the subject as he proceeded with
his explanation of awareness. I asked him then about the origin of the
Toltecs' knowledge.
"The way the Toltecs first started on the path of knowledge was by
eating power plants," he replied. "Whether prompted by curiosity, or
hunger, or error, they ate them. Once the power plants had produced
their effects on them, it was only a matter of time before some of them
began to analyze their experiences. In my opinion, the first men on the
path of knowledge were very daring, but very mistaken."
"Isn't all this a conjecture on your part, don Juan?"
"No, this is no conjecture of mine. I am a seer, and when I focus my
seeing on that time I know everything that took place."
"Can you see the details of things of the past?" I asked.
4-5
"Seeing is a peculiar feeling of knowing," he replied, "of knowing
something without a shadow of doubt. In this case, I know what those
men did, not only because of my seeing, but because we are so closely
bound together." Don Juan explained then that his use of the term
"Toltec" did not correspond to what I understood it to mean. To me it
meant a culture, the Toltec Empire. To him, the term "Toltec" meant
"man of knowledge." He said that in the time he was referring to,
centuries or perhaps even millennia before the
Spanish Conquest, all such men of knowledge lived within a vast
geographical area, north and south of the valley of Mexico, and were
employed in specific lines of work: curing, bewitching, storytelling,
dancing, being an oracle, preparing food and drink. Those lines of work
fostered specific wisdom, wisdom that distinguished them from average
men. These Toltecs, moreover, were also people who fitted into the
structure of everyday life, very much as doctors, artists, teachers,
priests, and merchants in our own time do. They practiced their
professions under the strict control of organized brotherhoods and
became proficient and influential, to such an extent that they even
dominated groups of people who lived outside the Toltecs' geographical
regions. Don Juan said that after some of these men had finally learned
to see - after centuries of dealing with power plants - the most
enterprising of them then began to teach other men of knowledge how to
see. And that was the beginning of their end. As time passed, the
number of seers increased, but their obsession with what they saw,
which filled them with reverence and fear, became so intense that they
ceased to be men of knowledge. They became extraordinarily proficient
in seeing and could exert great control over the strange worlds they
were witnessing. But it was to no avail. Seeing had undermined their
strength and forced them to be obsessed with what they saw. "There were
seers, however, who escaped that fate," don Juan continued, "great men
who, in spite of their seeing, never ceased to be men of knowledge.
Some of them endeavored to use seeing positively and to teach it to
their fellow men. I'm convinced that under their direction, the
populations of entire cities went into other worlds and never came
back. "But the seers who could only see were fiascos, and when the land
where they lived was invaded by a conquering people they were as
defenseless as everyone else. "Those conquerors," he went on, "took
over the Toltec world - they appropriated everything - but they never
learned to see."
"Why do you think they never learned to see?" I asked.
"Because they copied the procedures of the Toltec seers without having
the Toltecs' inner knowledge. To this day there are scores of sorcerers
all over Mexico, descendants of those conquerors, who follow the Toltec
ways but don't know what they're doing, or what they're talking about,
because they're not seers."
"Who were those conquerors, don Juan?"
"Other Indians," he said. "When the Spaniards came, the old seers had
been gone for centuries, but there was a new breed of seers who were
starting to secure their place in a new cycle."
"What do you mean. a new breed of seers?"
"After the world of the first Toltecs was destroyed, the surviving
seers retreated and began a serious examination of their practices. The
first thing they did was to establish stalking, dreaming, and intent as
the key procedures and to deemphasize the use of power plants; perhaps
that gives us a hint as to what really happened to them with power
plants.
6-7
"The new cycle was just beginning to take hold when the Spanish
conquerors swept the land. Fortunately, by that time the new seers were
thoroughly prepared to face that danger. They were already consummate
practitioners of the art of stalking." Don Juan said that the
subsequent centuries of subjugation provided for these new seers the
ideal circumstances in which to perfect their skills. Oddly enough, it
was the extreme rigor and coercion of that period that gave them the
impetus to refine their new principles. And, owing to the fact that
they never divulged their activities, they were left alone to map their
findings.
"Were there a great many new seers during the Conquest?" I asked.
"At the beginning there were. Near the end there were only a handful.
The rest had been exterminated."
"What about in our day, don Juan?" I asked.
"There are a few. They are scattered all over, you understand."
"Do you know them?" I asked.
"Such a simple question is the hardest one to answer," he replied.
"There are some we know very well. But they are not exactly like us
because they have concentrated on other specific aspects of knowledge,
such as dancing, curing, bewitching, talking, instead of what the new
seers recommend, stalking, dreaming, and intent. Those who are exactly
like us would not cross our path. The seers who lived during the
Conquest set it up that way so as to avoid being exterminated in the
confrontation with the Spaniards. Each of those seers founded a
lineage. And not all of them had descendants, so the lines are few."
"Do you know any who are exactly like us?" I asked.
"A few," he replied laconically. I asked him then to give me all the
information he could, for I was vitally interested in the topic; to me
it was of crucial importance to know names and addresses for purposes
of validation and corroboration. Don Juan did not seem inclined to
oblige me. "The new seers went through that bit of corroboration," he
said. "Half of them left their bones in the corroborating room. So now
they are solitary birds. Let's leave it that way. All we can talk about
is our line. About that, you and I can say as much as we please." He
explained that all the lines of seers were started at the same time and
in the same fashion. Around the end of the sixteenth century every
nagual deliberately isolated himself and his group of seers from any
overt contact with other seers. The consequence of that drastic
segregation, he said, was the formation of the individual lineages. Our
lineage consisted of fourteen naguals and one hundred and twenty-six
seers, he said. Some of those fourteen naguals had as few as seven
seers with them. others had eleven, and some up to fifteen. He told me
that his teacher - or his benefactor, as he called him - was the nagual
Julian, and the one who came before Julian was the nagual Elias. I
asked him if he knew the names of all fourteen naguals. He named and
enumerated them for me, so I could learn who they were. He also said
that he had personally known the fifteen seers who formed his
benefactor's group and that he had also known his benefactor's teacher,
the nagual Elias, and the eleven seers of his party. Don Juan assured
me that our line was quite exceptional, because it underwent a drastic change
in the year 1723 as a result of an outside influence that came to bear
on us and inexorably altered our course.
He did not want to discuss the event itself at the moment, but he said
that a new beginning is counted from that time; and that the eight
naguals who have ruled the line since
then are considered intrinsically different from the six who preceded
them.
8-9
Don Juan must have had business to take care of the next day, for I did
not see him until around noon. In the meantime, three of his
apprentices had come to town, Pablito, Nestor, and la Gorda. They were
shopping for tools and materials for Pablito's carpentry business. I
accompanied them and helped them to complete all their errands. Then
all of us went back to the boardinghouse. All four of us were sitting
around talking when don Juan came into my room. He announced that we
were leaving after lunch, but that before we went to eat he still had
something to discuss with me, in private. He wanted the two of us to
take a stroll around the main square and then all of us would meet at a
restaurant. Pablito and Nestor stood up and said that they had some
errands to run before meeting us. La Gorda seemed very displeased.
"What are you going to talk about?" she blurted out, but quickly
realized her mistake and giggled. Don Juan gave her a strange look but
did not say anything. Encouraged by his silence, la Gorda proposed that
we take her along. She assured us that she would not bother us in the
least.
"I'm sure you won't bother us," don Juan said to her, "but I really
don't want you to hear anything of what I have to say to him." La
Gorda's anger was very obvious. She blushed and, as don Juan and I
walked out of the room, her entire face clouded with anxiety and
tension, becoming instantly distorted. Her mouth was open and her lips
were dry.
La Gorda's mood made me very apprehensive. I felt an actual discomfort.
I didn't say anything, but don Juan seemed to notice my feelings.
"You should thank la Gorda day and night," he said all of a sudden.
"She's helping you destroy your self-importance. She's the petty tyrant
in your life, but you still haven't caught on to that." We strolled
around the plaza until all my nervousness had vanished. Then we sat
down on his favorite bench again. "The ancient seers were very
fortunate indeed," don Juan began, "because they had plenty of time to
learn marvelous things. Let me tell you, they knew wonders that we
can't even imagine today."
"Who taught them all that?" I asked.
"They learned everything by themselves through seeing," he replied.
"Most of the things we know in our lineage were figured out by them.
The new seers corrected the mistakes of the old seers, but the basis of
what we know and do is lost in Toltec time." He explained. One of the
simplest and yet most important findings, from the point of view of
instruction, he said, is the knowledge that man has two types of
awareness. The old seers called them the right and the left side of
man. "The old seers figured out," he went on, "that the best way to
teach their knowledge was to make their apprentices shift to their left
side, to a state of heightened awareness. Real learning takes place
there. "Very young children were given to the old seers as
apprentices," don Juan continued, "so that they wouldn't know any other
way of life. Those children, in turn, when they came of age took
other children as apprentices. Imagine the things they must have
uncovered in their shifts to the left and to the right, after centuries
of that kind of concentration." I remarked how disconcerting those
shifts were to me. He said that my experience was similar to
his own. His benefactor, the nagual Julian, had created a
profound schism in him, by making him shift back and forth from one
type of awareness to the other.
10
He said that the clarity and freedom he experienced in heightened
awareness were in total contrast to the rationalizations, the defenses,
the anger, and the fear of his normal state of awareness. The old seers
used to create this polarity to suit their own particular purposes;
with it, they forced their apprentices to achieve the concentration
needed to learn sorcery techniques. But the new seers, he said, use it
to lead their apprentices to the conviction that there are unrealized
possibilities in man.
"The best effort of the new seers," don Juan continued, "is their
explanation of the mystery of awareness. They condensed it all into
some concepts and actions which are taught while the apprentices are in
heightened awareness." He said that the value of the new seers' method
of teaching is that it takes advantage of the fact that no one can
remember anything that happens while being in a state of heightened
awareness. This inability to remember sets up an almost insurmountable
barrier for warriors, who have to recollect all the instruction given
to them if they are to go on. Only after years of struggle and
discipline can warriors recollect their instruction. By then the
concepts and the procedures that
were taught to them have been internalized and have thus acquired the
force the new seers meant them to have.
Petty Tyrants
11
Don
Juan did not discuss the Mastery of Awareness with me until months
later. We were at that time in the house, where the Nagual's Party
lived. "Let's
go for a walk," don Juan said to me, placing his hand on my
shoulder. "Or better yet, let's go to the town's square, where there
are a lot of people, and sit down and talk." I was
surprised when he spoke to me, as I had been in the house for a
couple of days then and he had not said so much as hello. As don
Juan and I were leaving the house, la Gorda
intercepted us and
demanded, that we take her along. She seemed determined not to take no
for an answer. Don Juan in a very stern voice told her, that
he had to
discuss something in private with me.
"You're
going to talk about me," la Gorda said, her tone and gestures
betraying both suspicion and annoyance.
"You're
right," don Juan replied dryly. He moved past her without
turning to look at her. I
followed him, and we walked in silence to the town's square. When we
sat down. I asked him what on earth we would find to discuss
about la
Gorda.
12-13
I was still smarting from her look of menace, when we left the
house. "We
have nothing to discuss about la Gorda or anybody else," he
said.
"I told her that just to provoke her enormous self-importance. And it
worked. She is furious with us. If I know her, by now she
will have
talked to herself long enough to have built up her confidence and her
righteous indignation at having been refused and made to look like a
fool. I wouldn't be surprised if she barges in on us here, at the park
bench." "If
we're not going to talk about la Gorda, what are we going to
discuss?" I asked.
"We're
going to continue the discussion we started in Oaxaca," he
replied. "To understand the explanation of Awareness will require your
utmost effort and your willingness to shift back and forth
between
levels of Awareness. While we are involved in our discussion I will
demand your total concentration and patience."
Half-complaining,
I told him, that he had made me feel very
uncomfortable by refusing to talk to me for the past two days. He
looked at me and arched his brows. A smile played on his lips and
vanished. I realized, that he was letting me know: I was no better,
than
la Gorda. "I
was
provoking your self-importance," he said with
a frown.
"Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens
us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our
self-importance requires, that we spend most of our lives offended by
someone. "The new Seers
recommended, that every effort should be made to
eradicate self-importance from the lives of warriors. I have
followed
that recommendation, and much of my endeavors with you has been geared
to show you, that without
self-importance we are invulnerable." As I
listened, his eyes suddenly became very shiny. I
was thinking to
myself, that he seemed to be on the verge of laughter and there was no
reason for it, when I was startled by an abrupt, painful slap on the
right side
of my face.
I
jumped up from the bench. La Gorda was standing behind me, her hand
still raised. Her face was flushed with anger. "Now
you can say what you like about me and with more
justification,"
she shouted. "If you have anything to say, however, say it to my face!"
Her
outburst appeared to have exhausted her,
because she sat down on
the cement and began to weep. Don Juan was transfixed with
inexpressible glee. I was frozen with sheer fury. La Gorda glared at me
and then turned to don Juan and meekly told him,
that we had no right to
criticize her. Don Juan
laughed so hard, he doubled over almost to the ground. He
couldn't even speak. He tried two or three times to say something to
me, then finally got up and walked away, his body still shaking with
spasms of laughter. I
was about to run after him, still glowering at la
Gorda, at that
moment I found her despicable - when something extraordinary happened
to me. I realized what don Juan had found so
hilarious. La Gorda and I
were horrendously alike. Our self-importance was monumental. My
surprise and fury at being slapped were just like la Gorda's
feelings
of anger and suspicion. Don Juan was right. The
burden of
self-importance
is a terrible encumbrance.
I ran
after him then, elated, the tears, flowing down my cheeks. I
caught up with him and told him, what I had realized. His eyes were
shining with mischievousness and delight. "What
should I do about la Gorda?" I asked.
"Nothing,"
he replied. "Realizations are always personal."
14-15
He
changed the subject and said, that the omens were telling us to
continue our discussion back at his house, either in a large
room with
comfortable chairs or in the back patio, which had a roofed
corridor
around it. He said, that whenever he conducted his explanation inside
the house, those two areas would be off limits to everyone
else.
We
went back to the house. Don Juan told everyone what la Gorda had
done. The delight all the Seers
showed in
taunting her, made la Gorda's
position extremely uncomfortable. "Self-importance
can't be fought with niceties,"
don Juan commented, when I expressed my concern about la Gorda.
He then
asked everyone to leave the room. We sat down and don Juan
began his
explanations. He said, that Seers,
old and new, are divided into two categories. The
first one is made up of those, who are willing to exercise
self-restraint and can channel their activities toward
pragmatic goals,
which would benefit other Seers
and a human in general. The other category
consists of those, who don't care about self-restraint or about any
pragmatic goals. It is the consensus among Seers, that the
latter have
failed to resolve the problem of self-importance. Self-importance
is not something simple and naive," he explained. "On
the one hand, it is the core of everything, that is good in
us, and on
the other hand, the core of everything, that is rotten. To get rid of
the self-importance, that is rotten, requires a masterpiece of
strategy.
Seers,
through the ages, have given the highest praise to those, who
have accomplished it."
I
complained, that the idea of eradicating self-importance, although
very appealing to me at times, was really incomprehensible; I
told him,
that I found his directives for getting rid of it, so vague,
I could not
follow them.
"I've
said to you many times," he said, "that in order to
follow the
path of knowledge, one has to be very imaginative. You see, in
the path
of knowledge nothing is as clear, as we'd like it to be." My
discomfort made me argue, that his admonitions about self-importance,
reminded me of Catholic die-turns. After a lifetime of being told about
the evils of sin, I had become callous (unfeeling). "Warriors
fight self-importance as a matter of strategy, not
principle," he replied. "Your mistake is to understand, what I say, in
terms of morality."
"I see
you as a highly moral man, don Juan," I insisted.
"You've
noticed my impeccability, that's all," he said.
"Impeccability,
as
well, as getting
rid of self-importance, is too vague a concept to be of any value to
me," I remarked.
Don Juan choked with laughter, and I challenged him to
explain impeccability. "Impeccability
is nothing else, but the proper use of energy," he said.
"My statements have no inkling of morality. I've saved energy
and that
makes me impeccable. To understand this, you have to save enough energy
yourself."
We
were quiet for a long time. I wanted to think about what he
had
said. Suddenly, he started talking again. "Warriors
take strategic inventories," he said. "They list everything
they do. Then they decide, which of those things can be
changed, in order
to allow themselves a respite (a pause), in terms of expending their
energy." I
argued, that their list
would have to include everything under the sun.
He patiently answered, that the strategic inventory, he was talking
about,
covered only behavioral patterns, that were not essential to
our
survival and well-being.
16-17
I jumped at the opportunity to point out,
that survival and well-being were categories, that could be interpreted
in endless ways, hence, there was no way of agreeing, what
was or
was
not essential to survival and well-being. As I kept on talking, I began
to lose momentum. Finally, I stopped, because I realized the
futility of my arguments. Don
Juan said then, that in the strategic inventories of warriors,
self-importance figures as the activity, that consumes the
greatest
amount of energy, hence, their effort to eradicate it. "One of the
first concerns of warriors is to free that energy, in order to
face the Unknown with it," don Juan went on. "The action of
rechanneling that
energy? Impeccability." He said, that the most effective strategy
was worked out by the Seers
of the Conquest, the unquestionable Masters
of Stalking (MANIPULATORS). It consists of six elements,
that interplay with one
another. Five of them are called the attributes of
warriorship:
control, discipline, forbearance, timing, and Will. They
pertain to the
world of the warrior, who is fighting to lose self-importance.
The sixth
element, which is perhaps the most important of all, pertains to the
outside world, and is called - the petty tyrant. He looked at me, as if
silently asking me whether or not I had understood.
"I'm really mystified," I said. "You keep on saying, that la Gorda is
the petty tyrant of my life. Just what is a petty tyrant?"
"A
petty tyrant is a tormentor," he replied. "Someone, who either holds
the
power of life and death over warriors, or simply annoys them to
distraction." Don
Juan had a beaming smile, as he spoke to me. He said, that
the new seers
developed their own classification of petty tyrants; although the
concept is one of their most serious and important findings,
the New Seers
had a sense of humor about it. He assured me, that there was a
tinge of malicious humor in every one of
their classifications, because
humor was the only means of counteracting the compulsion of
human
awareness to take inventories and to make cumbersome
classifications. The New
Seers, in accordance with their practice, saw fit to head
their classification with the primal source of energy, the one and
only ruler
in the Universe, and they called it simply the tyrant. The rest of the
despots and authoritarians were found to be, naturally,
infinitely
below the category of tyrant. Compared to the source of everything (the Source of All Suns! LM),
the
most fearsome, tyrannical men are buffoons (clowns);
consequently, they
were classified as petty tyrants, pinches tiranos. He said, that there
were two subclasses of minor petty tyrants. The first
subclass
consisted of the petty tyrants, who persecute and inflict misery, but
without actually causing anybody's death. They were called little petty
tyrants, pinches tiranitos. The second consisted of the petty
tyrants,
who are only exasperating and bothersome to no end. They were called
small-fry petty tyrants, repinches tiranitos, or
teensy-weensy petty
tyrants, pinches tiranitos chiquititos. I
thought his classifications were ludicrous. I was sure,
that he
was improvising the Spanish terms. I asked him if that was
so. "Not at
all," he replied with an amused expression. "The New Seers were
great ones for classifications. Genaro is doubtless one of
the
greatest; if you'd observe him carefully, you'd realize exactly how the
New Seers
feel about their classifications." He laughed uproariously at
my confusion, when I asked him, if he was pulling my leg. "I
wouldn't dream of doing that," he said, smiling. "Genaro may do
that, but not I, especially when I know how you feel about
classifications. It's just, that the New
Seers were
terribly irreverent
(not flattering)." He
added, that the little petty tyrants are further divided into four
categories. One, that torments with
brutality and violence.
18-19
Another,
that
does it by creating unbearable apprehension through deviousness.
Another, which oppresses with sadness. And the last, which
torments by
making warriors rage. "La Gorda is in a class of her own," he added.
"She is an acting, small-fry petty tyrant. She annoys you to
pieces and
makes you rage. She even slaps you. With all that, she is teaching you
detachment."
"That's not possible!" I protested.
"You haven't yet
put together all the ingredients of the New Seers'
strategy," he said.
"Once you do that, you'll know how efficient and clever is the device
of using a petty tyrant. I would certainly say, that the
strategy not
only gets rid of self-importance; it also prepares warriors for the
final realization, that impeccability is the only thing, that counts in
the path of knowledge. He said, that what the New Seers had in
mind,
was a deadly maneuver, in which the petty tyrant is like a mountain
peak
and the attributes of warriorship are like climbers, who meet at the
summit. "Usually, only four attributes are played," he went on. "The
fifth, Will, is always saved for an ultimate confrontation,
when
warriors are facing the firing squad, so to speak."
"Why is it done that way?
"Because Will belongs to another sphere, the Unknown. The other four
(control,
discipline, timing, forbearance/patience) belong to the known,
exactly where the petty tyrants are lodged. In fact, what
turns human
beings into petty tyrants, is precisely the obsessive manipulation of
the Known." Don Juan explained, that the interplay of all the
five
attributes of warriorship, is done only by Seers, who are also
impeccable warriors and have Mastery over Will. Such an interplay is a
supreme maneuver, that cannot be performed on the daily human
stage.
"Four attributes are all, that is needed to deal with the worst of
petty
tyrants," he continued.
"Provided, of course, that a petty tyrant has
been found. As I said, the petty tyrant is the outside element, the one
we cannot control and the element, that is perhaps the most
important of
them all. My benefactor used to say, that the warrior, who stumbles on
a petty tyrant, is a lucky one. He meant, that you're fortunate, if
you
come upon one in your path, because if you don't, you have to go out
and look for one." He explained, that one of the greatest
accomplishments of the Seers
of the Conquest, was a construct, he called
the three-phase progression. By understanding the nature of man, they
were able to reach the incontestable conclusion, that if Seers can hold
their own in facing petty tyrants, they can certainly face the Unknown
with impunity (with no problems), and then they can even
stand the
presence of the Unknowable. "The average man's reaction is to
think,
that the order of that statement should be reversed," he went on. "A Seer, who can hold
his own in the face of the Unknown, can certainly face
petty tyrants. But that's not so. What destroyed the superb Seers of
ancient times, was that assumption. We know better now. We know, that
nothing can temper the spirit of a warrior as much, as the challenge of
dealing with impossible people in positions of power. Only under
those conditions, can warriors acquire the sobriety and serenity to
stand the
pressure of the Unknowable."
I vociferously disagreed with him. I
told him, that in my opinion tyrants can only render their
victims
helpless or make them as brutal, as they themselves are. I pointed out,
that countless studies had been done on the effects of
physical and
psychological torture on such victims. "The difference is in
something you just said," he retorted. "They are victims, not warriors.
Once I felt just as you do. I'll tell you what made me change, but
first let's go back again, to what I said about the Conquest. The Seers
of that time couldn't have found a better ground.
20-21
The
Spaniards were the petty tyrants, who tested the Seers' skills to
the
limit; after dealing with the conquerors, the Seers were capable
of
facing anything. They were the lucky ones. At that
time there were
petty tyrants everywhere. After all those marvelous years of
abundance, things changed a great deal. Petty tyrants never
again had
that scope; it was only during those times, that their authority was
unlimited. The perfect ingredient for the making of a superb Seer, is a
petty tyrant with unlimited prerogatives. In our times,
unfortunately, Seers
have to go to extremes to find a worthy one. Most
of the time they have to be satisfied with very small fry."
"Did you find a petty tyrant yourself, don Juan?"
"I was lucky. A king-size one found me. At the time, though, I felt
like you; I couldn't consider myself fortunate." Don
Juan said, that his ordeal began a few weeks before he met
his
benefactor. He was barely twenty years old at the time. He had gotten a
job at a sugar mill,
working as a laborer. He had always been very strong, so
it was easy
for him to get jobs, that required muscle. One day, when he was moving
some heavy sacks of sugar, a woman came by. She was very well
dressed and seemed to be a woman of means. She was
perhaps
in her fifties, don
Juan said, and very domineering. She looked at don Juan and then spoke
to the foreman and left. Don Juan was then approached by the
foreman,
who told him, that for a fee he would recommend him for a job in the
boss's house. Don Juan told the man, that he had no
money.
The foreman
smiled and said not to worry, because he would have plenty on payday.
He
patted don Juan's back and assured him it was a great honor
to work for
the boss.
Don
Juan said, that being a lowly ignorant Indian, living hand-to-mouth,
not only did he believe every word, he thought a good fairy had
touched
him. He promised to pay the foreman anything he wished. The foreman
named a large sum, which had to be paid in installments. Immediately
thereafter the foreman himself took don Juan to the house,
which was quite a distance from the town, and left him there with
another foreman, a huge, somber, ugly man, who asked a lot of
questions.
He wanted to know about don Juan's family. Don Juan answered, that he
didn't have any. The man was so pleased, that he even smiled through
his
rotten teeth.
He
promised don Juan, that they would pay him plenty, and that he would
even be in a position to save money, because he didn't have to spend
any, for he was going to live and eat in the house. The
way the man laughed was terrifying. Don Juan knew, that he had to
escape immediately. He ran for the gate, but the man
cut in front of
him with a revolver in his hand. He cocked it and rammed it into don
Juan's stomach.
"You're here to work yourself to the bone," he said.
"And don't you forget it." He shoved don Juan around with a billy club.
Then he took him to the side of the house and, after observing, that he
worked his men every day from sunrise to sunset without a
break, he put
don Juan to work digging out two enormous tree stumps. He also told don
Juan, that if he ever tried to escape or went to the
authorities, he
would shoot him dead, and that, if don Juan should ever get away, he
would swear in court, that don Juan had tried to murder the
boss.
"You'll work here, until you die," he said. "Another Indian will get
your job then, just as you're taking a dead Indian's place." Don
Juan said, that the house looked like a fortress, with armed men
with machetes everywhere. So he got busy working and tried not to think
about his predicament. At the end of the day, the man
came back and
kicked him all the way to the kitchen, because he did not like the
defiant look in don Juan's eyes.
22-23
He threatened to cut the tendons of
don Juan's arms, if he didn't obey him. In the kitchen an old
woman
brought food, but don Juan was so upset and
afraid, that he couldn't eat. The old woman advised him to eat as
much, as he could. He had to be strong, she said, because his work
would
never end. She warned him, that the man, who had held his job, had died
just a day earlier. He was too weak to work and had fallen from a
second-story window. Don Juan said, that he worked at the boss's place
for three weeks and,
that the man bullied him
every moment of every day. He made him work
under the most dangerous conditions, doing the heaviest work
imaginable, under the constant threat of his knife, gun, or
billy
club.
He sent him daily to the stables to clean the stalls, while the nervous
stallions were in them. At the beginning of every day don Juan
thought it would be his last one on Earth. And
surviving
meant only, that he had
to go through the same hell again the next day. What precipitated the
end, was don Juan's request to have some time off.
The pretext was, that he needed to go to town to pay the foreman of the
sugar mill the money, that he owed him. The other foreman
retorted, that
don Juan could not stop working, not even for a minute, because he was
in debt up to his ears, just for the privilege of working there. Don
Juan knew, that he was done for. He understood the man's
maneuvers.
Both he and the other foreman were in cahoots to get lowly Indians from
the mill, work them to death, and divide their salaries. That
realization angered him so intensely, that he ran through the kitchen
screaming and got inside the main house. The foreman and
the other
workers were caught totally by surprise. He ran out the front
door and
almost got away, but the foreman caught up with him on the road and
shot him in the chest. He left him for dead. Don Juan said,
that it was
not his destiny to die; his benefactor found him there and tended him,
until he got well. "When
I told my benefactor the whole story," don Juan said, "he
could
hardly contain his excitement. That foreman is really a prize, ' my
benefactor said. 'He is too good, to be wasted. Someday you must go
back
to that house.' He
raved about my luck in finding a one-in-a-million petty tyrant with
almost unlimited power. I thought the old man was nuts. It was years
before I fully understood, what he was talking about."
"That
is one of the most horrible stories I have ever heard," I said.
"Did you really go back to that house?"
"I
certainly did, three years later. My benefactor was right. A petty
tyrant like that one, was one in a million and couldn't be wasted."
"How
did you manage to go back?"
"My
benefactor developed a strategy, using the four attributes of
warriorship: control, discipline, forbearance, and timing." Don
Juan said, that his benefactor, in explaining to him, what he
had to
do to profit from facing that ogre of a man, also told him what the New Seers
considered to be the four steps on the path of knowledge. The
first step is the decision to become apprentices. After the apprentices
change their views about themselves and the world, they take the
second step and become warriors, which is to say,
beings
capable of the utmost
discipline and control over themselves. The third step, after acquiring
forbearance and timing, is to become men of knowledge. When men of
knowledge learn to See,
they have taken the fourth step and have become Seers. His
benefactor stressed the fact, that don Juan had
been on the path of
knowledge long enough to have acquired a minimum of the first two
attributes: control and discipline. Don Juan emphasized,
that both of
these attributes refer to an inner state. A warrior is self-oriented,
not in a selfish way, but in the sense of a total and continuous
examination of the self.
"At that time, I was barred from the other two
attributes," don Juan
went on. "Forbearance and timing are not quite an inner state. They are
in the domain of the man
of knowledge. My benefactor showed them to me
through his strategy."
"Does
this mean, that you couldn't have faced the petty tyrant by yourself?"
I asked.
"I'm
sure, that I could have done it myself, although I have always doubted,
that I would have carried it off with flair and joyfulness. My
benefactor was simply enjoying the encounter by directing it.
The idea,
of using a petty tyrant, is not only for perfecting the warrior's
spirit, but also for enjoyment and happiness."
"How could anyone enjoy the monster you described?"
"He was nothing in comparison to the real monsters, that the New Seers faced
during the Conquest. By
all indications, those Seers
enjoyed themselves blue, dealing with them.
They proved, that even the worst tyrants can bring delight, provided,
of
course, that one is a warrior." Don Juan explained, that the mistake
average men make, in confronting petty tyrants, is not to
have a strategy
to fall back on; the fatal flaw is, that average men take themselves
too
seriously; their actions and feelings, as well, as
those of the petty
tyrants, are all - important. Warriors, on the other hand, not only
have a well-thought-out strategy, but are free
from self-importance.
What restrains their self-importance is, that they have understood,
that
reality is an interpretation we make. That knowledge was the definitive
advantage, that the New
Seers had over the simple-minded Spaniards.
25-26
He
said, that he became convinced, he could defeat the foreman, using only
the single realization, that petty tyrants take themselves
with deadly
seriousness, while warriors do not. Following his
benefactor's strategic
plan, therefore, don Juan got a
job in the same sugar mill, as before. Nobody remembered, that
he had
worked there in the past; peons came to that sugar mill and
left it
without leaving a trace. His benefactor's strategy specified,
that don
Juan had to be solicitous
of whoever came to look for another victim. As it happened,
the same
woman came and spotted him, as she had done years ago. This time he was
physically even stronger, than before. The same
routine took place. The
strategy, however, called for refusing payment to the foreman
from the outset. The man had never been turned
down and was taken aback. He threatened to fire don
Juan from the job.
Don Juan threatened him back, saying, that he would go directly to the
lady's house and see her. Don Juan knew, that the woman, who was
the
wife of the owner of the mill, did not know, what the two
foremen were
up to. He told the foreman, that he knew where she lived, because he
had
worked in the surrounding fields, cutting sugar cane. The man
began to
haggle, and don Juan demanded money from him, before
he would accept
going to the lady's house. The foreman gave in and handed him a few
bills. Don Juan was perfectly aware, that the foreman's acquiescence
was
just a ruse to get him to go to the house. "He
himself once again took me to the house," don Juan said. "It
was an
old hacienda, owned by the people of the sugar mill, rich
men, who
either
knew, what was going on and didn't care, or were
too indifferent even to
notice. As
soon, as we got there, I ran into the house to look for the lady. I
found her and dropped to my knees and kissed her hand to
thank her. The
two foremen were livid. The foreman at the house followed the
same
pattern, as before. But I
had the proper equipment to deal with him; I had
control, discipline,
forbearance, and timing. It turned out, as my benefactor had planned
it. My
control made me fulfill the man's most asinine (stupid)
demands. What
usually exhausts us in a situation like that, is the wear and
tear on
our self-importance. Any man, who has an iota of pride, is
ripped apart
by being made to feel worthless. "I gladly did everything, he asked
of me. I was joyful and strong. And I didn't give a fig about
my pride
or my fear. I was there, as an impeccable warrior. To tune
the spirit,
when someone is trampling on you, is called control." Don Juan
explained, that his benefactor's strategy required,
that instead of
feeling sorry for himself, as he had done before, he immediately went
to
work mapping the man's strong points, his weaknesses, his quirks
of
behavior. He found, that the foreman's strongest points were his
violent nature and his daring. He had shot don Juan in broad
daylight
and in sight of scores of onlookers. His great weakness was,
that he
liked his job and did not want to endanger it. Under no circumstances
could he attempt to kill don Juan inside the compound in the
daytime.
His other weakness was, that he was a family man. He had a wife and
children, who lived in a shack near the house. "To gather all
this
information, while they are beating you up, is called discipline," don
Juan said. "The man was a regular fiend (enemy). He had no saving
grace. According to the New
Seers, a perfect petty tyrant has no redeeming (to
free someone) feature." Don Juan said, that the other two attributes
of warriorship, forbearance and timing, which he did not yet have, had
been automatically included in his benefactor's strategy.
27-28
Forbearance
is to wait patiently - no rush, no anxiety - a simple, joyful holding
back of what is due. "I groveled (was
humiliated) daily," don Juan
continued, "sometimes crying under the man's whip. And yet I
was happy.
My benefactor's strategy was, what made me go from day to day, without
hating the man's guts. I was a warrior. I knew, that I was waiting and
I
knew, what I was waiting for. Right there is the great joy of
warriorship." He added, that his benefactor's
strategy called for a
systematic harassment of the man, by taking cover with a higher order,
just as the Seers
of the new cycle had done during the Conquest by
shielding themselves with the Catholic church. A lowly priest
was
sometimes more powerful, than a nobleman. Don
Juan's shield was the lady, who got him the job. He kneeled in front
of her and called her a saint, every time he saw her. He
begged her to
give him the medallion of her patron saint, so he could pray to him for
her health and well - being. "She
gave me one," don Juan went on, "and that rattled the foreman to
pieces. And when I got the servants to pray at night, he nearly had
a
heart attack. I think he decided then to kill me. He couldn't afford to
let me go on. As a
counter-measure, I organized a rosary among all the servants of the
house. The lady thought, I had the makings of a most pious
(religious)
man. I
didn't sleep soundly after that, nor did I sleep in my bed. I
climbed to the roof every night. From there
I saw the man
twice looking
for me in the middle of the night with murder in his eyes. Daily
he shoved me into the stallions' stalls, hoping, that I would
be crushed to death, but I had a plank of heavy boards, that I
braced
against one of the corners and protected myself behind it. The man
never knew, because he was nauseated by the horses, another
of his
weaknesses, the deadliest of all, as things turned out."
Don
Juan said, that timing is the quality, that governs the release
of all that is held back. Control, discipline, and
forbearance are like a
dam, behind which, everything is pooled. Timing is the gate in the dam.
The
man knew only violence, with which he terrorized. If his violence
was neutralized, he was rendered nearly helpless. Don Juan knew, that
the
man would not dare to kill him in view of the house, so one
day, in the presence of the other workers, but in sight of his lady as
well, don
Juan insulted the man. He called him a coward, who was
mortally afraid
of the boss's wife. His
benefactor's strategy had called for being on the alert for a
moment like that, and using it to turn the tables on the petty
tyrant. Unexpected things always happen that way. The lowest of
the
slaves
suddenly makes fun of the tyrant, aunts him, makes him feel ridiculous
in front of significant witnesses, and then rushes
away without giving
the tyrant time to retaliate. "A
moment later, the man went crazy with rage, but I was already
solicitously kneeling in front of the lady," he continued. Don
Juan said, that when the lady went inside the house, the man and his
friends called him to the back, allegedly to do some work.
The man was
very pale, white with anger. From the sound of his voice, don
Juan knew
what the man was really planning to do. Don Juan pretended to
acquiesce (accept), but instead of heading for the back, he
ran for the stables.
He trusted, that the horses would make such a racket, the owners would
come out to see, what was wrong. He knew, that the
man would not dare
shoot him. That would have been too noisy and the man's fear of
endangering his job was too overpowering.
Don Juan also knew, that the
man would not go, where the horses were - that is, unless he had been
pushed beyond his endurance. "I
jumped inside the stall of the wildest stallion," don Juan
said,
"and the petty tyrant, blinded by rage, took out his knife and jumped
in after me.
29-30
I went instantly behind my planks (piece of timber). The horse kicked
him
once and it was all over.
"I had spent six months in that house and in that period of time,
I had
exercised the four attributes of warriorship. Thanks to them, I had
succeeded. Not once had I felt sorry for myself or wept in impotence. I
had been joyful and serene. My control and discipline were as
keen, as
they'd ever been, and I had had a firsthand view of what forbearance
and timing did for impeccable warriors.
And I had not once wished the
man to die. My benefactor explained something very interesting.
Forbearance
means: holding back with the spirit something, that the
warrior knows, is rightfully due. It doesn't mean, that a
warrior goes
around plotting to do anybody mischief, or planning to settle past
scores. Forbearance
is something independent. As long, as the warrior
has control, discipline, and timing, forbearance assures giving
whatever is due to whoever deserves it."
"Do petty tyrants sometimes win, and destroy the warrior facing them?"
I asked.
"Of
course. There was a time when warriors died like flies at the beginning
of the Conquest. Their ranks were decimated. The petty tyrants could
put anyone to death, simply acting on a whim. Under
that kind of
pressure, Seers
reached sublime (majestic) states." Don Juan said, that that was the
time, when the surviving Seers
had
to exert themselves to the limit, to find new ways. "The New Seers
used petty tyrants," don Juan said, staring at me fixedly,
"not only to get rid of their self-
importance, but to accomplish
the
very sophisticated maneuver of moving themselves out of this world.
You'll understand that maneuver, as we keep
on discussing the
Mastery of Awareness." I explained to don Juan, that what I had wanted
to know
was whether, in the present, in our times, the petty tyrants he
had
called small fry, could ever defeat a warrior. "All the time," he
replied. "The consequences aren't as dire, as those in the remote past.
Today it goes without saying, that warriors always have a
chance
to
recuperate or to retrieve and come back later. But there is another
side to this problem. To be defeated by a small-fry petty tyrant,
is not
deadly, but devastating. The degree of mortality, in a
figurative
sense, is almost as high. By that I mean, that warriors, who succumb to
a
small-fry petty tyrant, are obliterated by their own
sense of
failure
and unworthiness. That spells high mortality to me."
"How do you measure defeat?"
"Anyone,
who joins the petty tyrant, is defeated. To act in anger, without
control and discipline, to have no forbearance, is to be defeated."
"What happens after warriors are defeated?"
"They either regroup themselves or they abandon the quest for knowledge
and join the ranks of the petty tyrants for life."
3.
The Eagle's Emanations
31-32
The
next day, don Juan and I went for a walk along the road to the city
of Oaxaca. The road was deserted at that hour. It was 2: 00 p. m. As we
strolled leisurely, don Juan suddenly began to talk. He said,
that
our discussion about the petty tyrants had been merely an introduction
to the topic of Awareness. I remarked, that it had opened a
new view for
me. He asked me to explain, what I meant. I told
him, that it had to do with an argument we had had some years
before, about the Yaqui Indians. In the course of his
teachings for the
right side, he had tried to tell me about the advantages, that the
Yaquis could find in being oppressed. I had passionately argued,
that
there were no possible advantages in the wretched conditions, in which
they lived. And I had told him, that I could not understand how, being
a Yaqui himself, he did not react against such a flagrant
injustice.
He had
listened attentively. Then, when I was sure he was going to
defend his point, he agreed, that the conditions of
the Yaqui Indians
were indeed wretched. But he pointed out, that it was useless to single
out the Yaquis, when life conditions of a human in general, were
horrendous. "Don't
just feel sorry for the poor Yaqui Indians," he had said. "Feel
sorry for humankind. In the case of the Yaqui Indians, I can even say,
they're
the lucky
ones. They are oppressed, and because of that, some
of them may come out triumphant in the end. But the oppressors, the
petty tyrants, that tread upon them, they don't have
a chance in hell." I had
immediately answered him with a barrage of political slogans. I
had not understood his point at all. He again tried
to explain to me
the concept of petty tyrants, but the whole idea bypassed me. It was
only now, that everything fit into place. "Nothing
has fit into place yet," he said, laughing at what I
had told
him. "Tomorrow, when you are in your normal state of awareness, you
won't even remember what you've realized now."
I
felt utterly depressed, for I knew he was right.
"What's
going to happen to you is, what happened to me," he continued.
"My benefactor, the Nagual Julian, made me realize in
Heightened Awareness, what you have realized yourself about
petty
tyrants. And I
ended up, in my daily life, changing my opinions without knowing why. I
had
always been oppressed, so I had real venom toward my oppressors,
imagine my surprise, when I found myself seeking the company of petty
tyrants.
I thought, I had lost my mind."
We
came to a place, on the side of the road, where some large boulders
were half buried by an old landslide; don Juan headed for them and sat
down on a flat rock. He signaled me to sit down, facing him.
And then
without further preliminaries, he started his explanation of the
Mastery of Awareness. He
said, that there were a series of truths, that Seers, old and new,
had
discovered about Awareness, and that such truths had been arranged in a
specific sequence for purposes of comprehension.
33-34
He
explained, that the Mastery of Awareness consisted in internalizing
the total sequence of such truths. The first truth, he said, was, that
our familiarity with the world we perceive, compels us to believe,
that
we are surrounded by objects, existing by themselves and as themselves,
just as we perceive them, whereas, in fact, there is no world
of
objects, but a Universe of the Eagle's emanations. He
told me then, that before he could explain the Eagle's
emanations, he
had to talk about the Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable. Most of
the truths about Awareness were discovered by the
old Seers,
he said.
But the order, in which they were arranged, had been worked out by the New Seers.
And without that order, those truths were nearly
incomprehensible. He
said, that not to seek order, was one of the great mistakes, that the
ancient Seers
made. A deadly
consequence of that mistake
was their
assumption, that the Unknown and the Unknowable are the same thing. It
was up to the New Seers
to correct that error. They set up boundaries
and defined the Unknown, as something, that is veiled from a
human, shrouded
perhaps by a terrifying context, but which, nonetheless,
is within
human's reach. The Unknown becomes the Known at a given time. The
Unknowable, on the other hand, is the indescribable, the unthinkable,
the unrealizable. It is something, that will never
be known
to us, and
yet it is there, dazzling and at the same time horrifying in its
vastness.
"How
can Seers
make the distinction between the two?" I asked.
"There
is a simple rule of thumb," he said. "In the face of the Unknown, man
is adventurous. It is a quality of the Unknown to give us
a sense of hope and happiness. Man feels robust, exhilarated.
Even the
apprehension, that it arouses, is very fulfilling. The New Seers saw, that
a human is at his best in the face of the Unknown."
He
said, that whenever what is taken to be the Unknown, turns out to be
the Unknowable, the results are disastrous. Seers feel drained,
confused. A terrible oppression takes possession of
them. Their bodies
lose tone, their reasoning and sobriety wander away aimlessly, for the
unknowable has no energizing effects whatsoever.
It is not within human
reach; therefore, it should not be intruded upon foolishly or even
prudently. The New Seers
realized, that they had to be prepared to pay
exorbitant prices for the faintest contact with it. Don
Juan explained, that the New Seers had had
formidable barriers of
tradition to overcome. At the time, when the new
cycle began, none of
them knew for certain, which procedures of their immense tradition were
the right ones and which were not. Obviously, something
had gone wrong
with the ancient Seers, but
the New Seers did not know
what. They began
by assuming, that everything their predecessors had done, was
erroneous. Those ancient Seers had been the
masters of conjecture. They had, for
one thing, assumed, that their proficiency in Seeing was a
safeguard.
They thought, that they were untouchable, that is,
until the invaders
smashed them, and put most of them to horrendous deaths. The ancient Seers had no
protection whatsoever, despite their total
certainty, that
they were invulnerable. The New Seers did not waste
their time in speculations about what went
wrong. Instead, they began to map
the Unknown, in order to separate it from the
Unknowable.
"How
did they map the Unknown, don Juan?" I asked.
"Through
the controlled use of Seeing,"
he replied. I
said,
that, what I had meant to ask, was, what was entailed in mapping
the Unknown?
He
answered, that mapping the Unknown means, making it available
to our
perception.
35-36
By steadily practicing Seeing,
the New Seers found, that
the Unknown and the Known are really on the same footing,
because both are
within the reach of human perception. Seers, in fact, can
leave the Known at a given moment and enter into the Unknown. Whatever
is beyond our capacity to perceive is the Unknowable. And the
distinction between it and the Knowable is crucial. Confusing the two
would put Seers in
a most precarious position, whenever they are
confronted with the Unknowable. When
this happened to the ancient Seers," don Juan
went on, "they
thought their procedures had gone haywire. It never occurred to them,
that most of what's out there is beyond our comprehension. It
was a
terrifying error of judgment on their part, for which they
paid dearly."
"What
happened after the distinction between the Unknown and the Unknowable
was realized?" I asked.
"The
new cycle began," he replied. "That distinction is the frontier
between the Old and the New. Everything, that the New Seers have done,
stems from understanding that distinction." Don
Juan said, that Seeing
was the crucial element in both: the
destruction of the ancient Seers' world and in
the reconstruction of
the new view. It was
through Seeing,
that the New Seers discovered
certain undeniable facts, which they used to arrive at certain
conclusions, revolutionary to them, about the nature of a human
and the
world. These conclusions, which made the new cycle possible, were the
truths about Awareness, he was explaining to me. Don
Juan
asked me to accompany him to the center of town for a stroll
around the square. On our way, we began to talk about machines and
delicate instruments. He said, that
instruments are extensions of our
senses, and I maintained, that there are instruments, that are not in
that category, because they perform functions, that we are
not physiologically capable of performing. "Our
senses are capable of everything," he asserted.
"I can
tell you offhand, that there are instruments, that can detect
radio waves, that come from outer Space," I said. "Our senses cannot
detect radio waves."
"I
have a different idea," he said. "I think our senses can detect
everything, we are surrounded by."
"What
about the case of ultrasonic sounds?" I insisted. "We don't have
the organic equipment to hear
them."
"It is
the Seers' conviction,
that we've tapped a very small portion of
ourselves," he replied. He
immersed himself in thought for a while, as if he were trying
to
decide what to say next. Then he smiled. "The
first truth about Awareness, as I have already told you," he
began, "is that the world out there is not really, as we think it is.
We
think it is a world of objects and it's not." He
paused, as if to measure the effect of his words. I told him, that I
agreed with his premise, because everything could be reduced
to being a
field of energy. He said, that I was merely intuiting a truth, and that
to reason it out, was not to verify it. He was not interested in
my
agreement or disagreement, he said, but in my attempt to
comprehend
what was involved in that truth. "You
cannot witness fields of energy," he went on. "Not as an
average man, that is. Now, if you were able to See them, you would
be a Seers,
in which case you would be explaining the truths about Awareness. Do
you understand what I mean?" He
went on to say, that conclusions, arrived at through reasoning, had
very little or no influence in altering the course of our lives.
37-38
Hence,
the countless examples of people, who have the clearest convictions and
yet, act diametrically against them time and time again; and have, as
the
only explanation for their behavior, the idea, that to err is
human. "The
first truth is, that the world is as it looks and yet it isn't," he
went on. "It's not as solid and real,
as our perception has
been led to
believe, but it isn't a mirage either. The world is not an illusion, as
it has been said to be; it's real on the one hand, and unreal
on
the other. Pay close attention to this, for it must
be
understood, not just
accepted. We perceive. This is a hard fact. But what we perceive is not
a fact of the same kind, because we learn what to
perceive. Something
out there is affecting our senses. This is the part, that is
real. The unreal part is, what our senses tell us, is there. Take
a
mountain, for instance. Our senses tell us, that it is an object. It
has
size, color, form. We even have categories of mountains, and they are
downright accurate. Nothing wrong with that; the flaw is
simply, that it
has never occurred to us, that our senses play only a superficial role.
Our senses perceive the way they do, because a
specific feature of our
awareness forces them to do so." I
began to agree with him again, but not because I wanted to, for I had
not quite understood his point. Rather, I was reacting to a
threatening
situation. He made me stop. "I've
used the term 'the world'," don Juan went on, "to mean
everything, that surrounds us. I have a better term, of course, but it
would be quite incomprehensible to you. Seers say, that we
think there
is a world of objects out there, only because of
our awareness. But
what's really out there are the Eagle's (Dragon) emanations,
fluid, forever in
motion, and yet unchanged, eternal." He
stopped me with a gesture of his hand, just as I was
about to ask him,
what the Eagle's (Dragon) emanations were. He explained, that one of
the most
dramatic legacies the old Seers had left
us, was
their
discovery, that the reason for the existence of all sentient
Beings is to enhance Awareness. Don Juan called it a colossal
discovery. In
a
half-serious tone he asked me, if I knew of a better answer to
the
question, that has always haunted man: the reason for our
existence. I
immediately took a defensive position and began to
argue about the
meaninglessness of the question, because it cannot be logically
answered. I told him, that in order to discuss that subject, we would
have to talk about religious beliefs and
turn it all into a matter of
faith. "The
old Seers were not just
talking about faith," he said. "They were
not as practical, as the New Seers, but
they were practical enough to
know, what they were
Seeing. What I was trying to point out to you with
that question, which has rattled you so badly, is that our
rationality
alone cannot come up with an answer about the
reason for our existence.
Every time it tries, the answer turns into a matter of beliefs. The old Seers took another
road, and they did find an answer, which doesn't
involve faith alone." He
said, that the old Seers, risking
untold dangers, actually Saw
the
indescribable force, which is the Source of all
Sentient Beings. They
called it the Eagle, because
in the few glimpses, that they could
sustain, they Saw
it as something, that resembled a black-and-white
eagle of infinite
size. They Saw, that it is the
Eagle (Dragon),
who bestows Awareness. The Eagle creates
Sentient Beings, so that they will live and enrich
the Awareness it
gives them with life. They also Saw,
that it is the Eagle (Dragon), who devours
that same enriched Awareness, after making Sentient Beings relinquish
it
at the moment of death. For
the old Seers,"
don Juan went on, "to say, that the reason for
existence is to enhance Awareness, is not a matter of faith or
deduction. They Saw
it.
39-40
"They
Saw, that
the Awareness of Sentient Beings flies away at the
moment of death and floats like a luminous cotton puff right into the
Eagle's beak to be consumed. For the old Seers, that was the
evidence,
that Sentient Beings live only to enrich the awareness, that is the
Eagle's food."
Don
Juan's elucidation was interrupted, because he had to leave on a
short business trip. Nestor drove him to Oaxaca. As I saw them off, I
remembered, that at the beginning of my association with don
Juan, every
time he mentioned a business trip, I thought he was employing a
euphemism for something else. I eventually realized, that he
meant, what
he said. Whenever such a trip was about to take place, he would put on
one of his many immaculately tailored three-piece suits and
would look
like anything, but the old Indian, I knew. I had commented to him about
the sophistication of his metamorphosis.
"A
Nagual is someone flexible enough to be anything," he had said. "To
be a Nagual, among other things, means to have no points to defend.
Remember this: we'll come back to it over and over." We had
come back to it over and over, in every possible way; he did
indeed seem to have no points to defend, but during his
absence in
Oaxaca I was given to just a shadow of doubt. Suddenly I realized, that
a Nagual did have one point to defend: the description of the Eagle and
what it does required, in my opinion, a passionate defense. I
tried to pose that question to some of don Juan's companions, but
they eluded my probings. They told me, that I was in
quarantine from
that kind of discussion, until don Juan had finished his explanation. The
moment he returned, we sat down to talk and I asked him about it.
"Those
truths are not something to defend passionately," he replied.
"If you think, that I'm trying to defend them, you are mistaken. Those
truths were put together for the delight and enlightenment of
warriors,
not to engage any proprietary sentiments. When I told you, that a
nagual
has no points to defend, I meant, among other things, that a
Nagual has
no obsessions." I told
him, that I was not following his teachings, for I had become
obsessed with his description of the Eagle and what it does.
I remarked
over and over about the awesomeness of such an idea. "It is
not just an idea," he said. "It is a fact. And a damn scary one,
if you ask me. The new Seers were not
simply playing with ideas."
"But
what kind of a force would the Eagle be?"
"I
wouldn't know how to answer that. The Eagle is as real for the Seers,
as gravity and time are for you, and just as abstract and
incomprehensible."
"Wait
a minute, don Juan. Those are abstract concepts, but they do
refer to real phenomena, that can be corroborated. There are whole
disciplines dedicated to that."
"The
Eagle and its emanations are equally corroboratable," don Juan
retorted. "And the discipline of the new Seers is dedicated
to doing
just that."
I
asked him to explain what the Eagle's emanations are. He
said, that the Eagle's emanations are an immutable thing-in-itself,
which engulfs everything, that exists, the knowable and the
Unknowable.
"There
is no way to describe in words, what the Eagle's emanations
really are," don Juan continued. "Seers must witness
them."
"Have
you witnessed them yourself, don Juan?"
"Of
course I have, and yet I can't tell, you what they are. They are a
presence, almost a mass of sorts, a pressure, that creates a dazzling
sensation. One can catch only a glimpse of them, as one can
catch only
a glimpse of the Eagle itself."
"Would
you say, don Juan, that the Eagle is the source of the
emanations?"
41-42
"It
goes without saying, that the Eagle is the source of its emanations."
"I
meant to ask if that is so visually."
"There
is nothing visual about the Eagle. The entire body of a Seer
senses the Eagle. There is something in all of us, that can make us
witness with our entire body. Seers explain the act of Seeing the Eagle
in very simple terms: because human is composed of the Eagle's
emanations, human need only revert back to his components.
The problem
arises with man's awareness; it is his awareness, that becomes
entangled
and confused. At the crucial moment, when it should be a
simple case of
the emanations, acknowledging themselves, man's awareness is compelled
to interpret. The result is a vision of the Eagle and the Eagle's
emanations. But there is no Eagle and no Eagle's emanations. What is
out there, is something, that no living creature can grasp." I
asked him, if the source of the emanations was called the Eagle,
because eagles in general have important attributes.
"This
is simply the case of something unknowable, vaguely resembling
something known," he replied. "On account of that, there have certainly
been attempts to imbue eagles with attributes they don't
have. But that
always happens when impressionable people learn to perform acts, that
require great sobriety. Seers come in all sizes and
shapes."
"Do
you mean to say, that there are different kinds of Seers?"
"No. I
mean, that there are scores of imbeciles, who become Seers. Seers
are human beings full of foibles (minor weakness), or rather, human
beings full of
foibles are capable of becoming Seers. Just as in
the case of miserable
people, who become superb scientists. The
characteristic of miserable Seers is, that they
are willing to
forget the wonder of the world. They become overwhelmed by
the fact,
that they see and believe, that it's their genius, that counts. A Seers
must be a paragon, in order to override the nearly invincible
laxness of
our human condition. More important, than Seeing itself is
what Seers do
with what they See."
"What
do you mean by that, don Juan?"
"Look
at what some Seers have done to
us. We are stuck with their
vision of an Eagle, that rules us and devours us at the moment of our
death." He
said, that there is
a definite laxness in that version, and that
personally he did not appreciate the idea of something devouring us.
For him, it would be more accurate to say, that there
is a force, that
attracts our consciousness, much as a magnet attracts iron shavings. At
the moment of dying, all of our being disintegrates under the
attraction of that immense force. That
such an event was interpreted, as the Eagle devouring us, he found
grotesque, because it turns an indescribable act into something as
mundane, as eating.
"I'm a
very average man," I said. "The description of an Eagle, that
devours us, had a great impact on me."
"The
real impact can't be measured, until the moment, when you see it
yourself," he said. "But you must bear in mind, that our flaws remain
with us even after
we become Seers. So when you
see that force, you may
very well agree with the lax Seers, who called
it the Eagle, as I did
myself. On the other hand, you may not. You may resist the
temptation
to ascribe human attributes to what is incomprehensible, and actually
improvise a new name for it, a more accurate one. Seers,
who
See the
Eagle's emanations, often call them commands," don
Juan said. "I wouldn't mind calling them commands myself, if I hadn't
got used to calling them emanations. It was a reaction to my
benefactor's preference; for him they were commands.
43-44
I thought, that
term was more in keeping with his forceful personality, than with mine.
I wanted something impersonal. 'Commands' sounds too human to me,
but
that's what they really are, commands." Don
Juan said, that to see the Eagle's emanations is to court disaster.
The new Seers soon
discovered the tremendous difficulties involved, and
only after great tribulations, in trying to map the Unknown and
separate
it from the Unknowable, did they realize, that everything is made
out of
the Eagle's emanations (Robert
Monroe called it M-Field or Mind-Field. LM). Only a small
portion of those emanations is
within reach of human awareness, and that small portion is still
further reduced, to a minute fraction, by the constraints of our daily
lives. That minute fraction of the Eagle's emanations is the Known; the
small portion within possible reach of human awareness is the
Unknown,
and the incalculable rest is the Unknowable. He
went on to say, that the new Seers,
being pragmatically oriented,
became immediately cognizant of the compelling power of the emanations.
They realized, that all living creatures are forced to employ
the
Eagle's emanations without ever knowing what they are. They also
realized, that organisms are constructed to grasp a certain range of
those emanations and that every species has a definite range.
The
emanations exert great pressure on organisms, and, through that
pressure,
organisms construct their perceivable world.
"In
our case, as human beings," don Juan said, "we employ those
emanations and interpret them as reality. But what man senses is such a
small portion of the Eagle's emanations, that it's ridiculous
to put
much stock in our perceptions, and yet it isn't possible for us to
disregard our perceptions. The new Seers found this
out the hard way -
after courting tremendous dangers." Don
Juan was sitting, where he usually sat in the large room. Ordinarily
there was no furniture in that room:
people sat on mats on the floor, but
Carol, the Nagual Woman, had managed to furnish it with very
comfortable armchairs for the sessions, when she and I took turns,
reading to him from the works of Spanish-speaking poets. "I
want you to be very aware of what we are doing," he said as soon, as
I sat down. "We are discussing the Mastery of Awareness. The
truths
we're discussing are the principles of that mastery." He
added, that in his teachings for the right side, he had demonstrated
those principles to my normal awareness with the help of one
of his Seers companions,
Genaro, and that Genaro had played around with my
awareness with all the humor and irreverence, for which the
new Seers
were known. "Genaro
is the one, who should be here telling you about the Eagle," he
said, "except, that his versions are too irreverent. He
thinks, that the Seers, who called
that force the Eagle, were either very stupid or were
making a grand joke, because eagles not only lay eggs, they also lay
turds." Don
Juan laughed and said, that he found Genaro's comments so
appropriate, that he couldn't resist laughter. He added, that if the
new Seers had
been the ones to describe the Eagle, the description would
certainly have been made half in fun. I told
don Juan, that on one level I took the Eagle as a poetic
image,
and, as such, it delighted me, but on another level I took it
literally,
and that terrified me. "One
of the greatest forces in the lives of warriors is fear," he said.
"It spurs them to learn." He
reminded me, that the description of the Eagle came from the
ancient Seers. The
new Seers were through
with description, comparison, and
conjecture of any sort. They wanted to get directly to the source of
things and consequently risked unlimited danger to get to it. They did
see the Eagle's emanations. But they never tampered with the
description of the Eagle.
45-46
They felt, that it took too much energy to see
the Eagle, and that the ancient Seers had already
paid heavily for
their scant glimpse of the Unknowable.
"How
did the old Seers come around
to describing the Eagle?" I asked.
"They
needed a minimal set of guidelines about the Unknowable for
purposes of instruction," he replied. "They resolved it with a sketchy
description of the force, that rules all there is, but not of
its
emanations, because the emanations cannot be rendered at all in a
language of comparisons. Individual Seers may feel the
urge
to make
comments about certain emanations, but that will remain personal, in
other words, there is no pat version of the emanations, as there is of
the Eagle."
"The
new Seers seem to have
been very abstract," I commented. "They
sound like modern-day philosophers."
"No.
The new Seers were terribly
practical men," he replied. "They
weren't involved in concocting rational theories." He
said, that the ancient Seers were the
ones, who were the abstract
thinkers. They built monumental edifices of abstractions proper to them
and their time. And just like the modern-day philosophers, they
were
not at all in control of their concatenations. The new Seers, on the
other hand, imbued with practicality, were able to see a flux of
emanations and to see how man and other living beings utilize them to
construct their perceivable world.
"How
are those emanations utilized by man, don Juan?"
"It's
so simple, it sounds idiotic. For a Seer, men are
Luminous Beings.
Our Luminosity is made up of that portion of the Eagle's emanations,
which is encased in our egglike cocoon. That particular
portion, that
handful of emanations, that is encased, is what makes us men. To
perceive is to match the emanations, contained inside our
cocoon, with
those, that are outside. Seers
can see, for instance, the emanations inside any living creature
and can tell, which of the outside emanations would match
them."
"Are
the emanations like beams of light?" I asked.
"No.
Not at all. That would be too simple. They are something
indescribable. And yet, my personal comment would be to say, that they
are like filaments
of light. What's incomprehensible to normal
awareness is, that the
filaments are aware. I can't tell you, what that
means, because I don't know, what I am saying. All I can tell you with
my personal comments is, that the
filaments are aware
of themselves,
alive and vibrating, that there are so many of them, that numbers have
no meaning and, that each of them is an eternity in itself."
4.
The Glow of Awareness
Don
Juan, don Genaro, and I had just returned from gathering plants in
the surrounding mountains. We were at don Genaro's house, sitting
around the table, when don Juan made me change
levels of awareness. Don
Genaro had been staring at me and began to chuckle. He remarked how
odd,
he thought, it was, that I had two completely different
standards for
dealing with the two sides of awareness. My relation with him was the
most obvious example. On my right side, he was the respected
and feared
sorcerer don Genaro, a man whose incomprehensible acts delighted me and
at the same time filled me with mortal terror. On my left side,
he was
plain Genaro, or Genarito, with no don attached to his name, a charming
and kind Seer,
whose acts were thoroughly comprehensible and coherent,
with what
I myself did or tried to do. I
agreed with him and added, that on my left side, the man, whose mere
presence made me shake like a leaf, was Silvio Manuel, the
most
mysterious of don Juan's companions. I also said, that don Juan, being
a
true Nagual, transcended arbitrary standards and was respected and
admired by me in both states.
"But
is he feared?" Genaro asked in a quivering voice.
"Very
feared," don Juan interjected in a falsetto voice. We all
laughed, but don Juan and Genaro laughed with such abandon, that
I immediately suspected they knew something, they were
holding back. Don
Juan was reading me like a book. He explained, that in the
intermediate stage, before one enters fully into the
left-side
awareness, one is capable of tremendous concentration, but one is also
susceptible to every conceivable influence. I was being influenced by
suspicion.
"La
Gorda is always in this stage," he said. "She learns beautifully,
but she's a royal pain in the neck. She can't help being driven by
anything, that comes her way, including, of course, very good
things,
like keen concentration." Don
Juan explained, that the new Seers discovered,
that the transition
period is the time when the deepest learning takes place, and
that it
is also the time, when warriors must be supervised and explanations
must
be given to them, so they can evaluate them properly. If no
explanations
are given to them before they enter into the left side, they will be
great sorcerers, but poor Seers, as the
ancient Toltecs were. Female-
warriors in particular fall prey to the lure of the left side,
he said. They are so nimble (quick, agile, cleverly), that they can go
into the left side with no
effort, often too soon for their own good. After
a long silence, Genaro fell asleep. Don Juan began to speak. He
said, that the new Seers had had to
invent a number of terms, in order
to
explain the second truth about Awareness. His benefactor had changed
some of those terms to suit himself, and he himself had done the same, guided
by the Seers' belief, that
it does not make any difference what
terms are used, as long, as the truths have been verified by Seeing.
49-50
I was
curious to know, what terms he had changed, but I didn't know
quite how to word my question. He took it that I was doubting his right
or his ability to change them and explained, that if the
terms, we
propose, originate in our reason, they can only communicate the mundane
agreement of everyday life. When Seers
propose a term, on the other
hand, it is never a figure of speech, because it stems from Seeing and
embraces everything, that Seers can attain. I
asked him, why he had changed the terms. "It's
a Nagual's duty always to look for better ways to explain,"
he
replied. "Time
changes everything, and every new Nagual has to
incorporate new words, new ideas, to describe his Seeing.
'"
"Do
you mean, that a Nagual takes ideas from the world of every day
life?" I asked.
"No. I
mean, that a Nagual talks about Seeing
in ever new ways," he
said. "For instance, as the new Nagual, you'd have to say, that
Awareness gives rise to Perception. You'd be saying the same thing my
benefactor said, but in a different way."
"What
do the New Seers say
Perception is, don Juan?"
"They
say, that Perception is a condition of alignment; the emanations
inside the cocoon become aligned with those outside, that fit them.
Alignment is what allows Awareness to be cultivated by every
living
creature. Seers
make these statements, because they See
living
creatures,
as they really are: Luminous Beings, that look like bubbles
of whitish
light." I
asked him how the emanations inside the cocoon fit those outside, so
as to accomplish perception. "The
emanations inside and the emanations outside," he said, "are
the
same filaments of Sun Light. Sentient (having power of sensation,
conscious) Beings are minute bubbles, made out of
those filaments, microscopic points of light, attached to the
infinite
emanations." He
went on to explain, that the luminosity of living beings is made by
the particular portion of the Eagle's emanations they happen
to have
inside their luminous cocoons. When Seers See perception,
they witness,
that the luminosity of the Eagle's emanations outside those
creatures'
cocoons, brightens the luminosity of the emanations inside their
cocoons. The outside luminosity attracts the inside one; it traps it,
so to speak, and fixes it. That fixation is the awareness of
every
specific being. Seers
can also See how the emanations outside the cocoon exert a
particular pressure on the portion of emanations inside. This pressure
determines the degree of Awareness, that every living being has. I
asked him to clarify, how the Eagle's emanations outside the
cocoon,
exert pressure on those inside. "The
Eagle's emanations are more, than filaments of light," he replied.
"Each one of them is a source of boundless energy.
Think of it this
way: since some of the emanations outside the cocoon are the same, as
the emanations inside, their energies are like a continuous
pressure. But the cocoon isolates the emanations, that are inside its
web, and
thereby directs the pressure. "I've
mentioned to you, that the old Seers
were Masters of the Art of handling Awareness," he went on. "What I can
add now is, that they were
the Masters of that Art, because they learned to manipulate the
structure ofhuman's cocoon. I've said to you, that they
unraveled the
mystery of being aware. By that I meant, that they saw and realized,
that Awareness is a Glow in the cocoon of living Beings. They
rightly called
it the Glow of Awareness." He
explained, that the old Seers Saw, that human's
Awareness is a Glow of
amber luminosity more intense, than the rest of the cocoon. That Glow
is
on a narrow, vertical band on the extreme right side of the cocoon,
running along its entire length. The Mastery of the old Seers was to
move that Glow, to make it spread from its original setting on the
surface of the cocoon, inward across its width.
51-52
He
stopped talking and looked at Genaro, who was still sound asleep. "Genaro
doesn't give a fig about explanations," he said. "He's a doer.
My benefactor pushed him constantly to face insoluble
problems. So he
entered into the left side proper and never had a chance to ponder and
wonder."
"Is it
better to be that way, don Juan?"
"It
depends. For him, it's perfect. For you and for me, it wouldn't be
satisfactory, because, in one way or another, we are called upon to
explain. Genaro or my benefactor are more like the old, than
the new Seers:
they can control and do, what they want, with the Glow of Awareness."
He
stood up from the mat, where we were sitting, and stretched his arms
and legs. I pressed him to continue talking. He smiled and said, that I
needed to rest, that my concentration was waning.
There
was a knock at the door. I woke up. It was dark. For a moment I
could not remember where I was. There was something in me, that was far
away, as if part of me were still asleep, yet I was fully
awake. Enough
moonlight came through the open window, so that I could see. I saw
don Genaro get up and go to the door. I realized then, that I
was
at his house. Don Juan was sound asleep on a mat on the floor. I had
the distinct impression, that the three of us had fallen asleep after
returning dead tired from a trip to the mountains. Don
Genaro lit his kerosene lantern. I followed him into the kitchen.
Someone had brought him a pot of hot stew and a stack of
tortillas.
"Who
brought you food?" I asked him. "Do you have a woman around here,
that cooks for you?"
Don
Juan had come into the kitchen. Both of them looked at me, smiling.
For some reason their smiles were terrifying to me. I was about to
scream in terror, in fact, when don Juan hit me on the back
and made me shift into a state of Heightened Awareness. I realized
then, that perhaps, during my sleep, or as I woke up, I had
drifted back
to everyday awareness.
The
sensation I experienced then, once I was back in Heightened Awareness,
was a mixture of relief and anger and the most acute
sadness. I was relieved, that I was myself again, for I had come to
regard those incomprehensible states, as being my true self. There was
one simple reason for that: in those states I felt complete;
nothing was
missing from me. The anger and the sadness were a reaction to
impotence. I was more aware, than ever of the limitations of
my
being. I
asked don Juan to explain to me, how it was possible for me to do what
I was doing. In states of Heightened Awareness I could look back
and
remember everything about myself; I could give an account of
everything,
I had done in either state; I could even remember my incapacity to
recollect. But once I had returned to my normal, everyday
level of
awareness, I could not recall anything, I had done in Heightened
Awareness, even if my life depended on it.
"Hold
it, hold it there," he said. "You haven't remembered anything
yet. Heightened Awareness is only an intermediate state. There is
infinitely more beyond that, and you have been there many,
many times.
Right now you can't remember, even if your life depends on it." He was
right. I had no idea, what he was talking about.
I pleaded for an
explanation. "The
explanation is coming," he said. "It's a slow process, but we'll
get to it. It is slow, because I am just like you: I like to
understand.
I am the opposite of my benefactor, who was not given to explaining.
For him there was only action. He used to put us squarely against
incomprehensible problems and let us resolve them for
ourselves.
53-54
Some
of us never did resolve anything, and we ended up very much in the same
boat with the old Seers: all action
and no real knowledge."
"Are
those memories trapped in my mind?" I asked.
"No.
That would make it too simple," he replied. "The actions of Seers
are more complex, than dividing a human into mind and body. You have
forgotten, what you've done, or what you've witnessed,
because when you
were performing, what you've forgotten, you were Seeing." I
asked don Juan to reinterpret, what he had just said. Patiently,
he explained, that everything, I had forgotten, had taken place
in states, in which my everyday awareness had been enhanced,
intensified, a condition, that meant, that other areas of my
Total Being
were used. "Whatever
you've forgotten, is trapped in those areas of your Total Being," he
said. "To be using those other areas is
to See."
"I'm
more confused, than ever, don Juan," I said.
"I
don't blame you," he said. "Seeing is to lay
bare the core of
everything, to witness the Unknown and to glimpse into the Unknowable.
As such, it doesn't bring one solace (comfort). Seers ordinarily go
to pieces on
finding out, that existence is incomprehensibly complex and, that our
normal awareness maligns (speak
evil of, defame)
it with its limitations." He
reiterated, that my concentration had to be total that to understand
was of crucial importance, that the new Seers placed the
highest value
on deep, unemotional realizations. "For
instance, the other day," he went on, "when you understood about
la Gorda's and your self-importance, you didn't understand
anything
really. You had an emotional outburst, that was all. I say this,
because
the next day you were back on your high horse of self-importance, as if
you never had realized anything. The
same thing happened to the old Seers. They were
given to emotional
reactions. But when the time came for them to understand what
they had
seen, they couldn't do it. To understand one needs sobriety, not
emotionality. Beware of those, who weep with realization, for they have
realized nothing. There
are untold dangers in the path of knowledge for those without
sober understanding," he continued. "I am outlining the
order, in which
the new Seers arranged the
truths about Awareness, so it will serve you
as a map. A map, that you have to corroborate with your Seeing, but not
with your eyes."
There
was a long pause. He stared at me. He was definitely waiting
for
me to ask him a question. "Everybody
falls prey to the mistake, that Seeing
is done with the
eyes," he continued. "But don't be surprised, that after so
many years
you haven't realized yet that Seeing
is not a matter of the eyes. It's
quite normal to make that mistake."
"What
is Seeing, then?" I
asked.
He
replied that Seeing is alignment out of the
ordinary. And I
reminded him, that he had
said, that perception is alignment. He explained then, that the
alignment
of emanations, used routinely, is the perception of
the day-to-day world,
but the alignment of emanations, that are never used ordinarily,
is Seeing. When such
an alignment occurs, one Sees. Seeing, therefore,
being produced by alignment out of the ordinary, cannot be something
one could merely look at. He said, that in spite
of the fact, that I had Seen
countless times, it had not occurred to me to disregard my eyes. I
had succumbed to the way Seeing is labeled
and described.
"When
Seers See, something
explains everything, as the new alignment
takes place," he continued. "It's a voice, that tells them in their ear
what's what. If that voice is not present, what the Seer is engaged
in,
isn't Seeing." After
a moment's pause, he continued explaining the voice of Seeing.
55-56
He
said, that it was equally fallacious to say, that Seeing was hearing,
because it was infinitely more, than that, but that Seers had opted for
using sound, as a gauge
of a new alignment. He
called the voice of Seeing a most
mysterious inexplicable thing. "My
personal conclusion is, that the voice of Seeing belongs only
to human,"
he said. "It may happen, because talking is something, that noone else,
besides human, does. The old Seers believed, it
was the voice of an
overpowering entity, intimately
related to humankind, a protector of human. The new Seers found
out, that that entity, which they called the mold of human, doesn't
have a
voice. The voice of Seeing for the
new Seers is something
quite
Incomprehensible; they say, it's the Glow of Awareness, playing on the
Eagle's emanations, as a harpist plays on a harp." He
refused to explain it any further, arguing, that later on, as he
proceeded with his explanation, everything would become clear to me. My
concentration had been so total while don Juan spoke, that I actually
did not remember sitting down at the table to eat. When don Juan
stopped talking, I noticed, that his plate of stew was nearly
finished. Genaro
was staring at me with a beaming smile. My plate was in front of
me on the table, and it too was empty. There was only a tiny residue of
stew left in it, as if I had just finished eating. I did not remember
eating it at all, but neither did I remember walking to the table or
sitting down.
"Did
you like the stew?" Genaro asked me and looked away. I said
I did, because I did not want to admit, that I was having
problems recollecting.
"It
had too much chile for my taste," Genaro said. "You never eat hot
food yourself, so I'm sort of worried about what it will do to you. You
shouldn't have eaten two servings. I suppose you're a little
more
piggish, when you're in heightened awareness, eh?"
I
admitted, that he was probably right. He handed me a large pitcher of
water to quench my thirst and soothe my throat. When I eagerly drank
all of it, both of them broke into howling laughter. Suddenly,
I realized what was going on. My realization was physical. It
was a flash of yellowish light, that hit me, as if a match had
been
struck right between my eyes. I knew then, that Genaro was joking. I
had
not eaten. I had been so absorbed in don Juan's explanation, that I had
forgotten about everything else. The plate in front of me was
Genaro's.
After
dinner don Juan went on with his explanation about the Glow of
Awareness. Genaro sat by me, listening, as if he had never heard the
explanation before. Don
Juan said, that the pressure, that the emanations outside the cocoon,
which are called emanations at large, exert on the emanations inside
the cocoon, is the same in all Sentient Beings. Yet, the
results of that
pressure are vastly different among them, because their cocoons react
to that pressure in every conceivable way. There are,
however, degrees
of uniformity within certain boundaries. "Now,"
he went on, "when Seers See, that the
pressure of the emanations
at large bears down on the emanations inside, which are always in
motion, and makes them stop moving, they know, that the Luminous Being
at that moment is fixated by Awareness. To
say, that the emanations at large bear down on those inside the
cocoon and make them stop moving, means, that Seers See something
indescribable, the meaning of which, they know without a shadow
of doubt. It means, that the voice of Seers has told
them, that
the emanations inside the cocoon are completely at rest and match some
of those, which are outside." He
said, that Seers maintain,
naturally, that awareness always comes
from outside ourselves, that the real mystery is not inside us.
57-58
Since
by nature the emanations at large are made to fixate, what is inside
the
cocoon, the trick of Awareness is to let the fixating emanations merge
with what is inside us. Seers believe, that
if we let that happen, we
become, what we really are: fluid, forever in motion, eternal. There
was a long pause. Don
Juan's eyes had an intense shine. They
seemed to be looking at me from a great depth. I had the feeling, that
each of his eyes was an independent point of brilliance.
For an instant
he appeared to be struggling against an invisible force, a Fire from
within, that intended to consume him. It passed and he went on talking.
"The
degree of Awareness of every individual Sentient Being," he
continued, "depends on the degree, to which it is capable of letting
the
pressure of the emanations at large carry it."
After
a long interruption, don Juan continued explaining. He said,
that Seers Saw, that from the
moment of conception, Awareness is enhanced,
enriched, by the process of being alive. He said,
that Seers Saw, for
instance, that the Awareness of an individual insect or that of an
individual human grows from the moment of conception in
astoundingly
different ways, but with equal consistency.
"Is it
from the moment of conception or from the moment of birth, that
Awareness develops?" I asked.
"Awareness
develops from the moment of conception," he replied. "I have
always told you, that sexual energy is something of ultimate importance
and, that it has to be controlled and used with great care.
But you have
always resented what I said, because you thought, I was speaking of
control in terms of morality; I always meant it in terms of
saving and
rechanneling energy." Don
Juan looked at Genaro. Genaro nodded his head in approval. "Genaro
is going to tell you what our benefactor, the Nagual Julian,
used to say about saving and re-channeling sexual energy," don Juan
said to me.
"The
Nagual Julian used to say, that to have sex is a matter of energy,"
Genaro began. "For instance, he never had any problems having sex,
because he had bushels (unit of volume like litre) of energy.
But he took one look at me and
prescribed right away, that my peter was just for peeing. He told me,
that I didn't have enough energy to have sex. He said, that
my parents
were too bored and too tired, when they made me; he said, that I was
the
result of very boring sex, cojida aburrida. I was born like
that, bored
and tired. The Nagual Julian recommended, that people like me should
never have sex; this way we can store the little energy we have. He
said the same thing to Silvio Manuel and to Emilito. He saw,
that
the others had enough energy. They were not the result of bored sex. He
told them, that they could do anything they wanted with their
sexual
energy, but he recommended, that they control themselves and understand
the Eagle's command, that sex is for bestowing (apply, use) the Glow of
Awareness. We
all said, we had understood. One
day, without any warning at all, he opened the curtain of the
other world with the help of his own benefactor, the Nagual
Ellas, and
pushed all of us inside, with no hesitation whatsoever. All of us,
except Silvio Manuel, nearly died in there. We had no energy
to
withstand the impact of the other world. None of us, except Silvio
Manuel, had followed the Nagual's recommendation."
"What
is the curtain of the other world?" I asked don Juan.
"What
Genaro said: it is a curtain," don Juan replied. "But you're
getting off the subject. You always do. We're talking about the Eagle's
command about sex. It is the Eagle's command, that sexual
energy be used
for creating life. Through sexual energy, the Eagle bestows (apply, use) Awareness.
59-60
So when Sentient Beings are engaged in sexual intercourse, the
emanations inside their cocoons do their best to bestow Awareness to
the new Sentient Being, they are creating."
He
said, that during the sexual act, the emanations, encased inside the
cocoon of both partners, undergo a profound agitation, the culminating
point of which is a merging, a fusing of two pieces of the
Glow
of Awareness, one from each partner, that separate from their cocoons. "Sexual
intercourse is always a bestowal of Awareness, even though
the
bestowal (use) may not be consolidated (united, joined, solidified),"
he went on. "The emanations inside
the cocoon of human beings don't know of intercourse for fun."
Genaro
leaned over toward me from his chair across the table and talked
to me in a low voice, shaking his head for emphasis. "The Nagual is
telling you the truth,"
he said and winked at me. "Those
emanations really don't know."
Don
Juan fought not to laugh and added, that the fallacy of human is to
act with total disregard for the mystery of existence and to believe,
that such a sublime act of bestowing life and Awareness is
merely a
physical drive, that one can twist at will. Genaro
made obscene sexual gestures, twisting his pelvis around, on and
on. Don Juan nodded and said, that that was exactly, what he meant.
Genaro thanked him for acknowledging his one and only contribution to
the explanation of Awareness. Both
of them laughed like idiots, saying, that if I had known how
serious their benefactor was about the explanation of Awareness, I
would be laughing with them. I
earnestly asked don Juan, what all this meant for an average man in
the day-to-day world.
"You
mean what Genaro is doing?" he asked me in mock seriousness. Their
glee was always contagious. It took a long time for them to calm
down. Their level of energy was so high, that next to them, I
seemed old
and decrepit (weak). "I
really don't know," don Juan finally answered me. "All I know is
what it means to warriors. They know,
that the only real energy we possess, is a life-bestowing sexual
energy. This knowledge makes them permanently conscious of
their
responsibility. If
warriors want to have enough energy to See, they must
become misers
(deprive themselves) with their sexual energy. That was the lesson
the Nagual Julian gave
us. He pushed us into the Unknown, and we all nearly died. Since
everyone of us wanted to See,
we, of course, abstained from wasting our Glow of Awareness."
I had
heard him voice that belief before. Every time he did, we got
into an argument. I always felt compelled to protest and raise
objections, to what, I thought, was a puritanical attitude
toward sex. I
again raised my objections. Both of them laughed to tears.
"What
can be done with man's natural sensuality?" I asked don Juan.
"Nothing,"
he replied. "There is nothing wrong with man's sensuality,
it's man's ignorance of and disregard for his magical nature, that is
wrong. It's a mistake to waste recklessly the life-bestowing
force of
sex and not have children, but it's also a mistake not to know, that in
having children, one taxes (diminish) the Glow of Awareness."
"How
do Seers know, that
having children taxes (diminish) the Glow of
Awareness?" I
asked.
"They See, that on
having a child, the parents' Glow of Awareness
diminishes and the child's increases. In some supersensitive, frail
parents, the Glow of Awareness almost disappears. As children
enhance
their Awareness, a big dark spot develops in the luminous cocoon of the
parents, on the very place, from which the Glow was taken
away. It is
usually on the midsection of the cocoon. Sometimes those spots can even
be Seen superimposed on the body itself."
I
asked him if there was anything, that could be done to give people a
more balanced understanding of the Glow of Awareness.
"Nothing,"
he said. "At least, there is nothing, that Seers can do.
Seers aim to be free, to be unbiased witnesses, incapable of passing
judgment; otherwise they would have to assume the
responsibility for
bringing about a more adjusted cycle. Noone can do that. The new
cycle, if it is to come, must come of itself."
5.
The First Attention
62-63
The
following day we ate breakfast at dawn, then don Juan made me shift
levels of Awareness.
"Today,
let's go to an original setting," don Juan said to Genaro.
"By
all means," Genaro said gravely. He glanced at me and then added in
a low voice, as if not wanting me to overhear him, "Does he have
to...perhaps it's too much." In a
matter of seconds my fear and suspicion escalated to unbearable
heights. I was sweating and panting. Don Juan came to my side and, with
an expression of almost uncontrollable amusement,
assured me, that
Genaro was just entertaining himself at my expense, and that we were
going to a place, where the original Seers had lived
thousands of years
ago.
As don
Juan was speaking to me, I happened to glance at Genaro. He
slowly shook his head from side to side. It was an
almost imperceptible
gesture, as if he were letting me know, that don Juan was not telling
the truth. I went into a state of nervous frenzy, near hysteria, and
stopped only when Genaro burst into laughter. I
marveled, how easily my emotional states could escalate to nearly
unmanageable heights or drop to nothing.
Don
Juan, Genaro, and I left Genaro's house in the early morning and
traveled a short distance into the surrounding eroded hills. Presently
we stopped and sat down on top of an enormous flat rock, on a
gradual
slope, in a corn field, that seemed to have been recently harvested.
"This
is the original setting," don Juan said to me. "We'll come back
here a couple more times, during the course of my explanation."
"Very
weird things happen here at night," Genaro said. "The Nagual
Julian actually caught an ally here. Or rather, the ally ..." Don
Juan made a noticeable gesture with his eyebrows and Genaro
stopped
in midsentence. He smiled at me. "It's
too early in the day for scary stories," Genaro said. "Let's wait
until dark."
He
stood
up and began creeping all around the rock, tiptoeing with his
spine arched backward.
"What
was he saying about your benefactor's catching an ally here?" I
asked don Juan. He did
not answer right away. He was ecstatic, watching Genaro's antics.
"He
was referring to some sophisticated use of Awareness," he finally
replied, still staring at Genaro. Genaro
completed a circle around the rock and came back and sat down by
me. He was panting heavily, almost wheezing, out of breath. Don
Juan seemed fascinated by what Genaro had done. Again I had the
feeling. that they were amusing themselves at my expense,
that both of
them were up to something, I knew nothing about. Suddenly,
don Juan began his explanation. His voice soothed me.
64-65
He said,
that after much toiling, Seers arrived at
the conclusion, that the
consciousness of adult human beings, matured by the process of growth,
can no longer be called awareness, because it has
been modified into
something more intense and complex, which Seers call
Attention.
"How
do Seers know, that
human's awareness is being cultivated and that it
grows?" I asked. He
said, that at a given time in the growth of human beings, a band
of
the emanations inside their cocoons becomes very bright; as human
beings accumulate experience, it begins to glow. In some instances, the
glow of this band of emanations increases so dramatically,
that it fuses
with the emanations from the outside. Seers, witnessing
an enhancement
of this kind, had to surmise, that awareness is the raw
material and Attention the end is the product of maturation. "How
do Seers describe
Attention?" I asked.
"They
say, that Attention is the harnessing and enhancing of awareness
through the process of being alive," he replied. He
said, that the danger of definitions is, that they simplify
matters to
make them understandable; in this case, in defining Attention, one runs
the risk of transforming a magical, miraculous accomplishment
into
something commonplace. Attention is man's greatest single
accomplishment. It develops from raw animal awareness, until it covers
the entire gamut of human alternatives. Seers perfect it
even further,
until it covers the whole scope of human possibilities. I
wanted to know, if there was a special significance to
alternatives
and possibilities in the Seers' view. Don
Juan replied, that human alternatives are everything we are capable
of choosing as persons. They have to do with the level of our
day-to-day range, the Known; and owing to that fact, they are quite
limited in number and scope. Human
possibilities
belong to the Unknown.
They are not what we are capable of choosing, but what we are
capable of
attaining. He said, that an example of human alternatives
is our choice
to believe, that the human body is an object among objects. An example
of human possibilities is the Seers'
achievement in viewing human, as an
egglike Luminous Being. With the body, as an object, one
tackles
the Known, with the body, as a Luminous Egg, one tackles the Unknown;
human
possibilities have, therefore, nearly an inexhaustible scope.
"Seers
say, that there are three types of Attention," don Juan went on.
"When they say that, they mean it just for human beings, not for all
the Sentient Beings in existence. But the three are not just
types of Attention, they are rather three levels of Attainment
(accomplishment). They
are the
first, second, and third Attention, each of them
an independent domain, complete in itself." He
explained, that the first Attention in man is animal awareness, which
has been developed, through the process of experience, into a
complex,
intricate, and extremely fragile faculty, that takes care of the
day-to-day world in all its innumerable aspects, in other
words, everything, that one can think about, is part of the first
Attention. The
first Attention is everything we are, as average men," he
continued. "By virtue of such an absolute rule over our
lives, the
first Attention is the most valuable asset, that the average man has.
Perhaps it is even our only asset. Taking
into account its true value, the new Seers started a
rigorous
examination of the first Attention through Seeing. Their
findings
molded their total outlook and the outlook of all their descendants,
even though most of them do not understand, what those Seers really Saw." He
emphatically warned me, that the conclusions of the new Seers'
rigorous examination had very little to do with reason or rationality,
because in order to examine and explain the first Attention,
one must See
it.
66-67
"Only Seers can do that.
But to examine, what Seers See in the
first Attention, is essential. It allows the first Attention
the only
opportunity, it will ever have, to realize its own workings. In
terms of what Seers See, the first Attention is
the Glow of Awareness, developed to an ultra shine,"
he continued. "But it is a Glow,
fixed on the surface of the cocoon, so to speak. It is a Glow, that
covers the Known. The
second Attention, on the other hand, is a more complex and
specialized state of the Glow of Awareness. It has to do with the
Unknown. It comes about, when unused emanations inside human's cocoon
are
utilized.
The
reason, I called the second Attention specialized, is that, in order
to utilize those unused emanations, one needs uncommon, elaborate
tactics, that require supreme discipline and concentration."
He said, that he had told me before, when he was teaching me the Art of
Dreaming, that the concentration, needed to be aware, that one is
having a dream, is the forerunner of the Second Attention. That
concentration is a form of consciousness, that is not in the same
category, as the
consciousness, needed to deal with the daily world. He
said, that the second Attention is also called the left-side Awareness;
and it is the vastest field, that one can imagine, so vast in
fact, that it seems limitless. "I
wouldn't stray into it for anything in this world," he went on. "It
is a quagmire (swamps, difficult situation) so complex and bizarre,
that sober Seers go into it
only
under the strictest conditions. The
great difficulty is, that the entrance into the second Attention is
utterly easy and its lure nearly irresistible." He
said, that the old Seers,
being the Masters of Awareness, applied
their expertise to their own Glows of Awareness and made them expand to
inconceivable limits. They actually aimed at lighting up all the
emanations inside their cocoons, one band at a time. They succeeded,
but oddly enough, the accomplishment of lighting up one band
at a time
was instrumental in their becoming imprisoned in the quagmire of the
second Attention.
"The
new Seers
corrected that error," he continued, "and let the Mastery of Awareness
develop to its natural end, which is to extend the Glow of Awareness
beyond the bounds of the Luminous Cocoon in one
single stroke. The Third
Attention is attained, when the Glow of Awareness turns into
the Fire From Within: a Glow, that kindles (ignite) not one
band at a time, but
all the Eagle's emanations inside human's cocoon."
Don
Juan expressed his awe for the new Seers' deliberate
effort to
attain the Third Attention, while they are alive and conscious of their
individuality. He did
not consider it worthwhile to discuss the random cases
of human beings
and other Sentient Beings, who enter into the Unknown and the
Unknowable
without being aware of it; he referred to this, as
the Eagle's Gift. He
asserted, that for the new Seers to enter into
the Third Attention is
also a Gift, but has a different meaning, it is more like
a reward for
an attainment (achievement).
He
added, that at the moment of dying all human beings enter into the
Unknowable and some of them do attain the Third Attention,
but
altogether too briefly and only to purify the food for the Eagle. "The
supreme accomplishment of human beings," he said, "is to attain
that level of Attention, while retaining the life-force,
without
becoming a disembodied Awareness, moving like a flicker of light up to
the Eagle's beak to be devoured."
68-69
While
listening to don Juan's explanation I had again completely lost
sight of everything, that surrounded me. Genaro apparently had gotten
up
and left us, and was nowhere in sight. Strangely, I found
myself
crouching on the rock, with don Juan squatting by me holding me down by
gently pushing on my shoulders. I reclined on the rock and
closed my
eyes. There was a soft breeze blowing from the west.
"Don't
fall asleep," don Juan said. "Not for any reason should you fall
asleep on this rock." I sat
up. Don Juan was staring at me. "Just
relax," he went on. "Let the internal dialogue die out."
All my
concentration was involved in following what he was saying, when
I got a jolt of fright. I did not know what it was at first; I thought
I was going through another attack of distrust. But then it struck me,
like a bolt, that it was very late in the afternoon. What, I had
thought
was an hour's conversation, had consumed an entire day.
I
jumped up, fully aware of the incongruity (no harmony), although I
could not
conceive what had happened to me. I felt a strange sensation, that made
my body want to run. Don Juan jumped me, restraining me forcefully.
We fell to the soft ground, and he held me there with an
iron grip. I had had no idea, that don Juan was so strong. My
body shook violently. My arms flew every which way, as they shook. I
was having something like a seizure. Yet some part of me was detached
to the point of becoming fascinated with watching my body
vibrate,
twist, and shake. The
spasms finally died out and don Juan let go of me. He was panting
with the exertion. He recommended, that we climb back up on
the rock and
sit there, until I was all right. I
could not help pressing him with my usual question: What had
happened
to me? He answered, that, as he talked to me, I had pushed beyond a
certain limit, and had entered very deeply into the left side. He and
Genaro had followed me in there. And then I had rushed out in
the same
fashion, I had rushed in.
"I
caught you right on time," he said. "Otherwise you would have gone
straight out to your normal self."I was
totally confused. He explained, that the three of us had been
playing with Awareness. I must have gotten scared and run out on them. "Genaro
is the Master of Awareness," don Juan went on. "Silvio Manuel
is the Master of Will. The two of them were mercilessly
pushed
into the Unknown. My benefactor did to them, what his benefactor did to
him.
Genaro and Silvio Manuel are very much like the old Seers
in some
respects. They know what they can do, but they don't care to know how
they do it. Today, Genaro seized the opportunity to push your
Glow of Awareness and we all ended up in the weird confines of the
Unknown." I
begged him to tell me what had happened in the Unknown. "You'll
have to remember that yourself," a voice said just by my ear.
I
was
so convinced, that it was the voice of Seeing, that it did
not
frighten me at all. I did not even obey the impulse to turn
around. "I
am
the voice of Seeing
and I tell you, that you are a peckerhead (penis, courage),"
the voice said again and chuckled. I
turned around. Genaro was sitting behind me. I was so
surprised, that
I laughed perhaps a bit more hysterically, than they did. "It's
getting dark now," Genaro said to me.
"As I promised you earlier
today, we are going to have a ball here."
70-71
Don
Juan intervened and said, that we should stop for the day, because I
was the kind of nincompoop, who could die offright.
"Nah,
he's all right," Genaro said, patting me on the shoulder.
"You'd
better ask him," don Juan said to Genaro. "He himself will tell
you, that he's that kind of nincompoop."
"Are
you really that kind of nincompoop?" Genaro asked me with a frown. I
didn't answer him. And that made them roll around laughing. Genaro
rolled all the way to the ground. "He's
caught," Genaro said to don Juan, referring to me, after don Juan
had swiftly jumped down and helped him to stand up. "He'll never say,
he's a nincompoop. He's too self-important for that, but he's
shivering
in his pants with fear of what might happen, because he didn't confess
he's a nincompoop."
Watching
them laugh, I was convinced, that only Indians could laugh with
such joyfulness. But I also became convinced, that there was a
mile-wide
streak of maliciousness in them. They were poking fun at a
non-Indian.
Don
Juan immediately caught my feelings.
"Don't
let your self-importance run rampant," he said. "You're not
special by any standards. None of us are, Indians and non-Indians. The
Nagual Julian and his benefactor added years of enjoyment to
their
lives, laughing at us."
Genaro
nimbly climbed back onto the rock and came to my side. "If I
were you. I'd feel so frigging embarrassed, I'd cry," he said to
me. "Cry, cry. Have a good cry and you'll feel better." To my
utter amazement I began to weep softly. Then I got so angry, that
I roared with fury. Only then I felt better. Don
Juan patted my back gently. He said, that usually anger is
very
sobering, or sometimes fear is, or humor. My violent nature made me
respond only to anger. He
added, that a sudden shift in the Glow of Awareness makes us
weak.
They had been trying to reinforce me, to bolster me. Apparently, Genaro
had succeeded by making me rage. It
was
twilight by then. Suddenly Genaro pointed to a flicker in midair
at eye level, in the twilight it appeared to be a large moth flying
around the place, where we sat.
"Be
very gentle with your exaggerated nature," don Juan said to me.
"Don't be eager. Just let Genaro guide you. Don't take your eyes from
that spot."
The
flickering point was definitely a moth. I could clearly distinguish
all its features. I followed its convoluted, tired flight, until I
could see every speck of dust on its wings. Something
got me out of my total absorption. I sensed a flurry of
soundless noise, if that could be possible, just behind me. I turned
around and caught sight of an entire row of people on the
other edge of
the rock, an edge, that was a bit higher, than the one, on which we
were
sitting. I supposed, that the people, who lived nearby, must
have gotten
suspicious of us hanging around all day and had climbed onto the rock
intending to harm us. I knew about their intentions instantly. Don
Juan and Genaro slid down from the rock and told me to hurry down.
We left immediately without turning back to see, if the men were
following us. Don Juan and Genaro refused to talk while we
walked back
to Genaro's house. Don Juan even made me hush with a fierce grunt,
putting his finger to his lips. Genaro did not come into the
house, but
kept on walking, as don Juan dragged me inside.
"Who
were those people, don Juan?" I asked him, when the two of us were
safely inside the house and he had lit the lantern.
72-73
"They
were not people," he replied.
"Come
on, don Juan, don't mystify me," I said. "They were men; I saw
them with my own eyes."
"Of
course, you saw them with your own eyes," he retorted, "but that
doesn't say anything. Your eyes misled you. Those were not people and
they were following you. Genaro had to draw them away from you."
"What
were they, then, if not people?"
"Oh,
there is the mystery," he said. "It's a mystery of Awareness and
it can't be solved rationally by talking about it. The mystery can only
be witnessed."
"Let
me witness it then." I said.
"But
you already have, twice in one day," he said. "You don't remember
now. You will, however, when you rekindle (relight, revive) the
emanations, that were
glowing, when you witnessed the mystery of Awareness, I’m
referring
to. In the meantime, let's go back to our explanation of Awareness."
He
reiterated, that Awareness begins with the permanent pressure, that
the emanations at large exert on the ones trapped inside the cocoon.
This pressure produces the first act of consciousness; it
stops the
motion of the trapped emanations, which are fighting to break the
cocoon, fighting to die.
"For
a Seer, the truth
is, that all Living Beings are struggling to
die," he went on. "What stops death is Awareness."
Don
Juan said, that the new Seers were
profoundly disturbed by the fact,
that Awareness forestalls (delay) death and at the same time induces
it, by
being food for the Eagle. Since they could not explain it, for there
is no rational way to understand existence, Seers realized,
that
their knowledge is composed of contradictory propositions.
"Why
did they develop a system of contradictions?" I asked.
"They
didn't develop anything," he said. "They found unquestionable
truths by means of their Seeing.
Those truths are arranged in terms of
supposedly blatant contradictions, that's all. For
example, Seers have to be
methodical, rational Beings, paragons of
sobriety, and at the same time they must shy away from all of
those
qualities, in order to be completely free and open to the wonders and
mysteries of existence." His
example left me baffled, but not to the extreme. I understood
what
he meant. He himself had sponsored my rationality only to crush it, and
demand a total absence of it. I told him how I understood his point. "Only
a feeling of supreme sobriety can bridge the contradictions," he
said.
"Could
you say, don Juan, that art is that bridge?"
"You
may call the bridge between contradictions anything you want: art,
affection, sobriety, love, or even kindness." Don
Juan continued his explanation and said, that in examining the first
Attention, the new Seers realized,
that all Organic Beings, except human,
quiet down their agitated trapped emanations, so that those
emanations
can align themselves with their matching ones outside. Human Beings do
not do that; instead, their first Attention takes an inventory of the
Eagle's emanations inside their cocoons.
"What
is an inventory, don Juan?" I asked.
"Human
Beings take notice of the emanations they have inside their
cocoons," he replied. "No other creatures do that. The moment the
pressure from the emanations at large fixates the emanations
inside,
the first Attention begins to watch itself. It notes everything about
itself, or at least it tries to, in whatever aberrant
(deviation from normal proper course) ways it can.
74-75
This
is the process Seers call: taking
an inventory. I
don't mean to say, that Human Beings choose to take an inventory, or
that they can refuse to take it. To take an
inventory is the Eagle's
command. What is subject to volition, however, is the manner, in which
the command is obeyed." He
said, that although he disliked calling the emanations commands, that
is what they are: commands, that noone can disobey. Yet the way out of
obeying the commands is in obeying them. In
the case of the inventory of the first Attention," he went
on,
"Seers take it, for
they can't disobey. But once they have taken it,
they throw it away. The Eagle doesn't command us to worship
our
inventory; it commands us to take it, that's all."
"How
do Seers See, that human
takes an inventory?" I asked.
"The
emanations inside the cocoon of human are not quieted down for
purposes of matching them with those outside," he replied. "This is
evident, after Seeing
what other creatures do. On quieting down, some of
them actually merge themselves with the emanations at large and move
with them. Seers can see, for
instance, the light of the scarabs' (sacred egyptian bug)
emanations, expanding to great size. But Human
Beings quiet down their emanations and then reflect on them.
The emanations focus on themselves."
He
said, that Human Beings carry the command of taking an inventory to
its logical extreme and disregard everything else. Once they
are deeply
involved in the inventory, two things may happen. They may ignore the
impulses of the emanations at large, or they may use them in a
very
specialized way. The
end result of ignoring those impulses after taking an inventory, is
a unique state, known as reason. The result of using every impulse in
a
specialized way is known as self-absorption. Human
reason appears to a Seers as an
unusually homogeneous dull glow,
that rarely, if ever, responds to the constant pressure from
the
emanations at large - a Glow, that makes the egglike shell become
tougher, but more brittle. Don
Juan remarked, that reason in the human species should be
bountiful,
but that in actuality, it is very rare. The majority of Human Beings
turn to self-
absorption.
He
asserted, that the Awareness of all Living Beings has a
degree of
self-reflection, in order for them to interact. But none, except
human's
first Attention, has such a degree of self-absorption. Contrary to men
of reason, who ignore the impulse of the emanations at large, the
self-absorbed individuals use every impulse and turn them all into a
force to stir the trapped emanations inside their cocoons. Observing
all this, Seers arrived at a
practical conclusion. They saw,
that men of reason are bound to live longer, because by disregarding
the impulse of the emanations at large, they quiet down the
natural
agitation inside their cocoons. The self-absorbed individuals, on the
other hand, by using the impulse of the emanations at large,
to create
more agitation, shorten their lives.
"What
do Seers
See, when they gaze at self-absorbed human beings?" I
asked.
"They See them, as
intermittent bursts of white light, followed by long
pauses of dullness," he said. Don
Juan stopped talking. I had no more questions to ask, or,
perhaps, I
was too tired to ask about anything. There was a loud bang, that made
me
jump. The front door flew open and Genaro came in, out of breath. He
slumped on the mat. He was actually covered with perspiration.
76-77
"I
was
explaining about the first Attention," don Juan said to him.
"The
first Attention works only with the Known," Genaro said. "it isn't
worth two plugged nickels with the Unknown."
"That
is not quite right," don Juan retorted. "The first Attention
works very well with the Unknown. It blocks it; it denies it so
fiercely, that in the end, the Unknown doesn't exist for the
first Attention. Taking
an inventory makes us invulnerable. That is why the inventory
came into existence in the first place."
"What
are you talking about?" I asked don Juan. He
didn't reply. He looked at Genaro, as if waiting for an answer.
"But
if I open the door," Genaro said, "would the first Attention be
capable of dealing with what will come in?"
"Yours
and mine wouldn't, but his will," don Juan said, pointing at me.
"Let's try it."
"Even
though he's in Heightened Awareness?" Genaro asked don Juan.
"That
won't make any difference," don Juan answered. Genaro
got up and went to the front door and threw it open. He
instantly jumped back. A gust of cold wind
came in. Don Juan came to my
side, and so did Genaro. Both of them looked at me in amazement. I
wanted to close the front door. The cold was making me
uncomfortable.
But as I moved toward the door, don Juan and Genaro jumped in front of
me and shielded me.
"Do
you notice anything in the room?" Genaro asked me.
"No, I
don't," I said, and I really meant it. Except
for the cold wind, pouring in through the open door, there was
nothing to notice in there.
"Weird
creatures came in when I opened the door," he said. "Don't you
notice anything?" There
was something in his voice, that told me, he was not joking this
time.
The
three of us, with both of them flanking me, walked out of the
house. Don Juan picked up the kerosene lantern, and Genaro locked the
front door. We got inside the car, through the passenger's side. They
pushed me in first. And then we drove to don Juan's house in the next
town.
6.
Inorganic Beings
78-79
The
next day I repeatedly asked don Juan to explain our hasty departure
from Genaro's house. He refused even to mention the incident. Genaro
was no help either. Every time I asked him he winked at me,
grinning
like a fool. In
the
afternoon, don Juan came to the back patio of his house, where I
was talking with his apprentices. As if on cue, all the young
apprentices left instantly. Don
Juan took me by the arm, and we began to walk along the corridor.
He did not say anything; for a while
we just strolled around, very much,
as if we were in the public square. Don
Juan stopped walking and turned to me. He circled me, looking over
my entire body.
I knew, that he was Seeing
me. I felt a strange fatigue,
a laziness, I had not felt, until his eyes swept over me. He began to
talk all of a sudden.
"The
reason Genaro and I didn't want to focus on what happened last
night," he said, "was, that you had been very frightened during the
time
you were in the Unknown. Genaro pushed you, and things
happened to you
in there."
"What
things, don Juan?"
"Things,
that are still difficult, if not impossible, to explain to you
now," he said. "You don't have enough surplus energy to enter into the
Unknown and make sense of it. When the new Seers arranged the
order of
the truths about Awareness, they Saw, that the first Attention consumes
all the Glow of Awareness, that Human Beings have, and not an
iota of
energy is left free. That's your problem now. So, the new Seers
proposed, that warriors, since they have to enter into the
Unknown, have
to save their energy. But where are they going to get energy, if all of
it is taken? They'll get it, the new Seers say, from
eradicating
unnecessary habits."
He
stopped talking and solicited questions. I asked him what
eradicating unnecessary habits did to the Glow of Awareness. He
replied, that it detaches Awareness from self-reflection and
allows
it the freedom to focus on something else. "The Unknown
is forever present," he continued, "but it is outside the
possibility of our normal awareness. The Unknown is the
superfluous (extra)
part of the average human. And it is superfluous, because the average
man
doesn't have enough free energy to grasp it. After
all the time you've spent in the warrior's path, you have enough
free energy to grasp the Unknown, but not enough energy to understand
it or even to remember it." He
explained, that at the site of the flat rock, I had entered very
deeply into the Unknown. But I indulged in my exaggerated nature
and
became terrified, which was about the worst thing anyone can do. So I
had rushed out of the left side, like a bat out of hell; unfortunately,
taking a legion of strange things with me. I told
don Juan, that he was not getting to the point, that he should
come out and tell me exactly what he meant by a legion of strange
things.
80-81
He
took me by the arm and continued strolling around with me. "In
explaining Awareness," he said, "I am presumably fitting everything
or nearly everything into place. Let's talk a little bit
about the old Seers. Genaro, as
I've told you, is very much like them." He led
me then to the big room. We sat down there and he began
his elucidation. "The
new Seers were simply
terrified by the knowledge, that the old Seers had
accumulated over the years," don Juan said. "It's
understandable.
The new Seers knew, that
that knowledge leads only to
total destruction. Yet they were also fascinated by it, especially by
the practices."
"How
did the new Seers know about
those practices?" I asked.
"They
are the legacy (наследники) of the old Toltecs," he said. "The
new Seers learn
about them, as they go along. They hardly ever use them, but the
practices
are there, as part of their knowledge."
"What
kind of practices are they, don Juan?"
"They
are very obscure formulas, incantations, lengthy procedures, that
have to do with the handling of a very mysterious Force. At least it
was mysterious to the ancient Toltecs, who masked it and made
it more
horrifying, than it really is."
"What
is that mysterious Force?" I asked.
"It's
a force, that is present throughout everything there is," he said.
"The old Seers never
attempted to unravel the mystery of the Force, that
made them create
their secret practices; they simply accepted it, as
something sacred. But the new Seers took a close
look and called it Will, the Will of the Eagle's emanations,
or Intent." Don
Juan went on explaining, that the ancient Toltecs had divided their
secret knowledge into five sets of two categories each: the Earth and
the Dark Regions, fire and water, the above and the below,
the loud and
the silent, the moving and the stationary. He speculated, that there
must have been thousands of different techniques, which
became more and
more intricate, as time passed. "The
secret knowledge of the Earth," he went on, "had to do with
everything, that stands on the ground. There were particular
sets of
movements, words, unguets (turbulations), potions, that were applied to
people,
animals, insects, trees, small plants, rocks, soil. These
were techniques, that made the old Seers into horrid
Beings. And
their secret knowledge of the Earth was employed either to groom or
to
destroy anything, that stands on the ground. The
counterpart of the Earth was what they knew, as the dark regions.
These practices were by far the most dangerous. They dealt
with
entities without organic life. Living creatures, that are present on
the Earth and populate it together with all Organic Beings. Doubtlessly,
one of the most worthwhile findings of the ancient Seers,
especially for them, was the discovery, that organic life is not the
only form of life present on this Earth."
I did
not quite comprehend what he had said. I waited for him to
clarify his statements. "Organic
Beings are not the only creatures, that have life," he said and
paused again, as if to allow me time to think his statements over. I
countered with a long argument about the definition of life and being
alive. I talked about reproduction, metabolism, and growth,
the
processes, that distinguish live organisms from inanimate things. "You're
drawing from the organic," he said. "But that's only one
instance. You shouldn't draw all you have to say from one category
alone."
"But
how else can it be?" I asked.
"For Seers, to be alive,
means to be aware," he replied. "For the
average human, to be aware means to be an organism.
82-83
This is
where Seers
are different. For them, to be
aware means, that the emanations, that
cause Awareness, are encased inside a receptacle (container).
Organic
Living Beings have a cocoon, that encloses the emanations. But
there are other creatures, whose receptacles don't look like a cocoon
to
a Seers.
Yet, they have the emanations of Awareness in them and
characteristics of life other, than reproduction and metabolism."
"Such
as what, don Juan?"
"Such
as emotional dependency, sadness, joy, wrath, and so forth and so
on. And I forgot the best yet, love; a kind of love human can't even
conceive."
"Are
you serious, don Juan?" I asked in earnest.
"Inanimately
serious," he answered with a deadpan expression and then
broke into laughter.
"If
we
take as our clue, what Seers See," he
continued, "life is indeed
extraordinary."
"If
those beings are alive, why don't they make themselves known to
human?" I asked.
"They
do, all the time. And not only to Seers,
but also to the average
human. The problem is, that all the energy available is consumed by the
first Attention. Human's inventory not only takes it all, but it also
toughens the cocoon to the point of making it inflexible. Under those
circumstances, there is no possible interaction."
He
reminded me of the countless times, in the course of my
apprenticeship with him, when I had had a firsthand view of Inorganic
Beings. I retorted, that I had explained away nearly every
one of
those
instances.
I had even formulated the hypothesis, that his
teachings,
through the use of hallucinogenic plants, were geared to
force an
agreement, on the part of the apprentice, about a primitive
interpretation of the world. I told him, that I had not formally called
it primitive interpretation, but in anthropological terms I
had labeled
it a "world view more proper to hunting and gathering societies." Don
Juan laughed, until he was out of breath. "I
really don't know whether you're worse in your normal state of
Awareness or in a Heightened one," he said. "In your normal state
you're not suspicious, but boringly reasonable. I think, I
like you best
when you are way inside the left side, in spite of the fact, that you
are terribly afraid of everything, as you were yesterday." Before
I had time to say anything at all, he stated, that he was pitting
what the old Seers did against
the accomplishments of the new Seers, as
a sort of counterpoint, with which he intended to give me a
more
inclusive view of the odds, I was up against. He
continued then with his elucidation of the practices of the
old Seers. He said,
that another of their great findings had to do with the
next category of secret
knowledge: Fire and Water. They discovered, that
flames have a most peculiar quality; they can transport human
bodily,
just as water does. Don
Juan called it a brilliant discovery. I remarked, that there are
basic laws of physics, that would prove, that to be
impossible. He asked
me to wait, until he had explained everything, before drawing any
conclusions. He remarked, that I had to check my excessive
rationality,
because it constantly affected my states of Heightened Awareness. It
was not a case of reacting every which way to external
influences, but
of succumbing to my own devices. He
went on explaining, that the ancient Toltecs, although they obviously
Saw, did not understand what they Saw. They merely used their findings
without bothering to relate them to a larger picture. In the case of
their category of Fire and Water, they divided Fire into heat
and
flame, and Water into wetness and fluidity. They correlated heat and
wetness and called them lesser properties. They considered flames and
fluidity to be higher, magical properties, and they used them
as a
means for bodily transportation to the realm of non-organic life.
84-85
Between their knowledge of that kind of life and their Fire and Water
practices, the ancient Seers became bogged
down in a quagmire (swamp) with no
way out. Don
Juan assured me, that the new Seers agreed, that
the discovery of Non-organic Living Beings was indeed extraordinary,
but not in the way
the old Seers believed it to be. To
find themselves in a one-to-one
relation with another kind of life, gave the ancient Seers a false
feeling of invulnerability, which spelled their doom. I
wanted him to explain the Fire and Water techniques in
greater
detail. He said, that the old Seers' knowledge
was as intricate, as it
was useless and, that he was only going to outline it. Then
he summarized the practices of the above and the below. The above
dealt with secret knowledge about Wind, Rain, sheets of Lightning,
Clouds, Thunder, Daylight, and the Sun. The knowledge of
the below had
to do with Fog, Water of Underground Springs, Swamps, Lightning Bolts,
Earthquakes, the Night, Moonlight, and the Moon. The
Loud and the Silent were a category of Secret Knowledge, that had to
do with the manipulation of sound and quiet. The Moving and
the
Stationary were practices, concerned with mysterious aspects of motion
and motionlessness. I
asked him if he could give me an example of any of the
techniques, he
had outlined. He replied, that he had already given me dozens of
demonstrations over the years. I insisted, that I had rationally
explained away everything he had done to me. He did
not answer. He seemed to be either angry at me for asking
questions or seriously involved in searching for a good
example. After
a while he smiled and said, that he had visualized the proper example. "The
technique, I have in mind, has to be put in action in the shallow
depths of a stream," he said. "There is one near Genaro's house."
"What
will I have to do?"
"You'll
have to get a medium-size mirror." I was
surprised at his request. I remarked, that the ancient Toltecs did
not know about mirrors. "They
didn't," he admitted, smiling. "This is my benefactor's
addition
to the technique. All, the ancient Seers needed, was a
reflecting
surface." He
explained, that the technique consisted of submerging a shiny
surface
into the shallow water of a stream. The surface could be any flat
object, that had some capacity to reflect images. "I
want you to construct a solid frame, made of sheet metal for
a
medium-size mirror," he said. "it has to be waterproof, so you must
seal it with tar. You must make it yourself with your own
hands. When
you have made it, bring it over and we'll proceed."
"What's
going to happen, don Juan?"
"Don't
be apprehensive. You yourself have asked me to give you an
example of an ancient Toltec practice. I asked the same thing of my
benefactor. I think everybody asks for one at a certain
moment. My
benefactor said, that he did the same thing himself. His benefactor,
the
nagual Ellas, gave him an example; my benefactor in turn gave
the same
one to me, and now I am going to give it to you. At
the time my benefactor gave me the example, I didn't know how he did
it. I know now. Someday you yourself will also know how the technique
works; you will understand what's behind all this." I
thought, that don Juan wanted me to go back home to Los
Angeles and
construct the frame for the mirror there.
I commented, that it
would be
impossible for me to remember the task, if I did not remain
in Heightened Awareness. "There
are two things out of kilter (proper form) with your comment," he said.
86-87
"One
is, that there is no way for you to remain in Heightened Awareness,
because you won't be able to function, unless I or Genaro or any of the
warriors in the Nagual's party nurse you every minute of the
day, as I
do now. The other is, that Mexico is not the moon. There are hardware
stores here. We can go to Oaxaca and buy anything you need."
We
drove to the city the next day and I bought all the pieces for the
frame. I assembled it myself in a mechanic's shop for a minimal fee.
Don Juan told me to put it
in the trunk of my car. He did not so much,
as glance at it. We
drove back to Genaro's house in the late afternoon and arrived there
in the early morning. I looked for Genaro. He was not there.
The house
seemed deserted.
"Why
does Genaro keep this house?" I asked don Juan. "He lives with
you, doesn't he?"
Don
Juan did not answer. He gave me a strange look and went to light
the kerosene lantern. I was alone in the room in total darkness. I felt
a great tiredness, that
I attributed to the long, tortuous drive up the
mountains. I wanted to lie down. In the darkness, I could not see where
Genaro had put the mats. I stumbled over a pile of them. And
then I
knew why Genaro kept that house; he took care of the male apprentices
Pablito, Nestor, and Benigno, who lived there, when they were in
their
state of normal awareness. I felt
exhilarated; I was no longer tired. Don Juan came in with a
lantern. I told him about my realization, but he said, that it did not
matter, that I would not remember it for too long.
He
asked me to show him the mirror. He seemed pleased and remarked
about its being light yet solid. He noticed, that I had used metal
screws to affix an aluminum frame to a piece of sheet metal, that I had
used as a backing for a mirror eighteen inches long by fourteen inches
wide. "I
made a wooden frame for my mirror,"
he said. "This looks much better,
than mine. My frame was too cumbersome and at the same time frail. Let
me explain what we're going to do," he continued after
he had
finished examining the mirror. "Or perhaps I should say, what we're
going to attempt to do. The two of us together are going to
place this
mirror on the surface of the stream near the house. It is
wide enough
and shallow enough to serve our purposes. The
idea is to let the fluidity of the water exert pressure on
us and
transport us away." Before
I could make any remarks or ask any questions, he reminded me,
that in the past I had utilized the water of a similar stream
and
accomplished extraordinary feats of perception. He was referring to the
after-effects of ingesting hallucinogenic plants, which I had
experienced various times while being submerged in the irrigation ditch
behind his house in northern Mexico. "Save
any questions, until I explain to you what the Seers knew about
Awareness,"
he said. "Then you'll understand everything we're doing in
a different light. But first, let's go on with our procedure."
We
walked to the nearby stream, and he selected a place with flat,
exposed rocks. He said, that there the water was shallow enough for our
purposes.
"What
do you expect to happen?" I asked in the midst of a gripping
apprehension.
"I
don't know. All I know is what we are going to attempt. We will hold
the mirror very carefully, but very firmly. We will gently place it on
the surface of the water and then, let it submerge. We will
then hold it
on the bottom. I've checked it. There is enough silt there to allow us
to dig our fingers underneath the mirror to hold it firmly." He
asked me to squat on a flat rock above the surface in the middle of
the gentle stream and made me hold the mirror with both hands, almost
at the corners on one side.
88-89
He squatted facing me and held the mirror
the same way I did. We let the mirror sink and then we held it by
plunging our arms in the water, almost to our elbows.
He
commanded me to empty myself of thoughts and stare at the surface of
the mirror. He repeated over and over, that the trick was not to think
at all. I looked intently into the mirror. The gentle current
mildly
disarranged the reflection of don Juan's face and mine. After a few
minutes of steady gazing into the mirror, it seemed to me,
that gradually
the image of his face and mine became much clearer. And the mirror grew
in size, until it was at least a yard square. The current
seemed to have
stopped, and the mirror looked as clear, as if it were placed on top of
the water. Even more odd was the crispness of our reflections, it was,
as if my face had been magnified, not in size, but in focus.
I could see
the pores in the skin of my forehead. Don
Juan gently whispered not to stare at my eyes or his, but to
let my
gaze wander around without focusing on any part of our reflections. "Gaze
fixedly without staring!" he repeatedly ordered in a forceful
whisper. I
did,
what
he said, without stopping to ponder about the seeming
contradiction. At that moment something inside me was caught in that
mirror and the contradiction actually made sense.
"It is possible to
gaze fixedly without staring," I thought, and the instant, that thought
was formulated, another head appeared next to don Juan's and mine. It
was on the lower side of the mirror, to my left. My
whole body trembled. Don Juan whispered to calm down and not show
fear or surprise. He again commanded me to gaze without
staring at the
newcomer. I had to make an unimaginable effort not to gasp and release
the mirror. My body was shaking from head to toe. Don Juan
whispered
again to get hold of myself. He nudged me repeatedly with his shoulder. Slowly
I got my fear under control. I gazed at the third head and
gradually realized, that it was not a human head, or an animal head
either. In fact, it was not a head at all. It was a shape, that had no
inner mobility. As the thought occurred to me, I instantly
realized,
that I was not thinking it myself. The realization was not a thought
either. I had a moment of tremendous anxiety and then something
incomprehensible became known to me. The thoughts were a voice in my
ear!
"I am Seeing!"
I yelled in English, but there was no sound. "Yes,
you're Seeing,"
the voice in my ear said in Spanish. I felt,
that I was encased in a force greater, than myself. I was not
in
pain or even anguished. I felt nothing. I knew beyond the shadow of a
doubt, because the voice was telling me so, that I could not break the
grip of that Force by an act of Will or strength. I knew, I
was dying. I
lifted my eyes automatically to look at don Juan, and at the instant
our eyes met, the Force let go of me, I was free.
Don Juan was smiling
at me, as if
he knew exactly, what I had gone through, I
realized, that I was standing up. Don Juan was holding the
mirror edge wise, to let the water drip off. We
walked back to the house in silence.
"The
ancient Toltecs were simply mesmerized by their findings," don
Juan said.
"I can
understand why," I said.
"So
can I," don Juan retorted. The Force,
that had enveloped me, had been so powerful, as to incapacitate
(deprive of strength) me for speech, even for thought, for hours
afterward. It had frozen me
with a total lack of volition. And I had thawed out only by tiny
degrees.
90-91
"Without
any deliberate intervention on our part," don Juan continued,
"this ancient Toltec technique has been divided into two parts for you.
The first was just enough to familiarize you, with what takes
place. In
the second, we will try to accomplish, what the old Seers pursued."
"What
really took place out there, don Juan?" I asked.
"There
are two versions. I'll give you the old Seers'
version first.
They thought, that the reflecting surface of a shiny object, submerged
in
water, enlarges the power of the water. What they used to do
was gaze
into bodies of water, and the reflecting surface served them as an aid
to accelerate the process. They believed, that our eyes are
the keys to
entering into the Unknown; by gazing into water, they were allowing the
eyes to open the way."
Don
Juan said, that the old Seers observed,
that the wetness of water
only dampens or soaks, but that the fluidity of water moves. It runs,
they surmised, in search of other levels underneath us. They believed,
that water had been given to us not only for life, but also as a link,
a road to the other levels below.
"Are
there many levels below?" I asked.
"The
ancient Seers counted seven
levels," he replied.
"Do
you know them yourself, don Juan?"
"I am
a Seer of the new
cycle, and consequently I have a different
view," he said. "I am just showing you, what the old Seers did and I'm
telling you, what they knew."
He
asserted, that just because he had different views, did not mean, the
old Seers'
practices were invalid; their interpretations were wrong,
but their truths had practical value for them. In the
instance of the
water practices, they were convinced, that it was humanly possible to
be
transported bodily by the fluidity of water anywhere between
this level
of ours and the other seven levels below; or to be transported, in
essence, anywhere on this level, along the watercourse of a river
in either direction. They used, accordingly, running water to be
transported on this level of ours and the water of deep lakes or that
of waterholes to be transported to the depths. What
they pursued with the technique, I'm showing you, was twofold," he
went on. "On the one hand, they used the fluidity of the water to be
transported to the first level below. On the other, they used it to
have a face-to-face meeting with a Living Being from that first level.
The headlike shape in the mirror was one of those creatures,
that came
to look us over."
"So,
they really exist!" I exclaimed.
"They
certainly do," he retorted. He
said, that ancient Seers were damaged
by their aberrant insistence (deviation
from normal proper course) on
staying glued to their procedures, but that whatever they found was
valid. They found out, that the surest way to meet one of those
creatures is through a body of water. The size of the body of water is
not relevant; an ocean or a pond serves the same purpose. He
had chosen
a small stream, because he hated to get wet. We could have gotten the
same results in a lake or a large river.
"The
other life comes to find out, what's going on, when Human Beings
call," he continued. "That Toltec technique is like a knock on their
door. The old Seers said the
shiny surface on the bottom of the water
served, as a bait and a window. So humans and those creatures meet at a
window."
"Is
that what happened to me there?" I asked.
"The
old Seers would've
said, that you were being pulled by the power of
the water and the power of the first level, plus the magnetic influence
of the creature at the window."
"But I
heard a voice in my ear saying, that I was dying," I said.
"The
voice was right. You were dying, and you would have, if I hadn't
been there. That is the
danger of practicing the Toltecs' techniques.
92-93
They are extremely effective, but most of the time they are deadly." I told
him, that I was ashamed to confess, that I was terrified. Seeing
that shape in the mirror and having the sensation of an enveloping
Force around me had proved too much for me the day before. "I
don't want to alarm you," he said, "but nothing has happened
to you
yet. If what happened to me is going to be the guideline of what will
happen to you, you'd better prepare yourself for the shock of your
life. It's better to shake in your boots now, than to die of
fright
tomorrow."
My
fear was so terrifying, that I couldn't even voice the questions, that
came to my mind. I had a hard lime swallowing. Don Juan
laughed, until
he was coughing. His face got purple. When I got my voice back, every
one of my questions prompted another attack of coughing
laughter. "You
have no idea how funny this all is to me," he finally said. "I'm
not laughing at you. It's just the situation. My benefactor made me go
through the same motions, and looking at you, I
can't help seeing
myself." I
told
him, that I felt sick to my stomach. He said, that that was fine,
that it was natural to be scared, and that to control fear
was wrong
and senseless. The ancient Seers got trapped
by suppressing their
terror, when they should have been scared out of their wits.
Since they
did not want to stop their pursuits or abandon their comforting
constructs, they controlled their fear instead.
"What
else are we going to do with the mirror?" I asked.
"That
mirror is going to be used for a face-to-face meeting between you
and that creature, you only gazed at yesterday."
"What
happens in a face-to-face meeting?"
"What
happens is, that one form of life, the human form, meets another
form of life. The old Seers said, that in
this case, it is a creature
from the first level of the fluidity of water." He
explained, that the ancient Seers surmised
(guessed), that the seven levels
below ours were levels of the fluidity of water. For them a spring of
water had
untold significance, because they thought, that in such a case the
fluidity of water is reversed and goes from the depth to the surface.
They took that to be the means, whereby creatures
from other levels,
these other forms of life, come to our plane to peer at us, to observe
us. In
this respect, those old Seers were
not mistaken," he went on. "They
hit the nail right on the head. Entities, that the new Seers call Allies,
do appear around waterholes."
"Was
the creature in the mirror an Ally?" I asked.
"Of
course. But not one, that can be utilized. The tradition of the Allies,
which I have acquainted you with in the past, comes directly
from the ancient Seers. They
did wonders with Allies, but nothing they
did was worth anything, when the real enemy came along: their fellow
men."
"Since
those creatures are Allies, they must be very dangerous," I said.
"As
dangerous, as we men are, no more, no less."
"Can
they kill us?"
"Not
directly, but they certainly can frighten us to death. They can
cross the boundaries themselves, or they can just come to the window.
As you may have realized by now, the ancient Toltecs didn't
stop at the
window, either. They found weird ways to go beyond it."
The
second stage of the technique proceeded very much, as had the first
except, that it took perhaps twice as long for me to relax and stop my
internal turmoil.
94-95
When that was
done, the reflection of don Juan's face
and mine became instantly clear. I gazed from his reflection to mine
for perhaps an hour. I expected the Ally
to appear any
moment, but
nothing happened. My neck hurt. My back was stiff and my legs were
numb. I wanted to kneel on the rock to relieve the pain in my
lower
back. Don Juan whispered, that the moment the Ally showed its shape, my
discomfort would vanish. He
was
absolutely right. The shock of witnessing a round shape appear
on the edge of the mirror dispelled every discomfort of mine.
"What
do we do now?" I whispered.
"Relax
and don't focus your gaze on anything, not even for an instant,"
he replied. "Watch everything, that appears in the mirror. Gaze without
staring."
I
obeyed him. I glanced at everything within the frame of the mirror.
There was a peculiar buzzing in my ears. Don Juan whispered, that I
should move my eyes in
a clockwise direction, if I felt, that I was being
enveloped by an unusual Force; but under no circumstances, he stressed,
should I lift my head to look at him. After
a moment I noticed, that the mirror was reflecting more, than the
reflection of our faces and the round shape. Its surface had become
dark. Spots of an intense violet light appeared. They grew
large. There
were also spots of jet blackness. Then it turned into something like a
flat picture of a cloudy sky at night, in the moonlight.
Suddenly, the
whole surface came into focus, as if it were a moving picture. The new
sight was a three-dimensional, breathtaking view of the depths. I knew,
that
it was absolutely impossible for me to fight off the
tremendous attraction of that sight. It began to pull me in. Don
Juan whispered forcefully, that I should roll my eyes for
dear life.
The movement brought immediate relief. I could again distinguish our
reflections and that of the Ally. Then the Ally disappeared and
reappeared again on the other end of the mirror. Don
Juan commanded me to grip the mirror with all my might. He warned
me to be calm and not make any sudden movements.
"What's
going to happen?" I whispered.
"The
Ally will try to come out," he replied. As
soon, as he had said that, I felt a powerful tug (pull). Something
jerked (twisted) my
arms. The tug was from underneath the mirror. It was like a
suction
force, that created a uniform pressure all around the mirror frame.
"Hold
the mirror tightly, but don't break it," don Juan ordered.
"Fight
the suction. Don't let the Ally sink the mirror too deep." The Force,
pulling down on us, was enormous. I felt, that my fingers were
going to break or be
crushed against the rocks on the bottom. Don Juan
and I, both lost our balance at one point and had to step down from the
flat rocks into the stream. The water was quite shallow, but
the
thrashing (striked wildly) of the Ally's Force around the frame of the
mirror was as
frightening, as if we had been in a large river. The water
around our
feet was being swirled around madly, but the images in the mirror were
undisturbed. "Watch
out!" don Juan yelled. "Here it comes!" The
tugging changed into a thrust from underneath. Something was
grabbing the edge of the mirror; not the outer edge of the frame, where
we were holding it, but from the inside of the glass. It was,
as if the
glass surface were indeed an open window and something or somebody were
just climbing through it. Don
Juan and I fought desperately either to push the mirror down,
when
it was being thrust up or pull it up, when it was being tugged
downward.
In a stooped-over position we slowly moved down
stream from the original
spot. The water was deeper and the bottom was covered with slippery
rocks.
96-97
"Let's
lift the mirror out of the water and shake him loose," don
Juan
said in a harsh voice. The
loud thrashing continued unremittingly (persistently). It was, as if
we had caught
an enormous fish with our bare hands and it
was swimming around wildly. It
occurred to me, that the mirror was in essence a hatch (opening).
A strange
shape was actually trying to climb up through it. It was leaning on the
edge of the hatch with a mighty weight and was big enough to displace
the reflection of don Juan's face and mine. I could not see us anymore.
I could only distinguish a mass trying to push itself up. The
mirror was not resting on the bottom anymore. My fingers were
not
compressed against the rocks. The mirror was in mid-depth, held by the
opposing forces of the Ally's tugs and ours. Don Juan said, he
was going
to extend his hands underneath the mirror and, that I should very
quickly grab them in order to have a better leverage to lift the mirror
with our forearms. When he let go it tilled to his side. I quickly
reached for his hands, but there was nothing underneath. I
vacillated (hesitate) a
second too long and the mirror flew out of my hands.
"Grab
it! Grab it!" don Juan yelled. I
caught the mirror just as it was going to land on the rocks. I lifted
it out of the water, but not quickly enough. The water seemed
to be
like glue. As I pulled the mirror out, I also pulled a portion of a
heavy rubbery substance, that simply pulled the mirror out of my hands
and back into the water. Don
Juan, displaying extraordinary nimbleness, caught the mirror and
lifted it up edgewise without any difficulty. Never
in my life had I had such an attack of melancholy. It was a
sadness, that had no precise foundation; I associated it with the
memory
of the depths I had seen in the mirror. It was a mixture of pure
longing for those depths plus an absolute fear of their chilling
solitude. Don
Juan remarked, that in the life of warriors it was extremely natural
to be sad for no overt reason. Seers say, that the
Luminous Egg, as a Field of Energy, senses its final destination,
whenever the boundaries
of the Known are broken. A mere glimpse of the Eternity outside the
cocoon is enough to disrupt the coziness of our inventory. The
resulting melancholy is sometimes so intense, that it can bring
about
death. He
said, that the best way to get rid of melancholy is to make fun of
it. He commented in a mocking tone, that my First Attention was doing
everything to restore the order, that had been disrupted by
my contact
with the Ally. Since there was no way of restoring it by rational
means, my First Attention was doing it by focusing all its
power on
sadness. I
told
him, that the fact remained the melancholy was real. Indulging in
it, moping around, being gloomy, were not part of the feeling
of
aloneness, that I had felt upon remembering those depths. "Something
is finally getting through to you," he said. "You're right.
There is nothing more lonely, than Eternity. And nothing is more cozy
for us, than to be a Human Being. This indeed is another
contradiction -
how can human keep the bonds of his humanness and still
venture gladly
and purposefully into the Absolute Loneliness of Eternity? Whenever you
resolve this riddle, you'll be ready for the Definitive
Journey." I
knew
then with total certainty the reason for my sadness. It was a
recurrent feeling with me, one that I would always forget, until I
again
realized the same thing: the weakness of humanity against the immensity
of that thing-in-itself, which I had seen reflected in the mirror.
"Human
Beings are truly nothing, don Juan," I said.
"I
know exactly what you're thinking," he said.
98-99
"Sure, we're nothing,
but that's exactly what makes it the ultimate challenge, that we
nothings could actually face the Loneliness of Eternity." He
abruptly changed
the subject, leaving me with my mouth open, my next
question unsaid. He began to discuss our bout with the Ally. He said,
that first of all, the struggle with the Ally had been no
joke. It had
not really been a matter of life or death, but it had not been a picnic
either. "I
chose that technique," he went on, "because my benefactor
showed it
to me. When I asked him to give me an example of the old Seers'
techniques, he nearly split a gut laughing; my request reminded
him so much of his own experience. His benefactor, the Nagual
Elias, had also given him a harsh demonstration of the same technique." Don
Juan said, that as he had made the frame for his mirror out of wood,
he should have asked me to do the same, but he wanted to know, what
would happen, if the frame was sturdier, than his or his benefactor's.
Both of their frames broke, and both times the Ally came out. He
explained, that during his own bout the Ally ripped the frame apart.
He and his benefactor were left holding two pieces of wood,
while the
mirror sank and the Ally climbed out of it. His
benefactor knew what kind of trouble to expect. In the reflection
of mirrors,
Allies are not really frightening, because one sees only a
shape, a mass of sorts. But when they are out, besides being truly
fearsome-looking things, they are a pain in the neck. He remarked, that
once the Allies get out of their level, it is very difficult for them
to
go back. The same prevails for man. If Seers
venture into a level of
those creatures, chances are they are never heard of again. "My
mirror was shattered with the Ally's force," he said. "There was no
more window and the Ally couldn't go back, so it came after
me. It
actually ran after me, rolling on itself. I scrambled on all fours at
top speed, screaming with terror. I went up and down hills
like a
possessed man. The Ally was inches away from me the whole time." Don
Juan said, that his benefactor ran after him, but he was too old and
could not move fast enough; he had the good sense, however,
to tell don
Juan to back-track, and in that way was able to take measures to get
rid of the Ally. He shouted, that he was going to build a fire and that
don Juan should run in circles, until everything was ready. He went
ahead to gather dry branches while don Juan ran around a
hill, driven
mad with fear.
Don
Juan confessed, that the thought had occurred to him, as he ran
around in circles, that his benefactor was actually enjoying the
whole
thing. He knew, that his benefactor was a warrior capable of finding
delight in any conceivable situation. Why not also in this one? For a
moment he got so angry at his benefactor, that the Ally
stopped chasing
him, and don Juan, in no uncertain terms, accused his benefactor of
malice. His benefactor didn't answer, but made a gesture of
genuine
horror, as he looked past don Juan at the Ally, which was looming over
the two of them. Don Juan forgot his anger and began running around
in
circles again. "My
benefactor was indeed a devilish old man," don Juan said, laughing.
"He had learned to laugh internally. It wouldn't show on his face, so
he could pretend to be weeping or raging, when he was really
laughing.
That day, as the ally chased me in circles, my benefactor stood there
and defended himself from my accusations. I only heard bits
of his long
speech every time I ran by him. When he was through with that, I heard
bits of another long explanation: that he had to gather a
great deal of
wood, that the ally was big, that the fire had to be as big, as the
Ally
itself, that the maneuver might not work.
100-101
"Only
my maddening fear kept me going. Finally, he must have realized,
that I was about to drop dead from exhaustion; he built the fire and
with the flames
he shielded me from the Ally." Don
Juan said, that they stayed by the fire for the entire night. The
worst time for him was when his benefactor
had to go away to look for more dry branches and left him
alone. He was so afraid, that he promised to God, that he was going to
leave the Path of Knowledge and become a farmer.
"In
the morning, after I had exhausted all my energy, the Ally managed
to shove me into the fire, and I was badly burned," don Juan added.
"What
happened to the Ally?" I asked.
"My
benefactor never told me what happened to it," he replied. "But I
have the feeling, that it is still running around aimlessly, trying to
find its way back."
"And
what happened to your promise to God?"
"My
benefactor said not to worry, that it had been a good promise, but
that I didn't know yet, that there is noone to hear such promises,
because there is no God.
All there is is the Eagle's emanations, and
there is no way to make promises to them."
"What
would have happened if the Ally had caught you?" I asked.
"I
might have died of fright," he said. "If I had known what was
entailed in being caught, I would've let it catch me. At that time I
was
a reckless man. Once an Ally catches you, you either have a
heart
attack and die or you wrestle with it. Then after a moment of thrashing
around in sham ferocity, the Ally's energy wanes.
There is nothing, that
an Ally can do to us, or vice versa. We are separated by an abyss.
"The
ancient Seers believed,
that at the moment the Ally's energy
dwindles the Ally surrenders its power to man. Power, my eye! The
old Seers had Allies
coming out of their ears and their Allies' power
didn't mean a thing." Don
Juan explained, that once again it had been up to the new Seers to
straighten out this confusion. They had found, that the only
thing, that
counts, is impeccability, that is, freed energy. There were indeed some
among the ancient Seers, who were
saved by their Allies, but that had
had nothing to do with the Allies' power to fend off anything; rather,
it was the impeccability of the men, that had permitted them to use
the
energy of those other forms of life. The
new Seers also found
out the most important thing yet about the Allies: what makes them
useless or usable to man. Useless Allies, of
which there are staggering numbers, are those, that have emanations
inside them, for which we have no match inside ourselves. They are so
different from us, as to be thoroughly unusable. Other Allies, which
are
remarkably few in number, are akin to us, meaning, that they possess
occasional emanations, that match ours.
"How
is that kind utilized by man?" I asked.
"We
should use another word instead of 'utilize' ", he replied. "I'd
say, that what takes place between Seers and Allies of
this kind is a
fair exchange of energy."
"How
does the exchange take place?" I asked.
"Through
their matching emanations," he said. "Those emanations are,
naturally, on the left-side Awareness of human; the side, that the
average
human never uses. For this reason, Allies are totally barred from the
world of the right-side awareness, or the side of rationality." He
said, that the matching emanations give both a common ground.
Then,
with familiarity, a deeper link is established, which allows both forms
of life to profit. Seers seek the
Allies' ethereal
quality (not
easily perceived or grasped by mind); they make
fabulous scouts and guardians. Allies seek the greater energy field of
human, and with it they can even materialize themselves.
102-103
He
assured me, that experienced Seers play those
shared emanations, until
they bring them into total focus; the exchange takes place at that
time. The ancient
Seers did not
understand this process, and they
developed complex techniques of gazing, in order to descend into the
depths, that I had seen in the mirror.
"The
old Seers had a very
elaborate tool to help them in their
descent," he went on. "It was a rope of special twine, that they tied
around their waist. It had a soft butt soaked in resin, which fitted
into the navel itself, like a plug. The Seers had an
assistant or a
number of them, who held them by the rope, while they were lost in
their
gazing. Naturally, to gaze directly into the reflection of a deep,
clear pond or lake is infinitely more overwhelming and dangerous, than
what we did with the mirror."
"But
did they actually descend bodily?" I asked.
"You'd
be surprised what men are capable of, especially if they control
Awareness," he replied. "The old Seers were aberrant
(deviating from normal). In their
excursions to the depths, they found marvels. It was routine
for them to
encounter Allies. Of
course, by now you realize, that to say the depths is a figure of
speech. There are no depths, there is only the Handling of Awareness.
Yet the old Seers never made
that realization." I told
don Juan, that from what he had said about his experience with
the Ally, plus my own subjective impression on feeling the Ally's
thrashing Force in the water, I had concluded, that Allies are very
aggressive.
"Not
really," he said. "It is not, that they don't have enough
energy to
be aggressive, but rather, that they have a different kind of energy.
They are more like an electric current. Organic Beings
are more like
heat waves."
"But
why did it chase you for such a long time?" I asked.
"That's
no mystery," he said. "They are attracted to emotions. Animal
fear is what attracts them the most; it releases the kind of energy,
that suits them.
The emanations inside them are rallied by animal fear.
Since my fear was relentless the Ally went after it, or rather, my fear
hooked the Ally and didn't let it go."
He
said, that it was the old Seers, who found
out, that Allies enjoy
animal fear more, than anything else. They
even went to the extreme of purposely feeding it to their
Allies
by actually scaring people to death. The old Seers were
convinced, that
the Allies had human feelings, but the new Seers saw it
differently.
They saw, that Allies are attracted to the energy, released by
emotions;
love is equally effective, as well, as hatred, or sadness. Don
Juan added, that if he had felt love for that Ally, the Ally would
have come after him anyway, although the chase would have had a
different mood. I asked him whether the Ally would have stopped going
after him, if he had controlled his fear. He answered, that
controlling
fear was a trick of the old Seers. They learned
to control it to the
point of being able to parcel it out.
They hooked their Allies with
their own fear and by gradually doling it out like food, they actually
held the Allies in bondage. "Those
old Seers were
terrifying men," don Juan continued. "I shouldn't
use the past tense: they are terrifying even today. Their bid is to
dominate, to master everybody and everything."
"Even
today, don Juan?" I asked, trying to get him to explain further. He
changed the subject by commenting, that I had missed the opportunity
of being really scared beyond measure. He said, that doubtless the way
I
had sealed the frame of the mirror with tar had prevented the water
from seeping behind the glass.
He counted that as the deciding factor,
that had kept the Ally from smashing the mirror. "Too
bad," he said. "You might even have liked that Ally. By the way,
it was not the same one, that came the day before. The second
one was
perfectly akin to you."
104-105
"Don't
you have some Allies yourself, don Juan?" I asked.
"As
you know, I have my benefactor's Allies," he said. "I can't say,
that I have the same feeling for them, that my benefactor did. He was a
serene, but thoroughly passionate man, who lavishly gave away
everything
he possessed, including his energy. He loved his Allies. To him it was
no sweat to allow the Allies to use his energy and
materialize
themselves. There was one in particular, that could even take a
grotesque human form." Don
Juan went on to say, that since he was not partial to Allies, he had
never given me a real taste of them, as his benefactor had done to him,
while he was still recovering from the wound in his chest. It all began
with the thought, that his benefactor was a strange man. Having barely
escaped from the clutches of the petty tyrant, don Juan suspected, that
he had fallen into another trap. His intention was to wait a
few days
to get his strength back and then run away, when the old man was not
home. But the old man must have read his thoughts, because
one day, in
a confidential tone, he (Belisario-Nagual
Julian) whispered to
don Juan, that he ought to get well
as quickly, as possible, so that the two of them (Belisario and his
wife) could escape from his
captor and tormentor. Then, shaking with fear and impotence, the old
man flung the door open and a monstrous fish-faced man came into the
room, as if he had been listening behind the door. He was a
grayish-green, had only one huge unblinking eye, and was as big, as a
door. Don Juan said, that he was so surprised and terrified, that he
passed out, and it took him years to get out from under the spell of
that fright.
"Are
your Allies useful to you, don Juan?" I asked.
"That's
a very difficult thing to decide," he said. "In
some way, I love the Allies my benefactor gave me. They are capable
of giving back inconceivable affection.
But they are incomprehensible
to me. They were given to me for companionship, in case I am ever
stranded alone in that immensity, that is the Eagle's emanations."
7.
The Assemblage Point
106-107
Don
Juan discontinued his explanation of the Mastery of Awareness for
several months after my bout with the Allies. One day he started it
again. A strange event triggered it. Don
Juan was in northern Mexico. It was late afternoon. I had just
arrived at the house he kept there, and he immediately had me shift
into Heightened Awareness. And I had instantly remembered, that don
Juan
always came back to Sonora as means of renewal. He had explained, that a
Nagual, being a leader, who has tremendous responsibilities,
has to have
a physical point of reference, a place, where an amenable (responsible,
obidient) confluence (gathering together) of
energies occurs. The Sonoran desert was such a place for him. On
entering into Heightened Awareness, I had noticed, that there was
another person, hiding in the semidarkness inside the house. I asked
don
Juan if Genaro was with him. He replied, that he was alone, that what I
had noticed was one of his allies, the one, that guarded the
house. Don
Juan then made a strange gesture. He contorted his face, as if he
were surprised or terrified. And instantly the frightening shape of a
strange man appeared at the door of the room, where we were. The
presence of the strange man scared me so much, that I actually felt
dizzy. And before I could recuperate, from my fright, the man
lurched at
me with a chilling ferocity. As he grabbed my forearms, I felt a jolt
(заряд) of
something quite like a discharge of an electric current (called epileptic seizure!
LM).
I was
speechless, caught in a terror I could not dispel. Don Juan was
smiling at me. I mumbled and groaned, trying to voice a plea for help,
while I felt an even greater jolt. The
man tightened his grip and tried to throw me backward on the
ground. Don Juan, with no hurry in his voice, urged me to pull myself
together and not fight my fear, but roll with it. "Be afraid without
being terrified," he said. Don Juan came to my side and, without
intervening in my struggle, whispered in my ear, that I should put all
my concentration on the midpoint of my body. Over
the years, he had insisted, that I measure my body to the hundredth
of an inch and establish its exact midpoint, lengthwise as
well, as in
width. He had always said, that such a point is a true center of energy
in all of us.
As
soon, as I had focused my attention on that midpoint, the man let go
of me. At that instant I became aware, that, what I had thought was a
human being, was something, that only looked like one. The
moment it lost
its human shape to me, the Ally became an amorphous blob of opaque
light. It moved away. I went after it, moved by a great force, that
made
me follow that opaque light. Don
Juan stopped me. He gently walked me to the porch of his house and
made me sit down on a sturdy crate he used as a bench. I was
terribly disturbed by the experience, but even more disturbed by
the fact, that my paralyzing fear had disappeared so fast and so
completely. I
commented on my abrupt change of mood.
108-109
Don Juan said,
that there was
nothing strange about my volatile change, and that fear did not exist
as soon, as the Glow of Awareness moved beyond a certain threshold
inside human's cocoon.
He
then began his explanation. He briefly outlined the truths about
Awareness, he had discussed: that there is no objective world, but only
a Universe of energy fields, which Seers call the
Eagle's emanations (Robert
Monroe called them M-Field or Mind-Field ! LM).
That human beings are made of the Eagle's
emanations and are in essence
bubbles of luminescent energy; each of us is wrapped in a cocoon, that
encloses a small portion of these emanations. That Awareness is
achieved by the constant pressure, that the emanations outside our
cocoons, which are called emanations at large, exert on those inside
our cocoons. That Awareness gives rise to perception, which
happens
when the emanations inside our cocoons align themselves with the
corresponding emanations at large.
"The
next truth is, that perception takes place," he went on, "because
there is in each of us an agent, called the assemblage point, that
selects internal and external emanations for alignment. The
particular
alignment, that we perceive as the world, is the product of the
specific
spot, where our assemblage point is located on our cocoon." He
repeated this several times, allowing me time to grasp it. Then he
said, that in order to corroborate the truths about Awareness, I needed
energy.
"I've
mentioned to you," he continued, "that dealing with petty tyrants
helps Seers accomplish a
sophisticated maneuver: that maneuver is to
move their assemblage points."
He
said, that for me to have perceived an Ally meant, that I had moved my
assemblage point away from its customary position. In other words, my
Glow of Awareness had moved beyond a certain threshold, also
erasing my
fear. And all this had happened, because I had enough surplus energy. Later
that night, after we had returned from a trip into the
surrounding mountains, which had been part of his teachings for the
right side, don Juan had me shift again into Heightened Awareness and
then continued his explanation. He told me, that in order to discuss
the
nature of the assemblage point, he had to start with a discussion of
the First Attention. He
said, that the new Seers looked into
the unnoticed ways, in which the First Attention functions, and as they
tried to explain them to others,
they devised an order for the truths about Awareness. He assured me,
that not every Seer
is given to explaining. For instance, his
benefactor, the Nagual Julian, could not have cared less about
explanations. But the Nagual Julian's benefactor, the Nagual Elias,
whom don Juan was fortunate enough to meet, did care. Between the
Nagual Elias's detailed, lengthy explanations, the Nagual Julian's
scanty ones, and his own personal Seeing, don Juan came to understand
and to corroborate those truths. Don
Juan explained, that in order for our First Attention to bring into
focus the world, that we perceive, it has to emphasize certain
emanations, selected from the narrow band of emanations,
where human's
awareness is located. The discarded emanations are still within our
reach, but remain dormant, unknown to us for the duration of our lives. The
new Seers
call the emphasized emanations: the right side, normal
awareness, the tonal, this world,
the Known, the First Attention. The average human calls it
reality, rationality, common sense. The
emphasized emanations compose a large portion of human's band of
Awareness, but a very small piece of the total spectrum of emanations
present inside the cocoon of human.
110-111
The disregarded
emanations within
human's band are thought of as a sort of preamble to the Unknown, the
unknown proper consisting of the bulk of emanations, which
are not part
of the human band and, which are never emphasized. Seers
call them: the
left-side awareness, the nagual, the other world, the Unknown, the
second attention. "This
process of emphasizing certain emanations," don Juan went on,
"was discovered and practiced by the old Seers. They realized, that a
Nagual man or a Nagual woman, by the fact, that they have extra
strength, can push the emphasis away from the usual emanations and make
it shift to neighboring ones. That push is known as the
Nagual's Blow." Don
Juan said, that the shift was utilized by the old Seers in practical
ways to keep their apprentices in bondage. With that blow they made
their apprentices enter into a state of Heightened, keenest, most
impressionable Awareness; while they were helplessly pliable
(flexible), the old Seers taught them
aberrant techniques (deviation
from normal proper course), that made
the apprentices into
sinister men, just like their teachers. The
new Seers employ the
same technique, but instead of using it for
sordid purposes, they use it to guide their apprentices to learn about
human's possibilities. Don
Juan explained, that the Nagual's blow has to be delivered on a
precise spot, on the assemblage point, which varies minutely from
person to person. Also, the blow has to be delivered by a Nagual, who
Sees. He assured me, that it is equally useless to have the strength of
a Nagual and not See, as it is to See and not have the strength of a
Nagual, in either case the results are just blows. A Seer could strike
on the precise spot over and over without the strength to move
awareness, and a non-Seeing Nagual would not be able to strike the
precise spot. He
also said, that the old Seers discovered,
that the assemblage point is
not in the physical body, but in the luminous shell, in the cocoon
itself. The
Nagual identifies that spot by its intense luminosity and
pushes it, rather than striking it. The force of the push creates a
dent in the cocoon and it is felt like a blow to the right shoulder
blade, a blow, that knocks all the air out of the lungs.
"Are
there different types of dents?" I asked.
"There
are only two types," he responded. "One is a concavity and the
other is a crevice; each has a distinct effect. The concavity is a
temporary feature and produces a temporary shift, but the crevice is a
profound and permanent feature of the cocoon and produces a permanent
shift." He
explained, that usually a Luminous Cocoon, hardened by self-reflection,
is not affected at all by the Nagual's Blow. Sometimes,
however, the
cocoon of human is very pliable and the smallest force creates a
bowl-like dent, ranging in size from a small depression to one, that is
a
third the size of the total cocoon; or it creates a crevice, that may
run across the width of the egglike shell, or along its length, making
the cocoon look, as if it has curled in on itself.
Some
luminous shells, after being dented, go back to their original
shape instantly. Others remain dented
for hours or even days at a time, but they revert back by
themselves. Still others get a firm, impervious dent, that
requires
another blow from the Nagual on a bordering area to restore the
original shape of the luminous cocoon. And a few never lose their
indentation, once they get it. No matter how many blows they get from a
Nagual, they never revert back to their egglike shapes. Don
Juan further said, that the dent acts on the First Attention
by displacing the Glow of Awareness. The dent presses the emanations
inside the luminous shell, and the Seers
witness, how the First Attention shifts its emphasis under the force of
that pressure. The
dent, by displacing the Eagle's emanations
inside
the cocoon, makes the
Glow of Awareness fall on other emanations from areas, that are
ordinarily inaccessible to the First Attention.
112-113
I
asked him, if the Glow of Awareness is seen only on the surface of the
luminous cocoon. He did not answer me right away. He seemed to immerse
himself in thought. After perhaps ten minutes he answered my question;
he said, that normally the Glow of Awareness is seen on the surface of
the cocoon of all Sentient Beings. After human develops attention,
however, the Glow of Awareness acquires depth. In other words, it is
transmitted from the surface of the cocoon to quite a number of
emanations inside the
cocoon. "The
old Seers knew ,what
they were doing, when they handled Awareness,"
he went on. "They realized, that by creating a dent in the cocoon of
human, they could force the Glow of Awareness, since it is already
glowing on the emanations inside the cocoon, to spread to
other neighboring ones."
'You
make it all sound, as if it's a physical affair," I said. "How can
dents be made in something, that is just a Glow?"
"In
some inexplicable way, it is a matter of a Glow, that creates a dent
in another Glow," he replied. "Your flaw is to remain glued to the
inventory of reason. Reason doesn't deal with human, as energy. Reason
deals with instruments, that create energy, but it has never seriously
occurred to reason, that we are better, than instruments: we
are
organisms, that create (Sun) energy. We are a bubble of energy. It
isn't
farfetched, then, that a bubble of energy would make a dent in another
bubble of (Sun)energy."
He
said, that the Glow of Awareness, created by the dent, should
rightfully be called temporary Heightened Attention, because it
emphasizes emanations, that are so
proximal to the habitual ones, that
the change is minimal, yet the shift produces a greater capacity to
understand and to concentrate and, above all, a greater capacity to
forget. Seers knew exactly
how to use this upshift in the scale of
quality. They Saw, that only the emanations (white
luminous threads) surrounding
those, we use
daily, suddenly become bright after the Nagual's Blow. The more distant
ones remain unmoved, which meant to them, that while being in a state
of Heightened Attention, human beings could work as if they
were
in the
world of everyday life. The need of a Nagual man and a Nagual woman
became paramount to them, because that state lasts only for as long, as
the depression remains, after which the experiences are immediately
forgotten.
"Why
does one have to forget?" I asked.
"Because
the emanations (white
luminous threads) , that account
for greater clarity, cease to be
emphasized, once warriors are out of Heightened Awareness,"
he replied.
"Without that emphasis, whatever they experience or witness vanishes." Don
Juan said, that one of the tasks, the new Seers had devised
for their
students, was to force them to remember, that is, to reemphasize by
themselves, at a later time, those emanations (white
luminous threads) , used during
states of Heightened Awareness. He
reminded me, that Genaro was always recommending to me, that I learn
to write with the tip of my finger, instead of a pencil, so as not to
accumulate notes. Don Juan said, that what Genaro had actually meant
was,
that while I was in states of Heightened Awareness, I should utilize
some unused emanations for storage of dialogue and experience, and
someday recall it all by reemphasizing the emanations, that were used. He
went on to explain, that a state of Heightened Awareness is seen not
only as a Glow, that goes deeper inside the egglike shape of human
beings, but also as a more intense Glow on the surface of the cocoon.
Yet it is nothing in comparison to the Glow, produced by a
state
of Total Awareness, which is seen, as a burst of incandescence in the
entire luminous egg. It is an explosion of light of such a magnitude,
that the boundaries of the shell are diffused and the inside emanations
extend themselves beyond anything imaginable!
114-115
"Are
those special cases, don Juan?
"Certainly.
They happen only to Seers. No other
human or any other living
creatures brighten up like that. Seers,
who deliberately attain Total Awareness, are a sight to behold (gaze
at). That is the moment, when They Burn From Within. The Fire From
Within consumes them. And in full Awareness they
fuse (melt, blend) themselves to the emanations at large, and glide
into Eternity."
After
a few days in Sonora, I drove don Juan back to the town in the
southern part of Mexico, where he and his party of warriors lived. The
next day was hot and hazy. I felt lazy and somehow annoyed. In
mid-afternoon, there was a most unpleasant quietude in that town. Don
Juan and I were sitting on the comfortable chairs in the big room. I
told him, that life in rural Mexico was not my cup of tea. I disliked
the feeling I had, that the silence of that town was forced. The only
noise I ever heard was the sound of children's voices yelling in the
distance. I was never able to find out whether they were playing or
yelling in pain.
"When
you're here, you're always in a state of Heightened Awareness,"
don Juan said. "That makes a great difference. But no matter what, you
should be getting used to living in a town like this. Someday you will
live in one."
"Why
should I have to live in a town like this, don Juan?"
"I've
explained to you, that the new Seers aim to be
free. And freedom
has the most devastating implications. Among them is the implication,
that warriors must purposely seek change. Your predilection is to live
the way you do. You stimulate your reason by running through your
inventory and pitting it against your friends' inventories. Those
maneuvers leave you very little time to examine yourself and your fate.
You will have to give up all that. Likewise, if all you knew were the
dead calm of this town, you'd have to seek, sooner or later, the other
side of the coin."
"Is
that what you're doing here, don Juan?"
"Our
case is a little bit different, because we are at the end of our
trail. We are not seeking anything. What all of us do here is something
comprehensible only to a warrior. We go from day to day doing nothing.
We are waiting. I will not tire of repeating this: we know, that we are
waiting and we know what we are waiting for.
We are waiting
for freedom ! "And
now, that you know that," he added with a grin, "let's get back to
our discussion of Awareness." Usually,
when we were in that room we were never interrupted by anyone
and don Juan would always decide on the length of our discussions. But
this time there was a polite knock on the door and Genaro walked in and
sat down. I had not seen Genaro since the day after we had run out of
his house in a great hurry. I embraced him. "Genaro
has something to tell you," don Juan said. "I've told you, that
he is the Master of Awareness. Now I can tell you what all that means.
He can make the assemblage point move deeper into the luminous egg,
after that point has been jolted out of its position by the Nagual's
Blow." He
explained, that Genaro had pushed my assemblage point countless times,
after I had attained Heightened Awareness. The day we had gone to the
gigantic flat rock to talk, Genaro had made my assemblage point move
dramatically into the left side, so dramatically, in fact, that it had
been a bit dangerous. Don
Juan stopped talking and seemed to be ready to give Genaro the
spotlight. He nodded, as if to signal Genaro to say something. Genaro
stood up and came to my side. "Flame
is very important," he said softly.
116-117
"Do you
remember that day,
when I made you look at the reflection of the sunlight on a piece of
quartz, when we were sitting on that big flat rock?"
When
Genaro mentioned it, I remembered. On that day just after don Juan
had stopped talking, Genaro had pointed to the refraction of light, as
it went through a piece of polished quartz, that he had taken out of
his
pocket and placed on the flat rock. The shine of the quartz had
immediately caught my attention. The next thing
I knew, I was
crouching
on the flat rock, as don Juan stood by with a worried look on his face. I was
about to tell Genaro, what I had remembered, when he began to talk.
He put his mouth to my ear and pointed to one of the two gasoline lamps
in the room.
"Look
at the flame," he said. "There is no heat in it. It's pure flame.
Pure flame can take you to the depths of the Unknown." As he
talked, I began to feel a strange pressure; it was a physical
heaviness. My ears were buzzing; my eyes teared to the point, that I
could hardly make out the shape of the furniture. My vision seemed to
be totally out of focus. Although my eyes were open, I could not see
the intense light of the gasoline lamps. Everything around me was dark.
There were streaks of chartreuse phosphorescence, that illuminated
dark,
moving clouds. Then, as abruptly, as it had faded away, my
eyesight
returned. I
could not make out where I was. I seemed to be floating like a
balloon. I was alone. I had a pang of terror, and my reason
rushed in
to construct an explanation, that made sense to me at that moment:
Genaro had hypnotized me, using the flame of the gasoline lamp. I felt
almost satisfied. I quietly floated, trying not to worry; I thought,
that a way to avoid worrying was, to concentrate on the stages, that I
would have to go through to wake up. The
first thing I noticed was, that I was not myself. I could not really
look at anything, because I had nothing to look with. When I tried to
examine my body I realized, that I could only be aware, and yet, it was
as
if I were looking down into Infinite Space. There were portentous
clouds of brilliant light and masses of blackness; both were in motion.
I clearly Saw a ripple of amber glow, that was coming at me, like an
enormous, slow ocean wave. I knew then, that I was like a buoy (буйки -
плавающие шары), floating
in Space and, that the wave was going to overtake me and carry me. I
accepted it, as unavoidable. But just before it hit me, something
thoroughly unexpected happened: a wind blew me out of the wave's path. The
force of that wind carried me with tremendous speed. I went through
an immense tunnel of intense colored lights. My vision blurred
completely and then I felt, that I was waking up, that I had been
having
a dream, a hypnotic dream brought about by Genaro, in the next instant
I was back in the room with don Juan and Genaro. I
slept most of the following day. In the late afternoon, don Juan and
I again sat
down to talk. Genaro had been with me earlier, but had
refused to comment on my experience.
"Genaro
again pushed your assemblage point last night," don Juan said.
"But perhaps the shove was too forceful." I
eagerly told don Juan the content of my vision. He smiled,
obviously
bored. "Your
assemblage point moved away from its normal position," he said.
"And that made you perceive emanations, that are not ordinarily
perceived. Sounds like nothing, doesn't it? And yet it is a supreme
accomplishment, that the new Seers strive to
elucidate." He
explained, that human beings repeatedly choose the same emanations
for perceiving, because of two reasons.
118-119
First, and
most important,
because we have been taught, that those emanations are perceivable, and
second, because our assemblage points select and prepare those
emanations for being used. "Every
living being has an assemblage point," he went on,
"which
selects emanations for emphasis. Seers
can See, whether Sentient Beings
share the same view of the world, by Seeing,
if the
emanations their
assemblage points have selected, are the same." He
affirmed, that one of the most important breakthroughs for the
new Seers was, to find
that the spot, where that point is located on the
cocoon of all living creatures, it is not a permanent feature, but is
established on that specific spot by habit. Hence the tremendous stress
the new Seers put on new
actions, on new practicalities. They want
desperately to arrive at new usages, new habits. "The Nagual's
Blow is of great importance," he went on, "because it
makes that point move. It alters its location. Sometimes it even
creates a permanent crevice there. The assemblage point is totally dislodged,
and Awareness changes dramatically. But what is a matter of
even greater importance is the proper understanding of the truths about
Awareness, in order to realize, that that point can be moved from
within.
The unfortunate truth is, that human beings always lose by default.
They
simply don't know about their possibilities."
"How
can one accomplish that change from within?" I asked.
"The
new Seers
say, that realization is the technique," he said. "They
say that, first of all, one must become aware, that, the world we
perceive, is the result of our assemblage points' being located on a
specific spot on the cocoon. Once that is understood, the assemblage
point can move almost at Will, as a consequence of new habits." I did
not quite understand what he meant by habits. I asked him to
clarify his point. "The
assemblage point of human appears around a definite area of the
cocoon, because the Eagle commands it," he said. "But the precise spot
is determined by habit, by repetitious acts. First we learn, that it
can
be placed there and then we ourselves command it to be there. Our
command becomes the Eagle's command and that point is fixated at that
spot. Consider this very carefully; our command becomes the Eagle's
command. The old Seers paid dearly
for that finding. We'll come back to
that later on." He
stated once again, that the old Seers had
concentrated exclusively on
developing thousands of the most complex techniques of sorcery. He
added, that what they never realized was, that their intricate devices,
as bizarre, as they were, had no other value, than being the means to
break the fixation of their assemblage points and make them move. I
asked him to explain what he had said. "I've
mentioned to you, that Sorcery is something like entering a
dead-end street," he replied. "What I meant was, that Sorcery practices
have no intrinsic value. Their worth is indirect, for their real
function is to make the assemblage point shift, by making the First
Attention release its control on that point. The
new Seers realized the
true role those sorcery practices played
and decided to go directly into the process of making their assemblage
points shift, avoiding all the other nonsense of rituals and
incantations. Yet rituals and incantations are indeed necessary at one
time in every warrior's life. I personally have initiated you in all
kinds of sorcery procedures, but
only for purposes of
luring your First Attention away from the power of self-absorption,
which keeps your
assemblage point rigidly fixed." He
added, that the obsessive entanglement of the First Attention in
self-absorption or reason, is a powerful binding force, and that ritual
behavior, because it is repetitive, forces the First Attention to free
some energy from watching the inventory, as a consequence of which, the
assemblage point loses its rigidity.
120-121
"What
happens to the persons whose assemblage points lose rigidity?" I
asked.
"If
they're not warriors, they think they're losing their minds," he
said, smiling. "Just as you thought you were going crazy at one time.
If they're warriors, they know they've gone crazy, but they patiently
wait. You see, to be healthy and sane means, that the assemblage point
is immovable. When it shifts, it literally means, that one is deranged
(disturbed)."
He
said, that two options are opened to warriors, whose assemblage points
have shifted. One is to acknowledge being ill and to behave in deranged
ways, reacting emotionally to the strange worlds, that their shifts
force them to witness; the other is to remain impassive, untouched,
knowing, that the assemblage point always returns to its original
position.
"What
if the assemblage point doesn't return to its original position?"
I asked.
"Then
those people are lost," he said. "They are either incurably
crazy, because their assemblage points could never assemble the world,
as we know it, or they are peerless
Seers, who have
begun their movement
toward the Unknown."
"What
determines whether it is one or the other?"
"Energy!
Impeccability! Impeccable warriors don't lose their marbles.
They remain untouched. I've said to you many times, that impeccable
warriors may See horrifying worlds and yet the next moment
they are
telling a joke, laughing with their friends or with strangers." I said
to him then, what I had told him many times before, that what
made me think I was ill, was a series of disruptive sensorial
experiences, that I had had as after-effects of ingesting
hallucinogenic
plants. I went through states of total space and time discordance, very
annoying lapses of mental concentration, actual visions or
hallucinations of places and people, I would be staring at, as if they
really existed. I could not help thinking, that I was losing my mind. "By
all ordinary measures, you were indeed losing your mind," he said,
"but
in
the Seers' view, if you
had lost it, you wouldn't have lost
much. The mind, for a Seers, is nothing,
but the self-reflection of the
inventory of human. If you lose that self-reflection, but don't lose
your
under-pinnings, you actually live an infinitely stronger life, than if
you had kept it." He
remarked, that my flaw was my emotional reaction, which prevented me
from realizing, that the oddity of my sensorial experiences was
determined by the depth, to which my assemblage point had moved into
human's band of emanations (white luminous threads). I told
him, that I couldn't understand what he was explaining, because
the configuration, that he had called
human's band of emanations, was
something incomprehensible to me. I had pictured it to be like a
ribbon,
placed on the surface of a ball. He
said, that calling it a band was misleading, and that he was going to
use an analogy to illustrate, what he meant. He explained, that the
luminous shape of human is like a Ball of jack cheese with a thick disk
of darker cheese injected into it. He looked at me and chuckled. He
knew, that I did not like cheese. He
made a diagram on a small blackboard. He drew an egglike shape and
divided it in four longitudinal
sections, saying that he would immediately erase the
division lines, because he had drawn them only to give me an idea,
where
the band was located in the cocoon of human. He then drew a thick band
at
the line between the first and second sections and erased the division
lines. He explained, that the band was like a disk of cheddar cheese,
that had been inserted into the ball of jack cheese. "Now
if that ball of jack cheese were transparent," he went on, "you
would have the perfect replica of human's cocoon.
122-123
The cheddar
cheese goes
all the way inside the ball of jack cheese. It's a disk, that goes from
the surface on one side to the surface on the other side. The
assemblage point of human is located high up, three-fourths of the
way toward the top of the egg on the surface of the cocoon. When a
Nagual presses on that point of intense Luminosity, the point moves
into the disk of the cheddar cheese. Heightened Awareness
comes
about,
when the intense Glow of the assemblage point lights up dormant
emanations way inside the disk of cheddar
cheese. To See the Glow of
the assemblage point moving inside that disk, gives the feeling, that
it
is shifting toward the left on the surface of the cocoon."
He
repeated his analogy three or four times, but I did not understand
it and he
had to explain it further. He said, that the transparency of
the Luminous Egg creates the impression of a movement toward the left,
when in fact every movement of the assemblage point is in depth, into
the center of the Luminous Egg along the thickness of human's band.
I
remarked, that what he was saying, made it sound, as
if Seers
would be
using their eyes, when they See the assemblage point move. "Human
is not the Unknowable," he said. "Human's Luminosity can be Seen
almost, as if one were using the eyes alone." He
further explained, that the old Seers had Seen the
movement of the
assemblage point, but it never occurred to them, that it was a movement
in depth; instead they followed their Seeing
and coined
the phrase
"shift to the left," which the new Seers retained, although they
knew,
that it was erroneous to call it a shift to the left. He
also said, that in the course of my activity with him, he had made my
assemblage point move countless times, as was the case at that very
moment. Since
the shift of the assemblage point was always in depth, I
had never lost my sense of identity, in spite of the fact,
that I was
always using emanations, I had never used before. "When
the Nagual pushes that point," he went on, "the point ends up any
which way along human's band, but it absolutely doesn't
matter where,
because wherever it ends up is always virgin ground. The
grand test, that the new Seers developed for
their
warrior-apprentices
is, to retrace the journey, that their assemblage
points took under the influence of the Nagual. This retracing, when it
is completed, is called regaining the Totality of Oneself." He
went on to say, that the contention of the new Seers is, that in
the
course of our growth, once the Glow of Awareness focuses on
human's band
of emanations and selects some of them for emphasis, it enters
into a vicious circle. The more it emphasizes certain
emanations, the more stable the assemblage point gets to be. This is
equivalent to saying, that our command becomes the Eagle's command. It
goes without saying, that when our Awareness develops into First
Attention, the command is so strong, that to break that circle and make
the assemblage point shift, is a genuine triumph. Don
Juan said, that the assemblage point is also responsible for making
the First Attention perceive in terms of clusters. An example of a
cluster of emanations, that receive emphasis together is the human
body,
as we perceive it. Another part of our total being, our luminous
cocoon, never receives emphasis and is relegated to oblivion; for the
effect of the assemblage point is not only to make us perceive clusters
of emanations, but also to make us disregard emanations. When I
pressed hard for an explanation of clustering, he replied, that
the assemblage point radiates a Glow, that groups together bundles of
encased emanations. These bundles then become aligned, as bundles, with
the emanations at large.
124-125
Clustering is
carried out even, when Seers deal
with the emanations, that are never used. Whenever they are emphasized,
we perceive them just as, we perceive the clusters of the First
Attention.
"One
of the greatest moments the new Seers
had," he continued, "was
when they found out, that the Unknown is merely the emanations,
discarded
by the First Attention, it's a huge affair, but an affair, mind you,
where clustering can be done. The Unknowable, on the other hand, is an
Eternity, where our assemblage point has no way of clustering anything." He
explained, that the assemblage point is like a luminous magnet, that
picks emanations and groups them together, wherever it moves within the
bounds of human's band of emanations. This discovery was the glory of
the
new Seers, for it put
the Unknown in a new light. The new Seers noticed,
that some of the obsessive visions of Seers, the ones,
that were almost
impossible to conceive, coincided with a shift of the assemblage point
to the region of human's band, which is diametrically opposed, to where
it
is ordinarily located.
"Those
were visions of the dark side of man," he asserted.
"Why
do you call it the dark side of man?" I asked.
"Because
it is somber and foreboding," he said. "It's not only the Unknown, but
the who-cares-to-know-it."
"How
about the emanations, that are inside the cocoon, but out of the
bounds of human's band?" I asked. "Can they be perceived?"
"Yes,
but in really indescribable ways," he said. "They're not the
human Unknown, as is the case with the unused emanations in the band of
human, but the nearly immeasurable Unknown, where human traits do not
figure at all. It is really an area of such an overpowering vastness,
that the best of Seers would be hard
put to describe it." I
insisted once more, that it seemed to me, that the mystery is obviously
within us. "The
mystery is outside us," he said, "Inside us we have only
emanations, trying to break the cocoon. And this fact aberrates us, one
way or another, whether we're average men or warriors. Only the
new Seers get around
this. They struggle to See. And by means of the shifts
of their assemblage points, they get to realize, that the mystery is
perceiving. Not so much what we perceive, but what makes us perceive. "I've
mentioned to you, that the new Seers believe, that
our senses are
capable of detecting anything. They believe this, because they See,
that
the position of the assemblage point is what dictates, what our senses
perceive. If
the assemblage point aligns emanations inside the cocoon in a
position different from its normal one, the human senses perceive in
inconceivable ways."
8.
The Position of the
Assemblage Point
126-127
The
next time don Juan resumed his explanation of the Mastery of Awareness
when we were again in his house in southern Mexico. That house was
actually owned by all the members of the Nagual's party, but Silvio
Manuel officiated as the owner and everyone openly referred to it as
Silvio Manuel's house, although I, for some inexplicable reason, had
gotten used to calling it don Juan's house. Don
Juan, Genaro, and I had returned to the house from a trip to the
mountains. That day, as we relaxed
after the long drive and ate a late
lunch, I asked don Juan the reason for the curious deception. He
assured me, that no deception was involved, and that to call it Silvio
Manuel's house was an exercise in the Art of Stalking to be performed
by all the members of the Nagual's party under any circumstances, even
in the privacy of their own thoughts. For any of them to insist on
thinking about the house in any other terms was tantamount to denying
their links to the Nagual's party. I
protested, that he had never told me that. I did not want to cause any
dissension with my habits.
"Don't
worry about it," he said, smiling at me and patting my back.
"You can call this house whatever you want. The Nagual has authority.
The Nagual woman, for instance, calls it the house of
shadows."
Our
conversation was interrupted, and I did not see him, until he sent
for me to come to the back patio a couple of hours later. He and
Genaro were strolling around at the far end of the corridor; I
could see them moving their hands in what seemed to be an animated
conversation.
It was
a clear sunny day. The mid-afternoon sun shone directly on some
of the flower pots, that hung from the eaves of the roof around the
corridor and projected their shadows on the north and east walls of the
patio. The combination of intense yellow sunlight, the massive black
shadows of the pots, and the lovely, delicate, bare shadows of the
frail flowering plants, that grew in them was stunning. Someone with a
keen eye for balance and order had pruned those plants to create such
an exquisite effect. "The Nagual
woman has done that," don Juan said as if reading my
thoughts. "She gazes at these shadows in the afternoons."
The
thought of her gazing at shadows in the afternoons had a swift and
devastating effect on me. The intense yellow light of that hour, the
quietness of that town, and the affection, that I felt for the Nagual
woman, conjured up (performed tricks) for me in one instant all the
solitude of the
warriors' endless path. Don
Juan had defined the scope of that path, when he said to me, that the
new Seers are the
warriors of Total Freedom, that their only search is
the ultimate liberation, that comes when they attain Total Awareness. I
understood with unimpaired clarity, as I looked at those haunting
shadows on the wall, what it meant to the Nagual woman, when
she said,
that to read poems out loud was the only release, that her spirit had. I
remember that the day before she had read something to me, there in
the patio, but
I had not
quite understood her urgency, her longing.
128-129
It
was a poem by Juan Ramon Jimenez, "Hora Inmensa," which she told me
synthesized for her the solitude of warriors, who live to escape to
total freedom.
Only a
bell and a bird break the stillness. . .It seems, that the two
talk with the setting sun. Golden colored silence, the afternoon is
made
of crystals. A roving purity sways the cool trees, and beyond
all that, a
transparent river dreams, that trampling over pearlsit breaks loose and
flows into Infinity. Don
Juan and Genaro came to my side and looked at me with an expression
of surprise.
"What
are we really doing, don Juan?" I asked. "Is it possible, that
warriors are only preparing themselves for death?"
"No
way," he said, gently patting my shoulder. "Warriors prepare
themselves to be aware, and full Awareness comes to them only when
there is no more self-
importance
left in them. Only when they are
nothing, do they become everything." We
were quiet for a moment. Then don Juan asked me if I was in the
throes of self-pity. I did not answer, because I was not sure. "You're
not sorry, that you're here, are you?" don Juan asked with a
faint smile.
"He's
certainly not," Genaro assured him. Then he seemed to have a
moment of doubt. He scratched his head, then looked at me and arched
his brows. "Maybe you are," he said. "Are you?"
"He's
certainly not," don Juan assured Genaro this time. He went
through the same gestures of scratching his head and arching his brows.
"Maybe you are," he said. "Are you?"
"He's
certainly not!" Genaro boomed, and both of them exploded into
uncontrolled laughter. When
they had calmed down, don Juan said, that self-importance is the
motivating force for every attack of melancholy. He added, that
warriors
are entitled to have profound states of sadness, but that sadness is
there only to make them laugh. "Genaro
has something to show you, which is more exciting, than all the
self-pity you can muster up," don Juan continued, "it has to do with
the position of the assemblage point."
Genaro
immediately began to walk around the corridor, arching his back
and lifting his thighs to his chest. "The
Nagual Julian showed him how to walk that way," don Juan said in a
whisper, "it's called the Gait
of Power (). Genaro knows several Gaits of Power. Watch him fixedly.
Genaro's
movements were indeed mesmeric. I found myself following his
gait, first with my eyes and then irresistibly with my feet. I imitated
his gait. We walked once around the patio and stopped. While
walking, I had noticed the extraordinary lucidity, that each step
brought to me. When we stopped, I was in a state of keen alertness. I
could hear every sound; I could detect every change in the light or in
the shadows around me. I became enthralled with a feeling of urgency,
of impending action. I felt extraordinarily aggressive, muscular,
daring. At that moment I saw an enormous span of flat land
in front of
me; right behind me I saw a forest. Huge trees were lined up as
straight, as a wall. The forest was dark and green; the plain was sunny
and yellow. My
breathing was deep and strangely accelerated, but not in an abnormal
way.
130-131
Yet it was the
rhythm of my breathing, that was forcing me to trot
on the spot. I wanted to take off running, or rather my body wanted to,
but just as I was taking off, something stopped me. Don
Juan and Genaro were suddenly by my side. We walked down the
corridor with Genaro to my right. He nudged me with his shoulder. I
felt the weight of his body on me. He gently shoved me to the left and
we angled off straight for the east wall of the patio. For a moment I
had the weird impression, that we were going to go through the wall,
and
I even braced myself for the impact, but we stopped right in front of
the wall.
While
my face was still against the wall, they both examined me with
great care. I knew what they were searching for; they wanted
to make
sure, that I had shifted my assemblage point. I knew, that I had,
because
my mood had changed. They obviously knew it too. They gently
took me by
the arms and walked in silence with me to the other side of the
corridor, to a dark passageway, a narrow hall, that connected the patio
with the rest of the house. We stopped there. Don Juan and Genaro moved
a few feet away from me. I was
left facing the side of the house, that was in dark shadows.
I
looked into an empty dark room. I had a sense of physical weariness. I
felt languid (sluggish), indifferent, and yet I experienced a sense of
spiritual
strength.
I realized then, that I had lost something. There was no
strength in my body. I could hardly stand. My legs finally gave in and
I sat down and then I lay down on my side. While I lay there, I had the
most wonderful, fulfilling thoughts of love for God, for goodness. Then
all at once I was in front of the main altar of a church. The
bas-reliefs covered with gold leaf glittered with the light of
thousands of candles. I saw the dark figures of men and women, carrying
an enormous crucifix, mounted on a huge palanquin. I moved out of their
way and stepped outside the church. I saw a multitude of people, a sea
of candles, coming toward me. I felt elated. I ran to join them. I was
moved by profound love. I wanted to be with them, to pray to the Lord.
I was only a few feet away from the mass of people when something
swished me away. The
next instant, I was with don Juan and Genaro. They flanked me as we
walked lazily around the patio. While
we were having lunch the next day, don Juan said, that Genaro had
pushed my assemblage point with his gait of power, and that he had been
able to do that, because I had been in a state of inner
silence. He
explained, that the articulation point of everything Seers
do, is something, he had talked about since the day we met:
stopping the internal dialogue. He stressed over and over, that the
internal dialogue is what keeps the assemblage point fixed to its
original position. "Once
silence is attained, everything is possible," he said. I
told
him I was very conscious of the fact, that in general I had
stopped talking to myself, but did not know how I had done it. If asked
to explain the procedure I would not know, what to say. "The
explanation is simplicity itself," he said. "You Willed it, and
thus you set a new Intent, a new command. Then your command became the
Eagle's command. This
is one of the most extraordinary things, that the new Seers
found
out: that our command can become the Eagle's command. The internal
dialogue stops in the same way it begins: by an act of Will. After all,
we are forced to start talking to ourselves by those, who teach us. As
they teach us, they engage their will and we engage ours, both without
knowing it.
INTERNAL DIALODUE
132-133
As we learn to talk to ourselves, we learn to handle Will.
We will ourselves to talk to ourselves. The way to stop talking to
ourselves is to use exactly the same method: we must Will it, we must
Intend it."
We
were silent for a few minutes. I asked him to whom he was referring
when he said that we had teachers who taught us to talk to ourselves.
"I was
talking about what happens to human beings when they are
infants," he replied, "a time when they are taught by everyone around
them to repeat an endless dialogue about themselves. The dialogue
becomes internalized, and that force alone keeps the assemblage point
fixed.
"The
new Seers say, that
infants have hundreds of teachers who teach
them exactly where to place their assemblage point."
He
said that Seers See that
infants have no fixed assemblage point at
first. Their encased emanations are in a state of great turmoil, and
their assemblage points shift everywhere in the band of man, giving
children a great capacity to focus on emanations that later will be
thoroughly disregarded. Then as they grow, the older humans around
them, through their considerable power over them, force the children's
assemblage points to become more steady by means of an increasingly
complex internal dialogue. The internal dialogue is a process that
constantly strengthens the position of the assemblage point, because
that position is an arbitrary one and needs steady reinforcement.
"The
fact of the matter is that many children see," he went on. "Most
of those who see are considered to be oddballs and every effort is made
to correct them, to make them solidify the position of their assemblage
points."
"But
would it be possible to encourage children to keep their
assemblage points more fluid?" I asked.
"Only
if they live among the new seers," he said. "Otherwise they would
get entrapped, as the old seers did, in the intricacies of the silent
side of man. And, believe me, that's worse, than being caught
in the clutches of rationality."
Don
Juan went on to express his profound admiration for the human
capacity to impart order to the chaos of the Eagle's emanations. He
maintained that every one of us, in his own right, is a masterful
magician and that our magic is to keep our assemblage point
unwaveringly fixed.
"The
force of the emanations at large," he went on, "makes our
assemblage point select certain emanations and cluster them for
alignment and perception. That's the command of the Eagle, but all the
meaning that we give to what we perceive is our command, our gift of
magic."
He
said that in the light of what he had explained, what Genaro had
made me do the day before was something extraordinarily complex and yet
very simple. It was complex because it required a tremendous discipline
on everybody's part; it required that the internal dialogue be stopped,
that a state of heightened awareness be reached, and that someone walk
away with one's assemblage point. The explanation behind all these
complex procedures was very simple; the new Seers say, that
since the
exact position of the assemblage point is an arbitrary position chosen
for us by our ancestors, it can move with a relatively small effort;
once it moves, it forces new alignments of emanations, thus new
perceptions. "I
used to give you power plants in order to make your assemblage point
move," don Juan continued. "Power plants have that effect; but hunger,
tiredness, fever, and other things like that can have a similar effect.
134-135
The flaw of the average man is, that he thinks the result of a shift is
purely mental. It isn't, as you yourself can attest." He
explained, that my assemblage point had shifted scores of times in
the past, just as it had shifted the day before, and, that most of the
time the worlds, it had assembled, had been so close to the world of
everyday life, as to be virtually phantom worlds. He emphatically
added,
that visions of that kind are automatically rejected by the
new Seers. "Those
visions are the product of man's inventory," he went on. "They
are of no value for warriors in search of total freedom, because they
are produced by a lateral
shift of the assemblage point." He
stopped talking and looked at me. I knew, that by "lateral shift", he
had meant a shift of the point from one side to the other along the
width of human's band of emanations, instead of a shift in depth. I
asked
him if I was right. "That's
exactly what I meant," he said. "On both
edges of human's band of
emanations there is a strange storage of refuse, an incalculable pile
of human junk. It's a very morbid, sinister storehouse. It had great
value for the old Seers, but not
for us. One
of the easiest things one can do is to fall into it. Yesterday
Genaro and I wanted to give you a quick example of that lateral shift;
that was why we walked your assemblage point, but any person can reach
that storehouse by simply stopping his internal dialogue. If the shift
is minimal, the results are explained as fantasies of the mind. If the
shift is considerable, the results are called hallucinations." I
asked him to explain the act of walking the assemblage point. He said,
that once warriors have attained
inner silence by stopping their internal dialogue, the sound
of the gait of power, more, than the sight of it, is what traps their
assemblage points. The
rhythm of
muffled steps instantly catches the
alignment force of the emanations inside the cocoon, which has been
disconnected by inner silence.
That
alignment force hooks itself
immediately to the edges of the band," he went
on. "On the right edge we find endless visions of physical activity,
violence, killing, sensuality. On the left edge we find spirituality,
religion, God. Genaro and I walked your assemblage point
to both edges,
so as to give you a complete view of that human junk pile." Don
Juan restated, as if on second thought, that one of the most
mysterious aspects of the Seers' knowledge is the
incredible effects of Inner Silence. He said, that once Inner Silence
is attained, the bonds,
that tie the assemblage point to the particular spot, where it is
placed,
begin to break and the assemblage point is free to move. He
said, that the movement ordinarily is toward the left, that such a
directional preference is a natural reaction of most human beings, but,
that there are Seers, who can
direct that movement to positions below
the customary spot, where the point is located. The new Seers call that
shift
"the shift below." "Seers
also suffer accidental shifts below," he went on. "The
assemblage point doesn't remain there long, and that's fortunate,
because that is the place of the beast. To go below is counter to our
interest, although the easiest thing to do." Don
Juan also said, that among the many errors of judgment the old Seers
had committed,
one of the most grievous was moving their assemblage
points to the immeasurable area below, which made them experts at
adopting animal forms. They chose different
animals, as their point of
reference, and called those animals their nagual. They believed, that
by
moving their assemblage points to specific spots, they would
acquire the
characteristics of the animal of their choice, its strength or wisdom,
or cunning, or agility, or ferocity.
136-137
Don
Juan assured me, that there are many dreadful examples of such
practices even among the Seers of our day.
The relative facility, with
which the assemblage point of man moves toward any lower
position, poses
a great temptation to Seers, especially
to those, whose inclination
leans toward that end. It is the duty of
a Nagual, therefore, to test
his warriors.
He
told me then, that he had put me to the test by moving my assemblage
point to a position below, while I was under the influence of a power
plant. He then guided my assemblage point, until I could isolate the
crows' band of emanations, which resulted in my changing into a crow.
I
again asked don Juan the question, I had asked him dozens of times. I
wanted to know, whether I had physically turned into a crow or had
merely thought and felt like one. He explained, that a shift
of the
assemblage point to the area below always results in a total
transformation. He added, that if the assemblage point moves beyond a
crucial threshold, the world vanishes; it ceases to be what it is to us
at man's level. He
conceded, that my transformation was indeed horrifying by any
standards. My reaction to that experience proved to him, that I had no
leanings toward that direction. Had it not been that way, I would
have had to employ enormous energy, in order to fight off a
tendency to remain in that area below, which some Seers find most
comfortable.
He
further said, that an unwitting downshift occurs periodically to
every Seer, but that
such a downshift becomes less and less frequent, as
their assemblage points move farther toward the left. Every time it
occurs, however, the power of a Seer, undergoing
it, diminishes
considerably. It is a drawback, that takes time and great effort to
correct. "Those
lapses make Seers extreme
ly morose and narrow-minded," he
continued, "and in certain cases, extremely rational.
"How
can Seers avoid those
downshifts?" I asked.
"It
all depends on the warrior," he said. "Some of them are naturally
inclined to indulge in their quirks-yourself, for instance. They are
the ones, who are hard hit.
For those like you, I recommend a
twenty-four-hour vigil (watch) of everything they do. Disciplined men
or women
are less prone to that kind of shift; for those
I would recommend a
twenty-three-hour vigil (watch)." He
looked at me with shiny eyes and laughed.
"Female Seers have
downshifts more often, than males,"
he said. "But
they are also capable of bouncing out of that position with no effort
at all. While males linger dangerously in it." He
also said, that Women Seers have an
extraordinary capacity to make
their assemblage points hold on to any position in the area below. Men
cannot. Men have sobriety and purpose, but very little talent; that is
the reason why a Nagual must have eight Women Seers in his party.
Women
Seers give the
impulse to cross the immeasurable vastness of the Unknown.
Together with that natural capacity, or as a consequence of it, Women
Seers have a most
fierce intensity. They can, therefore, reproduce an animal
form with flare, ease, and a matchless ferocity. If
you think about scary things," he continued, "about something
unnamable lurking in the darkness, you're thinking, without knowing
it,
about a Woman Seer, holding a position in the immeasurable area below.
True horror lies right there. If you ever find an aberrant (deviate
from normal) Woman
Seer,
run for the hills!" I
asked him whether other organisms were capable of shifting their
assemblage points. "Their
points can shift," he said, "but the shift is not a voluntary
thing with them."
"Is
the assemblage point of other organisms also trained to appear
where it does?" I asked.
138-139
"Every
newborn organism is trained, one way or another," he replied.
"We may not understand how their training is done, after all, we don't
even understand how
it is done to us, but Seers See, that the
newborn
are coaxed (urged) to do what their kind does. That's exactly what
happens to
human infants: Seers See their
assemblage points shifting every which
way, and then they See how the presence of adults fastens each point to
one spot. The same happens to every other organism." Don
Juan seemed to reflect for a moment and then added, that there was
indeed one unique effect, that human's assemblage point has. He pointed
to
a tree outside. "When
we, as serious adult human beings, look at a tree," he said, "our
assemblage points align an infinite number of emanations and achieve a
miracle. Our assemblage points make us perceive a cluster of
emanations,
that we call tree." He
explained, that the assemblage point not only effects the alignment,
needed for perception, but also obliterates the alignment of certain
emanations, in order to arrive at a greater refinement of perception, a
skimming, a tricky human construct with no parallel. He
said, that the new Seers had observed,
that only human beings were
capable of further clustering the clusters of emanations. He used the
Spanish word for skimming, desnate, to describe the act of collecting
the most palatable cream off the top of a container of boiled milk
after it cools. Likewise, in terms of perception, human's assemblage
point takes some part of the emanations, already selected for
alignment,
and makes a more palatable construct with it.
"The
skimmings (actions) of men," don Juan continued, "are more real, than
what
other creatures perceive. That is our pitfall. They are so real to us,
that we forget, we have constructed them, by commanding our assemblage
points to appear here they do(?). We forget, they are real to us, only
because it is our command to perceive them as real. We have the power
to skim the top off the alignments, but we don't have the power to
protect ourselves from our own commands. That has
to be learned. To
give our skimmings (actions) a free hand,
as we do, is an error of judgment, for
which we pay as dearly, as the old Seers paid for
theirs."
9.
The Shift Below
140-141
Don
Juan and Genaro made their yearly trip to the northern part of
Mexico, to the Sonoran desert, to look for medicinal plants. One of
the Seers of the
Nagual's party, Vicente Medrano, the herbalist among them,
used those plants to make medicines. I had
joined don Juan and Genaro in Sonora, at the last stage of their
journey, just
in time to drive them south, back to their home. The
day before we started on our drive, don Juan abruptly continued his
explanation of the Mastery of Awareness.
We were resting in the shade
of some tall bushes in the foothills of the mountains. It was late
afternoon, almost dark. Each of us carried a large burlap sack filled
with plants. As soon, as we had put them down, Genaro lay down on the
ground and fell asleep, using his folded jacket as a pillow. Don
Juan spoke to me in a low voice,
as
if he didn't want to wake up
Genaro. He said, that by now he had explained most of the truths about
Awareness, and that there was only one truth left to discuss.
The last
truth, he assured me, was the best of the old Seers' findings,
although
they never knew that themselves. Its tremendous value was only
recognized, ages later, by the new Seers. "I've
explained to you, that human has an assemblage point," he went on,
"and, that that assemblage point aligns emanations for perception.
We've
also discussed, that that point moves from its fixed position. Now, the
last truth is, that once that assemblage point moves beyond a certain
limit, it can assemble worlds entirely different from the world we
know." Still
in a whisper, he said, that certain geographical areas not only
help that precarious movement of the assemblage point, but also select
specific directions for that movement. For instance, the Sonoran desert
helps the assemblage point move downward from its customary position,
to the place of the beast. "That's
why there are true Sorcerers in Sonora," he continued.
"Especially Sorceresses. You already know one, la Catalina.
In the
past, I have arranged bouts (contest, match) between the two of you. I
wanted to make
your assemblage point shift, and la Catalina, with her Sorcery antics,
jolted it loose." Don
Juan explained, that the chilling experiences, I had had with la
Catalina, had been part of a prearranged agreement between the two of
them.
"What
would you think if we invited her to join us?" Genaro asked me in
a loud voice, as he sat up. The
abruptness of his question and the strange sound of his voice
plunged me into instant terror. Don
Juan laughed and shook me by the arms. He assured me, that there was
no need for alarm. He said, that la Catalina was like a cousin or an
aunt to us. She was part of our world, although she did not quite
follow our quests. She was infinitely closer to the ancient Seers. Genaro
smiled and winked at me. "I
understand, that you've got hot pants for her," he said to me.
142-143
"She
herself confessed to me, that every time you have had a confrontation
with her, the greater your fright, the hotter your pants." Don
Juan and Genaro laughed to near hysteria. I had
to admit, that somehow I had always found la Catalina to be a very
scary, but at the same time an extremely appealing woman. What
impressed
me the most about her, was her exuding (coming gradually) energy.
"She
has so much energy saved," don Juan commented, "that you didn't
have to be in Heightened Awareness for her to move your assemblage
point all the way to the depths of the left side." Don
Juan said again, that la Catalina was very closely related to us,
because she belonged to the Nagual Julian's party. He explained, that
usually the Nagual and all the members of his party leave the world
together, but that there are instances, when they leave either in
smaller groups or one by one.
The Nagual Julian and his party were an
example of the latter. Although he had left the world nearly forty
years ago, la Catalina was still here. He
reminded me about something he mentioned to me before, that the Nagual
Julian's party consisted of a group of three thoroughly
inconsequential men and eight superb women. Don Juan had always
maintained, that such a disparity (difference) was one of the reasons,
why the members
of the Nagual Julian's party left the world one by one. He
said, that la Catalina had been attached to one of the superb
Women Seers of the Nagual
Julian's party, who taught her extraordinary
maneuvers to shift her assemblage point to the area below.
That Seer
was one of the last to leave the world. She lived to an extremely old
age, and since both she and la Catalina were originally from Sonora,
they returned, in her advanced years, to the desert and lived together,
until the Seer left the
world. In the years they spent together, la
Catalina became her most dedicated helper and disciple, a disciple, who
was willing to learn the extravagant ways the old Seers knew to make
the assemblage point shift. I
asked don Juan, if la Catalina's knowledge was inherently different
from his own.
"We
are exactly the same," he replied. "She's more like Silvio Manuel
or Genaro; she is really the female version of them, but, of course,
being a woman, she's infinitely more aggressive and dangerous, than
both
of them."
Genaro
assented with a nod of his head. "Infinitely more," he said and
winked again.
"Is
she attached to your party?" I asked don Juan.
"I
said, that she's like a cousin or an aunt to us," he replied. "I
meant, she belongs to the older generation, although she's younger,
than
all of us. She is the last of that group. She is rarely in contact with
us. She doesn't quite like us. We are too stiff for her, because she's
used to the Nagual Julian's
touch. She prefers the high adventure of the Unknown to the Quest for
Freedom."
"What
is the difference between the two?" I asked don Juan.
"In
the last part of my explanation of the truths about Awareness," he
replied, "we are going to discuss that difference slowly and
thoroughly. What's important for you to know at this moment, is, that
you're jealously guarding weird secrets in your left-side Awareness;
that is why la Catalina and you like each other." I
insisted again, that it was not, that I liked her, it was rather, that
I
admired her great strength. Don
Juan and Genaro laughed and patted me, as if they knew something, I
did not.
"She
likes you, because she knows what you're like," Genaro said and
smacked his lips. "She knew the Nagual Julian very well." Both
of them gave me a long look, that made me feel embarrassed.
144-145
"What
are you driving at?" I asked Genaro in a belligerent (aggressive) tone.
He
grinned at me and moved his eyebrows up and down in a comical
gesture. But he kept quiet. Don
Juan spoke and broke the silence.
"There
are very strange points in common between the Nagual Julian and
you," he said. "Genaro is just trying to figure out if you're aware of
it."
I
asked both of them how on earth I would be aware of something so
farfetched.
"La
Catalina thinks you are," Genaro said. "She says so, because she
knew the Nagual Julian better, than any of us here." I
commented, that I couldn't believe, that
she knew the Nagual Julian,
since he had left the world nearly forty years ago. "La
Catalina is no spring chicken," Genaro said. "She just looks young;
that's part of her knowledge. Just as it was part of the Nagual
Julian's knowledge. You've seen her only when she looks young. If you
see her when she looks old, she'll scare the living daylights out of
you."
"What
la Catalina does," don Juan interrupted, "can be explained only
in terms of the three Masteries: the Mastery of Awareness, the Mastery
of Stalking, and the Mastery of Intent. But
today, we are going to examine what she does only in light of the
last truth about Awareness: the truth, that says, that the assemblage
point can assemble worlds different from our own, after it moves from
its original position." Don
Juan signaled me to get up. Genaro also stood up. I automatically
grabbed the burlap sack filled with medicinal plants. Genaro stopped
me,
as I was about to put it on my shoulders. "Leave
the sack alone," he said, smiling. "We have to take a little
hike up the hill and meet la Catalina."
"Where
is she?" I asked.
"Up
there," Genaro said, pointing to the top of a small hill. "If you
stare with your eyes half-closed, you'll see her, as a very dark spot
against the green shrubbery."
I
strained to see the dark spot, but I couldn't see anything. "Why
don't you walk up there?" don Juan suggested to me. I felt
dizzy and sick to my stomach. Don Juan urged me with a movement
of his hand to go up, but I didn't dare move. Finally, Genaro took me
by the arm and both of us climbed toward the top of the hill. When
we
got there, I realized, that don Juan had come up right behind us. The
three of us reached the top at the same time. Don
Juan very calmly began to talk to Genaro.
He asked him, if he
remembered the many times the Nagual Julian was about to choke both of
them to death, because they indulged in their fears. Genaro
turned to me and assured me, that the Nagual Julian had been a
ruthless teacher. He and his own teacher, the Nagual Elias, who was
still in the world then, used to push everyone's assemblage points
beyond a crucial limit and let them fend for themselves. "I
once told you, that the Nagual Julian recommended us not to waste our
sexual energy," Genaro went on. "He meant, that for the assemblage
point
to shift, one needs energy. If one doesn't have it, the Nagual's Blow
is not the Blow of Freedom, but the Blow of Death."
"Without
enough energy," don Juan said, "the Force of Alignment is
crushing. You have to have energy to sustain the pressure of
alignments,
which never take place under ordinary circumstances." Genaro
said, that the Nagual Julian was an inspiring teacher. He always
found ways to teach and at the same time entertain himself.
146-147
One of his
favorite teaching devices was to catch them unawares once or twice, in
their normal awareness, and make their assemblage points shift. From
then on,
all he had to do to have their undivided attention was, to
threaten them with an unexpected Nagual's Blow. "The Nagual
Julian was really an unforgettable man," don Juan said. "He
had a great touch with people. He would do the worst things in the
world, but done by him they were great. Done by anyone else, they would
have been crude and callous. The Nagual
Ellas, on the other hand, had no touch, but he was indeed a
great, great teacher."
"The
Nagual Elias was very much like the Nagual Juan Matus," Genaro
said to me. "They got along very fine. And the Nagual Elias taught him
everything without ever raising his voice, or playing tricks on him. But
the Nagual Julian was quite different," Genaro went on, giving me
a friendly shove. "I'd say, that he jealously guarded strange secrets
in
his left side, just like you. Wouldn't you say so?" he asked don Juan. Don
Juan did not answer, but nodded affirmatively. He seemed to be
holding back his laughter.
"He
had a playful nature," don Juan said, and both of them broke into a
great laughter. The
fact, that they were obviously alluding to something they knew, made
me feel even more threatened. Don
Juan matter-of-factly said, that they were referring to the bizarre
sorcery techniques, that the Nagual Julian had learned in the course of
his life. Genaro added, that the Nagual Julian had a unique teacher,
besides the Nagual Elias. A teacher, who had liked him immensely and
had
taught him novel and complex ways of moving his assemblage point. As a
result of this, the Nagual Julian was extraordinarily eccentric in his
behavior.
"Who
was that teacher, don Juan?" I asked. Don
Juan and Genaro looked at each other and giggled like two children.
"That
is a very tough question to answer," don Juan replied. "All I can
say is, that he was the teacher, that deviated the course of our line.
He
taught us many things, good and bad, but among the worst, he taught us,
what the old Seers did. So, some
of us got trapped. The Nagual Julian
was one of them, and so is la Catalina.
We only hope, that you won't
follow them."
I
immediately began to protest. Don Juan interrupted me. He said, that I
did not know, what I was protesting. As don
Juan spoke, I became terribly angry with him and Genaro.
Suddenly, I was raging, yelling at them at the top of my voice. My
reaction was so out of tone with me, that it scared me. It
was, as if I
were someone else. I stopped and looked at them for help. Genaro
had his hands on don Juan's shoulders, as if he needed support.
Both of them were laughing uncontrollably. I
became so despondent (disheartened), I was nearly in tears. Don Juan
came to my side.
He reassuringly put his hand on my shoulder. He said, that the Sonoran
desert, for reasons incomprehensible to him, fostered definite
belligerence
(aggressiveness) in human or
any other organism. "People
may say, that it's, because the air is too dry here," he
continued, "or because it's too hot. Seers would say,
that there is a
particular confluence of the Eagle's emanations here, which, as I've already
said, helps the assemblage point to shift below. Be
that, as it may, warriors are in the world to train themselves to be
unbiased witnesses, so as to understand the mystery of ourselves and
relish the exultation (triumph) of finding, what we really are. This is
the
highest of the new Seers' goals. And
not every warrior attains it. We
believe, that the Nagual Julian didn't attain it. He was waylaid (lie
in wait for an ambush-attack), and so
was la Catalina."
148-149
He
further said, that to be a peerless Nagual, one has to love Freedom,
and one has to have supreme Detachment. He explained, that what makes
the warrior's path
so very dangerous is, that it is the opposite of the
life situation of modern human. He said, that modern human has left the
realm of the Unknown and the Mysterious, and has settled down in the
realm of the functional. He has turned his back to the world of the
foreboding and the exulting and has welcomed the world of boredom.
"To be
given a chance to go back again to the mystery of the world,"
don Juan continued, "is sometimes too much for warriors, and they
succumb (submit to overwhelming desire); they are waylaid (lie in wait
for an ambush-attack) by
what I've called the high adventure of the Unknown. They forget the
Quest for Freedom; they forget to be unbiased
witnesses. They sink into the Unknown and love it."
"And
you think I'm like that, don't you?" I asked don Juan.
"We
don't think, we know," Genaro replied. "And la Catalina knows
better, than anyone else."
"Why
would she know it?" I demanded.
"Because
she's like you," Genaro replied, pronouncing his words with a
comical intonation. I was
about to get into a heated argument again, when don Juan
interrupted me. "There's
no need to get so worked up," he said to me. "You are, what you
are. The Fight for Freedom is harder for some. You are one of them. In
order to be unbiased witnesses," he went on, "we begin by
understanding, that the fixation or the movement of the assemblage
point
is all there is to us and the world, we witness, whatever that world
might be. The
new Seers
say, that when we were taught to talk to ourselves, we
were taught the means to dull ourselves, in order to keep the
assemblage
point fixed on one spot."
Genaro
clapped his hands noisily and let out a piercing whistle, that
imitated the whistle of a football coach. "Let's
get that assemblage point moving!" he yelled.
"Up, up, up! Move,
move, move!"
We
were all still laughing, when the bushes by my right side were
suddenly stirred. Don Juan and Genaro immediately sat down with the
left leg tucked under the seat. The right leg, with the knee up, was
like a shield in front of them. Don Juan signaled me to do the same. He
raised his
brows and made a
gesture of resignation at the corner of his mouth. "Sorcerers
have their own quirks (oddities)," he said in a whisper. "When the
assemblage point moves to the regions below its normal position, the
vision of sorcerers becomes limited. If they see you standing, they'll
attack you. The
Nagual
Julian kept me once for two days in this warrior's
position," Genaro whispered to me. "I even had to urinate, while I sat
in this position."
"And
defecate," don Juan added.
"Right,"
Genaro said. And then he whispered to me, as if on second
thought, "I hope you did your kaka earlier. If your bowels aren't empty
when la Catalina shows up, you'll shit in your pants, unless I show you
how to take them off. If you have to shit in this position, you've got
to get your pants off." He
began to show me how to maneuver out of my trousers. He did it in a
most serious and concerned manner. All my concentration was focused on
his movements. It was only when I had gotten out of my pants, that I
became aware, that don Juan was roaring with laughter. I realized, that
Genaro was again poking fun at me. I was about to stand up to put on my
pants, when don Juan stopped me. He was laughing so hard, that he could
hardly articulate his words. He told me to stay put, that Genaro did
things only half in fun, and that la Catalina was really there behind
the bushes.
150-151
His
tone of urgency, in the midst of laughter, got to me. I froze on
the spot. A moment later a rustle in the bushes sent me into such a
panic, that I forgot about my pants. I looked at Genaro. He was again
wearing his pants. He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm
sorry," he whispered. "I didn't have time to show you how to put
them back on without getting up." I did
not have time to get angry or to join them in their mirth.
Suddenly, right in front of me, the bushes separated and a most
horrendous creature came out. It was so outlandish, I was no longer
afraid. I was spellbound. Whatever was in front of me, was not a human
being; it was something not even remotely resembling one. It was more
like a reptile. Or a bulky grotesque insect. Or even a hairy,
ultimately repulsive bird. Its body was dark and had coarse reddish
hair. I could not see any legs, just the ugly enormous head. The nose
was flat and the nostrils were two enormous lateral holes. It had
something like a beak with teeth. Horrifying, as that thing was, its
eyes were magnificent. They were like two mesmeric pools of
inconceivable clarity. They had knowledge. They were not human eyes, or
bird eyes, or any kind of eyes I had ever seen. The
creature moved toward my left, rustling the bushes. As I moved my
head to follow it, I noticed, that don Juan and Genaro seemed to be as
spellbound by its presence, as I was. It occurred to me, that they had
never seen anything like that either. In an
instant, the creature had moved completely out of sight. But a
moment later there was a growl and its gigantic shape again loomed in
front of us.
I was
fascinated and at the same time worried by the fact, that I was
not in the least afraid of that grotesque
creature. It was, as if my early panic had been experienced by
someone else.
I
felt, at one moment, that I was beginning to stand up. Against my
volition, my legs straightened up and I found myself standing up,
facing the creature. I vaguely felt, that I was taking off my jacket,
my
shirt, and my shoes. Then I was naked. The muscles of my legs tensed
with a tremendously powerful contraction. I jumped up and down with
colossal agility, and then the creature and I raced toward some
ineffable greenness in the distance. The
creature raced ahead of me, coiling on itself, like a serpent. But
then I caught up with it. As we speeded together, I became aware of
something I already knew: the creature was really la Catalina. All of a
sudden, la Catalina, in the flesh, was next to me. We moved
effortlessly. It was as if we were stationary, only posed in a bodily
gesture of movement and speed, while the scenery around us was being
moved, giving the impression of enormous acceleration. Our
racing stopped as suddenly, as it had started, and then I was alone
with la Catalina in a different world. There was not a single
recognizable feature in it. There was an intense glare and heat, coming
from what seemed to be the ground, a ground covered with huge rocks. Or
at least they seemed to be rocks. They had the color of sandstone, but
they had no weight; they were like chunks of sponge tissue. I could
send them hurling around by only leaning on them. I
became so fascinated with my strength, that I was oblivious to
anything else. I had assessed, in whatever way, that the chunks of
seemingly weightless material opposed resistance to me. It was my
superior strength, that sent them hurling around. I
tried to grab them with my hands, and I realized, that my entire body
had changed. La Catalina was looking at me. She was again the grotesque
creature, she had been before, and so was I.
152-153
I could not see myself, but
I knew, that both of us were exactly alike. An
indescribable joy possessed me, as if joy were some force, that came
from outside me.
La Catalina and I cavorted (весело прыгали), and twisted, and played,
until I had no more thoughts, or feelings, or human awareness in any
degree. Yet, I was definitely aware. My awareness was a vague
knowledge,
that gave me confidence; it was a limitless trust, a physical certainty
of my existence, not in the sense of a human feeling of individuality,
but in the sense of a presence, that was everything. Then,
everything came again into human focus all at once. La Catalina
was holding my hand. We were walking on the desert floor among the
desert shrubs. I had the immediate and painful realization, that the
desert rocks and hard clumps of dirt were horribly injurious to my bare
feet.
We
came to a spot clear of vegetation. Don Juan and Genaro were there.
I sat down and put on my clothes. My
experien-
ce with la Catalina delayed our trip back to the south of
Mexico. It had unhinged me in some indescribable way. In my normal
state of awareness, I became disassociated. It was, as if I had lost a
point of reference. I had become despondent. I told don Juan, that I
had
even lost my desire to live. We
were sitting around in the ramada of don Juan's house. My car was
loaded with sacks and we were
ready to leave, but my feeling of despair got the best of me and I
began to weep.
Don
Juan and Genaro laughed, until their eyes were tearing. The more
desperate I felt, the greater was their enjoyment. Finally, don Juan
had me shift into Heightened Awareness and explained, that their
laughter was not unkindness on their part, or the result of a weird
sense of humor, but the genuine expression of happiness at seeing me
advance in the path of knowledge. "I'll
tell you what the Nagual Julian used to say to us, when we got to
where you are," don Juan went on. "That way, you'll know, that you're
not alone. What's happening to you, happens to anyone, who stores
enough
energy to catch a glimpse of the Unknown." He
said, that the Nagual Julian used to tell them, that they had been
evicted from the homes, where they had lived all their lives. A result
of having saved energy, had been the disruption of their cozy, but
utterly limiting and boring nest in the world of everyday life. Their
depression, the Nagual Julian told them, was not so much the sadness of
having lost their nest, but the annoyance of having to look for new
quarters. "The
new quarters," don Juan went on, "are not as cozy. But they are
infinitely more roomy. Your
eviction notice came in the form of a great depression, a loss of
the desire to live, just as it happened to us. When you told us, that
you didn't want to live, we couldn't help laughing."
"What's
going to happen to me now?" I asked.
"Using
the vernacular (native language), you got to get another pad," don Juan
replied. Don
Juan and Genaro again entered into a state of great euphoria. Every
one of their statements and remarks made them laugh hysterically. "It's
all very simple," don Juan said. "Your new level of energy will
create a new spot to house your assemblage point. And the warriors'
dialogue you carry on with us every time we get together, will solidify
that new position." Genaro
adopted a serious look and in a booming voice he asked me:
"Did
you shit today?" He
urged me with a movement of his head to answer. "Did you, did you?"
he demanded. "Let's get going with our warriors' dialogue."
154-155
When
their laughter had subsided, Genaro said, that I had to be aware of
a drawback, the fact, that from time to time the assemblage point
returns to its original position. He told me, that in his own case, the
normal position of his assemblage point had forced him to See people,
as
threatening and often terrifying beings.
To his utter amazement, one
day he realized, that he had changed. He was considerably more daring
and had successfully dealt with a situation, that would have ordinarily
thrown him into chaos and fear. "I
found myself making love," Genaro continued, and he winked at me.
"Usually I was afraid to death of
women. But one day I found myself in bed with a most ferocious
woman, it was so unlike me, that when I realized, what I was doing, I
nearly had a heart attack. The jolt made my assemblage point return to
its miserable normal position and I had to run out of the house,
shaking like a scared rabbit. You'd
better watch out for the recoil of the assemblage point," Genaro
added, and they were laughing again.
"The
position of the assemblage point on human's cocoon," don Juan
explained, "is maintained by the internal dialogue, and because of
that, it is a flimsy position at best. That's why men and
women lose
their minds so easily, especially those, whose internal dialogue is
repetitious, boring, and without any depth.
The
new Seers say, that the
more resilient human beings are those, whose
internal dialogue is more fluid and varied." He
said, that the position of the warrior's assemblage point is
infinitely stronger, because as soon, as the assemblage point begins to
move in the cocoon, it creates a dimple in the Luminosity, a dimple,
that houses the assemblage point from then on. That's
the reason, why we can't say, that warriors lose their minds,"
don Juan went on. "If they lose anything, they lose their dimple."
Don
Juan and Genaro found that statement so hilarious, that they rolled
on the floor laughing. I
asked don Juan to explain my experience with la Catalina. And both of
them again howled with laughter. "Women
are definitely more bizarre, than men," don Juan finally said.
"The fact, that they have an extra opening between their legs makes
them
fall prey to strange influences. Strange, powerful forces possess them
through that opening (vagina). That's the only way I can understand
their
quirks (oddity, whim)." He
kept silent for a while, and I asked, what he meant by that.
"La
Catalina came to us as a giant worm," he replied. Don
Juan's expression when he said that, and Genaro's explosion of
laughter, took me into sheer mirth.
I laughed, until I was nearly sick. Don
Juan said, that la Catalina's skill was so extraordinary, that she
could do anything she wanted in the realm of the beast. Her
unparalleled display had been motivated by her affinity (liking) with
me. The
final result of all that, he said, was that la Catalina pulled my
assemblage point with her.
"What
did you two do as worms?" Genaro asked and slapped me on the back. Don
Juan seemed to be close to choking with laughter.
"That's
why I've said, that women are more bizarre, than men," he
commented at last.
"I
don't agree with you," Genaro said to don Juan. "The Nagual Julian
didn't have an extra hole between his legs and he was more weird, than
la Catalina. I believe she learned the worm image from him. He used to
do
that to her."
Don
Juan jumped up and down, like a child, who is trying to keep from
wetting his pants.
156
When
he had regained a measure of calm, don Juan said, that the Nagual
Julian had a knack for creating and exploiting the most bizarre
situations. He also said, that la Catalina had given me a
superb example
of the shift below. She had let me see her as the being, whose form she
had adopted by moving her assemblage point, and she had then helped me
move mine to the same position, that gave her her monstrous appearance.
"The
other teacher, that the Nagual Julian had," don Juan went on,
"taught him how to get to specific spots in that immensity of the area
below. None of us could follow him there, but all the members of his
party did, especially la Catalina and the Woman Seer, who taught
her."
Don
Juan further said, that a shift below entailed a view, not of
another world proper, but of our same world of everyday life seen from
a different perspective. He added, that in order for me to see another
world, I had to perceive another great band of the Eagle's emanations. He
then brought his explanation to an end. He said, that he had no time
to elaborate on the subject of the great bands of emanations, because
we had to be on our way. I wanted to stay a bit longer and keep on
talking, but he argued, that he would need a good deal of time to
explain that topic and I would need fresh concentration.
10.
Great Bands of Emanations
157-158
Days
later, in his house in southern Mexico, don Juan continued with
his explanation. He took me to the big room. It was early evening. The
room was in darkness. I wanted to light the gasoline lanterns, but don
Juan would not let me. He said, that I had to let the sound of his
voice
move my assemblage point, so that it would Glow on the emanations of
total concentration and total recall. He
then told me, that we were going to talk about the great bands of
emanations. He called it another key discovery, that the old Seers made,
but that, in their aberration, they relegated to oblivion, until it was
rescued by the new Seers. "The
Eagle's emanations are always grouped in clusters," he went on.
"The old Seers called those
clusters the great bands of emanations.
They aren't really bands, but the name stuck.
"For
instance, there is an immeasurable cluster, that produces Organic
Beings. The emanations of that organic band have a sort of fluffiness.
They are transparent and have a unique light of their own, a peculiar
energy. They are aware, they jump. That's the reason why all Organic
Beings are filled with a peculiar consuming energy. The other bands are
darker, less fluffy. Some of them have no light at all, but a quality
of opaqueness."
"Do
you mean, don Juan, that all Organic Beings have the same kind of
emanations inside their cocoons?" I asked.
"No. I
don't mean that. It isn't really that simple, although Organic Beings
belong to the same great band. Think of it as an enormously wide
band of luminous filaments, luminous strings with no end.
Organic
Beings are bubbles, that grow around a group of luminous filaments.
Imagine, that in this band of organic life some bubbles are formed
around the luminous filaments in the center of the band, others are
formed close to the edges; the band is wide enough to accommodate every
kind of Organic Being with room to spare. In such an arrangement,
bubbles, that are close to the edges of the band, miss altogether the
emanations, that are in the center of the band, which are shared only
by
bubbles, that are aligned with the center. By the same token, bubbles
in
the center miss the emanations from the edges. As
you can understand, Organic Beings share the emanations of one
band; yet Seers see, that
within that organic band Beings are as
different, as they can be."
"Are
there many of these great bands?" I asked.
"As
many, as Infinity itself," he replied. "Seers have found
out,
however, that in the Earth there are only forty-eight such bands."
"What
is the meaning of that, don Juan?"
"For Seers it means,
that there are forty-eight types of organizations
on the Earth, forty-eight types of clusters
or structures. Organic life is one of them."
"Does
that mean, that there are forty-seven types of inorganic life?"
"No,
not at all. The old Seers counted seven
bands, that produced
inorganic bubbles of Awareness.
159-160
In other words, there are forty bands,
that produce bubbles without Awareness; those are bands, that generate
only organization. Think
of the great bands as being like trees. All of them bear fruit;
they produce containers, filled with emanations; yet only
eight of those
trees bear edible fruit, that is, bubbles of Awareness. Seven have sour
fruit, but edible nonetheless, and one has the most juicy, luscious
fruit there is." He
laughed and said, that in his analogy he had taken the point of view
of the Eagle, for whom the most delectable (greatly pleasing) morsels
(snack) are the organic
bubbles of Awareness.
"What
makes those eight bands produce Awareness?" I asked.
"The
Eagle bestows (present as a gift) Awareness through its emanations," he
replied. His
answer made me argue with him. I told him, that to say, that the
Eagle bestows Awareness through its emanations is like what a religious
man would say about God, that God bestows life through love. It does
not mean anything.
"The
two statements are not made from the same point of view," he
patiently said. "And yet I think they mean the same thing. The
difference is, that Seers See how the
Eagle bestows Awareness through
its emanations and religious men don't see how God bestows life through
his love."
He
said, that the way the Eagle bestows Awareness is by means of three
giant bundles of emanations, that run through eight great bands. These
bundles are quite peculiar, because they make Seers feel a hue.
One
bundle gives the feeling of being beige-pink, something like the glow
of pink-colored street lamps; another gives the feeling of being peach,
like buff neon lights; and the third bundle gives the feeling of being
amber, like clear honey. So,
it is a matter of Seeing
a hue, when Seers See, that the
Eagle
bestows Awareness through its emanations," he went on. "Religious men
don't see God's love, but if they would See it, they would know, that
it
is either pink, peach, or amber. Man,
for example, is attached to the amber bundle, but so are other Beings." I
wanted to know, which Beings shared those emanations with man. "Details
like that, you will have to find out for yourself through your
own Seeing,"'
he said. "There is no point in my telling you which ones;
you will only be making another inventory. Suffice it to say, that
finding that out for yourself, will be one of the most exciting things
you'll ever do."
"Do
the pink and peach bundles also show in man?" I asked.
"Never.
Those bundles belong to other living Beings," he replied. I was
about to ask a question, but with a forceful movement of his
hand, he signaled me to stop. He then became immersed in thought. We
were enveloped in complete silence for a long time. "I've
told you, that the Glow of Awareness in human has different colors."
he finally said. "What I didn't tell you then, because we hadn't gotten
to that point yet, was, that they are not colors, but casts of amber." He
said, that the amber
bundle of Awareness has an Infinitude of subtle
variants, which always denote differences in quality of Awareness. Pink
and pale-green amber are the most common casts. Blue amber is more
unusual, but pure amber is by far the most rare.
"What
determines the particular casts of amber?"
"Seers
say, that the amount of energy, that one saves and stores,
determines the cast. Countless numbers of warriors have begun with an
ordinary pink amber cast and have finished with the purest of all
ambers. Genaro and Silvio Manuel are examples of that."
"What
forms of life belong to the pink and the peach bundles of Awareness?" I
asked.
161-162
"The
three bundles with all their casts crisscross the eight bands," he
replied. "In the organic band, the pink bundle belongs mainly to
plants, the peach band belongs to insects, and the amber band belongs
to human and other animals. The
same situation is prevalent in the inorganic bands. The three
bundles of Awareness produce specific kinds of Inorganic Beings in each
of the seven great bands." I
asked him to elaborate on the kinds of Inorganic Beings, that existed. "That
is another thing, that you must See for yourself," he said. "The
seven bands and what they produce are indeed inaccessible to human
reason, but not to human Seeing."
I told
him, that I could not quite grasp his explanation of the great
bands, because his description had forced me to imagine them as
independent bundles of strings, or even as flat bands, like conveyor
belts. He
explained, that the great bands are neither flat, nor round, but
indescribably clustered together, like a pile of hay, which is held
together in midair by the force of the hand, that pitched it. Thus,
there is no order to the emanations; to say, that there is a central
part or, that there are edges, is misleading, but necessary to
understanding. Continuing,
he explained, that Inorganic Beings produced by the seven
other bands of Awareness, are characterized by having a container, that
has no motion; it is rather a formless receptacle with a low degree of
Luminosity. It does not look like the cocoon of Organic Beings. It
lacks the tautness (tidyness), the inflated
quality, that makes Organic Beings look like Luminous Balls,
bursting with energy. Don
Juan said, that the only similarity between Inorganic and Organic
Beings is, that all of them have the Awareness, bestowing pink or peach
or amber emanations. "Those
emanations, under certain circumstances," he continued, "make
possible the most fascinating communication between the Beings of those
eight great bands." He
said, that usually the Organic Beings, with their greater fields of
energy, are the initiators of communication with Inorganic Beings, but
a subtle and sophisticated follow-up is always the province of the
Inorganic Beings. Once the barrier is broken, Inorganic Beings change
and become what Seers call Allies.
From that moment Inorganic Beings
can anticipate the Seers's
most subtle thoughts or moods or fears. "The
old Seers became
mesmerized by such devotion from their Allies,"
he went on. "Stories are, that the old Seers could make
their Allies do
anything they wanted. That was one of the reasons they believed in
their own invulnerability. They got fooled by their self-importance.
The Allies have power only if the Seer, who Sees
them, is the paragon of
impeccability; and those old Seers
just weren't."
"Are
there as many Inorganic Beings, as there are living organisms?" I
asked. He
said, that Inorganic Beings are not as plentiful, as Organic Ones, but
that this is offset (compensated) by the greater number of bands of
Inorganic Awareness. Also, the differences among the Inorganic Beings
themselves
are more vast, than the differences among organisms, because organisms
belong to only one band, while Inorganic Beings belong to seven bands.
"Besides, Inorganic Beings live infinitely longer, than organisms,"
he
continued. "This matter is what prompted the old Seers to
concentrate
their Seeing
on the Allies, for reasons I will tell you about later on." He
said, that the old Seers also came to realize,
that it is the high
energy of organisms and the subsequent high development of their
Awareness, that make them delectable morsels (greatly
pleasing snack) for the Eagle.
163-164
In the old Seers' view,
gluttony (excess) was the reason the Eagle produced as many
organisms, as possible. He
explained next, that the product of the other forty great bands is
not Awareness at all, but a configuration of inanimate energy. The
old Seers
chose to call whatever is produced by those bands, vessels. While
cocoons and containers are fields of energetic Awareness, which
accounts for their independent Luminosity, vessels are rigid
receptacles (containers), that hold emanations without being fields of
energetic Awareness. Their Luminosity comes only from the energy of the
encased
emanations.
"You
must bear in mind, that everything on the Earth is encased," he
continued. "Whatever we perceive is made up of portions of cocoons or
vessels with emanations. Ordinarily, we don't perceive the
containers
of Inorganic Beings at all." He
looked at me, waiting for a sign of comprehension. When he realized,
I was not going to oblige him, he continued explaining. "The
total world is made of the forty-eight bands," he said. "The world,
that our assemblage point assembles for our normal perception, is made
up of two bands; one is the organic band, the other is a band, that has
only structure, but no Awareness. The other forty-six great bands are
not part of the world we normally perceive." He
paused again for pertinent questions. I had none. "There
are other complete worlds, that our assemblage points can
assemble," he went on. "The old Seers counted seven such
worlds, one
for each band of Awareness. I'll add, that two of those worlds, besides
the world of everyday life, are easy to assemble; the other five are
something else."
When
we again sat down to talk, don Juan immediately began to talk
about my experience with la Catalina. He said, that a shift of the
assemblage point to the area below its customary position allows
the Seer a detailed
and narrow view of the world we know. So detailed is
that view, that it seems to be an entirely different world. It is a
mesmerizing view, that has a tremendous appeal, especially for
those Seers, who have an
adventurous, but somehow indolent (slow) and lazy spirit.
"The
change of perspective is very pleasant," don Juan went on.
"Minimal effort is required, and the results are staggering. If
a Seer
is driven by quick gain, there is no better maneuver, than the shift
below. The only problem is, that in those positions of the assemblage
point, Seers are plagued
by death, which happens even more brutally and
more quickly, than in human's position. "The Nagual
Julian thought it was a great place for cavorting (порезвиться), but
that's all."
He
said, that a true change of worlds happens only, when the assemblage
point moves into human's band, deep enough to reach a crucial
threshold,
at which stage the assemblage point can use another of the great bands.
"How
does it use it?" I asked.
He
shrugged his shoulders. "It's a matter of energy," he said. "The
force of alignment hooks another band, provided, that the Seer has
enough energy. Our normal energy allows our assemblage points to use
the force of alignment of one great band of emanations. And we perceive
the world we know. But if we have a surplus of energy, we can use the
force of alignment of other great bands, and consequently we perceive
other worlds."
Don
Juan abruptly changed the subject and began to talk about plants.
165-166
"How
big are their cocoons?" I asked.
"The
cocoon of a giant tree is not much larger, than the tree itself.
The interesting part is, that some tiny plants have a cocoon almost as
big, as a human's body and three times its width. Those are
power plants.
They share the largest amount of emanations with man, not the
emanations of Awareness, but other emanations in general. Another
thing unique about plants is, that their Luminosities have
different casts. They are pinkish in general, because their Awareness
is pink. Poisonous plants are a pale yellow pink and medicinal plants
are a bright violet pink. The only ones, that are white pink are power
plants; some are murky white, others are brilliant white. But
the real difference between plants and other Organic Beings is the
location of their assemblage points. Plants have it on the lower part
of their cocoon, while other Organic Beings have it on the upper part
of their cocoon."
"What
about the Inorganic Beings?" I asked. "Where do they have their
assemblage points?"
"Some
have it on the lower part of their containers," he said. "Those
are thoroughly alien to human, but akin to plants. Others have it
anywhere on the upper part of their containers. Those are close to
human
and other Organic Creatures." He
added, that the old Seers were convinced, that
plants have the most
intense communication with Inorganic Beings. They
believed, that the
lower the assemblage point, the easier for plants to break the barrier
of perception; very
large trees and very small plants have their
assemblage points extremely low in their cocoon. Because of this, a
great number of the old Seers'
sorcery techniques were means (ways) to harness
the Awareness of trees and small plants, in order to use them as guides
to descend to, what they called, the deepest levels of the dark
regions.
"You
understand, of course," don Juan went on, "that when they thought
they were descending to the depths, they were, in fact, pushing their
assemblage points to assemble other perceivable worlds with those seven
great bands.
They
taxed their Awareness to the limit and assembled worlds with five
great bands, that are accessible to Seers only, if they
undergo a
dangerous transformation."
"But
did the old Seers succeed in
assembling those worlds?" I asked.
"They
did," he said. "In their aberration they believed, it was worth
their while to break all the barriers of perception, even if they had
to become trees to do that."
11.
Stalking, Intent and the
Dreaming Position
167-168
The
next day, in the early evening again, don Juan came to the room,
where I was talking with Genaro. He took me by the arm and walked me
through the house to the back patio. It was already fairly dark. We
started to walk around in the corridor, that encircled the patio. As we
walked, don Juan told me, that he wanted to warn me once again,
that it is very easy in the path of knowledge to get lost in
intricacies and morbidity. He said, that Seers are up
against great
enemies, that can destroy their purpose, muddle their aims, and make
them weak; enemies, created by the warriors' path itself, together with
the sense of indolence, laziness, and self-importance, that
are integral
parts of the daily world. He
remarked, that the mistakes, the ancient Seers made as a
result of
indolence, laziness, and self-importance, were so enormous and so
grave,
that the new Seers had no
option, but to scorn and reject their own
tradition. "The
most important thing the new Seers needed," don
Juan continued,
"was practical steps, in order to make their assemblage points shift.
Since they had none, they began by developing a keen interest in Seeing
the Glow of Awareness, and, as a result, they worked out three sets of
techniques, that became their cornerstone." Don
Juan said, that with these three sets, the new Seers accomplished
a
most extraordinary and difficult feat. They succeeded in systematically
making the assemblage point shift away from its customary position. He
acknowledged, that the old Seers had also
accomplished that feat, but by
means of capricious, idiosyncratic maneuvers. He
explained, that, what the new Seers Saw in the Glow of
Awareness,
resulted in the sequence, in which they arranged the old Seers'
truths
about Awareness. This is known as the Mastery of Awareness. From that,
they developed the three sets of techniques. The first is the Mastery
of Stalking, the second is the Mastery of Intent, and the third is the
Mastery of Dreaming. He maintained, that he had taught me these three
sets from the very first day we met. He
told me, that he had taught me the Mastery of Awareness in two ways,
just as the new Seers recommend. In
his teachings for the right side,
which he had done in normal awareness, he accomplished two goals: he
taught me the warriors' way, and he loosened my assemblage point from
its original position. In his teachings for the left side, which he had
done in Heightened Awareness, he also accomplished two goals: he had
made my assemblage point shift to as many positions, as I was capable
of
sustaining, and he had given me a long series of explanations. Don
Juan stopped talking and stared at me fixedly. There was an awkward
silence; then he started to talk about Stalking. He said, that it had
very humble and fortuitous (accidental) origins. It started from an
observation the
new Seers made, that
when warriors steadily behave in ways not customary
for them, the unused emanations, inside their cocoons, begin to glow.
169-170
And
their assemblage points shift in a mild, harmonious, barely noticeable
fashion. Stimulated
by this observation, the new Seers began to
practice the
systematic control of their behavior. They called this practice the Art
of Stalking. Don Juan remarked, that the name, although objectionable,
was appropriate, because Stalking entailed a specific kind of behavior
with people, behavior, that could be categorized as surreptitious
(deceiving).
The
new Seers, armed with
this technique, tackled the Known in a sober
and fruitful way. By continual practice, they made their assemblage
points move steadily. "Stalking
is one of the two greatest accomplishments of the new Seers."
he said. "The new Seers decided, that
it should be taught to a
modern-day Nagual, when his assemblage point has moved quite deep into
the left side. The reason for this decision is, that a Nagual must
learn
the Principles of Stalking, without the encumbrance (obstacle, burden)
of the human
inventory. After all, the Nagual is the leader of a group, and to lead
them, he has to act quickly without first having to think about it. Other
warriors can learn Stalking in their normal awareness, although
it is advisable, that they do it in Heightened Awareness, not so much
because of the value of Heightened Awareness, but because it imbues
(saturate) Stalking with a mystery, that it doesn't really have;
Stalking is merely
behavior with people." He
said, that I could now understand, that shifting the assemblage point
was the reason, why the new Seers placed such a
high value on the
interaction with petty tyrants. Petty tyrants forced Seers to use the
principles of Stalking and, in doing so, helped Seers to move their
assemblage points. I
asked him, if the old Seers knew anything
at all about the principles
of Stalking. "Stalking
belongs exclusively to the new Seers," he said,
smiling.
"They are the only Seers, who had to
deal with people. The old ones were
so wrapped up in their sense of power, that they didn't even know, that
people existed, until people started clobbering them on the head. But
you already know all this." Don
Juan said next, that the Mastery of Intent together with the Mastery
of Stalking are the new Seers' two
masterpieces, which mark the arrival
of the modern-day Seers. He
explained, that in their efforts,
to gain an
advantage over their oppressors, the new Seers pursued every
possibility. They knew, that their predecessors had accomplished
extraordinary feats by manipulating a mysterious and miraculous force,
which they could only describe as power. The new Seers had very
little
information about that force, so they were obliged to examine it
systematically through Seeing.
Their efforts were amply rewarded, when
they discovered, that the energy of alignment is that force. They
began by Seeing
how the Glow of Awareness increases in size and
intensity, as the emanations inside the cocoon are aligned with the
emanations at large. They used that observation as a springboard, just
as they had done with Stalking (manipulating), and went on to develop a
complex series
of techniques to handle that alignment of emanations. At
first, they referred to those techniques as the Mastery of Alignment.
Then they realized, that what was involved, was much more, than
alignment;
what was involved was the energy, that comes out of the alignment of
emanations. They called that energy - Will. Will
became the second basis. The new Seers understood it
as a blind,
impersonal, ceaseless Burst of Energy
(Will), that makes us behave in the ways we do. Will accounts for our
perception of the world of ordinary affairs, and indirectly, through
the force of that perception, it accounts for the placement of the
assemblage point in its customary position.
171-172
Don
Juan said, that the new Seers
examined, how the perception of the
world of everyday life takes place, and Saw the effects of Will. They
Saw, that alignment is ceaselessly renewed, in order to imbue
(saturate) perception
with continuity. To renew alignment every time with the freshness, that
it needs to make up a living world, the Burst of Energy, that comes out
of those very alignments, is automatically rerouted, to reinforce some
choice alignments. This
new observation served the new Seers as another
springboard, that
helped them reach the third basis of the set. They called it Intent,
and they described it as the purposeful guiding of Will, the Energy of
Alignment.
Silvio
Manuel, Genaro, and Vicente were pushed by the Nagual Julian to
learn those three aspects of the Seers' knowledge,"
he went on.
"Genaro
is the Master of handling Awareness, Vicente is the Master of Stalking,
and Silvio Manuel is the Master of Intent. We
are now doing a final explanation of the Mastery of Awareness; this
is why Genaro is helping you."
Don
Juan talked to the female apprentices for a longtime. The women
listened with serious expressions on their faces. I felt sure, he was
giving them detailed instructions about difficult procedures, judging
from the women's fierce concentration. I had
been barred from their meeting, but I had watched them, as they
talked in the front room of Genaro's house. I sat at the kitchen table,
waiting, until they were through. Then
the women got up to leave, but before they did, they came to the
kitchen with don Juan. He sat down, facing me, while the women talked
to
me with awkward formality. They actually embraced me. All of them were
unusually friendly, even talkative. They said, that they were going to
join the male apprentices, who had gone with Genaro hours earlier.
173-174
Genaro was going to show all of them his Dreaming Body. As
soon, as the women left, don Juan quite abruptly resumed his
explanation. He said, that as time passed and the new Seers established
their practices, they realized, that under the prevailing conditions of
life, Stalking only moved the assemblage points minimally. For maximum
effect, Stalking needed an ideal setting; it needed petty tyrants in
positions of great authority and power. It became increasingly
difficult for the new Seers to place
themselves in such situations; the
task of improvising them or seeking them out, became an unbearable
burden. The
new Seers deemed it
imperative to See the Eagle's emanations, in
order to find a more suitable way to move the assemblage point. As they
tried to See the emanations, they were faced with a very serious
problem. They found out, that there is no way to See them without
running a mortal risk, and yet they had to See them. That was the time
when they used the old Seers' technique of
Dreaming, as a shield to
protect themselves from the deadly blow of the Eagle's emanations. And
in doing so, they realized, that Dreaming was in itself the most
effective way to move the assemblage point. "One
of the strictest commands of the new Seers," don Juan
continued,
"was, that warriors have to learn Dreaming, while they are in their
normal state of Awareness. Following that command, I began teaching you
Dreaming almost from the first day we met."
"Why
do the new Seers command, that
Dreaming has to be taught in normal Awareness?" I asked.
"Because
Dreaming is so dangerous and Dreamers are so vulnerable," he said.
"It is dangerous, because it has inconceivable power; it makes Dreamers
vulnerable, because it leaves them at the mercy of the
incomprehensible Force of Alignment. The
new Seers realized, that
in our normal state of Awareness, we have
countless defenses, that can safeguard us against the force of unused
emanations, that suddenly become aligned in Dreaming." Don
Juan explained, that Dreaming, like Stalking, began with a simple
observation. The old Seers became aware,
that in dreams the assemblage
point shifts slightly to the left side in a most natural manner. That
point indeed relaxes, when human sleeps and all kinds of unused
emanations
begin to glow.
The
old Seers became
immediately intrigued with that observation and
began to work with that natural shift, until they were able to control
it. They called that control Dreaming, or the Art of handling the
Dreaming Body.
He
remarked, that there is hardly a way of describing the immensity of
their knowledge about Dreaming. Very little of it, however, was of any
use to the new Seers. So when the
time of reconstruction came, the new Seers took for
themselves only the bare essentials of Dreaming, to aid
them in Seeing the Eagle's emanations and to help them move their
assemblage points. He
said, that Seers, old and new,
understand Dreaming, as being the
control of the natural shift, that the assemblage point undergoes in
sleep. He stressed, that to control that shift, does not mean in any
way
to direct it, but to keep the assemblage point fixed at the position,
where it naturally moves in sleep,
a most difficult maneuver, that took
the old Seers enormous
effort and concentration to accomplish. Don
Juan explained, that Dreamers have to strike a very subtle balance,
for dreams cannot be interfered with, nor can they be commanded by the
conscious effort of the Dreamer, and yet the shift of the assemblage
point must obey the Dreamer's command - a contradiction, that cannot be
rationalized, but must be resolved in practice. After
observing Dreamers while they slept, the old Seers hit upon the
solution of letting dreams follow their natural course. They had Seen,
that in some dreams, the assemblage point of the Dreamer would drift
considerably deeper into the left side, than in other dreams. This
observation posed to them the question of whether the content of the
dream makes the assemblage point move,
or the movement
of the
assemblage point by itself produces the content of the dream by
activating unused emanations. They
soon realized, that the shifting of the assemblage point into the
left side is what produces dreams. The farther the movement, the more
vivid and bizarre the dream. Inevitably, they attempted to
command their dreams, aiming to make their assemblage points move
deeply into the left side. Upon
trying it, they discovered, that when
dreams are consciously or semiconsciously manipulated, the assemblage
point immediately returns to its usual place. Since what they wanted
was for that point to move, they reached the unavoidable conclusion,
that interfering with dreams was interfering with the natural shift of
the assemblage point. Don Juan said, that from there the
old Seers went on to
develop their
astounding knowledge on the subject – a knowledge, which had
a
tremendous bearing, on what the new Seers aspired to do
with Dreaming,
but was of little use to them in its original form. He told me, that thus
far I had understood Dreaming, as being the control
of dreams, and that every one of the exercises
he had given me
to
perform, such as finding my hands in my dreams, was not, although it
might seem to be, aimed at teaching me to command my dreams. Those
exercises were designed to keep my assemblage point fixed at the place,
where it had moved in my sleep. It is here, that the
Dreamers have to
strike a subtle balance.
175-176
All they can direct is the fixation of their
assemblage points. Seers
are like fishermen, equipped with a line, that
casts itself wherever it may; the only thing they can do is, keep the
line anchored at the place, where it sinks. "Wherever the
assemblage point moves in dreams is called the Dreaming Position,"' he
went on. "The old Seers became so
expert at keeping
their Dreaming Position, that they were even able to wake up, while
their
assemblage points were anchored there. The old Seers called that
state the Dreaming Body, because they
controlled it to the extreme of creating a temporary new body every
time they woke up at a new Dreaming Position. I have to make it clear
to you, that Dreaming has a terrible drawback,"
he went on. "It belongs to the old Seers. It's tainted
with their mood.
I've been very careful in guiding you through it, but still there is no
way to make sure."
"What are you warning me about, don Juan?" I asked.
"I'm warning you about the pitfalls of Dreaming, which are truly
stupendous," he replied. "In Dreaming, there is really no way of
directing the movement of the assemblage point; the only thing, that
dictates that shift, is the inner strength or weakness of Dreamers.
Right there we have the first pitfall." He said, that at first the
new Seers were hesitant
to use Dreaming. It
was their belief, that Dreaming, instead of fortifying, made warriors
weak, compulsive, capricious. The old Seers were all like
that. In
order to offset the nefarious effect of Dreaming, since they had no
other option, but to use it, the new Seers developed a
complex and rich
system of behavior, called the warriors' way, or the warriors' path.
With that system, the new Seers fortified
themselves and acquired the
internal strength, they needed to guide the shift of the assemblage
point in dreams. Don Juan stressed, that the strength, that he was
talking about, was not conviction alone. Noone could have had stronger
convictions, than the old Seers, and yet,
they were weak to the core.
Internal strength meant a sense of equanimity, almost of indifference,
a feeling of being at ease, but, above all, it meant a natural and
profound bent for examination, for understanding. The
new Seers called all
these
traits of character - sobriety. "The conviction, that the new Seers have," he
continued, "is, that a life
of impeccability by itself leads unavoidably to a sense of sobriety,
and this in turn leads to the movement of the assemblage point. I've
said, that the new Seers believed,
that the assemblage point can be
moved from within. They went one step further and maintained, that
impeccable men need noone to guide them, that by themselves, through
saving their energy, they can do everything, that Seers do. All they
need is a minimal chance, just to be cognizant of the possibilities,
that Seers have
unraveled."
I told him, that we were back in the same position, we had been in in
my
normal state of awareness. I was still convinced, that impeccability or
saving energy was something so vague, that it could be interpreted by
anyone in whatever whimsical way he wanted. I wanted to say more, to
build my argument, but a strange feeling
overtook me. It was an actual physical sensation, that I was rushing
through something. And then I rebuffed (refused) my own argument. I
knew without
any doubt whatsoever, that don Juan was right. All that is required is
impeccability, energy, and that begins with a single act, that has to
be
deliberate, precise, and sustained.
If that act is repeated long
enough, one acquires a sense of Unbending Intent, which can be applied
to anything else. If that is accomplished, the road is clear.
One thing
will lead to another, until the warrior realizes his full potential.
177-178
When I told don Juan what I had just realized, he laughed with apparent
delight and exclaimed, that this was indeed a godsent example of the
strength, that he was talking about. He explained, that my assemblage
point had shifted, and that it had been moved by sobriety to a
position,
that fostered understanding. It could have as well been moved by
capriciousness, to a position that only enhances self-importance, as
had
been the case many times before. "Let's talk now about the Dreaming
Body."' he went on. "The old Seers
concentrated all their efforts on exploring and exploiting the Dreaming
Body. And they succeeded in using it, as a more practical body, which
is
tantamount (equal) to saying, they recreated themselves in increasingly
weird
ways." Don Juan maintained, that it is common knowledge among the
new Seers,
that flocks of the old sorcerers never came back after waking up at a
dreaming position of their liking. He said, that chances are, they all
died in those inconceivable worlds, or they may still be alive today
in,
who knows, what kind of contorted shape or manner. He stopped and
looked at me and broke into a great laugh. "You're dying to ask me,
what the old Seers did with the
Dreaming Body,
aren't you?" he asked, and urged me with a movement of his chin to ask
the question.
Don Juan stated,
that Genaro, being the indisputable Master of
Awareness, had shown me the Dreaming Body many times, while I was in a
state of normal awareness. The effect, that Genaro was after with his
demonstrations, was to make my assemblage point move, not from a
position of Heightened Awareness, but from its normal
setting. Don
Juan told me then, as
if he were letting a secret be known, that
Genaro was waiting for us in some fields near the house to show me his
Dreaming Body. He repeated over and over, that I was now in the perfect
state of Awareness to See and understand, what the Dreaming Body really
is.Then he had me get up, and
we walked
through the front room to
reach the door to the outside. As I was about to open the door, I
noticed, that someone was lying on the pile of floor mats, that the
apprentices used as beds. I thought, that one of the apprentices must
have returned to the house, while don Juan and I were talking in the
kitchen. I went up to him, and then I realized, that it was Genaro. He
was sound
asleep, snoring peacefully, lying face down.
"Wake him up,"
don Juan said to me. "We've got to be going. He must be
dead tired."
I
gently shook Genaro. He slowly turned around, made the sounds of
someone, waking up from a deep slumber. He stretched his arms, and then
he opened his eyes. I
screamed involuntarily and jumped back. Genaro's eyes were not human
eyes at all. They were two points of
intense amber light. The jolt of my fright had been so intense, that I
became dizzy. Don Juan tapped my back and restored my equilibrium.
Genaro stood up and smiled at me. His features were rigid. He moved, as
if he
were drunk or
physically impaired. He walked by me and headed
directly for the wall. I winced at the imminent crash, but he went
through the wall, as if it were not there at all. He came back into the
room through the kitchen doorway. And then, as I looked in true horror,
Genaro walked on the walls, with his body parallel to the ground, and
on the ceiling, with his head upside down. I fell backwards, as I tried
to follow his movements. From that position
I didn't see Genaro anymore; instead I was looking at a blob
of light,
that moved on the ceiling above me and on the walls, circling the room.
179-180
It was, as if
someone with a giant flashlight was shining the beam on
the ceiling and the walls. The beam of light was finally turned off. It
disappeared from view by vanishing against a wall. Don Juan remarked,
that my animal fright was always out of measure, that
I had to struggle to bring it under control, but that all in all, I had
behaved very well. I had Seen Genaro's Dreaming Body, as it really is,
a
blob of light. I asked him, how he was so sure, I had done that. He
replied, that he had Seen my assemblage point first move toward its
normal setting, in order
to compensate for my fright, then move deeper into the left, beyond the
point, where there are no doubts. "At that
position there is only one thing one can See: blobs of
energy," he went on. "But from Heightened Awareness to that other point
deeper into the left side, it is only a short hop. The real feat is to
make the assemblage point shift from its normal setting to the point of
no doubt." He added, that we still had an appointment with Genaro's
Dreaming Body
in the fields around the house, while I was in normal
awareness. When we were back in Silvio Manuel's house, don
Juan
said, that Genaro's
proficiency with the Dreaming Body was a very minor affair, compared
with what the old Seers did with it.
"You'll see that very soon," he said with an ominous tone, then
laughed. I questioned him about it with mounting fear, and that only
evoked more
laughter. He finally stopped and said, that he was going to talk about
the way the new Seers got to the
Dreaming Body and the way they used it. "The old Seers were after a
perfect replica of the body," he continued,
"and they nearly succeeded in getting one. The only thing they never
could copy was the eyes. Instead of eyes, the Dreaming Body has just
the Glow of Awareness. You never realized that before, when Genaro used
to show you his Dreaming Body. The new Seers could not
care less about a perfect replica of the body;
in fact, they are not even interested in copying the body at all. But
they have kept just the name Dreaming Body to mean a feeling, a surge
of energy, that is transported by the movement of the assemblage point
to any place in this world, or to any place in the seven worlds
available to human."
Don Juan then outlined the procedure for getting to the Dreaming Body.
He said, that it starts with an initial act, which by the fact of being
sustained, breeds Unbending Intent. Unbending Intent leads to
internal
silence, and internal silence to the inner strength, needed to make the
assemblage point shift in dreams to suitable positions. He called this
sequence the groundwork. The development of control
comes after the groundwork has been completed; it consists of
systematically maintaining the dreaming position by doggedly holding on
to the vision of the dream. Steady practice results in a great facility
to hold new dreaming positions with new dreams, not so much, because
one
gains deliberate control with practice, but because every time this
control is exercised, the inner strength gets fortified. Fortified
inner
strength in turn makes the assemblage point shift into dreaming
positions, which are more and more suitable to fostering sobriety; in
other words, dreams by themselves become more and more manageable, even
orderly. "The development of Dreamers is indirect," he went on. "That's
why the
new Seers believed, we
can do dreaming by ourselves, alone. Since
dreaming uses a natural, built-in shift of the assemblage point, we
should need noone to help us. What we badly need is sobriety, and noone
can give it to us or help
us get it, except ourselves.
181-182
Without it, the shift of the assemblage
point is chaotic, as our ordinary dreams are chaotic. So, all in all,
the procedure to get to the dreaming body is
impeccability in our daily life." Don Juan explained, that once
sobriety is acquired and the dreaming
positions become increasingly stronger, the next step is to wake up at
any dreaming position. He remarked, that the maneuver, although made to
sound simple, was really a very complex affair, so complex, that it
requires not only sobriety, but all the attributes of warriorship as
well, especially Intent. I asked him how Intent helps Seers wake up at a
dreaming position. He
replied, that Intent, being the most sophisticated control of the force
of alignment, is what maintains, through the dreamer's sobriety, the
alignment of whatever emanations have been lit up by the movement of
the assemblage point. Don Juan said, that there is one more formidable
pitfall of Dreaming:
the very strength of the Dreaming Body. For example,
it
is very easy
for the Dreaming Body to gaze at the Eagle's emanations uninterruptedly
for long periods of time, but it is also very easy in the end for the
Dreaming Body to be totally consumed by them. Seers, who gazed at the
Eagle's emanations without their Dreaming Bodies, died, and those, who
gazed at them with their Dreaming Bodies, burned with the fire from
within. The new Seers solved the
problem by Seeing
in teams. While one Seer gazed at the
emanations, others stood by ready to end the Seeing.
"How did the new Seers See in
teams?" I asked.
"They dreamed together, '" he replied. "As you yourself know, it's
perfectly possible for a group of Seers to activate
the same unused
emanations. And in this case also, there are no known steps, it just
happens; there is no technique to follow." He added, that in Dreaming
together, something in us takes the lead and
suddenly we find ourselves sharing the same view with other Dreamers.
What happens is, that our human condition makes us focus the Glow of
Awareness automatically on the same emanations, that other human beings
are using; we adjust the position of our assemblage points to fit the
others around us. We do that on the right side, in our ordinary
perception, and we also do it on the left side, while Dreaming together.
12.
The Nagual Julian
183-184
There was a strange excitement in the house. All the Seers of don
Juan's party seemed to be so elated, that they were actually
absentminded, a thing, that I had never witnessed before. Their usual
high level of energy appeared to have increased. I became very
apprehensive. I asked don Juan about it. He took me to the back patio.
We walked in silence for a moment. He said that, the time was getting
closer for all of them to leave. He was pressing his explanation, in
order to finish it in time.
"How do you know, that you are closer to leaving?" I asked.
"It is an internal knowledge," he said. "You'll know it someday
yourself. You see, the Nagual Julian made my assemblage point shift
countless times, just as I have made yours shift. Then he left me the
task of realigning all those emanations, which he had helped me align
through these shifts. That is the task, that every Nagual is left to
do. At any rate, the job of realigning all those emanations, paves the
way for the peculiar maneuver of lighting up all the emanations inside
the cocoon. I have nearly done that. I am about to reach my maximum.
Since I am the
Nagual, once I do light up all the emanations inside my cocoon, we will
all be gone in an instant."
I felt, I should be sad and weep, but something in me was so overjoyed
to hear, that the Nagual Juan Matus was about to be free, that I jumped
and yelled with sheer delight.
I knew, that sooner or later I would
reach another state of Awareness and I would weep with sadness. But
that day I was filled with happiness and optimism. I told don Juan, how
I felt. He laughed and patted my back.
"Remember what I've told you," he said. "Don't count on emotional
realizations. Let your assemblage point move first, then years later
have the realization."
We walked to the big room and sat down to talk. Don Juan hesitated for
a moment. He looked out of the window. From my chair I could see the
patio. It was early afternoon; a cloudy day. It looked like rain.
Thunderhead clouds were moving in from the west. I liked cloudy days.
Don Juan did not. He seemed restless, as he tried to find a more
comfortable sitting position. Don Juan began his elucidation by
commenting, that the difficulty in remembering what takes place in
Heightened Awareness, is due to the infinitude of positions, that the
assemblage point can adopt, after being loosened from its normal
setting. Facility in remembering everything, that takes place in normal
awareness, on the other hand, has to do with the fixity of the
assemblage point on one spot, the spot, where it normally sets.
He told me, that he commiserated (sympathised) with me. He suggested,
that I accept the difficulty of recollecting and acknowledge, that I
might fail in my task and never be able to realign all the emanations,
that he had helped me align.
185-186
"Think of it this way," he said, smiling. "You may never be able to
remember this very conversation, that we are having now, which at this
moment seems to you so commonplace, so taken for granted. This indeed
is the mystery of Awareness. Human beings reek (saturated) of that
mystery; we reek of darkness, of things, which are inexplicable. To
regard ourselves in any other terms is madness. So don't demean the
mystery of human in you by feeling sorry for yourself or by trying to
rationalize it. Demean the stupidity of man in you by understanding it.
But don't apologize for either; both are needed. One of the great
maneuvers of Stalkers is to pit the mystery against the stupidity in
each of us." He explained, that Stalking practices are not something
one can rejoice in; in fact, they are downright objectionable. Knowing
this, the new Seers realize, that it would be against everybody's
interest to discuss or practice the Principles of Stalking in normal
awareness. I pointed out to him an incongruity. He had said, that there
is no way for warriors to act in the world, while they are in
Heightened Awareness, and he had also said, that Stalking is simply
behaving with people in specific ways. The two statements contradicted
each other. "By not teaching it in normal awareness, I was referring
only to teaching it to a Nagual," he said. "The purpose of Stalking is
twofold: first, to move the assemblage point as steadily and safely, as
possible, and nothing can do the job as well, as Stalking: second, to
imprint its principles at such a deep level, that the human inventory
is bypassed, as is the natural reaction of refusing and judging
something, that may be offensive to reason."
I told him, that I sincerely doubted I could judge or refuse anything
like that. He laughed and said, that I could not be an exception, that
I would react like everyone else, once I heard about the deeds of a
Master Stalker, such as his benefactor, the Nagual Julian. "I am not
exaggerating, when I tell you, that the Nagual Julian was the most
extraordinary Stalker I have ever met," don Juan said. "You have
already heard about his Stalking skills from everybody else. But I've
never told you what he did to me."
I wanted to make it clear to him, that I had not heard anything about
the Nagual Julian from anyone, but just before I voiced my protest a
strange feeling of uncertainty swept over me. Don Juan seemed to
know instantly what I was feeling. He chuckled with delight. "You can't
remember, because will is not available to you yet," he said. "You need
a life of impeccability and a great surplus of energy, and then will
might release those memories. I am going to tell you the story of how
the Nagual Julian behaved with me when I first met him. If you judge
him and find his behavior objectionable, while you are in Heightened
Awareness, think of how revolted you might be with him in normal
awareness." I protested, that he was setting me up. He assured me, that
all he wanted to do with his story, was to illustrate the manner, in
which Stalkers operate and the reasons why they do it. "The Nagual
Julian was the last of the old-time Stalkers," he went on. "He was a
Stalker not so much because of the circumstances of his life, but
because that was the bent of his character." Don Juan explained, that
the new Seers Saw, that there are two main groups of human beings:
those, who care about others and those who do not. In between these two
extremes they Saw an endless mixture of the two. The Nagual Julian
belonged to the category of men, who do not care; don Juan classified
himself as belonging to the opposite category.
"But didn't you tell me, that the Nagual Julian was generous, that he
would give you the shirt off his back?" I asked.
187-188
"He certainly was," don Juan replied. "Not only was he generous; he was
also utterly charming, winning. He was always deeply and sincerely
interested in everybody around him. He was kind and open and gave away
everything, he had to anyone, who needed it, or to anyone, he happened
to like. He was in turn loved by everyone, because being a Master
Stalker, he conveyed to them his true feelings: he didn't give a
plugged nickel for any of them."
I did not say anything, but don Juan was aware of my sense of disbelief
or even distress, at what he was saying. He chuckled and shook his head
from side to side.
"That's Stalking," he said. "You see, I haven't even begun my story of
the Nagual Julian and you are already annoyed." He exploded into a
giant laugh, as I tried to explain what I was feeling. "The Nagual
Julian didn't care about anyone," he continued. "That's why he could
help people. And he did; he gave them the shirt off his back, because
he didn't give a fig about them."
"Do you mean, don Juan, that the only ones, who help their fellow men,
are those, who don't give a damn about them?" I asked, truly miffed.
"That's what Stalkers say," he said with a beaming smile. "The Nagual
Julian, for instance, was a fabulous curer. He helped thousands and
thousands of people, but he never took credit for it. He let people
believe, that a woman Seer of his party was the curer. Now, if he
had been a man, who cared for his fellow men, he would've demanded
acknowledgment. Those, who care for others, care for themselves and
demand recognition, where recognition is due." Don Juan said, that he,
since he belonged to the category of those, who care for their fellow
men, had never helped anyone: he felt awkward with generosity; he could
not even conceive being loved, as the Nagual Julian was, and he would
certainly feel stupid giving anyone the shirt off his back. "I care so
much for my fellow man," he continued, "that I don't do anything for
him. I wouldn't know what to do. And I would always have the nagging
sense, that I was imposing my will on him with my gifts. Naturally, I
have overcome all these feelings with the warriors' way. Any warrior
can be successful with people, as the Nagual Julian was, provided he
moves his assemblage point to a position, where it is immaterial,
whether people like him, dislike him, or ignore him. But that's not the
same." Don Juan said, that when he first became aware of the Stalkers'
Principles, as I was then doing, he was as distressed, as he could be.
The Nagual Elias, who was very much like don Juan, explained to him,
that Stalkers like the Nagual Julian, are natural leaders of
people.They can help people do anything. The Nagual Elias said, that
these warriors can help people to get cured," don Juan went on, "or
they can help them to get ill. They can help them to find happiness or
they can help them to find sorrow. I suggested to the Nagual Elias
that, instead of saying, that these warriors help people, we
should say, that they affect people. He said, that they don't just
affect people, but that they actively herd them around." Don Juan
chuckled and looked at me fixedly. There was a mischievous glint in his
eyes. "Strange, isn't it?" he asked. "The way Stalkers arranged, what
they See about people?"
Then don Juan started his story about the Nagual Julian. He said, that
the Nagual Julian spent many, many years waiting for an apprentice
Nagual. He stumbled on don Juan one day while returning home after a
short visit with acquaintances in a nearby village.
189-190
He was, in fact, thinking about an apprentice Nagual, as he walked on
the road, when he heard a loud gunshot and saw people scrambling in
every direction. He ran with them into the bushes by the side of the
road and only came out from his hiding place at the sight of a group of
people gathered around someone wounded, lying on the ground. The
wounded person was, of course, don Juan, who had been shot by the
tyrannical foreman. The Nagual Julian Saw instantly, that don Juan was
a special man, whose cocoon was divided into four sections instead of
two; he also realized, that don Juan was badly wounded. He knew, that
he had no time to waste. His wish had been fulfilled, but he had to
work fast, before anyone sensed, what was going on. He held his head
and cried: "They've shot my son!" He was traveling with one of the
Female Seers of his party, a
husky Indian woman, who always officiated publicly as his mean shrewish
wife. They were an excellent team of Stalkers. He cued the
Woman Seer, and she also started weeping and wailing for their
son, who was unconscious and bleeding to death. The Nagual Julian
begged the onlookers not to call the authorities, but rather to help
him move his son to his house in the city, which was some distance
away. He offered money to some strong young men, if they would carry
his wounded, dying son. The men carried don Juan to the Nagual Julian's
house. The Nagual was very generous with them and paid them handsomely.
The men were so touched by the grieving couple, who had cried all the
way to the house, that they refused to take the money, but the Nagual
Julian insisted, that they take it, to give his son luck. For a few
days, don Juan did not know what to think about the kind couple, who
had taken him into their home. He said that to him, the Nagual Julian
appeared as an almost senile old man. He was not an Indian, but was
married to a young, irascible, fat Indian wife, who was as physically
strong, as she was ill-tempered. Don Juan thought, that she was
definitely a curer, judging by the way she treated his wound and by the
quantities of medicinal plants stashed away in the room, where they had
put him. The woman also dominated the old man and made him tend to don
Juan's wound every day. They had made a bed for don Juan out of a thick
floor mat, and the old man had a terrible time kneeling down to reach
him. Don Juan had to fight not to laugh at the comical sight of the
frail old man trying his best to bend his knees. Don Juan said, that
while the old man washed his wound, he would mumble incessantly; he had
a vacant look in his eyes; his hands shook, and his body trembled from
head to toe. When he was down on his knees, he could never get up by
himself. He would call his wife, yelling in a raspy voice, filled with
contained anger. The wife would come into the room and both of them
would get into a horrible argument. Often she would walk out, leaving
the old man to get up by himself. Don Juan assured me, that he had
never felt so sorry for anyone, as he felt for that poor, kind old man.
Many times he wanted to rise and help him up, but he could hardly move
himself. Once the old man spent half an hour cursing and yelling, as he
puffed and crawled like a slug, before he dragged himself to the door
and painfully lifted himself up to a standing position. He explained to
don Juan, that his poor health was due to advanced age, broken bones,
that had not mended properly, and rheumatism. Don Juan said, that the
old man raised his eyes toward heaven and confessed to don Juan, that
he was the most wretched man on earth; he had come to the curer for
help and had ended up marrying her and becoming a slave.
"I asked the old man, why he didn't leave," don Juan continued. "The
old man's eyes widened with fear.
191-192
He choked on his own saliva, trying to hush me and then he went rigid
and fell down like a log on the floor, next to my bed, trying to make
me stop talking.
'You don't know what you're saying; you don't know what you're saying.
Nobody can run away from this place, ' the old man kept on repeating
with a wild expression in his eyes. And I believed him. I was
convinced, that he was more miserable, more wretched, than I had ever
been myself. And with every day, that passed, I became more and more
uncomfortable in that house. The food was great and the woman was
always out curing people, so I was left with the old man. We talked a
lot about my life. I liked to talk to him. I told him, that I had no
money to pay him for his kindness, but that I would do anything to help
him. He told me, that he was beyond help, that he was ready to die, but
that if I really meant, what I said, he would appreciate it, if I would
marry his wife after he died. Right then I knew, the old man was nuts.
And right then I also knew, that I had to run away as soon, as
possible." Don Juan said, that when he was well enough to walk around
unaided, his benefactor gave him a chilling demonstration of his
ability, as a Stalker. Without any warning or preamble, he put don Juan
face to face with an inorganic living being. Sensing, that don Juan was
planning to run away, he seized the opportunity to scare him with an
ally, that was somehow able to look like a monstrous man.
"The sight of that ally nearly drove me insane," don Juan continued. "I
couldn't believe my eyes, and yet the monster was right in front of me.
And the frail old man was next to me whimpering and begging the monster
to spare his life. You see, my benefactor was like the old Seers;
he could dole out his fear, a piece at a time, and the ally was
reacting to it. I didn't know that. All I could see with my very own
eyes, was a horrendous creature advancing on us, ready to tear us
apart, limb from limb. The moment the ally lurched onto us, hissing
like a serpent, I passed out cold. When I came to my senses again, the
old man told me, that he had made a deal with the creature." He
explained to don Juan, that the man had agreed to let both of them
live, provided don Juan enter the man's service. Don Juan
apprehensively asked what was involved in the service. The old man
replied, that it would be slavery, but pointed out, that don Juan's
life had nearly ended a few days back, when he had been shot. Had not
he and his wife come along to stop the bleeding, don Juan would surely
have died, so there was really very little to bargain with, or to
bargain for. The monstrous man knew that and had him over a barrel. The
old man told don Juan to stop vacillating and accept the deal, because
if he refused, the monstrous man, who was listening behind the door,
would burst in and kill them both on the spot and be done with it. "I
had enough nerve to ask the frail old man, who was shaking like a leaf,
how the man would kill us," don Juan went on. "He said, that the
monster planned to break all the bones in our bodies, starting with our
feet, as we screamed in unspeakable agony, and that it would take at
least five days for us to die. I accepted that man's conditions
instantly. The old man, with tears in his eyes, congratulated me and
said, that the deal wasn't really that bad. We were going to be more
prisoners, than slaves of the monstrous man, but we would eat at least
twice a day; and since we had life, we could work for our freedom; we
could plot, connive, and fight our way out of that hell." Don Juan
smiled and then broke into laughter. He had known beforehand, how I
would feel about the Nagual Julian. "I told you you'd be upset," he
said.
193-194
"I really don't understand, don Juan," I said. "What was the point of
putting on such an elaborate masquerade?"
"The point is very simple," he said, still smiling. "This is another
method of teaching, a very good one. It requires tremendous imagination
and tremendous control on the part of the teacher. My method of
teaching is closer to what you consider teaching. It requires a
tremendous amount of words. I go to the extremes of talking. The Nagual
Julian went to the extremes of Stalking." Don Juan said, that there
were two methods of teaching among the Seers. He was familiar with
both of them. He preferred the one, that called for explaining
everything and letting the other person know the course of action
beforehand. It was a system, that fostered freedom, choice, and
understanding. His benefactor's method, on the other hand, was more
coercive and did not allow for choice or understanding. Its great
advantage was, that it forced warriors to live the Seers' concepts
directly with no intermediary elucidation. Don Juan explained, that
everything his benefactor did to him, was a masterpiece of strategy.
Every one of the Nagual Julian's words and actions was deliberately
selected to cause a particular effect. His art was to provide his words
and actions with the most suitable context, so that they would have the
necessary impact. "That's the Stalkers' method," don Juan went on. "It
fosters not understanding, but total realization. For instance,
it took me a lifetime to understand, what he had done to me by making
me face the ally, although I realized all that without any explanation,
as I lived that experience. I've told you, that Genaro, for example,
doesn't understand what he does, but his realization, of what he is
doing, is as keen, as it can be. That's because his assemblage point
was moved by the Stalkers' method." He said, that if the assemblage
point is forced out of its customary setting by the method of
explaining everything, as in my case, there is always the need for
someone else, not only to help in the actual dislodging of the
assemblage point, but in dispensing the explanations of what is going
on. But, if the assemblage point is moved by the Stalkers' method, as
in his own case, or Genaro's, there is only a need for the initial
catalytic act, that yanks the point from its location. Don Juan said,
that when the Nagual Julian made him face the monstrous-looking ally,
his assemblage point moved under the impact of fear. So intense a
fright as that, caused by the confrontation, coupled with his weak
physical condition, was ideal for dislodging his assemblage point. In
order to offset the injurious effects of fright, its impact had to be
cushioned, but not minimized. Explaining, what was happening, would
have minimized fear. What the Nagual Julian wanted was, to make sure,
that he could use that initial catalytic fright as many times, as he
needed it, but he also wanted to make sure, that he could cushion its
devastating impact; that was the reason for his masquerade. The more
elaborate and dramatic his stories were, the greater their cushioning
effect. If he, himself, seemed to be in the same boat with don Juan,
the fright would not be as intense, as if don Juan were alone. With his
penchant (definite liking) for drama," don Juan went on, "my benefactor
was able to move my assemblage point enough to imbue me right away
with an overpowering feeling for the two basic qualities of warriors:
sustained effort and Unbending Intent. I knew, that in order to be free
again someday, I would have to work in an orderly and steady fashion
and in cooperation with the frail old man, who in my opinion needed my
help as much, as I needed his. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that
that was what I wanted to do more, than anything else in life."
195-196
I did not get to talk to don Juan again, until two days later. We were
in Oaxaca, strolling in the main square, in the early morning. There
were children walking to school, people going to church, a few men
sitting on the benches, and taxi drivers waiting for tourists from the
main hotel. "It goes without saying, that the most difficult thing in
the warriors' path is, to make the assemblage point move," don Juan
said. "That movement is the completion of the warriors' quest. To go on
from there is another quest; it is the Seers' quest proper." He
repeated, that in the warriors' way, the shift of the assemblage point
is everything. The old Seers absolutely failed to realize this
truth. They thought, the movement of the point was like a marker, that
determined their positions on a scale of worth. They never conceived,
that it was that very position, which determined, what they perceived.
"The Stalkers' method," don Juan went on, "in the hands of a Master
Stalker like the Nagual Julian, accounts for stupendous shifts of the
assemblage point. These are very solid changes; you see, by buttressing
(reinforcing) the apprentice, the Stalker-Teacher gets the apprentice's
full cooperation and full participation. To get anybody's full
cooperation and full participation is about the most important outcome
of the Stalkers' method; and the Nagual Julian was the best at getting
both of them." Don Juan said, that there was no way for him to describe
the turmoil, that he went through, as he found out, little by little,
about the richness and the complexity of the Nagual Julian's
personality and life. As long, as don Juan faced a scared, frail old
man, who seemed helpless, he was fairly at ease, comfortable. But one
day, soon after they had made the deal with what don Juan thought of as
a monstrous-looking man, his comfort was shot to pieces, when the
Nagual Julian gave don Juan another unnerving demonstration of his
stalking skills. Although don Juan was quite well by then, the Nagual
Julian still slept in the same room with him in order to nurse him.
When he woke up that day, he announced to don Juan, that their captor
was gone for a couple of days, which meant, that he did not have to act
like an old man. He confided to don Juan, that he only pretended to be
old, in order to fool the monstrous-looking man. Without giving don
Juan time to think, he jumped up from his mat with incredible agility;
he bent over and dunked his head in a pot of water and kept it there
for a while. When he straightened up, his hair was jet black, the gray
hair had washed away, and don Juan was looking at a man, he had never
seen before, a man perhaps in his late thirties. He flexed his muscles,
breathed deeply, and stretched every part of his body, as if he had
been too long inside a constricting cage. "When I saw the Nagual
Julian, as a young man, I thought, that he was indeed the devil," don
Juan went on. "I closed my eyes and knew, that my end was near. The
Nagual Julian laughed until he was crying." Don Juan said, that the
Nagual Julian then put him at ease, by making him shift back and forth
between the right side and the left side Awareness. "For two days the
young man pranced (резвился) around the house," don Juan continued. "He
told me stories about his life and jokes, that sent me reeling around
the room with laughter. But what was even more astounding was, the way
his wife had changed. She was actually thin and beautiful. I thought
she was a completely different woman. I raved about how complete her
change was and how beautiful she looked. The young man said, that when
their captor was away,
she was actually another woman."
197-198
Don Juan laughed and said, that his devilish benefactor was telling the
truth. The woman was really another Seer of the Nagual's Party.
Don Juan asked the young man, why they pretended to be, what they were
not. The young man looked at don Juan, his eyes filled with tears, and
said, that the mysteries of the world are indeed unfathomable. He and
his young wife had been caught by inexplicable forces and had to
protect themselves with that pretense.
The reason why he carried on, the way he did, as a feeble old man, was
that their captor was always peeking in through cracks in the doors. He
begged don Juan to forgive him for having fooled him. Don Juan asked
who that monstrous-looking man was. With a deep sigh, the young man
confessed, that he could not even guess. He told don Juan, that
although he himself was an educated man, a famous actor from the
theater in Mexico City, he was at a loss for explanations. All he knew
was, that he had come to be treated for the consumption, that he had
suffered from for many years. He was near death, when his relatives
brought him to meet the curer. She helped him to get well, and he fell
madly in love with the beautiful young Indian and married her. His
plans were to take her to the capital, so they could get rich with her
curing ability. Before they started on the trip to Mexico City, she
warned him, that they had to disguise themselves, in order to escape a
sorcerer.
She explained to him, that her mother had also been a curer, and had
been taught curing by that master sorcerer, who had demanded that she,
the daughter, stay with him for life. The young man said, that he had
refused to ask his wife about that relationship. He only wanted to free
her, so he disguised himself, as an old man and disguised her, as a fat
woman. Their story did not end happily. The horrible man caught them
and kept them as prisoners. They did not dare to take off their
disguise in front of that nightmarish man, and, in his presence, they
carried on, as if they hated each other; but in reality, they pined for
each other and lived only for the short times, when that man was away.
Don Juan said, that the young man embraced him and told him, that the
room, where don Juan was sleeping, was the only safe place in the
house. Would he please go out and be on the lockout, while he made love
to his wife? "The house shook with their passion," don Juan went on,
"while I sat by the door, feeling guilty for listening and scared to
death, that the man would come back any minute. And sure enough, I
heard him coming into the house. I banged on the door, and when they
didn't answer, I walked in. The young woman was asleep naked and the
young man was nowhere in sight. I had never seen a beautiful naked
woman in my life. I was still very weak. I heard the monstrous man
rattling outside. My embarrassment and my fear were so great, that I
passed out."
The story about the Nagual Julian's doings annoyed me no end. I told
don Juan, that I had failed to understand the value of the Nagual
Julian's ыtalking skills. Don Juan listened to me without making a
single comment and let me ramble on and on. When we finally sat down on
a bench, I was very tired. I did not know what to say, when he asked
me, why his account of the Nagual Julian's method of teaching had upset
me so much.
"I can't shake off the feeling, that he was a prankster," I finally
said.
"Pranksters don't teach anything deliberately with their pranks," don
Juan retorted. "The Nagual Julian played dramas, magical dramas, that
required a movement of the assemblage point."
"He seems like a very selfish person to me," I insisted.
199-200
"He seems like that to you, because you are judging," he replied. "You
are being a moralist. I went through all that myself. If you feel the
way you do on hearing about the Nagual Julian, think of the way I must
have felt myself living in his house for years. I judged him, I feared
him, and I envied him, in that order. I also loved him, but my envy was
greater, than my love. I envied his ease, his mysterious capacity to be
young or old at will; I envied his flair and above all his influence on
whoever happened to be around. It would drive me up the walls to hear
him engage people in the most interesting conversation. He always had
something to say; I never did,
and I always felt incompetent, left out."
Don Juan's revelations made me feel ill at ease. I wished, that he
would change the subject, for I did not want to hear, that he was like
me. In my opinion, he was indeed unequaled.
He obviously knew how I felt. He laughed and patted my back. "What I am
trying to do with the story of my envy," he went on, "is to point out
to you something of great importance, that the position of the
assemblage point dictates how we behave and how we feel. My great flaw
at that time was, that I could not understand this principle. I was
raw. I lived through self-importance, just as you do, because that was
where my assemblage point was lodged. You see, I hadn't learned yet,
that the way to move that point is, to establish new habits, to Will it
to move. When it did move, it was as if I had just discovered, that the
only way to deal with peerless warriors like my benefactor is, not to
have self-importance, so that one can celebrate them unbiasedly." He
said, that realizations are of two kinds. One is just pep talk, great
outbursts of emotion and nothing more. The other is the product of a
shift of the assemblage point; it is not coupled with an emotional
outburst, but with action. The emotional realizations come years later,
after warriors have solidified, by usage, the new position of their
assemblage points. "The Nagual Julian tirelessly guided all of us to
that kind of shift," don Juan went on. "He got from all of us total
cooperation and total participation in his bigger-than-life dramas. For
instance, with his drama of the young man and his wife and their
captor, he had my undivided attention and concern. To me the story of
the old man, who was young, was very consistent. I had seen the
monstrous-looking man with my very own eyes, which meant, that the
young man got my undying affiliation." Don Juan said, that the Nagual
Julian was a magician, a conjurer (summon by spell), who could handle
the force of Will to a degree, that would be incomprehensible to the
average human. His dramas included magical characters, summoned by the
force of Intent, like the Inorganic Being, that could adopt a grotesque
human form. "The Nagual Julian's power was so impeccable," don
Juan went on, "that he could force anyone's assemblage point to shift
and align emanations, that would make him perceive whatever the Nagual
Julian wanted. For example, he could look very old or very young for
his age, depending on what he wanted to accomplish. And all, who knew
the Nagual could say about his age was, that it fluctuated. During the
thirty-two years, that I knew him, he was at times not much older, than
you are now, and, at other times, he was so wretchedly old, that he
could not even walk." Don Juan said, that under his benefactor's
guidance, his assemblage point moved unnoticeably and yet profoundly.
For instance, out of nowhere, one day he realized, that he had a fear,
that on the one hand made no sense to him at all, and on the other,
made all the sense in the world.
201-202
"My fear was, that through stupidity I would lose my chance to be free
and I would repeat my father's life. "There was nothing wrong with my
father's life, mind you.
He lived and died no better and no worse, than most men; the important
point is, that my assemblage point had moved and I realized one day,
that my father's life and death hadn't amounted to a hill of beans,
either to others or to himself. "My benefactor told me, that my father
and mother had lived and died just to have me, and that their own
parents had done the same for them. He said, that warriors were
different in that, they shift their assemblage points enough to realize
the tremendous price, that has been paid for their lives. This shift
gives them the respect and awe, that their parents never felt for life
in general, or for being alive in particular." Don Juan said, that not
only was the Nagual Julian successful in guiding his apprentices to
move their assemblage points, but that he enjoyed himself tremendously
while doing it. "He certainly entertained himself immensely with me,"
don Juan went on. "When the other Seers of my party began to come,
years later, even I looked forward to the preposterous situations, that
he created and developed with each one of them. When the Nagual Julian
left the world, delight went away with him and never came back. Genaro
delights us sometimes, but noone can take the Nagual Julian's place.
His dramas were always bigger, than life. I assure you, we didn't know
what enjoyment was, until we saw what he did, when some of those dramas
backfired on him." Don Juan rose from his favorite bench. He turned to
me. His eyes were brilliant and peaceful. "If you are ever so dumb, as
to fail in your task," he said, "you must have at least enough energy
to move your assemblage point, in order to come to this bench. Sit down
here for an instant, free of thoughts and desires; I will try to come
here from wherever I am and collect you. I promise you, that I will
try."
He then broke into a great laugh, as if the scope of his promise was
too ludicrous to be believed. "These words should be said in the late
afternoon," he said, still laughing. "Never in the morning. The morning
makes one feel optimistic and such words lose their meaning."
13. EARTH'S
BOOST
203
"Let's
walk on the road to Oaxaca," don Juan said to me. "Genaro is
waiting for us somewhere along the way." His request took me by
surprise. I had been waiting all day for him to
continue his explanation. We left his house and walked in silence
through the town to the unpaved highway. We walked leisurely for a long
time. Suddenly don Juan began to talk. "I've been telling you
all along about the great findings, that the old Seers made," he said. "Just
as they found out, that organic life is not
the only life present on Earth, they also discovered, that the Earth
itself is a Living Being." He waited a moment before
continuing. He smiled at me, as if inviting me
to make a comment. I could not think of anything to say. "The old Seers
Saw, that the Earth has a Cocoon," he went on. "They Saw,
that there is a Ball, encasing the Earth, a Luminous Cocoon, that
entraps
the Eagle's emanations. The Earth is a Gigantic Sentient (conscious)
Being,
subjected to the same forces we are."
He explained, that the old Seers,
on discovering this, became
immediately interested in the practical uses of that knowledge. The
result of their interest was, that the most elaborate categories of
their sorcery had to do with the Earth. They considered the Earth to be
the ultimate source of everything we are. Don Juan reaffirmed, that the
old Seers were not mistaken in
this
respect, because the Earth is indeed our ultimate source.
He didn't say anything else, until we met Genaro about a mile up the
road. He was waiting for us, sitting on a rock by the side of the road.
He greeted me with great warmth. He said to me, that we should climb up
to the top of some small rugged mountains covered with hardy
vegetation. "The three of us are going to sit against a rock," don Juan
said to me,
"and look at the sunlight, as it is reflected on the eastern mountains.
When the sun
goes down behind the western peaks, the Earth may let you See
Alignment."
When we reached the top of a mountain, we sat down, as don
Juan had
said, with our backs against a rock. Don Juan made me sit in between
the two of them. I asked him what he was planning to do. His cryptic
statements and his
long silences were ominous. I felt terribly apprehensive. He didn't
answer me. He kept on talking, as if
I had not spoken at all. "It
was the old Seers, who, on Discovering,
that Perception is Alignment, stumbled onto something
monumental. The sad part
is, that their aberrations (отклонения от правильного курса) again kept
them from knowing, what they had
accomplished." He pointed at the mountain range east of the small
valley, where the
town is located. "There is enough glitter in those mountains to jolt
your assemblage
point," he said to me. "Just before the sun goes down behind the
western peaks, you will have a few moments to catch all the glitter you
need. The
magic key, that opens the Earth's doors, is made of internal
silence plus anything, that shines."
205-206
"What exactly should I do, don Juan?" I asked. Both of them examined
me. I thought, I saw in their eyes a mixture of
curiosity and revulsion.
"Just
cut off the internal dialogue," don Juan said to me. I had an intense
pang of anxiety and doubt; I had no confidence, that I
could do it at Will. After an initial moment of nagging frustration, I
resigned myself just to relax. I looked around and noticed, that we
were high enough to look down into
the long, narrow valley. More, than half of it, was in the
late-afternoon
shadows. The sun was still shining on the foothills of the eastern
range of mountains, on the other side of the valley; the sunlight made
the eroded mountains look ocher, while the more distant bluish peaks
had acquired a purple tone.
"You do realize, that you've done this before, don't you?" don Juan
said
to me in a whisper. I told him, that I had not realized anything.
"We've sat here before on other occasions," he insisted, "but that
doesn't matter, because this occasion is the one, that will count.
Today, with the
help of Genaro, you are going to find the key, that
unlocks everything. You won't be able to use it as yet, but you'll
know,
what it is and where it is. Seers pay the
heaviest prices to know that.
You, yourself, have been paying your dues all these years."
He
explained, that what
he called the Key to Everything, was the
firsthand Knowledge, that the Earth is a Sentient
(conscious)
Being and, as such, can
give warriors a tremendous boost; it is an impulse, that comes from the
Awareness of the Earth Itself at the instant, in which the emanations,
inside warriors' cocoons, are aligned with the appropriate emanations
inside the Earth's Cocoon. Since both, the Earth and Human, are
Sentient
Beings, their emanations coincide, or rather, the Earth has all the
emanations, present in human and all the emanations, that are present
in
all Sentient Beings, organic and inorganic for that matter. When a
moment of alignment takes place, Sentient Beings use that Alignment in
a limited way and perceive their world. Warriors can use that alignment
either to perceive, like everyone else, or as a boost, that allows them
to enter unimaginable worlds. I've been waiting for you
to ask me the only meaningful question, you
can ask, but you never ask it," he continued. "You are hooked on asking
about, whether the mystery of it all, is inside us. You came close
enough, though. The Unknown is not really inside the cocoon of human in
the emanations,
untouched by Awareness, and yet it is there, in a manner of speaking.
This is the point you haven't understood. When I told you, that we can
assemble seven worlds, besides the one we know, you took
it as being an
internal affair, because your total bias is to believe, that you are
only imagining everything you do with us. Therefore, you have never
asked me, where the Unknown really is. For years
I have circled with my
hand to point to everything around us and I have told you, that the
Unknown is there. You never made the connection."
Genaro began to laugh, then coughed and stood up. "He still hasn't made
the connection," he said to don Juan. I admitted to them, that if there
was a connection to be made, I had
failed to make it. Don Juan restated over and over, that the portion of
emanations, inside
human's cocoon, is in there only for Awareness, and, that Awareness is
matching that portion of emanations with the same portion of emanations
at large.
207-208
They
are called emanations at large, because they are immense;
and to say, that outside human's cocoon is the Unknowable, is to say,
that
within the Earth's Cocoon is the Unknowable. However, inside the
Earth's Cocoon is also the Unknown, and inside human's cocoon the
Unknown
is the emanations, untouched by Awareness. When the Glow of Awareness
touches them, they become active and can be aligned with the
corresponding emanations at large. Once that happens, the Unknown is
perceived and becomes the Known.
"I'm too dumb, don Juan. You have to break it into smaller pieces for
me," I said.
"Genaro is going to break it up for you," don Juan retorted. Genaro
stood up and started doing the same Gait of Power, that he had
done before, when he circled an enormous flat rock in a corn field by
his house, while don Juan had watched in fascination. This time don
Juan whispered in my ear, that I should try to hear Genaro's movements,
especially the movements of his thighs, as they went up against his
chest, every time he stepped. I followed Genaro's movements with my
eyes. In a few seconds I felt,
that some part of me had gotten trapped in Genaro's legs. The movement
of his thighs would not let me go. I felt, as if I were walking with
him. I was even out of breath. Then I realized, that I was actually
following Genaro. I was, in fact, walking with him, away from the
place,
where we had been sitting. I did not see don Juan, just Genaro walking
ahead of me in the same
strange manner. We walked for hours and hours. My fatigue was so
intense, that I got a terrible headache, and suddenly I got sick.
Genaro
stopped walking and came to my side. There
was an intense glare around
us, and the light was reflected in Genaro's features. His eyes glowed.
"Don't look at Genaro!" a voice ordered me in my ear. "Look around!" I
obeyed.I thought I was in hell! The shock, of Seeing the surroundings,
was so great, that I screamed in terror, but there was no sound to my
voice. Around me was the most vivid picture of all the descriptions of
hell in my Catholic upbringing. I was Seeing a reddish world, hot
and
oppressive, dark and cavernous, with no sky, no light, but the
malignant
reflections of reddish lights, that kept on moving around us, at great
speed.
Genaro started to walk again, and something pulled me with him. The
force, that was making me follow Genaro, also kept me from looking
around.
My
Awareness was glued to Genaro's movements. I Saw Genaro plop down, as
if he were utterly exhausted. The instant he
touched the ground and stretched himself to rest, something was
released in me and I was able again to look around. Don Juan was
watching me inquisitively. I was standing up facing him. We were at the
same place, where we had sat down, a wide rocky ledge on top of a small
mountain. Genaro was panting and wheezing, and so was I. I was covered
with perspiration. My hair was dripping wet. My clothes were soaked, as
if I had been dunked in a river. "My God, what's going on!" I
exclaimed in utter seriousness and concern. The exclamation sounded so
silly, that don Juan and Genaro started to
laugh. "We're trying to make you understand Alignment," Genaro said.
Don
Juan gently helped me to sit down. He sat by me. "Do you remember what
happened?" he asked me. I told him, that I did and he insisted, that I
tell him exactly, what I
had Seen.
209-210
His
request was incongruous (inharmonious) with what he had told me, that
the only value of my experiences was the movement of my assemblage
point and not the content of my visions. He explained, that Genaro had
tried to help me before in very much the
same fashion, as he had just done, but that I could never remember
anything. He said, that Genaro had guided my assemblage point this
time,
as he had done before, to assemble a world with another of the great
bands of emanations. There was a long silence. I was numb, shocked, yet
my Awareness was as
keen, as it had ever been. I thought, I had finally understood what
Alignment was. Something inside me, which I had been activating without
knowing how, gave me the certainty that I had comprehended a great
truth.
"I think you're beginning to gather your own momentum," don Juan said
to me. "Let's go home. You've had enough for one day."
"Oh, come on," Genaro said. "He's stronger, than a bull. He's got to be
pushed a little further."
"No!" don Juan said emphatically. "We've got to save his strength. He's
only got so much of it."
Genaro insisted that we stay. He looked at me and winked. "Look," he
said to me, pointing to the eastern range of mountains. "The Sun has
hardly moved an inch over those mountains and yet you plodded
in hell for hours and hours. Don't you find that overwhelming?"
"Don't scare him unnecessarily!" don Juan protested almost vehemently
(forcefully). It was then, that I Saw their maneuvers. At that moment
the voice of Seeing told me, that
don Juan and Genaro were a team of superb Stalkers,
playing with me. It was don Juan, who always pushed me beyond my
limits,
but he always let Genaro be the heavy. That day at Genaro's house, when
I reached a dangerous state of hysterical fright, as Genaro questioned
don Juan, whether I should be pushed, and don Juan assured me, that
Genaro was enjoying himself at my expense, Genaro was actually worrying
about me. My Seeing
was so shocking to me, that I began to laugh. Both don Juan
and Genaro looked at me with surprise. Then don Juan seemed to realize
at once, what was going through my mind. He told Genaro, and both of
them laughed like children. "You're coming of age," don Juan said to
me. "Right on time; you're
neither too stupid, nor too bright. Just like me. You're not like me in
your aberrations. There you are, more like the Nagual Julian, except
that he was brilliant." He stood up and stretched his back. He looked
at me with the most
piercing, ferocious eyes I had ever seen. I stood up. "A Nagual never
lets anyone know, that he is in charge," he said to me.
"A Nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is, what
makes him a Nagual." His eyes glared for an instant, and then they were
covered by a cloud
of mellowness, kindness, humanness, and they were again don Juan's
eyes. I could hardly keep my balance. I was swooning (fainting)
helplessly. Genaro
jumped to my side and helped me to sit down. Both of them sat down
flanking me. "You are going to catch a boost from the Earth," don Juan
said to me in
one ear.
"Think about the Nagual's Eyes," Genaro said to me in the other.
"The boost will come at the moment you See the glitter on the top of
that mountain," don Juan said and pointed to the highest peak on the
eastern range.
"You'll never See the Nagual's Eyes again," Genaro whispered.
"Go with the boost, wherever it takes you," don Juan said.
211-212
"If you think of the Nagual's Eyes, you'll realize, that there are two
sides to a coin," Genaro whispered. I wanted to think about, what both
of them were saying, but my thoughts
did not obey me. Something was pressing down on me. I felt, I was
shrinking. I had a sensation of nausea. I saw the evening shadows
advancing rapidly up the sides of those eastern mountains. I had the
feeling, that I was running after them.
"Here we go," Genaro said in my ear.
"Watch the big peak, watch the glitter," don Juan said in my other ear.
There was indeed a point of intense brilliance, where don Juan had
pointed, on the highest peak of the range. I watched the last ray of
sunlight being reflected on it. I felt a hole in the pit of my stomach,
just as if I were on a roller coaster. I felt, rather than heard, a
faraway earthquake rumble, which abruptly
overtook me. The seismic waves were so loud and so enormous, that they
lost all meaning for me. I was an insignificant microbe, being twisted
and twirled. The motion slowed down by degrees. There was one more
jolt,
before
everything came to a halt. I tried to look around. I had no point of
reference. I seemed to be planted, like a tree. Above me there was a
white, shiny, inconceivably big dome. Its presence made me feel elated.
I flew toward it, or rather I was ejected like a projectile (bullet). I
had the
sensation of being comfortable, nurtured, secure; the closer I got to
the dome, the more intense those feelings became. They finally
overwhelmed me and I lost all sense of myself. The next thing I knew, I
was rocking slowly in the air like a leaf, that
falls. I felt exhausted. A suction force started to pull me. I went
through a dark hole and then I was with don Juan and Genaro.
The next day don Juan, Genaro, and I went to Oaxaca. While don Juan and
I strolled around the main square, in the later afternoon, he suddenly
started to talk about what we had done the day before. Don Juan asked
me, if I
had understood, what he was referring to, when he said, that the
old Seers
had stumbled onto something monumental. I told him, that I did, but
that I couldn't explain it in words. "And what do you think
was
the main thing we wanted you to find out on
top of that mountain?" he asked. "Alignment," a voice said in my ear,
at the same time I said it myself.
I turned around in a reflex action and bumped into Genaro, who was just
behind me, walking in my tracks. The speed of my movement startled him.
He broke into a giggle and then embraced me. We sat down. Don
Juan
said, that there were very few things, that he
could say about the boost I had gotten from the Earth, that warriors
are always alone in such cases, and true realizations come much later,
after years of struggle. I told don Juan, that my problem in
understanding was magnified by the
fact, that he and Genaro were doing all the work. I was simply a
passive
subject, who could only react to their maneuvers. I could not, for the
life of me, initiate any action, because I did not know, what a proper
action should be, nor did I know how to initiate it. "That's precisely
the point," don Juan said. "You are not supposed to
know yet. You are going to be left behind, by yourself, to reorganize
on your own everything we are doing to you now. This is the task every
Nagual has to face. The Nagual Julian did the same thing to me, much
more ruthlessly, than
the way we do it to you. He knew what he was doing; he was a brilliant
Nagual, who was able to reorganize in a few years everything the Nagual
Ellas had taught him.
213-214
He did, in no time at all,
something, that would
take a lifetime for you or for me. The difference was, that all, the
Nagual Julian ever needed, was a slight insinuation (introduce, suggest
subtly); his
Awareness would
take it from there and open the only door there is."
"What do you
mean, don Juan, by the only door there is?"
"I mean, that
when human's assemblage point moves beyond a crucial limit,
the results are always the same for every human. The techniques, to
make
it move, may be as different, as they can be, but the results are
always
the same, meaning, that the assemblage point assembles other worlds,
aided by the boost from the Earth."
"Is the boost
from the Earth the same for every human, don Juan?"
"Of course. The
difficulty for the average man is the internal
dialogue. Only when a state of total silence is attained, can one use
the boost. You will corroborate (confirm) that truth, the
day you try to use that
boost by yourself."
"I wouldn't recommend, that you try it," Genaro said sincerely. "It
takes years to become an impeccable warrior. In order to withstand the
impact of the Earth's Boost you must be better, than you are now."
"The speed of that boost will dissolve everything about you," don Juan
said. "Under its impact we become nothing. Speed and the sense of
individual existence don't go together. Yesterday on the mountain,
Genaro and I supported you and served, as your anchors; otherwise you
wouldn't have returned. You'd be like some men, who purposely used that
boost and went into the Unknown and are still roaming in some
incomprehensible immensity." I wanted him to elaborate on that, but he
refused. He changed the
subject abruptly. "There's one thing, you haven't understood yet about
the Earth's being a Sentient (conscious) Being," he said.
"And
Genaro,
this awful Genaro, wants to push
you, until you understand." Both of them laughed. Genaro
playfully
shoved me and winked at me, as he
mouthed the words,
"I am awful." "Genaro is a terrible taskmaster, mean
and ruthless," don Juan
continued. "He doesn't give a hoot about your fears and pushes you
mercilessly. If it wasn't for me..."
He was a perfect picture of a
good, thoughtful old gentleman. He
lowered his eyes and sighed. The two of them broke into roaring
laughter. When they had quieted down, don Juan said, that Genaro wanted
to show me
what I had not understood yet, that the Supreme Awareness of the Earth
is, what makes it possible for us to change into other great bands of
emanations. "We living beings are perceivers," he said. "And we
perceive, because
some emanations, inside human's cocoon, become aligned with some
emanations
outside. Alignment, therefore, is the secret passageway, and
the
Earth's Boost is the Key. Genaro wants you to watch the moment of
alignment. Watch him!" Genaro
stood up like a showman and took a bow, then showed us, that he
had nothing up his sleeves or inside the legs of his pants. He took his
shoes off and shook them to show, that there was nothing concealed
there
either. Don Juan was laughing with total abandon. Genaro moved his
hands up and
down. The movement created an immediate fixation in me. I sensed, that
the three of us suddenly got up and walked away from the square, the
two of them, flanking me. As we continued walking, I lost my peripheral
vision. I did not
distinguish any more houses or streets. I did not notice any mountains
or any vegetation either.
215-216
At one moment I realized, that I had lost
sight of don Juan and Genaro; instead I saw two Luminous Bundles,
moving
up and down beside me. I felt an instantaneous panic, which
I
immediately controlled. I had
the unusual, but well-known sensation, that I was myself and yet I was
not. I was aware, however, of everything around me, by means of a
strange and at the same time most familiar capacity. The sight of the
world came to me all at once. All of me Saw; the entirety of what I, in
my normal consciousness call my body, was capable of sensing, as if it
were an enormous eye, that detected everything. What I first detected,
after Seeing
the two blobs of light, was a sharp violet-purple world,
made out of something, that looked like colored panels and canopies.
Flat, screenlike panels of irregular concentric circles were
everywhere. I felt a great pressure all over me, and then I heard a
voice in my
ear.
I was Seeing. The voice
said, that the pressure was due to the act
of moving. I was moving together with don Juan and Genaro. I felt a
faint jolt, as if I had broken a paper barrier, and I found myself
facing a Luminescent World. Light radiated from everyplace, but without
being glaring. It was, as if the Sun were about to erupt from behind
some white diaphanous clouds. I was looking down into the source of
light. It was a beautiful sight. There were no landmasses,
just
fluffy white clouds and
light. And we were walking on the clouds.
Then something imprisoned me
again. I moved at the same pace, as the two
blobs of light by my sides. Gradually, they began to lose their
brilliance, then became opaque, and finally they were don Juan and
Genaro. We were walking on a deserted side street away from the main
square. Then we turned back. "Genaro just helped you to align your
emanations with those emanations
at large, that belong to another band," don Juan said to me. "Alignment
has to be a very peaceful, unnoticeable act. No flying away, no great
fuss." He said, that the sobriety, needed to let the assemblage point
assemble
other worlds, is something, that cannot be improvised. Sobriety has to
mature and become a force in itself, before warriors can break the
barrier of perception with impunity (immunity from punishment). We were
coming closer to the main square. Genaro had not said a word.
He walked in silence, as if absorbed in thought. Just before we came
into the square, don Juan said, that Genaro wanted to show me one more
thing: that the position of the assemblage point is everything, and
that the world, it makes us perceive, is so real, that it does not
leave
room for anything, except realness. "Genaro will let his assemblage
point assemble another world just for
your benefit," don Juan said to me. "And then you'll realize, that as
he
perceives it, the force of his perception will leave room for nothing
else." Genaro walked ahead of us, and don Juan ordered me to roll my
eyes in a
counter-clockwise direction, while I looked at Genaro, to avoid being
dragged with him. I obeyed him. Genaro was five or six feet away from
me. Suddenly his shape became diffused, and in one instant, he was gone
like a puff of air. I thought of the science fiction movies, I had seen
and wondered, whether
we are subliminally aware of our possibilities. "Genaro is separated
from us at this moment by the force of
perception," don Juan said quietly. "When the assemblage point
assembles a world, that world is total. This is the marvel, that the
old Seers stumbled upon
and never realized what it was: the Awareness of
the Earth can give us a boost to align other great bands of emanations,
and the Force of that new Alignment makes the world vanish.
217
"Every time the
old Seers made a new Alignment,
they believed, they had
descended to the depths' or ascended to the heavens above. They never
knew, that the world disappears like a puff of air, when a new total
alignment makes us perceive another total world."
14.
The Rolling Force
218-219
Don
Juan was about to start his explanation of the Mastery of Awareness,
but he changed his mind and stood up. We had been sitting in
the big room, observing a moment of quiet.
"I want you to try Seeing the
Eagle's
emanations," he said. "For that
you must first move your assemblage point, until you See the Cocoon of
Man."
We walked from the house to the center of town. We sat down on part
empty, worn park bench in front of the church, it was early afternoon;
a sunny, windy day with lots of people milling arДревние Ясновидящие
ound. He repeated, as
if he were trying to drill it into me, that Alignment
is a unique force, because it either helps the assemblage point shift,
or it keeps it glued to its customaДревние Ясновидящие ry position. The
aspect of
Alignment,
that keeps the point stationary, he said, is Will; and the aspect, that
makes it shift is Intent. He
remarked, that one of the most haunting
mysteries is how Will, the impersonal force of Alignment, changes into
Intent, the personalized force, which is at the service of each
individual. "The strangest part of this mystery is, that the change is
so easy to
accomplish," he went on. "But, what is not so easy is, to convince
ourselves, that it is possible. There, right there, is our safety
catch.
We have to be convinced. And none of us wants to be." He told me then,
that I was in my keenest state of Awareness, and that
it was possible for me to intend my assemblage point to shift deeper
into my left side, to a dreaming position. He said, that warriors
should
never attempt Seeing,
unless they are aided by Dreaming. I argued, that
to fall asleep in public, was not one of my fortes. He clarified his
statement, saying, that to move the assemblage point away from its
natural setting and to keep it fixed at a new location, is to be
asleep;
with practice, Seers learn to be
asleep and yet behave, as if nothing is
happening to them. After a moment's pause he added, that for purposes of Seeing the cocoon
of human, one has to gaze at people from behind, as they walk away. It
is
useless to gaze at people face to face, because the front of the
egglike cocoon of human has a protective shield, which Seers call the
front plate, it is an almost impregnable, unyielding shield, that
protects us throughout our lives against the onslaught of a peculiar
force, that stems from the emanations themselves. He also
told me not
to be surprised if my body was stiff, as though it
were frozen; he said, that I was going to feel very much like someone
standing in the middle of a room, looking at the street through a
window, and that speed was of the essence, as people were going to move
extremely fast by my Seeing
window. He told me then to relax my
muscles, shut off my internal dialogue, and let my assemblage point
drift away under the spell of Inner Silence. He urged me to smack
myself gently, but firmly on my right side, between my hipbone and my
ribcage. I did that three times and I was sound asleep. It was a most
peculiar
state of sleep. My body was dormant, but I was perfectly aware of
everything, that was taking place.
220-221
I
could hear don Juan talking to me
and I could follow every one of his statements, as if I were awake, yet
I could not move my body at all. Don Juan said, that a man was
going to walk by my Seeing window and,
that
I should try to See him. I unsuccessfully attempted to move my head and
then a shiny egglike shape appeared, it was resplendent (brilliant). I
was awed by
the sight and, before I could recover from my surprise, it was gone. It
floated away, bobbing up and down. Everything had been so sudden and
fast, that it made me feel frustrated
and impatient. I felt, that I was beginning to wake up. Don Juan talked
to me again and urged me to relax. He said, that I had no right and no
time to be impatient. Suddenly, another Luminous Being appeared and
moved away. It seemed to be made of a white fluorescent shag (mass of
hair). Don Juan
whispered in my ear, that if I wanted to, my eyes were capable
of slowing down everything, they focused on. Then he warned me, that
another man was coming. I realized at that instant, that there were two
voices. The one, I had just heard, was the same one, that had
admonished
me to be patient. That was don Juan's. The
other voice, the one, that told me
to use my eyes to slow down movement, was the voice of Seeing.
That afternoon, I Saw ten Luminous Beings in slow motion. The voice
of Seeing
guided me to
witness in them everything, don Juan had told me
about the Glow of Awareness. There was a vertical band with a stronger
amber Glow on the right side of those egglike Luminous Creatures,
perhaps one-tenth of the total volume of the Cocoon. The voice said,
that that was Human's Band of Awareness. The voice pointed out a dot on
human's band, a dot with an intense shine; it was high on the oblong
shapes, almost on the crest of them, on the surface of the cocoon; the
voice said, that it was the assemblage point. When I Saw each
Luminous
Creature in profile, from the point of view of
its body, its egglike shape was like a gigantic asymmetrical yoyo, that
was standing edgewise, or like an almost round pot, that was resting on
its side with its lid on. The
part, that looked like a lid, was the front
plate; it was perhaps one-fifth the thickness of the total cocoon. I
would have gone on Seeing those
Creatures, but don Juan said, that I
should now gaze at people face to face and sustain my gaze, until I had
broken the barrier and I was Seeing the
emanations. I followed his
command. Almost instantaneously, I Saw a most brilliant
array of live, compelling Fibers of Light. It was a dazzling sight,
that
immediately shattered my balance. I fell down on the cement walk on my
side. From
there, I Saw the compelling Fibers of Light multiply
themselves. They burst open and myriads of other fibers came out of
them. But the Fibers, compelling as they were, somehow did
not
interfere with my ordinary view. There were scores of people, going
into
church. I was no longer Seeing them. There
were quite a few women and
men just around the bench. I wanted to focus my eyes on them, but
instead, I
noticed how one of those Fibers of Light bulged suddenly. It
became like a Ball of Fire, that was perhaps seven feet in diameter, it
rolled on me. My first impulse was to roll out of its way. Before I
could even move a muscle the Ball had hit me. I felt it as clearly, as
if someone had punched me gently in the stomach. An instant later
another Ball of Fire hit me, this time with considerably more strength,
and then don Juan whacked me really hard on the cheek with his open
hand. I jumped up involuntarily and lost sight of the Fibers of Light
and the balloons, that were hitting me. Don Juan
said, that I had successfully endured my first brief encounter
with the Eagle's emanations, but that a couple of shoves from the
Tumbler (Rolling
Force) had
dangerously opened up my gap. He added, that
the Balls, that
had hit me, were called the Rolling Force, or the Tumbler.
222-223
We
had returned to his house, although I did not remember how or when I
had spent hours in a sort of semi-sleeping state. Don Juan and the
other Seers of his group
had given me large amounts of water to drink.
They had also submerged me in an ice-cold tub of water for short
periods of time.
"Were those Fibers, I Saw, the Eagle's emanations?" I asked don Juan.
"Yes. But you didn't really See them," he replied. "No sooner had you
begun to See, than the Tumbler stopped you. If you had remained a
moment
longer, it would have blasted you."
"What exactly is
the Tumbler?" I asked.
"It is a Force
from the Eagle's emanations," he said. "A ceaseless
force, that strikes us every instant of our lives, it is lethal, when
Seen, but otherwise, we are oblivious to it, in our ordinary lives,
because we have protective shields. We have consuming interests, that
engage all our Awareness. We are permanently worried about our station,
our possessions. These shields, however, do not keep the Tumbler away,
they simply keep us from Seeing it directly, protecting
us in this way
from getting hurt by the fright of Seeing
the Balls of Fire hitting us.
Shields are a great help and a great hindrance to us. They pacify us
and at the same time fool us. They give us a false sense of security."
He warned me, that a moment would come in my life, when I would be
without any shields, uninterruptedly at the mercy of the Tumbler. He
said, that it is an obligatory stage in the life of a warrior, known as
losing the human form. I asked him to explain to me once and for all,
what the human form is
and what it means to lose it. He replied, that Seers describe the human
form, as the compelling Force
of Alignment of the emanations, lit by the Glow of Awareness on the
precise spot, on which normally human's assemblage point is fixated. It
is
the Force, that makes us into persons. Thus, to be a person is, to be
compelled to affiliate (associate) with that Force of Alignment and
consequently to
be affiliated with the precise spot, where it originates. By reason of
their activities, at a given moment the assemblage points
of warriors drift toward the left. It is a permanent move, which
results in an uncommon sense of aloofness, or control, or even abandon.
That drift of the assemblage point entails a new alignment of
emanations. It is the beginning of a series of greater shifts. Seers
very aptly called this initial shift: losing the human form, because it
marks an inexorable (relentless) movement of the assemblage point away
from its
original setting, resulting in the irreversible loss of our affiliation
(association)
to the Force, that makes us persons. He asked me then to describe all
the details, I could remember about the Balls of Fire. I
told him, that I had Seen them so briefly, I was not
sure I could describe them in detail. He pointed out, that Seeing is a
euphemism for moving the assemblage
point, and, that if I moved mine a fraction more to the left, I would
have a clear picture of the Balls of Fire, a picture, which I
could interpret then, as having remembered them. I tried to
have a
clear picture, but I couldn't, so I described what I
remembered. He listened attentively and then urged me to recall, if
they were Balls
or Circles of Fire. I told him I didn't remember. He
explained, that those Balls
of Fire are of crucial importance to
human beings, because they are the expression of a Force, that pertains
to all details of life and death, something, that the new Seers call the Rolling Force.
I asked him to clarify, what he meant by all the details of life and
death.
224-225
"The Rolling Force is the means, through which the Eagle distributes
Life and Awareness for safekeeping," he said. "But it also is the Force
that, let's say, collects the rent. It makes all living
beings die.
What you Saw today, was called by the ancient Seers the Tumbler."
He said, that Seers
describe it, as an eternal line of iridescent (rainbow) Rings,
or Balls of Fire, that roll onto living Beings ceaselessly. Luminous
Organic Beings meet the Rolling Force head on, until the day, when the
Force proves to be too much for them and the creatures finally
collapse. The old Seers were
mesmerized by Seeing, how the
Tumbler then
tumbles them into the beak of the Eagle to be devoured. That was the
reason they called it the Tumbler.
"You said, that it is a mesmerizing sight. Have you yourself Seen it
rolling human beings?" I asked.
"Certainly I've Seen it," he replied, and after a pause he added, "You
and I Saw it only a short while ago in Mexico City." His assertion was
so farfetched, that I felt obliged to tell him, that
this time he was wrong. He laughed and reminded me, that on that
occasion, while both of us were sitting on a bench in the Alameda Park
in Mexico City, we had witnessed the death of a man. He said, that I
had
recorded the event in my everyday-life memory as well, as in my
left-side emanations. As don Juan spoke to me, I had the sensation of
something inside me
becoming lucid by degrees, and I could visualize with uncanny clarity
the whole scene in the park. The man was lying on the grass with three
policemen, standing by him, to keep onlookers away. I distinctly
remembered don Juan hitting me on my back to make me change levels of
Awareness. And
then I Saw. My Seeing was imperfect. I was
unable to
shake off the sight of the world of everyday life. What I ended up with
was, a composite of filaments of the most gorgeous colors, superimposed
on the buildings and the traffic. The filaments were
actually lines of
colored light, that came from above. They had inner life; they were
bright and bursting with energy. When I looked at the dying man, I Saw
what don Juan was talking about;
something, that was at once like Circles of Fire, or iridescent
tumbleweeds, were rolling everywhere I focused my eyes. The circles
were
rolling on people, on don Juan, on me. I felt them in my stomach and
became ill. Don Juan told me to focus my eyes on the dying man. I Saw
him at one
moment curling up, just as a sowbug curls itself up upon being
touched. The incandescent circles
pushed him away, as if they were casting him aside, out of their
majestic, inalterable path. I had not liked the feeling. The circles of
fire had not scared me;
they were not awesome, or sinister. I did not feel morbid or somber.
The circles rather had nauseated me. I'd felt them in the pit of my
stomach. It was a revulsion, that I'd felt that day. Remembering them,
conjured up again the total feeling of discomfort I
had experienced on that occasion. As I got ill, don Juan laughed, until
he was out of breath. "You're such an exaggerated
fellow." he said. "The
Rolling Force is not
that bad. It's lovely, in fact. The new Seers
recommend, that we open
ourselves to it. The old Seers
also opened themselves to it, but for
reasons and purposes, guided mostly by self-importance and obsession.
The new Seers, on the other hand,
make friends with it. They become
familiar with that force, by handling it without any self-importance.
The result is staggering in its consequences." He said, that a shift of
the assemblage point is all, that is needed to
open oneself to the Rolling Force. He added, that if the Force is
Seen
in a deliberate manner, there is minimal danger. A situation, that is
extremely dangerous, however, is an involuntary shift of the assemblage
point owing, perhaps, to physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion,
disease, or simply a minor emotional or physical crisis, such as being
frightened or being drunk.
226-227
"When the
assemblage point shifts involuntarily, the Rolling Force
cracks the Cocoon," he went on. "I've talked many times about a gap,
that human has below his navel. It's not really below the navel itself,
but in the cocoon, at the height of the navel. The gap is more like a
dent, a natural flaw in the otherwise smooth cocoon. It
is there, where
the Tumbler hits us ceaselessly and where the Cocoon cracks." He went
on to explain, that, if it is a minor shift of the assemblage
point, the crack is
very small,
the Cocoon quickly repairs itself, and
people experience, what everybody has at one time or another: blotches
of color and contorted shapes, which remain, even if the eyes are
closed. If the shift is considerable, the crack also is extensive and
it takes
time for the Cocoon to repair itself, as in the case of warriors, who
purposely use power plants, to elicit (bring) that shift, or people,
who take
drugs and unwittingly do the same. In these cases men feel numb and
cold; they have difficulty talking or even thinking; it is, as if they
have been frozen from inside. Don Juan said, that in cases, in which
the
assemblage point shifts
drastically, because of the effects of trauma or of a mortal disease,
the Rolling Force produces a crack the length of the cocoon; the cocoon
collapses and curls in on itself, and the individual dies.
"Can a voluntary shift also produce a gap of that nature?" I asked.
"Sometimes," he replied. "We're really frail. As the Tumbler hits us
over and over, death comes to us through the gap. Death is the Rolling
Force. When it finds weakness in the gap of a Luminous Being, it
automatically cracks it open and makes it collapse."
"Does every living being have a gap?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied. "If it didn't have one, it wouldn't die. The
gaps are different, however, in size and configuration. Human's gap is
a
bowl-like depression the size of a fist, a very frail vulnerable
configuration. The gaps of other Organic Creatures are very much like
human's; some are stronger, than ours and others are weaker. But the
gap
of Inorganic Beings is really different. It's more like a long thread,
a hair of luminosity; consequently, Inorganic Beings are infinitely
more durable, than we are. There is something hauntingly appealing
about the long life of those Creatures, and the old Seers could not
resist being carried away by
that appeal." He
said, that the same Rolling Force can produce two effects, that are
diametrically opposed. The old Seers
were imprisoned by the Rolling Force, and the new Seers
are rewarded for their toils with the Gift of Freedom. By becoming
familiar with the Rolling Force through the Mastery of Intent, the
new Seers, at a given moment,
open their own Cocoons and the Force floods them, rather than Rolling
them up like a
curled-up sowbug. The final result is their total and instantaneous
disintegration. I asked him a lot of questions about the
survival of Awareness, after
the Luminous Being is consumed by the Fire From Within. He did not
answer. He simply chuckled, shrugged his shoulders, and went on to say,
that the old Seers' obsession
with the Tumbler blinded them to the
other side of that Force. The new Seers, with their
usual thoroughness
in refusing tradition, went to the other extreme. They were at first
totally averse to focusing their Seeing
on the Tumbler; they argued,
that they needed to understand the Force of the emanations at large in
its aspect of life-giver and enhancer of Awareness. "They
realized, that it is infinitely easier to destroy something," don
Juan went on, "than it is to build it and maintain it. To roll life
away is nothing compared to giving it and nourishing it. Of course, the
new Seers were wrong on this
count, but in due course they corrected
their mistake."
228-229
"How were they wrong, don Juan?"
"It's an error to isolate anything for Seeing. At the
beginning, the
new Seers did exactly
the opposite, from what their predecessors did.
They focused with equal attention on the other side of the Tumbler.
What happened to them, was as terrible, as, if not worse than, what
happened to the old Seers. They died
stupid deaths, just as the average
man does. They didn't have the mystery or the malignancy (defame, evil)
of the ancient Seers, nor had they
the Quest for Freedom of the Seers of today.
"Those first new Seers served
everybody. Because they were focusing
their Seeing
on the life-giving side of the emanations, they were
filled with love and kindness. But that didn't keep them from being
tumbled. They were vulnerable, just as were the old Seers, who were
filled with morbidity." He said, that for the modern-day new Seers, to be left
stranded after a
life of discipline and toil, just like men, who have never had a
purposeful moment in their lives, was intolerable. Don Juan said, that
these new Seers realized,
after they had readopted
their tradition, that the old Seers' knowledge of
the Rolling Force had
been complete; at one point the old Seers
had concluded, that there were, in effect, two different aspects of the
same force.
The Tumbling aspect relates exclusively to destruction and death. The
circular aspect, on the other hand, is what maintains Life and
Awareness, fulfillment and purpose. They had chosen, however, to deal
exclusively with the Tumbling aspect. "Gazing in teams, the
new Seers were able to
See the separation between
the Tumbling and the Circular aspects," he explained. "They Saw, that
both Forces are fused, but are not the same. The Circular Force comes
to us just before the Tumbling Force; they are so close to each other,
that they seem the same.
The
reason it's called the Circular Force is, that it comes in Rings,
threadlike hoops of iridescence, a very delicate affair indeed. And
just
like the Tumbling Force, it strikes all Living Beings ceaselessly, but
for a different purpose. It strikes them to give them strength,
direction, Awareness; to give them Life. What the new Seers
discovered is, that the Balance of the two Forces in
every Living Being, is a very delicate one," he continued, "if at any
given time an individual feels, that the Tumbling Force strikes harder,
than the Circular one, that means the balance is upset; the Tumbling
Force strikes harder and harder from then on, until it cracks the
Living Being's gap and makes it die." He added, that out
of, what I had called, Balls of Fire, comes an
iridescent hoop exactly the size of Living Beings, whether men, trees,
microbes, or allies.
"Are there different-size circles?" I asked.
"Don't take me so literally," he protested. "There are no circles to
speak of, just a Circular Force, that gives Seers, who are
dreaming it,
the feeling of rings. And there are no different sizes either. It's one
indivisible Force, that fits all Living Beings, Organic and Inorganic.
"Why did the old Seers focus on the
Tumbling aspect?" I asked.
"Because they believed, that their lives depended on Seeing it," he
replied. "They were sure, that their Seeing
was going to
give them
answers to age-old questions. You see, they figured, that if they
unraveled the secrets of the Rolling Force, they would be invulnerable
and immortal. The sad part is that in one way or another, they did
unravel the secrets and yet they were neither invulnerable nor
immortal.
230
The new Seers changed it
all, by realizing, that there is no way to
aspire to immortality as long, as man has a Cocoon." Don Juan
explained, that the old Seers apparently
never realized, that
the human Cocoon is a receptacle (container) and cannot sustain the
onslaught of
the Rolling Force forever. In spite of all the knowledge, that they had
accumulated, they were in the end certainly no better, and perhaps much
worse off, than the average man.
"In what way were they left worse off, than the average man?" I asked.
"Their tremendous knowledge forced them to take it for granted, that
their choices were infallible," he said. "So they chose to
live at
any cost." Don Juan looked at me and smiled. With his theatrical pause
he was
telling me something, I could not fathom. "They chose to live," he
repeated. "Just as they chose to become trees,
in order to assemble worlds with those nearly unreachable great bands."
"What do you mean by that, don Juan?"
"I mean, that they used the Rolling Force to shift their assemblage
points to unimaginable dreaming positions, instead of letting it roll
them to the beak of the Eagle to be devoured."
15.
The Death Defiers
231-232
I
arrived at Genaro's house around 2: 00 p. m. Don Juan and I became
involved in conversation, and then don Juan made me shift into
Heightened Awareness.
"Here we are again, the three of us, just as we were the day we went to
that flat rock," don Juan said. "And tonight we're going to make
another trip to that area.
You have enough knowledge now to draw very serious conclusions about
that place and its effects on Awareness."
"What is it with that place, don Juan?"
"Tonight you're going to find out some gruesome facts, that the
old Seers collected
about the Rolling Force; and you're going to See, what I
meant, when I told you, that the old Seers
chose to live at any cost." Don Juan turned to Genaro, who was about to
fall asleep. He nudged him. "Wouldn't you say, Genaro, that the
old Seers were dreadful
men?" don
Juan asked.
"Absolutely," Genaro said in a crisp tone and then seemed to succumb to
fatigue. He began to nod noticeably. In an instant he was sound asleep,
his head
resting on his chest with his chin tucked in. He snored. I wanted to
laugh out loud. But then I noticed, that Genaro was staring
at me, as if he were sleeping with his eyes open.
"They were such dreadful men, that they even defied death," Genaro
added
between snores.
"Aren't you curious to know how those gruesome men defied death?" don
Juan asked me. He seemed to be urging me to ask for an example of their
gruesomeness.
He paused and looked at me with, what I thought was, a glint of
expectation in his eyes.
"You're waiting for me to ask for an example, aren't you?" I said.
"This is a great moment," he said, patting me on the back and laughing.
"My benefactor had me on the edge of my seat at this point. I asked him
to give me an example, and he did; now i'm going to give you one,
whether you ask for it or not."
"What are you going to do?" I asked, so frightened, that my stomach was
tied in knots and my voice cracked. It took quite a while for don Juan
to stop laughing. Every time he
started to speak, he'd get an attack of coughing laughter.
"As Genaro told you, the old Seers were dreadful
men," he said, rubbing
his eyes. "There was something they tried to avoid at all costs: they
didn't want to die.
You may say, that the average man doesn't want to
die either, but the advantage, that the old Seers had over the
average
man was, that they had the concentration and the discipline to intend
things away; and they actually intended death away." He paused and
looked at me with raised eyebrows. He said, that I was
falling behind, that I was not asking my usual questions. I remarked,
that it was plain to me, that he was leading me to ask, if the
old Seers
had succeeded in intending death away, but he himself had already told
me, that their knowledge about the Tumbler, had not saved them from
dying.
233-234
"They succeeded in intending death away," he said, pronouncing his
words with extra care. "But they still had to die."
"How did they Intend Death away?" I asked.
"They observed their Allies," he said, "and Seeing, that they
were Living Beings with a much greater resilience to the Rolling Force,
the Seers patterned
themselves on their Allies." The old Seers realized, don
Juan explained, that only Organic Beings
have a gap, that resembles a bowl. Its size and shape and its
brittleness make it the ideal configuration to hasten the cracking and
collapsing of the Luminous Shell under the onslaughts of the Tumbling
Force. The Allies, on the other hand, who have only a line for a gap,
present such a small surface to the Rolling Force, as to be practically
immortal. Their Cocoons can sustain the onslaughts of the Tumbler
indefinitely, because hairline gaps offer no ideal configuration to it.
"The old Seers developed the
most bizarre techniques for closing their
gaps," don Juan continued. "They were essentially correct in assuming,
that a hairline gap is more durable, than a bowl-like one."
"Are those techniques still in existence?" I asked.
"No, they are not," he said. "But some of the Seers, who practiced
them,
are." For reasons, unknown to me, his statement caused a reaction of
sheer
terror in me. My breathing was altered instantly, and I couldn't
control its rapid pace. "They're still alive to this day, isn't that
so, Genaro?" don Juan
asked.
"Absolutely," Genaro muttered from an apparent state of deep
sleep. I asked don Juan, if he knew the reason for my being so
frightened. He
reminded me about a previous occasion in that very room, when they had
asked me, if I had noticed the weird creatures, that had come in the
moment Genaro opened the door. "That day your assemblage point went
very deep into the left side and
assembled a frightening world," he went on. "But I have already said
that to you; what you don't remember is, that you went directly to a
very remote world and scared yourself pissless there." Don Juan turned
to Genaro, who was snoring peacefully with his legs
stretched out in front of him. "Wasn't he scared pissless, Genaro?" he
asked.
"Absolutely pissless," Genaro muttered, and don Juan laughed.
"I want you to know, that we don't blame you for being scared," don
Juan
continued. "We, ourselves, are revolted by some of the actions of the
old Seers. I'm sure,
that you have realized by now, that what you can't
remember about that night is, that you Saw the old Seers, who are still
alive."
I wanted to protest, that I had realized nothing, but I could not voice
my words. I had to clear my throat over and over, before I could
articulate a word. Genaro had stood up and was gently patting my upper
back, by my neck, as if I were choking.
"You have a frog in your throat," he said. I thanked him in a high
squeaky voice. "No, I think you have a chicken there," he added and sat
down to sleep. Don Juan said, that the new Seers had rebelled
against all the bizarre
practices of the old Seers and declared
them not only useless, but
injurious to our total being. They even went so far, as to ban those
techniques from whatever was taught to new warriors; and for
generations there was no mention of those practices at all. It was in
the early part of the eighteenth century, that the Nagual
Sebastian, a member of don Juan's direct line of Naguals, rediscovered
the existence of those techniques.
235-236
"How did he rediscover them?" I asked.
"He was a superb Stalker, and because of his impeccability, he got a
chance to learn marvels," don Juan replied. He said, that one day, as
the Nagual Sebastian was about to start his
daily routines (he was the sexton at the cathedral in the city), where
he
lived. He found a middle-aged Indian man, who seemed to be in a
quandary
at the door of the church. The Nagual Sebastian went to the man's side
and asked him if he needed
help. "I need a bit of energy to close my gap," the man said
to him in a loud clear voice.
"Would you give me some of your energy?" Don Juan said, that according
to the story, the Nagual Sebastian was
dumbfounded. He did not know, what the man was talking about. He
offered
to take the Indian to see the parish priest. The man lost his patience
and angrily accused the Nagual Sebastian of stalling (manipulating). "I
need your
energy because you're a Nagual," he said. "Let's go quietly."
The Nagual Sebastian succumbed to the magnetic power of the stranger
and meekly went with him into the mountains. He was gone for many days.
When he came back, he not only had a new outlook about the
ancient Seers, but detailed
knowledge of their techniques. The stranger was an
ancient Toltec. One of the last survivors. "The Nagual Sebastian found
out marvels about the old Seers,"
don Juan
went on. "He was the one, who first knew how grotesque and aberrant
they
really were. Before him, that knowledge was only hearsay. One
night my benefactor and the Nagual Elias gave me a sample of
those
aberrations. They really showed it to Genaro and me together, so it's
only proper, that we both show you the same sample." I wanted to talk
in order to stall (delay); I needed time to calm down, to
think things out. But before I could say anything, don Juan and Genaro
were practically dragging me out of the house. They headed for the same
eroded hills we had visited before. We stopped at the bottom of a large
barren hill. Don Juan pointed
toward some distant mountains to the south, and said, that between the
place where we stood and a natural cut in one of those mountains, a
cut,
that looked like an open mouth, there were at least seven sites, where
the ancient Seers had focused
all the Power of their Awareness.
Don Juan said, that those Seers had not only
been knowledgeable and
daring, but downright successful. He added, that his benefactor had
showed him and Genaro a site, where the old Seers,
driven by their love
for life, had buried themselves alive and actually intended the Rolling
Force away. "There is nothing, that would catch the eye in those
places," he went
on. "The old Seers were careful
not to leave marks. It is just a
landscape. One has to See, to know where those places are."
He said, that he did not want to walk to the faraway sites, but would
take me to the one, that was nearest. I insisted on knowing, what we
were
after. He said, that
we were going to See the buried Seers, and that,
for
that we had to stay, until it got dark under the cover of some green
bushes. He pointed them out; they were perhaps half a mile away, up a
steep slope. We reached the patch of bushes and sat down as
comfortably, as we could.
He began then to explain in a very low voice, that in order to get
energy from the Earth, ancient Seers used to bury
themselves for
periods of time, depending on what they wanted to accomplish. The more
difficult their task, the longer their burial period. Don Juan stood up
and in a melodramatic way showed me a spot a few
yards from where we were. "Two old Seers are buried
there," he said. "They buried themselves
about two thousand years ago, to escape death, not in the spirit of
running away from it, but in the spirit of defying it."
237-238
Don Juan asked Genaro to show me the exact spot, where the old Seers
were buried. I turned to look at Genaro and realized, that he was
sitting by my side sound asleep again. But to my utter amazement, he
jumped up and barked like a dog and ran on all fours to the spot don
Juan was pointing out. There he ran around the place in a perfect mime
of a small dog. I found his performance hilarious. Don Juan was nearly
on the ground
laughing. "Genaro has shown you something extraordinary," don Juan
said, after
Genaro had returned, to where we were and had gone back to sleep. "He
has shown you something about the assemblage point and Dreaming. He's
Dreaming now, but he can act, as if he were fully awake and he can hear
everything you say. From that position, he can do more, than if he were
awake." He was silent for a moment, as if assessing, what to say next.
Genaro
snored rhythmically. Don Juan remarked how easy it was for him to find
flaws with what the
old Seers had done,
yet, in
all fairness, he never tired of repeating
how wonderful their accomplishments were. He said, that they understood
the Earth to perfection. Not only did they discover and use the Boost
from the Earth, but they also discovered, that if they remained buried,
their assemblage points aligned emanations, that were ordinarily
inaccessible, and that such an alignment engaged the Earth's strange,
inexplicable capacity to deflect (turn aside, deviate) the ceaseless
strikes of the Rolling Force. Consequently, they developed the most
astounding and complex
techniques for burying themselves for extremely long periods of time,
without any detriment to themselves. In their fight against death, they
learned how to elongate those periods, to cover millennia.
It was a cloudy
day, and night fell quickly. In no time at all,
everything was in darkness. Don Juan stood up and guided me and the
sleepwalker Genaro to an enormous flat oval rock, that had caught my
eye
the moment we got to that place. It was similar to the flat rock we had
visited before, but bigger. It occurred to me, that the rock, enormous
as it was, had deliberately been placed there. "This is another site,"
don Juan said. "This huge rock was placed here
as a trap, to attract people. Soon you'll know why."
I felt a shiver
run through my body. I thought, I was going to faint. I
knew, that I was definitely overreacting and wanted to say something
about it, but don Juan kept on talking in a hoarse whisper. He said,
that Genaro, since he was Dreaming, had enough control over his
assemblage point to move it, until he could reach the specific
emanations, that would wake up whatever was around that rock. He
recommended, that I try to move my assemblage point, and follow
Genaro's. He said, that I could do it, first, by setting up my
Unbending Intent to move it, and second, by letting the context of the
situation
dictate, where it should move. After a moment's thought, he whispered
in my ear not to worry about
procedures, because most of the really unusual things, that happen
to Seers,
or to the average man for that matter, happen by themselves,
with only the intervention of Intent. He was silent for a
moment and then added, that the danger for me was
going to be the buried Seers'
inevitable attempt to scare me to death.
He exhorted (urged) me to keep myself calm and not to succumb to fear,
but
follow Genaro's movements. I fought desperately not to be sick. Don
Juan patted me on the back and
said, that I was an old pro at playing an innocent bystander. He
assured
me, that I was not consciously refusing to let my assemblage point
move,
but that every human being does it automatically. "Something is going
to scare the living daylights out of you," he
whispered. "Don't give up, because if you do, you'll die and the old
vultures around here are going to feast on your energy."
239-240
"Let's get out
of here," I pleaded. "I really don't give a damn about
getting an example of the old Seers'
grotesqueness."
"It's too late," Genaro said, fully awake now, standing by my side.
"Even if we try to get away, the two Seers
and their Allies on the
other spot will cut you down.
They have already made a circle around
us. There are as many, as sixteen Awarenesses, focused on you right
now."
"Who are they?" I whispered in Genaro's ear.
"The four Seers
and their court," he replied. "They've been aware of us
since we got here."
I wanted to turn tail and run for dear life, but don Juan held my arm
and pointed to the sky. I noticed, that a remarkable change in
visibility had taken place. Instead of the pitch-black darkness, that
had prevailed, there was a pleasant dawn twilight. I made a quick
assessment of the cardinal points. The sky was definitely lighter
toward the east. I felt a strange pressure around my head. My ears were
buzzing. I felt
cold and feverish at the same time. I was scared, as I had never been
before, but what bothered me was, a nagging sensation of defeat, of
being a coward. I felt nauseated and miserable. Don Juan whispered in
my ear. He said, that I had to be on the alert,
that the onslaught of the old Seers
would be felt by all three of us at
any moment. "You can grab on to me, if you want to," Genaro said in a
fast whisper,
as if something were prodding him. I hesitated for an instant. I did
not want don Juan to believe, that I
was so scared, I needed to hold on to Genaro. "Here they come!" Genaro
said in a loud whisper. The world turned upside down instantaneously
for me, when something
gripped me by my left ankle. I felt the coldness of death on my entire
body. I knew, I had stepped on an iron clamp, maybe a bear trap. That
all flashed through my mind, before I let out a piercing scream, as
intense as my fright. Don Juan and Genaro laughed out loud. They were
flanking me no more,
than three feet away, but I was so terrified, I did not even notice
them.
"Sing! Sing for
dear life!" I heard don Juan ordering me under his
breath. I tried to pull my foot loose. I felt then a sting, as if
needles were
piercing my skin. Don Juan insisted over and over, that I sing. He and
Genaro started to sing a popular song. Genaro spoke the lyrics, as he
looked at me from hardly two inches away. They sang off-key in raspy
voices, getting so completely out of breath and so high out of the
range of their voices, that I ended up laughing. "Sing, or you're going
to perish," don
Juan said to me.
"Let's make a
trio," Genaro said, "We'll sing a bolero." I joined them in an off-key
trio. We sang for quite a while at the top
of our voices, like drunkards. I felt, that the iron grip on my leg was
gradually letting go of me. I had not dared to look down at my ankle.
At one moment I did and I realized then, that there was no trap,
clutching me. A dark, headlike shape was biting me! Only a supreme
effort kept me from fainting. I felt, I was getting sick
and automatically tried to bend over, but somebody with superhuman
strength grabbed me painlessly by the elbows and the nape of my neck
and did not let me move. I got sick all over my clothes. My revulsion
was so complete, that I began to fall in a faint. Don Juan
sprinkled my face with some water from the small gourd he always
carried, when we went into the mountains.
The water slid
under my
collar.
241-242
The
coldness restored my physical balance, but it did not
affect the Force, that was holding me by my elbows and neck. "I think
you are going too far with your fright," don Juan said loudly
and in such a matter-of-fact tone, that he created an immediate feeling
of order. "Let's sing again," he added. "Let's sing a song with
substance, I
don't
want any more boleros." I silently thanked him for his sobriety and for
his grand style. I was
so moved, as I heard them singing "La Valentina", that
I began to weep: "Because of my passion, they say, that ill fortune is
on my way. It
doesn't matter, that it might be the devil himself. I do know how to
die Valentina, Valentina. I throw myself in your way. If I am going to
die
tomorrow, why not, once and for all, today?"
All of my being
staggered under the impact of that inconceivable
juxtaposition (combination) of values. Never had a song meant so much
to me. As I
heard them sing those lyrics, which I ordinarily considered reeking
(filled)
with cheap sentimentalism, I thought, I understood the ethos (essential
character) of the
warrior. Don Juan had drilled into me, that warriors live with death at
their side, and from the knowledge, that death is with them, they draw
the courage to face anything. Don Juan had said, that the worst, that
could happen to us is, that we have to die, and since that is already
our unalterable fate, we are free; those, who have lost everything, no
longer have anything to fear. I walked to don Juan and Genaro and
embraced them to express my
boundless gratitude and admiration for them. Then I realized, that
nothing was holding me any longer. Without a word
don Juan took my arm and guided me to sit on the flat rock. "The show
is just about to begin now," Genaro said in a jovial tone, as
he tried to find a comfortable position to sit. "You've just paid your
admission ticket. It's all over your chest." He looked at me, and both
of them began to laugh. "Don't sit too close to me," Genaro said. "I
don't appreciate pukers.
But don't go too far, either. The old Seers
are not yet through with
their tricks."
I moved as close to them, as politeness permitted. I was concerned
about
my slate (make a fresh start) for an instant, and then all my qualms
(sickness) became nonsense, for I
noticed, that some people were coming toward us. I could not make out
their shapes clearly, but I distinguished a mass of human figures,
moving
in the semidarkness. They did not carry lanterns or flashlights with
them, which, at that hour, they would still have needed. Somehow that
detail worried me. I did not want to focus on it and I deliberately
began to think rationally. I figured, that we must have attracted
attention with our loud singing and they were coming to investigate.
Don Juan tapped me on the shoulder. He pointed with a movement of his
chin to the men in front of the group of others. "Those four are the
old Seers," he said. "The rest
are their Allies." Before I could remark, that they were just local
peasants, I heard a
swishing sound right behind me. I quickly turned around
in a state of
total alarm. My movement was so sudden, that don Juan's warning came
too
late. "Don't turn around!" I heard him yell. His words were only
background; they did not mean anything to me. On
turning around, I saw, that three, grotesquely deformed, men had
climbed
up on the rock right behind me;
243-244
they
were crawling toward me, with
their mouths open in a nightmarish grimace and their arms outstretched
to grab me. I intended to scream at the top of my lungs, but, what came
out was, an
agonizing croak, as if something were obstructing my windpipe. I
automatically rolled out of their reach and onto the
ground. As I
stood up, don Juan jumped to my side, at the very same moment, that
a horde of men, led by those don Juan had pointed out, descended on me
like vultures. They were actually squeaking like bats or rats. I yelled
in terror. This time I was able to let out a piercing cry. Don Juan, as
nimbly, as an athlete in top form, pulled me out of their
clutches onto the rock. He told me in a stern voice not to turn around
to look, no matter how scared I was. He said, that the Allies cannot
push at all, but that they
certainly could
scare me and make me fall to
the ground. On the ground, however, the Allies could hold anybody down.
If I were to fall on the ground by the place, where the Seers
were
buried, I would be at their mercy. They would rip me apart, while their
Allies held me. He added, that he had not told me all that before,
because he had hoped, I would be forced to See and understand it by
myself. His decision had nearly cost me my life. The sensation, that
the grotesque men were just behind me, was nearly
unbearable. Don Juan forcefully ordered me to keep calm and focus my
attention on four men at the head of a crowd of perhaps ten or twelve.
The instant I focused my eyes on them, as if on cue, they all advanced
to the edge of the flat rock. They stopped there and began hissing like
serpents. They
walked back and forth. Their movement seemed to be
synchronized. It was so consistent and orderly, that it seemed to be
mechanical. It was, as if they were following a repetitive pattern,
aimed at mesmerizing me.
"Don't gaze at them, dear," Genaro said to me, as if he were talking to
a child. The laughter, that followed, was as hysterical, as my fear. I
laughed so
hard, that the sound reverberated on the surrounding hills. The men
stopped at once and seemed to be perplexed. I could distinguish
the shapes of their heads bobbing up and down, as if they were talking,
deliberating among themselves. Then one of them jumped onto the rock.
"Watch out! That one is a Seer !" Genaro exclaimed.
"What are we
going to do?" I shouted.
"We could start
singing again," don Juan replied matter-of-factly. My
fear reached its apex then. I began to jump up and down and to roar
like an animal. The man jumped down to the ground. "Don't pay any more
attention to those clowns," don Juan said. "Let's
talk as usual." He said, that we had gone there for my enlighten-
ment,
and that I was
failing miserably. I had to reorganize myself. The first thing to do
was, to realize, that my assemblage point had moved and was now making
obscure emanations Glow. To carry the feelings from my usual state of
Awareness into the world, I had assembled, was indeed a travesty
(grotesque imitation), for
fear is only prevalent among the emanations of daily life. I
told
him, that if my assemblage point had shifted, as he was saying it
had, I had news for him. My fear was infinitely greater and more
devastating, than anything I had ever experienced in my daily life.
"You're wrong," he said. "Your First Attention is confused and doesn't
want to give up control, that's all. I have the feeling, that you could
walk right up to those creatures and face them, and they wouldn't do a
thing to you."
245-246
I insisted, that
I was definitely in no condition to test such a
preposterous thing, as that. He laughed at me. He said, that sooner or
later, I had to cure myself of
my madness, and that to take the initiative and face up to those
four Seers, was infinitely less
preposterous, than the idea, that I was Seeing
them at all. He said, that to him madness was, to be confronted by men,
who had been buried for two thousand years and were still alive, and
not to think, that that was the epitome (abstract) of preposterousness.
I heard
everything he said with clarity, but I was not really paying
attention to him. I was terrified of the men around the rock. They
seemed to be preparing to jump us, to jump me really. They were fixed
on me. My right arm began to shake, as if I were stricken by some
muscular disorder. Then I became aware, that the light in the sky had
changed. I had not noticed before, that it was already dawn. The
strange
thing was, that an uncontrollable urge made me stand up and run to the
group of men. I had, at that moment, two completely different feelings
about the same
event. The minor one was of sheer terror. The other, the major one, was
of total indifference. I could not have cared less. When I reached the
group, I realized, that don Juan was right; they were
not really men. Only four of them had any resemblance to men, but they
were not men either; they were strange creatures with huge yellow eyes.
The others were just shapes, that were propelled by the four, that
resembled men. I felt extraordinarily sad for those creatures with
yellow eyes. I
tried to touch them, but I could not find them. Some sort of wind
scooped them away. I looked for don Juan and Genaro. They were not
there. It was
pitch-black again. I called out their names over and over again. I
thrashed around in darkness for a few minutes. Don Juan came to my side
and startled me. I did not see Genaro. "Let's go home," he said. "We
have a long walk."
Don Juan commented on how well I had performed at the site of the
buried Seers, especially
during the last part of our encounter with
them. He said, that a shift of the assemblage point is marked by a
change in light. In the daytime, light becomes very dark; at night,
darkness becomes twilight. He added, that I had performed two shifts by
myself, aided only by animal fright. The only thing he found
objectionable was, my indulging in fear, especially after I had
realized,
that warriors have nothing to fear.
"How do you know I had realized that?" I asked.
"Because you were free. When fear disappears, all the ties, that bind
us,
dissolve," he said. "An Ally was gripping your foot, because it was
attracted by your animal terror." I told him how sorry I was for not
being able to uphold my realizations. "Don't concern yourself with
that." He laughed. "You know, that such
realizations are a dime a dozen; they don't amount to anything in the
life of warriors, because they are canceled out, as the assemblage
point
shifts. What Genaro and I wanted to do
was, to make you shift very deeply. This
time Genaro was there simply to entice the old Seers. He did it
once
already, and you went so far into the left side, that it will take
quite
a while for you to remember it. Your fright tonight was just as
intense,
as it was that first time, when the Seers and their
Allies followed you
to this very room, but your sturdy First Attention wouldn't let you be
aware of them."
"Explain to me what happened at the site of the Seers," I asked.
"The Allies came out to See you," he replied. "Since they have very low
energy, they always need the help of men. The four Seers have
collected
twelve Allies.
247-248
"The countryside in Mexico and also certain cities are dangerous. What
happened to you, can happen to any man or woman. If they bump into that
tomb, they may even See the Seers and their
Allies, if they are pliable (flexible)
enough to let their fear make their assemblage points shift; but one
thing is for sure: they can die of fright."
"But do you honestly believe, that those Toltec Seers are still
alive?"
I asked. He laughed and shook his head in disbelief.
"It's time for you to shift that assemblage point of yours just a bit,"
he said. "I can't talk to you, when you are in your idiot's stage." He
smacked me with the palm of his hand on three spots: right on the
crest of my right hipbone, on the center of my back below my shoulder
blades, and on the upper part of my right pectoral muscle. My ears
immediately began to buzz. A trickle of blood ran out of my
right nostril, and something inside me became unplugged. It was, as if
some Flow of Energy had been blocked and suddenly began to move again.
"What were those Seers and their
Allies after?" I asked.
"Nothing," he replied. "We were the ones, who were after them.
The Seers, of course,
had already noticed your field of energy, the first
time you Saw them; when you came back, they were set to feast on you."
"You claim, that they are alive, don Juan," I said. "You must mean,
that
they are alive, as Allies are alive, is that so?"
"That's exactly right," he said. "They cannot possibly be alive as you
and I are. That would be preposterous." He went on to explain, that the
ancient Seers' concern with
death made
them look into the most bizarre possibilities. The ones, who opted for
the Allies' pattern, had in mind, doubtless, a desire for a haven. And
they found it, at a fixed position in one of the seven bands of
Inorganic Awareness. The Seers felt, that they were
relatively safe
there. After all, they were separated from the daily world by a nearly
insurmountable barrier, the barrier of perception, set by the
assemblage
point. "When the four Seers Saw, that you
could shift your assemblage point,
they took off like bats out of hell," he said and laughed.
"Do you mean, that I assembled one of the seven worlds?" I asked.
"No, you didn't," he replied. "But you have done it before, when
the Seers
and their Allies chased you. That day you went all the way to
their world. The problem is, that you love to act stupid, so you can't
remember it at all. I'm sure, that it is the Nagual's presence," he
continued, "that
sometimes makes people act dumb. When the Nagual Julian was still
around, I was dumber, than I am now. I am convinced, that when I'm no
longer here, you'll be capable of remembering everything." Don Juan
explained, that since he needed to show me the Death Defiers,
he and Genaro had lured them to the outskirts of our world. What I had
done at first was, a deep lateral shift, which allowed me to See them
as
people, but at the end I had correctly made the shift, that allowed me
to See the Death Defiers and their Allies, as they are.
249-250
Very
early the
next morning, at Silvio Manuel's house, don Juan called
me to the big room to discuss the events of the previous night. I felt
exhausted and wanted to rest, to sleep, but don Juan was pressed for
time. He immediately started his explanation. He said, that
the old Seers
had found out a way to utilize the Rolling Force and be propelled
by it. Instead of succumbing to the onslaughts of the Tumbler, they
rode
with it and let it move their assemblage points to the confines of
human possibilities. Don Juan expressed unbiased admiration for such an
accomplishment. He
admitted, that nothing else could give the assemblage point the Boost,
that the Tumbler gives. I asked him about the difference between the
Earth's Boost and the Tumbler's Boost. He explained, that the Earth's
Boost is the Force of Alignment of only the amber emanations, it is a
Boost, that heightens Awareness to unthinkable degrees. To the
new Seers
it is a blast of
unlimited consciousness, which they call Total Freedom. He said, that
the Tumbler's Boost, on the other hand, is the Force of Death. Under
the impact of the Tumbler, the assemblage point moves to
new, unpredictable positions. Thus, the old Seers
were always alone in their journeys, although the enterprise,
they were
involved in, was always communal. The company of other Seers
on their
journeys was fortuitous (accidental) and usually meant struggle for
supremacy. I confessed to don Juan, that the concerns of the
old Seers, whatever
they may have been, were worse, than morbid horror tales to me. He
laughed uproariously. He seemed to be enjoying himself. "You have to
admit, no matter how disgusted you feel, that those devils
were very daring," he went on. "I never liked them myself, as you know,
but I can't help admiring them. Their love for life is truly beyond me."
"How can that be
love for life, don Juan? It's something nauseating," I
said.
"What else could
push a man to those extremes, if it is not love for
life?" he asked. "They loved life so intensely, that they were not
willing to give it up. That's the way I have seen it. My benefactor Saw
something else. He believed, that they were afraid to die, which is not
the same, as loving life. I say, that they were afraid to die, because
they loved life and because they had seen marvels, and not because they
were greedy little monsters. No. They were aberrant (deviate from
normal), because nobody ever
challenged them and they were spoiled like rotten children, but their
daring was impeccable and so was their courage. Would you venture into
the Unknown out of greed? No way. Greed works
only in the world of ordinary affairs. To venture into that terrifying
loneliness, one must have something greater, than greed. Love, one
needs
love for life, for intrigue, for mystery. One needs unquenching
curiosity and guts galore. So don't give me this nonsense about your
being revolted. It's embarrassing!" Don Juan's eyes were
shining with contained laughter. He was putting me
in my place, but he was laughing at it. Don Juan left me alone in the
room for perhaps an hour. I wanted to
organize my thoughts and feelings. I had no way to do that. I knew
without any doubt, that my assemblage point was at a position, where
reasoning does not prevail, yet I was moved by reasonable concerns. Don
Juan had said, that technically, as soon, as the assemblage point
shifts,
we are asleep. I wondered, for instance, if I was sound asleep from
the
stand of an onlooker, just as Genaro had been asleep to me. I asked don
Juan about it as soon, as he returned. "You are absolutely asleep
without having to be stretched out," he
replied. "If people in a normal state of awareness saw you now, you
would appear to them to be a bit dizzy, even drunk." He explained, that
during normal sleep, the shift of the assemblage
point runs along either edge of human's band.
251-252
Such shifts are always
coupled with slumber. Shifts, that are induced by practice, occur along
the midsection of human's band and are not coupled with slumber, yet a
dreamer is asleep. "Right at this juncture is, where the new and the
old Seers
made their
separate bids for power," he went on. "The old Seers wanted a replica
of the body, but with more physical strength, so they
made their
assemblage points slide along the right edge of human's band. The
deeper they moved along the right edge, the more bizarre their Dreaming
Body became. You, yourself, witnessed last night the monstrous result
of a deep shift along the right edge." He said, that the new Seers were completely
different, that they
maintain their assemblage points along the midsection of human's band.
If
the shift is a shallow one, like the shift into Heightened Awareness,
the Dreamer is almost like anyone else in the street, except for a
slight vulnerability to emotions, such as fear and doubt. But at a
certain degree of depth, the Dreamer, who is shifting along the
midsection, becomes a blob of light. A blob of light is the Dreaming
Body of the new Seers. He also
said, that such an impersonal Dreaming Body is more conducive
(favourable) to
understanding and examination, which are the basis of all the
new Seers
do. The intensely humanized Dreaming Body of the old Seers
drove them
to look for answers, that were equally personal, humanized. Don Juan
suddenly seemed to be groping for words. "There is another Death
Defier," he said curtly, "so unlike the four,
you've seen, that he's indistinguishable from the average man in the
street. He's accomplished this unique feat by being able to open and
close his gap, whenever he wants." He played with his fingers almost
nervously. "The ancient Seer,
that the Nagual Sebastian found in 1723 is that Death Defier," he went
on. "We count that day, as the Beginning of our Line,
the Second Beginning. That Death Defier, who's been on the Earth for
thousands of years, has changed the lives of every Nagual he met, some
more profoundly, than others. And he has met every single Nagual of our
Line since that day in 1723." Don Juan looked fixedly at me. I got
strangely embarrassed. I thought
my embarrassment was the result of a dilemma. I had very serious doubts
about the content of the story, and at the same time I had the most
disconcerting trust, that everything, he had said was true. I expressed
my quandary (predicament) to him.
"The problem of rational disbelief is
not yours alone," don Juan said.
"My benefactor was at first plagued by the same question. Of course,
later on he remembered everything.
But it took him a long time to do
so. When I met him, he had already recollected everything, so I never
witnessed his doubts. I only heard about them. The weird part is, that
people, who have never set eyes on the man (Death Defier), have
less difficulty accepting, that he's one of the original Seers. My
benefactor said, that his quandaries stemmed from the fact, that the
shock of meeting such a creature, had lumped together a number of
emanations. It takes time for those emanations to separate themselves."
Don Juan went on to explain, that, as my assemblage point kept on
shifting, a moment would come, when it would hit the proper combination
of emanations; at that moment the proof of the existence of that man
would become overwhelmingly evident to me. I felt compelled to talk
again about my ambivalence (contradicting thoughts). "We're
deviating from our subject,"
he said. "It may seem, that I'm
trying to convince you of the existence of that man; and what I meant
to talk about is, the fact, that the old Seer knows how to
handle the Rolling Force. Whether or not you believe, that he exists is
not
important.
253-254
Someday you'll know for a fact, that he certainly succeeded
in closing his gap. The energy, that he borrows from the Nagual every
generation, he uses exclusively to close his gap."
"How did he succeed in closing it?" I asked.
"There is no way of knowing that," he replied. "I've talked to two
other Naguals, who saw that man face to face, the Nagual Julian and the
Nagual Elias. Neither of them knew how. The man never revealed how he
closes that opening, which I suppose begins to expand after a time. The
Nagual Sebastian said, that when he first saw the old Seer, the man was
very weak, actually dying. But my benefactor found him prancing
vigorously, like a young man." Don Juan said, that the Nagual Sebastian
nicknamed that nameless man
"the tenant," for they struck an arrangement, by which the man was
given
energy, lodging so to speak, and he paid rent in the form of favors and
knowledge.
"Did anybody ever get hurt in the exchange?" I asked.
"None of the Naguals, who exchanged energy with him, was injured," he
replied. "The man's commitment was, that he'd only take a bit of
superfluous (excessive, extra) energy from the Nagual, in exchange for
gifts for
extraordinary abilities. For
instance, the Nagual Julian got the Gait
of Power. With it, he could activate or make dormant the emanations
inside his cocoon, in order to look young or old at will."
Don Juan
explained, that the Death Defiers, in general, went as far, as
rendering (give or make available) dormant all the emanations inside
their cocoons, except those,
that matched the emanations of the Allies. In this fashion, they were
able to imitate the Allies in some form. Each of the Death Defiers we
had encountered at the rock, don Juan
said, had been able to move his assemblage point to a precise spot on
his cocoon, in order to emphasize the emanations, shared with the
Allies,
and to interact with them. But they were all unable to move it back to
its usual position and interact with people. The tenant, on the other
hand, is capable of shifting his assemblage point to assemble the
everyday world, as if nothing had ever happened. Don Juan also said,
that his benefactor was convinced (and he fully
agreed with him), that, what takes place during the borrowing of
energy, is
that the old Sorcerer moves the Nagual's assemblage point to emphasize
(stress)
the Ally's emanations inside the Nagual's Cocoon. He then uses the
great jolt of energy, produced by those emanations, that suddenly
become
aligned, after being so deeply dormant. He said, that the energy locked
within us, in the dormant emanations,
has a tremendous force and an incalculable scope. We can only vaguely
assess the scope of that tremendous force, if we consider, that the
energy, involved in perceiving and acting in the world of everyday
life,
is a product of the alignment of hardly one-tenth of the emanations,
encased in human's cocoon. "What happens at the moment of
death is, that all that energy is
released at once," he continued. "Living Beings at that moment become
flooded by the most inconceivable Force.
It
is not the Rolling Force,
that has cracked their gaps, because that Force never enters inside the
Cocoon; it only makes it collapse. What floods them is the Force of all
the emanations, that are suddenly aligned, after being dormant for a
lifetime. There is no outlet for such a giant Force, except to escape
through the gap."
He added, that
the old Sorcerer has found a way to tap that energy. By
aligning a limited and very specific spectrum of the dormant emanations
inside the Nagual's Cocoon, the old Seer taps a limited, but
gigantic
jolt.
"How do you think he takes that energy into his own body?" I asked.
"By cracking the Nagual's gap," he replied. "He moves the Nagual's
assemblage point, until the gap opens a little.
255
When the energy of newly
aligned emanations is released through that opening, he takes it into
his own gap."
"Why is that old Seer doing, what
he's doing?" I asked.
"My opinion is,
that he's caught in a circle, he can't break," he
replied. "We got into an agreement with him. He's doing his best to
keep it, and so are we. We can't judge him, yet we have to know, that
his path doesn't lead to freedom. He knows that, and he also knows, he
can't change it; he's trapped in a situation of his own making. The
only thing he can do is, to prolong his Ally-like existence as long, as
he possibly can."
16.
The Mold of Human
256-257
Right
after lunch, don Juan and I sat down to talk. He started without
any preamble (without introduction). He announced, that we had come to
the end of his
explanation. He said, that he had discussed with me, in painstaking
detail, all the truths about Awareness, that the old Seers had
discovered. He stressed, that I now knew the order, in which the
new Seers had arranged
them. In the last sessions of his explanation, he
said, he had given me a detailed account of the two Forces, that aid
our
assemblage points to move: the Earth's Boost and the Rolling Force. He
had also explained the three techniques, worked out by the new Seers
- Stalking, Intent, and Dreaming - and their effects on the movement of
the assemblage point. "Now, the only thing left for you to do, before
the explanation of the Mastery of Awareness is completed," he went on,
"is to break the Barrier of Perception by yourself. You must move your
assemblage point,
unaided by anyone, and align another great band of emanations. Not to
do this, will turn everything you've learned and done with me,
into merely talk, just words. And words are fairly cheap."
He explained, that when
the assemblage point is moving away from its
customary position and reaches a certain depth, it breaks a Barrier,
that momentarily disrupts its capacity to align emanations. We
experience it as a moment of perceptual blankness. The
old Seers
called
that moment: the Wall of Fog, because a bank of fog appears, whenever
the Alignment of emanations falters (hesitate). He said, that there
were three ways of
dealing with it. It could be
taken abstractly, as a Barrier of Perception; it could be felt, as the
act of piercing a tight paper screen with the entire body; or it could
be Seen, as a Wall of Fog. In the course of my apprenticeship with don
Juan, he had guided me
countless times to See the Barrier of Perception. At first, I had liked
the idea of a Wall of Fog. Don Juan had warned me, that the
old Seers
had also preferred to See it that way. He had said, that there is great
comfort and ease in Seeing it, as a Wall
of Fog, but that there is also
the grave danger of turning something incomprehensible into something
somber and foreboding; hence, his recommendation was to keep
incomprehensible things incomprehensible rather, than making them part
of the inventory of the first attention. After a short-lived feeling of
comfort in Seeing the Wall of
Fog, I had
to agree with don Juan, that it was better to keep the transition
period,
as an incomprehensible abstraction, but by then, it was impossible for
me to break the fixation of my Awareness. Every time I was placed in a
position to break the Barrier of Perception, I Saw the Wall of Fog. On
one occasion, in the past, I had complained to don Juan and Genaro,
that although I wanted to See it as something else, I couldn't change
it. Don Juan had commented, that that was understandable, because I was
morbid and somber, that he and I were very different in this respect.
258-259
He was lighthearted and practical and he did not worship the human
inventory. I, on the other hand, was unwilling to throw my inventory
out the window and, consequently, I
was heavy, sinister, and impractical. I had been shocked and saddened
by his harsh criticism and became very gloomy. Don Juan and Genaro had
laughed, until tears rolled down their cheeks. Genaro had added, that
on
top of all that, I was vindictive and had a
tendency to get fat. They had laughed so hard, I finally felt obliged
to
join them. Don Juan had told me then, that exercises of assembling
Other Worlds
allowed the assemblage point to gain experience in shifting. I had
always wondered, however, how to get the initial boost to dislodge my
assemblage point from its usual position. When I'd questioned him about
it in the past, he'd pointed out, that since Alignment is the Force,
that
is involved in everything, Intent is, what makes the assemblage point
move. I asked him again about it.
"You're in a position now to answer that question yourself," he
replied. "The
Mastery of Awareness is, what gives the assemblage point
its boost. After all, there is really very little to us human beings;
we are, in essence, an assemblage point fixed at a certain position.
Our enemy and at the same time our friend is our internal dialogue, our
inventory. Be a warrior; shut off your internal dialogue; make your
inventory and then throw it away. The new Seers make accurate
inventories and then laugh at them. Without the inventory the
assemblage point becomes free." Don Juan reminded me, that he had
talked a great deal about one of the
most sturdy aspects of our inventory: our idea of God. That aspect, he
said, was like a powerful glue, that bound the assemblage point to its
original position. If
I were going to assemble another true world with
another great band of emanations, I had to take an obligatory step, in
order to release all ties from my assemblage point. "That
step is to See the mold of human," he said. "You must do that today
unaided."
"What's the mold of human?" I asked.
"I've helped you See it many times," he replied. "You know what I'm
talking about." I refrained from saying, that I did not know, what he
was talking about.
If he said, that I had Seen the mold of human, I must have done that,
although I did not have the foggiest idea, what it was like. He knew,
what was going through my mind. He gave me a knowing smile and
slowly shook his head from side to side. "The Mold of Human is a
huge
cluster of emanations in the great band of
organic life. It is
called the Mold of Human, because the
cluster appears only inside the cocoon of human. The Mold of Human is the
portion of the Eagle's emanations, that Seers
can See directly, without any danger to themselves."
There
was a
long pause before he spoke again. "To break the Barrier of Perception
is the last task of the Mastery of Awareness," he said. "In order to
move your assemblage point to that
position, you must gather enough energy. Make a journey of recovery.
Remember what you've done!" I tried unsuccessfully to recall, what was
the mold of human. I felt an
excruciating frustration, that soon turned into real anger. I was
furious with myself, with don Juan, with everybody. Don Juan was
untouched by my fury. He said matter-of-factly, that anger
was a natural reaction to the hesitation of the assemblage point to
move on command. "It will be a long time, before you can apply the
principle, that your
command is the Eagle's command," he said.
260-261
"That's
the essence of the Mastery of Intent. In the meantime, make a command
now not to fret (be difficult), not
even at the worst moments of doubt. It will be a slow process, until
that command is heard and obeyed, as if it were the Eagle's command."
He also said, that there was an unmeasurable area of Awareness in
between the customary position of the assemblage point and the
position,
where there are no more doubts, which is almost the place, where the
Barrier of Perception makes its appearance. In that unmeasurable
area,
warriors fall prey to every conceivable misdeed. He warned me to be on
the lockout and not lose confidence, for I would unavoidably be struck
at one time or another by gripping feelings of defeat. "The
new Seers recommend a very simple
act, when impatience, or despair,
or anger, or sadness comes their way," he continued. "They recommend,
that warriors roll their eyes. Any direction will do; I prefer to roll
mine clockwise. "The movement of the eyes makes the assemblage point
shift momentarily.
In that movement, you will find relief. This is in lieu of true Mastery
of Intent."'
I complained, that there was not enough time for him to tell me more
about Intent. "It will all come back to you someday," he assured me.
"One thing will
trigger another. One key word and all of it will Tumble out of you, as
if the door of an overstuffed closet had given way." He went back then
to discussing the mold of human. He said, that to See it
on my own, unaided by anyone, was an important step, because all of us
have certain ideas, that must be broken before we are free;
the Seer, who
travels into the Unknown to See the Unknowable, must be in an
impeccable
state of being. He winked at me and said, that to be in an impeccable
state of being is,
to be free of rational assumptions and rational fears. He added, that
both my rational assumptions and my rational fears were preventing me,
at that moment, from realigning
the emanations, that would make me
remember Seeing the mold of human. He
urged me to relax and move my eyes
in order to make my assemblage point shift.
He repeated over and over,
that it was really important to remember having Seen the mold, before I
See it again. And since he was pressed for time, there was no room for
my usual slowness. I moved my eyes, as he suggested. Almost
immediately I forgot my
discomfort and then a sudden flash of memory came to me and I
remembered, that I had Seen the mold of human. It had happened years
earlier on an occasion, that had been quite memorable to me, because
from the point of view of my Catholic upbringing, don Juan had made the
most sacrilegious statements I had ever heard. It had all started as a
casual conversation, while we hiked in the
foothills of the Sonoran desert. He was explaining to me the
implications of what he was doing to me with his teachings. We had
stopped to rest and had sat down on some large boulders. He had
continued explaining his teaching procedure, and this had encouraged me
to try for the hundredth time to give him an account of how I felt
about it. It was evident, that he did not want to hear about it
anymore.
He made me change levels of Awareness and told me, that if I would See
the Mold of Human, I might understand everything, he was doing, and
thus,
save us both years of toil. He gave me a detailed explanation, of what
the Mold of Human was.
He did
not talk about it in terms of the Eagle's emanations, but in terms of a
pattern of energy, that serves to stamp the qualities of humanness on
an
amorphous blob of biological matter. At least, I understood it that
way, especially after he further described the Mold of Human, using a
mechanical analogy.
PRODUCTION OF HUMAN
FORMS - Stamping devices
262-263
He said, that
it
was like a gigantic die (stamping device), that stamps
(штампует) out human beings endlessly, as if they were coming to it on
a
mass-production conveyor belt.
He vividly mimed the
process, by bringing
the palms of his hands together with great force, as if the die molded
a human being each time its two halves were clapped. He also said, that
every species has a mold of its own, and every
individual of every species molded by the process shows characteristics
particular to its own kind. He began then an extremely
disturbing elucidation about the mold of
human. He said, that the old Seers as well, as
the mystics of our world,
have one thing in common: they have been able to See the Mold of Human,
but
not understand, what it is. Mystics, throughout the centuries, have
given us moving accounts of their experiences. But these accounts,
however beautiful, are flawed by the gross and despairing mistake of
believing the Mold of Human to be an omnipotent, omniscient creator;
and
so is the interpretation of the old Seers,
who called the Mold of Human a
friendly spirit, a protector of human. He said, that the new Seers are the only ones, who
have the sobriety to See the Mold of Human and understand, what it is.
What they have come to
realize is, that the Mold of Human is not a creator, but the pattern of
every human attribute, we can think of, and some, we cannot even
conceive.
The Mold is our God, because we are, what it stamps us with, and not,
because it has created us from nothing and made us in its image and
likeness. Don Juan said, that in his opinion, to fall on
our knees in the
presence of the Mold of Human, reeks (saturate) of arrogance and human
self-centeredness. As I heard don Juan's
explanation I got terribly
worried. Even though I
had never considered my self to be a practicing Catholic, I was shocked
by his blasphemous (profane) implications. I had been politely
listening to him,
yet I had been yearning for a pause in his barrage of sacrilegious
judgments, in order to change the subject. But he went on drumming his
point in a merciless way. I finally interrupted him and told him, that
I
believed, that God exists. He retorted, that my belief was based on
faith and, as such, was a
secondhand conviction, that did not amount to anything; my belief in
the
existence of God was, like everyone else's, based on hearsay and not on
the act of Seeing, he
said. He assured me, that even if I was able to See, I was
bound to make the
same misjudgment, that mystics have made. Anyone, who Sees the
mold of
human, automatically assumes, that it is God. He called the mystical
experience, a chance Seeing,
a one-shot affair,
that has no significance whatsoever, because it is the result of a
random movement of the assemblage point. He asserted, that the
new Seers
are indeed the only ones, who can pass a fair judgment on this matter,
because they have ruled out chance Seeings
and are capable of Seeing
the mold of man as often, as they please. They have Seen, therefore,
that, what we call God, is a static prototype
of humanness without any power. For the mold of human cannot under any
circumstances help us by intervening in our behalf, or punish our
wrongdoings, or reward us in any way. We are simply the product of its
stamp; we are its impression. The mold of man is exactly, what its name
tells us it is, a pattern, a form, a cast, that groups together a
particular bunch of fiberlike elements, which we call human. What he
had said, put me in a state of great distress. But he seemed
unconcerned with my genuine turmoil. He kept on needling me with, what
he called the unforgivable crime of the chance, Seers, which makes us
focus our irreplaceable energy on something, that has no power
whatsoever to do anything. The more he talked, the greater
my
annoyance.
264-265
When
I became so annoyed, that I was about to shout at him,
he had me change into yet a deeper state of Heightened Awareness. He
hit me on my right side, between my hipbone and my rib cage. That blow
sent me soaring into a radiant light, into a diaphanous source of the
most peaceful and exquisite beatitude. That light was a haven, an oasis
in the blackness around me. From my subjective point of view, I saw
that light for an immeasurable
length of time. The splendor of the sight was beyond anything I can
say, and yet I could not figure out what it was, that made it so
beautiful. Then the idea came to me, that its beauty grew out of a
sense
of harmony, a sense of peace and rest, of having arrived, of being safe
at long last. I felt myself inhaling and exhaling in quietude and
relief. What a gorgeous sense of plenitude! I knew beyond a shadow of
doubt, that I had come face to face with God, the source of everything.
And I knew that God loved me. God was love and forgiveness. The light
bathed me, and I felt clean, delivered. I wept uncontrollably, mainly
for myself. The sight of that resplendent light made me feel unworthy,
villainous. Suddenly, I heard don Juan's voice in my ear. He said, that
I had to go
beyond the mold, that the mold was merely a stage, a stopover, that
brought temporary peace and serenity to those, who journey into the
Unknown, but that it was sterile, static. It was, at the same time, a
flat reflected image in a mirror and the mirror itself. And the image
was human's image. I passionately resented, what don Juan was saying; I
rebelled against
his blasphemous, sacrilegious words.
I wanted to tell him off, but I
could not break the binding power of my Seeing.
I was caught in it. Don
Juan seemed to know exactly how I felt and what I wanted to tell him.
"You can't tell the Nagual off," he said in my ear. "It is the Nagual,
who's enabling you to See. It is the Nagual's technique, the Nagual's
power. The Nagual is the guide." It was at that point, that I realized
something about the voice in my
ear. It was not don Juan's, although it sounded very much like his
voice. Also, the voice was right. The instigator of that Seeing was the
Nagual Juan Matus. It
was his technique and his power, that was making
me See God. He said, it was not God, but the mold of human; I
knew, that he was right.
Yet
I could not admit that, not out of annoyance or stubbornness, but
simply out of a sense of ultimate loyalty to and love for the divinity,
that was in front of me. As I gazed into the light with all the passion
I was capable of, the Light seemed to condense and I Saw a human. A
shiny human, that exuded
charisma, love, understanding, sincerity, truth. A man, that was the
sum
total of all that is good. The fervor (passion), I felt on Seeing that man, was
well beyond anything I had
ever felt in my life. I did fall on my knees. I wanted to worship God
personified, but don Juan intervened and whacked me on my left upper
chest, close to my clavicle, and I lost sight of God. I was left with a
tantalizing feeling, a mixture of remorse, elation,
certainties, and doubts. Don Juan made fun of me. He called me pious
and careless and said, I would make a great priest; now I could even
pass for a spiritual leader, who had had a chance Seeing of God.
He
urged me, in a jocular (jolly) way, to start preaching and describe,
what I had Seen, to everyone. In a very casual, but seemingly
interested manner, he made a statement,
that was part question, part assertion. "And the man?" he asked.
"You can't forget, that God is a male." The immensity of
something indefinable began to dawn on me, as I entered
into a state of great clarity. "Very cozy, eh?" don
Juan added, smiling. "God is a male. What a relief."
266-267
After recounting to don Juan, what I had remembered, I asked him about
something, that had just struck me, as being terribly odd. To See the
mold of human, I had obviously gone through a shift of my assemblage
point. The recollection of the feelings and realizations, I had had
then,
was so vivid, that it gave me a sense of utter futility. Everything I
had done and felt at that time, I was feeling now. I asked him how it
was possible, that having had such a clear comprehension, I could have
forgotten it so completely. It was, as if nothing, of what had happened
to me, had mattered, for I always had to start from point one,
regardless
of how much I might have advanced in the past. "That's only
an emotional impression," he said. "A total
misapprehension. Whatever you did years ago is, solidly enclosed in
some
unused emanations. That day, when I made you See the mold of man, for
instance, I had a true misapprehension myself. I thought, that if you
Saw it, you would be able to understand it. It was a true
misunderstanding on my part." Don Juan explained, that he had always
regarded himself, as being very
slow to understand.
He had never had any chance of testing his belief,
because he did not have a point of reference. When I came along and he
became a teacher, which was something totally new to him, he realized,
that there is no way to speed up understanding, and that, to dislodge
the
assemblage point, is not enough. He had thought, that it would be
sufficient. Soon he became aware, that since the assemblage point
normally shifts during dreams, sometimes to extraordinarily distant
positions, whenever we undergo an induced shift, we are all experts at
immediately compensating for it. We rebalance
ourselves constantly
and activity goes on, as if nothing has happened to us. He remarked,
that
the value of the new Seers' conclusions
does not
become evident, until one tries to move someone else's assemblage
point.
The new Seers said, that what counts
in this respect is, the effort to
reinforce the stability of the assemblage point in its new position.
They considered this to be the only teaching procedure, worth
discussing. And they knew, that it is a long process, that
has to be
carried out little by little at a snail's pace. Don Juan said then,
that
he had used
power plants at the beginning of my
apprenticeship, in accordance with a recommendation of the new Seers.
They knew by experience and by Seeing, that power plants shake
the
assemblage point way out of its normal setting. The effect of power
plants on the assemblage point is, in principle, very much like that of
dreams: dreams make it move; but power plants manage the shift on a
greater and more engulfing scale. A teacher then uses the disorienting
effects of such a shift to reinforce the notion, that the perception of
the world is never final. I remembered then, that I had Seen the mold
of
human five more times over
the years. With each new time I had become less passionate about it. I
could never get over the fact, however, that I always saw God, as a
male. At the end, it stopped being God for me and became the mold
of
human, not because of what don Juan had said, but because the position of
a male God became untenable (incapable of being maintained).
I could then understand don Juan's
statements about it. They had not been blasphemous or sacrilegious in
the least; he had not made them from within the context of the daily
world. He was right in saying, that the new Seers have an edge,
in being
capable of Seeing the mold of
human as often, as they want. But what was
more important to me was, that they had sobriety, in order to examine,
what they Saw. band. I
asked him, why it was, that I always Saw the mold of human
as a male. He
said, that it was because my assemblage point did not have the
stability
then, to remain completely glued to its new position and shifted
laterally in man's
band. It was the same
case, as Seeing the Barrier of
Perception, as a Wall of Fog.
268-269
What made the assemblage point move
laterally was, a nearly unavoidable desire, or necessity, to render the
incomprehensible, in terms of what is most familiar to us: a Barrier is
a Wall and the mold of human cannot be anything else, but a man. He
thought, that if I were a woman, I would See the mold as a woman.
Don
Juan stood up then and said, that it was time for us to take a
stroll in town, that I should See the mold of man among people. We
walked in silence to the square, but before we got there, I had an
uncontainable surge of energy and ran down the street to the outskirts
of town. I came to a bridge, and right there, as if it had been waiting
for me, I Saw the mold of human, as a resplendent, warm, amber light. I
fell on my knees, not so much out of piety, but as physical reaction
to awe. The sight of the mold of human was more astonishing, than ever.
I
felt, without any arrogance, that I had gone through an enormous
change,
since the first time I had Seen it. However, all the things I had Seen
and learned, had only given me a greater, more profound appreciation
for
the miracle, that I had in front of my eyes. The mold of human was
superimposed on the bridge at first, then I
refocused my eyes and Saw, that the mold of human extended up and down
into Infinity; the bridge was, but a meager (deficient) shell, a tiny
sketch, superimposed on the Eternal. And so were the minute figures
of people,
who moved around me, looking at me with unabashed (not embarrassed)
curiosity. But I was
beyond their touch, although at that moment I was as vulnerable, as I
could be. The mold of human had no power to protect me or spare me, yet
I
loved it with a passion, that knew no limits. I thought, that I
understood then something, that don Juan had told me
repeatedly, that real affection cannot be an investment. I would have
gladly remained the servant of the mold of human, not for what it could
give me, for it has nothing to give, but for the sheer affection, I
felt
for it. I had the sensation of something, pulling me away, and before I
disappeared from its presence, I shouted a promise to the mold of
human,
but a great Force whisked me away, before I could finish staling (lose
freshness), what I
meant. I was suddenly kneeling at the bridge, while a group of peasants
looked at me and laughed. Don Juan got to my side and helped me up, and
walked me back to the
house. "There are two ways
of Seeing
the mold of human," don Juan began as soon,
as we sat down. "You can See it as a man or you can See it as a Light.
That depends on the shift of the assemblage point. If the shift is
lateral, the mold is a human being; if the shift is in the midsection
of man's band, the mold is a Light. The only value of what you've done
today is, that your assemblage point shifted in the midsection."
He
said, that the position, where one Sees the mold of human, is very
close
to that, where the Dreaming Body and the Barrier of Perception appear.
That was the reason the new Seers
recommend, that the mold of human be Seen and understood.
"Are
you sure you understand, what the mold of human really is?" he asked
with a smile.
"I assure you, don Juan, that I'm perfectly aware of what the mold of
man is," I said.
"I heard you shouting inanities to the mold of human, when I got to the
bridge," he said with a most malicious smile. I told him, that I had
felt like a worthless servant, worshiping a
worthless master, and yet I was moved out of sheer affection, to
promise
undying love. He found it all hilarious and laughed, until he was
choking.
270
"The promise of a worthless servant to a worthless master is
worthless," he said and choked again with laughter. I did not feel like
defending my position.
My affection for the mold of
man was offered freely, without thought of recompense (pay for
service). It did not matter
to me, that my promise was worthless.
17.
The Journey of the
Dreaming Body
271
Don
Juan told me, that the two of us were going to drive to the city of
Oaxaca for the last time. He made it very clear, that we would never be
there together again. Perhaps his feeling might return to the
place, he
said, but never again the Totality of Himself. In Oaxaca, don Juan
spent hours, looking at mundane, trivial things, the
faded color of walls, the shape of distant mountains, the pattern on
cracked cement, the faces of people. Then we went to the square and sat
on his favorite bench, which was unoccupied, as it always was, when he
wanted it. During our long walk in the city, I had tried my best to
work myself
into a mood of sadness and moroseness, but I just could not do it.
There was something festive about his departure. He explained it, as the
unrestrainable vigor of Total Freedom. "Freedom is like a contagious
disease," he said. "It is transmitted;
its carrier is an impeccable Nagual. People might not appreciate that,
and that's, because they don't want to be free. Freedom is frightening.
Remember that. But not for us. I've groomed myself nearly all my life
for this moment. And so will you."
272-273
He repeated over and over, that at the stage, where I was, no rational
assumptions should interfere with my actions. He said, that the
Dreaming Body and the Barrier of
Perception are positions of the
assemblage
point, and that that knowledge is, as vital to Seers,
as knowing how to
read and write is to modern human. Both are accomplishments, attained
after years of practice. "It is very important, that you remember,
right now, the time, when your
assemblage point reached that position and it created your Dreaming
Body," he said with tremendous urgency. Then he smiled and
remarked,
that time was extremely short; he said, that
the recollection of the main journey of my Dreaming
Body would put my
assemblage point in a position to break the Barrier of
Perception,
in
order to assemble another world.
TO
BE IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE
"The Dreaming Body is
known by different names," he said after a long
pause. "The name I like the best is, The Other. That term
belongs to
the old Seers, together
with the mood.
I don't particularly care for
their mood, but I have to admit, that I like their term 'The Other'.
It's
mysterious and forbidden. Just like the old Seers, it gives me the
feeling of darkness, of shadows. The old Seers said, that 'The Other'
always comes, shrouded in wind." Over the years don Juan and other
members of his party had tried to
make me aware, that we can be in two places at once, that we can
experience a sort of perceptual dualism. As don Juan spoke, I began to
remember something, so deeply forgotten,
that at first, it was as if I had only heard about it. Then, step by
step, I realized, that I had lived that experience myself. I
had
been in two places at once. It happened one night in the
mountains of northern Mexico. I had been collecting plants with don
Juan all day. We had stopped for the night and I had nearly fallen
asleep from fatigue, when suddenly there was a gust of wind and don
Genaro sprang up from the darkness, right in front of me and nearly
scared me to death. My first thought was one of suspicion. I believed,
that don Genaro had
been hiding in the bushes all day, waiting for darkness to set in,
before making his terrifying appearance. As I looked at him prancing
around, I noticed, that there was something truly odd about him that
night. Something palpable, real, and yet something I could not
pinpoint. He joked with me and horsed around, performing acts, that
defied my
reason. Don Juan laughed like an idiot at my dismay. When he judged,
that the time was right, he made me shift into Heightened Awareness and
for a moment I was able to See don Juan and don Genaro, as two Blobs of
Light. Genaro was not the flesh-and-blood don Genaro, that I knew in my
state of normal awareness, but his Dreaming Body ('The
Other'). I could tell, because
I Saw him, as a Ball of Fire, that was above the ground. He was not
rooted, as don Juan was. It was, as if Genaro, the Blob of Light, were
on
the verge of taking off, already up in the air, a couple of feet off
the ground, ready to zoom away. Another thing I had done that night,
which suddenly became clear to me,
as I
recollected the event, was, that I knew automatically, that I had to
move my eyes, in order to make my assemblage point shift. I could, with
my Intent, align the emanations, that made me See Genaro, as a Blob of
Light, or I could align the emanations, that made me See him, as merely
odd, unknown, strange. When I Saw Genaro as odd, his eyes had
a
malevolent glare, like the
eyes of a beast in the darkness. But they were eyes, nonetheless. I did
not See them, as points of amber light. That
night don Juan said, that
Genaro was going to help my assemblage
point shift very deeply, that I should imitate him and follow
everything he did.
274-275
Genaro stuck out
his rear end and then thrust (pushing)
his
pelvis forward with great force. I thought it was an obscene gesture.
He repeated it over and over again, moving around, as if he were
dancing. Don Juan nudged me on the arm, urging me to imitate Genaro,
and I did.
Both of us sort of romped around, performing that grotesque movement.
After a while, I had the feeling, that my body was executing the
movement on its own, without, what seemed to be, the real me. The
separation between my body and the real me became even more pronounced,
and then, at a given instant, I was
looking at some ludicrous (foolish)
scene, where
two men were making lewd (indecent) gestures at each other. I watched
in fascination and realized, that I was one of the two men.
The moment I became aware of it, I felt something pulling me and
I
found
myself again, thrusting (pushing) my pelvis backward and forward in
unison with
Genaro. Almost immediately, I noticed, that
another man, standing next
to
don Juan, was watching us. The wind was blowing around him. I could See
his hair being ruffled. He was naked and seemed embarrassed. The wind
gathered around him, as if protecting him, or perhaps the opposite, as
if trying to blow him away. I was slow to realize, that I was the other
man. When I did, I got the
shock of my life. An imponderable (an indeterminable factor) physical
force pulled me apart, as if
I were made out of fibers, and I was again looking at a man, that was
me, romping around with Genaro, gaping (gazing) at me, while I looked.
And at the
same time, I was looking at a naked man, that was me, gaping (gazing)
at
me, while
I made lewd (indecent)
gestures
with Genaro. The shock was so great, that I broke the rhythm
of my movements
and fell down. The next thing I knew, don Juan was helping me to stand
up. Genaro and
the other me, the naked one, had disappeared. I had also
remembered,
that don Juan had refused to discuss the event.
He did not explain it, except to say, that Genaro was an expert in
creating his Double, or The Other,
and that I had had long interactions
with Genaro's Double in states of
normal awareness without ever
detecting it. "That
night, as he has done hundreds of times before, Genaro made your
assemblage point shift very deep into your left side," don Juan
commented, after I had recounted to him everything, I had remembered.
"His power was such, that he dragged your assemblage point to the
position, where the Dreaming Body
appears. You Saw your Dreaming Body,
watching you. And his dancing did the trick." I asked him to explain to
me, how Genaro's lewd movement could have
produced such a drastic effect. "You're a prude (strict)," he said.
"Genaro used your immediate displeasure and
embarrassment, at having to perform a lewd gesture. Since he was in his
Dreaming Body, he had the Power to See
the Eagle's emanations; from
that advantage it was a cinch (firm grip) to make your assemblage point
move." He said, that whatever Genaro had helped me to do that night,
was minor,
that Genaro had moved my assemblage point and made it produce a
Dreaming Body many, many times, but
that those events were not, what he
wanted me to remember."I want you to realign the proper emanations and
remember the time, when
you really woke up in a dreaming position,"' he said. A strange surge
of energy seemed to explode inside me and I knew, what
he wanted me to remember. I could not, however, focus my memory on the
complete event. I could only recall a fragment of it. I remembered,
that one morning, don Juan, don Genaro and I had sat on
that very same bench, while I was in a state of normal awareness.
276-277
Don
Genaro had said, all of a sudden, that he was going to make his body
leave the bench without getting up. The statement was completely out of
the context of, what we had been discussing. I was accustomed to don
Juan's orderly, didactic words and actions. I turned to don Juan,
expecting a clue, but he remained impassive, looking straight ahead, as
if don Genaro and I were not there at all. Don Genaro nudged me to
attract my attention, and then I witnessed a
most disturbing sight. I actually Saw Genaro on the other side of the
square. He was beckoning me to come. But I also Saw don Genaro sitting
next to me, looking straight ahead, just as don Juan was, I wanted to
say something, to express my awe, but I found myself
dumbstruck, imprisoned by some force around me, that did not let me
talk. I again looked
at Genaro across the park. He was still there,
motioning to me with a gesture of his head to join him. My
emotional distress mounted by the second. My
stomach was getting
upset, and finally I had tunnel vision, a tunnel, that led directly to
Genaro on the other side of the square. And then a great curiosity, or
a great fear, which seemed to be the same thing at that moment, pulled
me, to where he was. I actually soared through the air and got, to
where
he was. He made me turn around and pointed to the three people, who
were
sitting on a bench in a static position, as if time had been suspended.
I felt a terrible discomfort, an internal itching, as if the soft
organs in the cavity of my body were on fire, and then I was back on
the bench, but Genaro was gone. He waved goodbye to me from across the
square and disappeared among the people going to the market. Don Juan
became very animated. He kept on looking at me. He stood up
and walked around me.
He sat down again and could not keep
a straight
face, as he talked to me, I realized, why he was acting that way. I had
entered into a state of Heightened Awareness without being helped by
don Juan. Genaro had
succeeded in making my assemblage point move by itself. I laughed
involuntarily upon seeing my writing pad, which don Juan
solemnly put inside his pocket. He said, that he was going to use my
state of Heightened Awareness to show me, that there is no end to the
mystery of human and to the mystery of the world. I focused all my
concentration on his words. However, don Juan said
something, I did not understand. I asked him to repeat, what he had
said.
He began talking very softly. I thought, he had lowered his voice, so
as
not to be overheard by other people. I listened carefully, but I could
not understand a word of what he was saying; he was either speaking in
a language, foreign to me, or it was mumbo jumbo. The strange part of
it
was, that something had caught my undivided attention, either the
rhythm
of his voice or the fact, that I had forced myself to understand. I had
the feeling, that my mind was different from usual, although I could
not
figure out, what the difference was. I had a hard time thinking,
reasoning out, what was taking place. Don Juan talked to me very softly
in my ear. He said, that since I had
entered into Heightened Awareness without any help from him, my
assemblage point was very loose, and that I could let it shift into the
left side by relaxing, by falling half asleep on that bench. He assured
me, that he was watching over me, that I had nothing to fear. He urged
me to relax, to let my assemblage point move. I instantly felt the
heaviness of being deeply asleep. At one moment, I
became aware, that I was having a dream. I Saw a house, that I had seen
before.
278-279
I was approaching it, as if I were walking on the street. There
were other houses, but I could not pay any attention to them. Something
had fixed my Awareness on the particular house, I was Seeing. It was a
big modern stucco house with a front lawn. When I got closer to that
house, I had a feeling of familiarity with
it, as if I had dreamed of it before. I walked on a gravel path to the
front door; it was open and I walked inside. There was a dark hall and
a large living room to the right, furnished with a dark-red couch and
matching armchairs, set in a corner. I was definitely having tunnel
vision; I could See only, what was in front of my eyes. A
young
woman was standing by the couch, as if she had just stood up, as
I came in. She was lean and tall, exquisitely dressed in a tailored
green suit. She was perhaps in her late twenties. She had dark-brown
hair, burning brown eyes, that seemed to smile, and a pointed, finely
chiseled nose. Her complexion was fair, but had been tanned to a
gorgeous brown. I found her ravishingly beautiful. She seemed to be an
American. She nodded at me, smiling, and extended her hands with the
palms down, as if she were helping me up. I clasped her hands in a most
awkward movement. I scared myself and
tried to back away, but she held me firmly and yet so gently. Her hands
were long and beautiful. She spoke to me in Spanish with a faint trace
of an accent. She begged me to relax, to feel her hands, to concentrate
my attention on her face and to follow the movement of her mouth. I
wanted to ask her, who she was, but I could not utter a word. Then I
heard don Juan's voice in my ear. He said, "Oh, there you are,"
as if he had just found me. I was sitting on the park bench with him.
But I could also hear the young woman's voice.
She said, "Come
and sit
with me." I did just that and began a most incredible shifting of
points of view. I was alternately with don Juan and with that young
woman. I could See both of them as clearly, as anything. Don Juan asked
me, if I liked her, if I found her appealing and
soothing. I could not speak, but somehow I conveyed to him the feeling,
that I did like that lady immensely. I thought, without any overt
reason, that she was a paragon of kindness, that she was indispensable
(essential),
to what don Juan was doing with me. Don Juan spoke in my ear again and
said, that if I liked her that much, I
should wake up in her house, that my feeling of warmth and affection
for her would guide me. I felt giggly and reckless.
A sensation of
overwhelming excitation rippled through my body. I felt, as if the
excitation were actually disintegrating me. I did not care, what
happened to me. I gladly plunged into a blackness, black beyond words,
and then I found myself in the young woman's house. I was sitting with
her on the couch. After an instant of sheer animal panic, I realized,
that somehow I was
not complete. Something was missing in me. I did not, however, find the
situation threatening. The thought crossed my mind, that I was Dreaming
and, that I was presently going to wake up on the park bench in Oaxaca
with don Juan, where I really was, where I really belonged. The young
woman helped me to get up and took me to a bathroom, where a
large tub was filled with water. I realized then, that I was stark
(completely)
naked. She gently made me get into the tub and held my head up, while I
half floated in it. After a while she helped me out of the tub. I felt
weak and flimsy. I
lay down on the living-room couch and she came close to me. I could
hear the beating of her heart and the pressure of blood rushing through
her body. Her
eyes were like two radiant sources of something, that was
not light, or heat, but curiously in between the two.
280-281
I knew, that I was Seeing the Force of Life,
projecting out of her body through her eyes.
Her whole body was like a live furnace; it glowed. I felt
a weird tremor, that agitated my whole being. It was, as if my
nerves were exposed and someone was plucking them. The sensation was
agonizing. Then I either fainted or fell
asleep. When
I woke
up, someone was putting face towels, soaked in cold water, on
my face and the back of my neck. I saw the young woman, sitting by my
head on the bed, where I was lying. She had a pail of water on a night
table. Don Juan was standing at the foot of the bed with my clothes
draped over his arm. I was fully awake then. I sat up. They had covered
me with a blanket.
"How's the traveler?" don Juan asked, smiling. "Are you in one piece
now?" That was all I could remember. I narrated this episode to don
Juan, and
as I talked, I recalled another fragment. I remembered, that don Juan
had taunted (ridiculed) and teased me about finding me naked in the
lady's bed. I
had gotten terribly irritated at his remarks. I had put on my clothes
and stomped out of the house in a fury. Don Juan had caught up with me
on the front lawn. In a very serious
tone he
had remarked, that I was my ugly stupid self again, that
I had
put myself together by being embarrassed, which had proved to him, that
there was still no end to my self-importance. But he had added in a
conciliatory tone, that that was not important at the moment; what was
significant, was the fact, that I had moved my assemblage point very
deeply into the left side and consequently I had traveled an enormous
distance. He had spoken of wonders and mysteries, but I had not been
able to
listen to him, for I had been caught in the crossfire between fear and
self-importance. I was actually fuming. I was certain, that don Juan
had
hypnotized me in the park and had then taken me to that lady's house,
and that the two of them had done terrible things to me. My fury was
interrupted. Something out there, in the street was so
horrifying, so shocking to me, that my anger stopped instantaneously.
But before my thoughts became fully rearranged, don Juan hit me on my
back and nothing of what had just taken place remained. I found myself
back in my blissful, every-day-life stupidity, happily listening to don
Juan, worrying about whether or not, he liked me. As I was telling don
Juan about the new fragment, that I had just
remembered, I realized, that one of his methods for handling my
emotional
turmoil was, to make me shift into normal awareness. "The only thing,
that soothes those, who journey into the Unknown, is
oblivion," he said. "What a relief to be in the ordinary world! That
day, you accomplished a marvelous feat. The sober thing for me to
do was not to let you focus on it at all. Just as you began to really
panic, I made you shift into normal awareness; I moved your
assemblage
point beyond the position, where there are no more doubts. There are
two
such positions for warriors. In one, you have no more doubts, because
you
know everything. In the other, which is normal awareness, you have no
doubts, because you don't know anything. It was too soon then for you
to know, what had really happened. But I
think, the right time to know is now. Looking at that street, you were
about to find out, where your dreaming position had been.
You traveled an enormous distance that day." Don Juan
scrutinized
me with a mixture of glee and sadness. I was
trying my best, to keep under control, the strange agitation I was
feeling. I sensed, that something, terribly important to me, was lost
inside my memory, or, as don Juan would have put it, inside some unused
emanations, that at one time had been aligned.
282-283
My struggle to keep calm proved to be the wrong thing to do. All at
once, my knees wobbled and nervous spasms ran through my midsection. I
mumbled, unable to voice a question. I had to swallow hard and breathe
deeply before I regained my calmness. "When we first sat down here to
talk, I said, that no rational
assumptions should interfere with the actions of a Seer,"
he continued
in a stern tone. "I knew, that in order to reclaim what you've done,
you'd have to dispense with rationality, but you'd have to do it
in the level of Awareness you are in now." He explained, that
I
had to understand, that rationality is a condition
of alignment, merely the result of the position of the assemblage
point.
He emphasized, that I had to understand this, when I was in a
state of great vulnerability, as I was at that moment. To understand
it,
when my assemblage point had reached the position, where there are no
doubts, was useless, because realizations of that nature are common
place
in that position. It was equally useless to understand it in a state of
normal awareness; in that state, such realizations are emotional
outbursts, that are valid only for as long, as the emotion lasts. "I've
said, that you traveled a great distance that day,"
he said
calmly. "And I said that, because I know it. I was there, remember?" I
was sweating profusely out of nervousness and anxiety. "You traveled,
because you woke up at a distant dreaming position," he
continued. "When Genaro pulled you across the plaza, right here from
this bench, he paved the way for your assemblage point to move from
normal awareness, all the way to the position, where the Dreaming Body
appears. Your Dreaming Body actually flew over an incredible distance
in the blink of an eyelid. Yet, that's not the important part. The
mystery is in the dreaming position. If it is strong enough to pull
you, you can go to the ends of this world or beyond it, just as the
old Seers did. They disappeared
from this world, because they woke up at a
dreaming position beyond the limits of the Known. Your dreaming
position that day was in this world, but quite a distance from the city
of Oaxaca."
"How does a journey, like that, take place?" I asked.
"There is no way of knowing how it is done," he said. "Strong emotion,
or unbending Intent, or great interest serves as a guide; then the
assemblage point gets powerfully fixed at the dreaming position, long
enough to drag there all the emanations, that are inside the cocoon."
Don Juan said then, that he had made me See countless times over the
years of our association, either in states of normal awareness or in
states of Heightened Awareness; I had Seen countless things, that I was
now beginning to understand in a more coherent fashion. This coherence
was not logical or rational, but it clarified, nonetheless, in
whatever strange
way, everything I had done, everything, that was done to me, and
everything I had Seen in all those years with him. He said, that now I
needed to have one last clarification: the coherent, but irrational
realization, that everything in the world we have learned to perceive,
is
inextricably tied to the position, where the assemblage point is
located, if the assemblage point is displaced from that position, the
world will cease to be, what it is to us. Don Juan stated, that a
displacement of the assemblage point beyond the
midline of the cocoon of human makes the entire world, we know, vanish
from
our view in one instant, as if it had been erased; for the stability,
the substantiality, that seems to belong to our perceivable world, is
just the Force of Alignment. Certain emanations are routinely aligned,
because of the fixation of the assemblage point on one specific spot;
that is all there is to our world.
284-285
"The
soundness of the world is not the mirage," he continued, "the
mirage is the fixation of the assemblage point on any spot. When Seers
shift their assemblage points, they are not confronted with an
illusion, they are confronted with another world; that new world is as
real, as the one we are watching now, but the new fixation of their
assemblage points, which produces that new world, is as much of a
mirage, as the old fixation.(?) Take yourself, for example; you are now
in a state of Heightened Awareness. Whatever you are capable of doing
in such a state is not an
illusion; it is as real, as the world you will face tomorrow in your
daily life, and yet, tomorrow the world, you are witnessing now, won't
exist. It exists only when your assemblage point moves to the
particular spot, where you are now."
He added, that the task, warriors are faced with, after they finish
their
training, is one of integration. In the course of training, warriors,
especially Nagual men, are made to shift to as many individual spots,
as
possible. He said, that in
my case I had moved to countless positions,
that I would have to integrate someday into a coherent whole.
"For instance, if you would shift your assemblage point to a specific
position, you'd remember, who that lady is," he continued with a
strange
smile. "Your assemblage point has been at that spot hundreds of times.
It should be the easiest thing for you to integrate it."
As though my recollection depended on his suggestion, I began to have
vague memories, feelings of sorts. There was a feeling of boundless
affection, that seemed to attract me; a most pleasant sweetness filled
the air, exactly, as if someone had just come up from behind me and
poured that scent over me. I even turned around. And then I remembered.
She was Carol, the Nagual Woman' I had been with her only the day
before. How could I have forgotten her? I had an indescribable moment,
in which, I think, all the feelings of my
psychological repertory ran through my mind. Was it possible, I asked
myself, that I had woken up in her house in Tucson, Arizona, two
thousand miles away? And are each of the instances of Heightened
Awareness so isolated, that one cannot remember them?Don Juan came to
my side and put his arm on my shoulder. He said, that
he knew exactly how I felt. His benefactor had made him go through a
similar experience. And just as he himself was now trying to do with
me, his benefactor had tried to do with him: soothe with words.
He had
appreciated his benefactor's attempt, but he doubted then, as he
doubted
now, that there is a way to soothe anyone, who realizes the
journey
of the Dreaming Body. There was no doubt in my mind now.
Something in
me had traveled the
distance between the cities of Oaxaca, Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona. I
felt a strange relief, as if I had been purged (removed) of guilt at
long last.
During the years I had spent with don Juan, I had had lapses of
continuity in my memory. My being in Tucson with him on that day was
one of those lapses. I remembered not being able to recall how I had
gotten to Tucson. I did not pay any attention to it, however. I thought
the lapse was the result of my activities with don Juan. He was always
very careful, not to arouse my rational suspicions in states of normal
awareness, but if suspicions were unavoidable, he always curtly
explained them away by suggesting, that the nature of our activities
fostered serious disparities (difference) of memory. I told don Juan,
that since both
of us had ended up that day in the same
place,
I wondered whether it was possible for two or more people to
wake up at the same dreaming position.
"Of course," he said. "That's
the way the Old Toltec Sorcerers took off
into the Unknown in packs. They followed one another.
286-287
There
is no way
of knowing how one follows someone else. It's just done. The Dreaming
Body just does it. The presence of another Dreamer spurs (stimulates)
it to do it.
That day you pulled me with you. And I followed, because I wanted to be
with you."
I had so many questions to ask him, but every one of them seemed
superfluous. "How is it possible, that I didn't remember the Nagual
Woman?" I
muttered, and a horrible anguish and longing gripped me. I was trying
not to feel sad anymore, but suddenly sadness ripped through me like
pain.
"You still don't remember her," he said. "Only when your assemblage
point shifts, can you recollect her. She is like a phantom to you, and
so are you to her.
You've seen her once, while you were in normal
awareness, but she's never seen you in her normal awareness. To her you
are as much a personage, as she is to you. With the difference, that
you
may wake up someday and integrate it all. You may have enough time to
do that, but she won't. Her time here is short."
I felt like protesting a terrible injustice. I mentally prepared a
barrage of objections, but I never voiced them. Don Juan's smile was
beaming. His eyes shone with sheer glee and mischief. I had the
sensation, that he was waiting for my statements, because he knew, what
I
was going to say. And that sensation stopped me, or rather I did not
say anything, because my assemblage point had again moved by itself.
And
I knew then, that the Nagual Woman could not be pitied for not having
time, nor could I rejoice for having it. Don Juan was reading me like a
book. He urged me to finish my
realization and voice the reason for not feeling sorry or for not
rejoicing. I felt for an instant, that I knew why. But then I lost the
thread. "The excitation of having time is equal to the excitation of
not having
it," he said. "It's all the same."
"To feel sad is not the same, as feeling sorry " I said. "And I feel
terribly sad."
"Who cares about sadness?" he said. "Think only of the mysteries;
mystery is all that matters. We are Living Beings; we have to die and
relinquish (abandon) our Awareness.
But if we could change just a tinge
of that,
what mysteries must await us! What mysteries!"
18.
Breaking the Barrier of
Perception
288-289
In the
late afternoon, still in Oaxaca, don Juan and I strolled around
the square leisurely. As we approached his favorite bench, the people,
who were sitting there, got up and left. We hurried over to it and sat
down. "We've come to the end of my explanation of Awareness," he said.
"And
today, you are going to assemble another world by yourself and leave
all doubts aside forever. There must be no mislake about what you are
going to do. Today,
from
the vantage (advantage) point of Heightened Awareness, you are going to
make your
assemblage point move and, in one instant, you are going to align the
emanations of another world. In a few days, when Genaro and I meet you
on a mountaintop, you are
going to do the same from the disadvantage of normal awareness. You
will have to align the emanations of another world on a moment's
notice; if you don't, you will die the death of an
average man, who falls
from a precipice (steep cliff)." He was alluding to an act, that he would have me
perform, as the last of
his teachings for the right side: the act of jumping from a mountaintop
into an abyss. Don Juan stated, that warriors ended their
training, when they were
capable of breaking the Barrier of Perception, unaided, starting from a
normal state of awareness. The Nagual led warriors to that threshold,
but success was up to the individual. The Nagual merely tested them, by
continually pushing them to fend for themselves. "The only Force, that can
temporarily cancel out Alignment is Alignment," he
continued. "You
will have to cancel the Alignment, that
keeps you perceiving the world of daily affairs. By Intending a new
position for your assemblage point and by Intending to keep it fixed
there long enough, you will assemble another world and escape this one.
The old Seers are still defying
death, to this day, by doing just
that, Intending their assemblage points to remain fixed on positions,
that place them in any of the seven worlds."
"What will
happen if I succeed in aligning another world?" I asked.
"You will go to
it," he replied. "As Genaro did, one night in this very
place, when he was showing you the Mystery of Alignment."
"Where will I
be, don Juan?"
"In another
world, of course. Where else?"
"What about the
people around me, and the buildings, and the mountains,
and everything else?"
"You'll be
separated from all that by the very barrier, that you have
broken: the Barrier of Perception. And just like the Seers, who have
buried themselves to defy death, you won't be in this world."
There was a battle raging inside me, as I heard his statements. Some
part of me clamored (protested), that don Juan's position was untenable
(incapable of being maintained), while
another part knew beyond any question, that he was right. I asked him
what would happen, if I moved my assemblage point, while I
was in the street, in the middle of traffic in Los Angeles.
290-291
"Los Angeles
will vanish, like a puff of air," he replied with a
serious expression. "But you will remain. That is the mystery I've been
trying to explain to you.
You've
experienced it, but you haven't understood it yet, and today you will."
He said, that I could not, as yet, use the Boost of the
Earth to shift
into another great band of emanations, but that since I
had an
imperative need to shift, that need was going to serve me as a
launcher. Don Juan looked up at the sky. He stretched his arms above
his head, as
if he had been sitting for too long and was pushing physical weariness
out of his body. He commanded me to turn off my internal dialogue and
enter into inner silence. Then he stood up and began to walk away from
the square; he signaled me to follow him. He took a deserted side
street. I recognized it, as being the same street, where Genaro had
given
me his demonstration of Alignment. The moment I recollected that, I
found myself walking with don Juan in a place, that by then, was
very
familiar to me: a deserted plain with yellow dunes of what seemed to be
sulfur. I recalled then, that don Juan had made me perceive that world
hundreds
of times. I also recalled, that beyond the desolate landscape of the
dunes, there was another world, shining with an exquisite, uniform,
pure
white Light. When don Juan and I entered into it this time, I sensed,
that the Light,
which came from every direction, was not an invigorating light, but was
so soothing, that it gave me the feeling, that it was sacred. As that
sacred light bathed me, a rational thought exploded in my inner
silence. I thought it was quite possible, that mystics and saints had
made this journey of the assemblage point. They had seen God in the
mold of human. They had Seen Hell in the sulfur dunes. And
then they
had Seen the glory of heaven in the diaphanous light. My rational
thought burned out almost immediately under the onslaughts
of what I was perceiving. My Awareness was taken by a multitude of
shapes, figures of men, women, and children of all ages, and other
incomprehensible apparitions, gleaming with a blinding white light. I
saw don Juan, walking by my side, staring at me and not at the
apparitions, but the next instant I saw him, as a Ball of Luminosity,
bobbing up and down a few feet away from me. The Ball made
an abrupt and frightening movement and came closer to me and I
Saw
inside
it. Don Juan was working his Glow of Awareness for my benefit. The Glow
suddenly shone on four or five threadlike filaments on his left side.
It remained fixed there. All my concentration was on it; something
pulled me slowly, as if through a tube and I saw the Allies: three
dark,
long, rigid figures, agitated by a tremor, like leaves in a breeze.
They
were against an almost fluorescent pink background. The moment I
focused my eyes on them, they came to where I was, not walking or
gliding or flying, but by pulling themselves along some fibers of
whiteness, that came out of me. The whiteness was not a Light or a
Glow,
but lines, that seemed to be drawn with heavy powder chalk. They
disintegrated quickly, yet not quickly enough. The Allies were on me
before the lines faded away. They crowded me. I became annoyed, and the
Allies immediately moved
away, as if I had chastised them. I felt sorry for them, and my feeling
pulled them back instantly. And they again came and rubbed themselves
against me. I Saw then something, I had Seen in the mirror at the
stream. The Allies had no Inner Glow. They had no inner mobility. There
was no life in them. And yet they were obviously alive. They were
strange grotesque shapes, that resembled zippered-up sleeping bags.
292-293
The
thin line in the middle of their elongated shapes made them look, as if
they had been sewed up. They were not pleasing figures. The sensation,
that they were totally
alien to me, made me feel uncomfortable, impatient. I Saw, that the
three Allies were moving, as if they were jumping up and down; there
was a
faint Glow inside them. The Glow grew in intensity, until, in at least
one of the Allies, it was quite brilliant. The instant I Saw that, I
was facing a black world. I do not mean, that
it was dark, as night is dark. It was rather, that everything around me
was pitch-black. I looked up at the sky and I could not find light
anywhere. The sky was also black and, literally, covered with lines and
irregular circles of various degrees of blackness. The sky looked like
a black piece of wood, where the grain showed in relief. I looked down
at the ground. It was fluffy. It seemed to be made of
flakes of agar-agar; they were not dull flakes, but they were not shiny
either. It was something in between, which I had never seen in my life:
black agar-agar. I heard then the voice of Seeing.
It said, that my assemblage point had
assembled a total world with other great bands of emanations: a black
world. I wanted to absorb every word I was hearing; in order to do
that, I had
to split my concentration. The voice stopped; my eyes became focused
again. I was standing with don Juan just a few blocks away from the
square. I instantly felt, that I had no time to rest, that it would be
useless
to indulge in being shocked. I rallied all my strength and asked don
Juan, if I had done, what he had expected. "You did exactly what you
were expected to do," he said reassuringly.
"Let's go back to the square and stroll around it one more time, for
the last time in this world." I refused to think about don
Juan's
leaving, so I asked him about the
black world. I had vague recollections of having seen it before. "It's
the easiest world to assemble," he said. "And of all, you've
experienced, only the black world is worth considering. It is the only
true Alignment of another great band, you have ever made. Everything
else has been a lateral shift along human's band, but still within the
same great band. The Wall of Fog, the plain with yellow dunes, the
world of the apparitions: all are lateral Alignments, that our
assemblage
points make, as they approach a crucial position." He explained, as we
walked back to the square, that one of the strange
qualities of the black world is, that it does not have the same
emanations, that account for time in our world. They are different
emanations, that produce a different result. Seers, that journey
into the
black world feel, that they have been in it for an Eternity, but in our
world, that turns out to be an instant. "The
Black World is a dreadful world, because it ages the body," he said
emphatically. I asked him to clarify his statements. He slowed down his
pace and
looked at me. He reminded me, that Genaro, in his direct way, had tried
to point that out to me once, when he told me, that we had plodded
(move heavily)
in Hell for an Eternity, while not even a minute had passed in the
world we
know. Don Juan remarked, that in his youth he had become obsessed with
the Black World. He had wondered, in front of his benefactor, about
what
would happen to him, if he went into it and stayed there for a while.
But, as his benefactor was not given to explanations, he had simply
plunged don Juan into the Black World, to let him find out for himself.
"The Nagual Julian's Power was so extraordinary," don Juan continued,
"that it took me days to come back from that Black World."
294-295
"You mean it
took you days to return your assemblage point to its
normal position, don't you?" I asked.
"Yes. I mean
that," he said. He explained, that in the few days, that
he was lost in the Black World,
he aged at least ten years, if not more. The emanations inside his
Cocoon felt the strain of years of solitary struggle. Silvio Manuel was
a totally different case. The Nagual Julian also
plunged him into the Unknown, but Silvio Manuel assembled another world
with another set of bands, a World also without the Emanations of Time,
but one, which has the opposite effect on Seers. He disappeared for
seven years and yet, he felt, he had been gone only a moment."
To assemble other worlds is not only a matter of practice, but a
matter of Intent," he continued. "And it isn't merely an
exercise of
bouncing out of those worlds, like being pulled by a rubber band. You
see, a Seer has to be
daring. Once you break the Barrier of Perception,
you don't have to come back to the same place in the world. See what I
mean?" It slowly dawned on me, what he was saying. I had an almost
invincible (unbeatable)
desire to laugh at such a preposterous idea, but before the
idea
coalesced (fused) into a certainty, don
Juan spoke to me and disrupted, what I was about to remember. He said,
that for warriors the danger of assembling other worlds is, that
those worlds are as possessive, as our world. The Force of Alignment is
such, that once the assemblage point breaks away from its normal
position, it becomes fixed at other positions, by other Alignments. And
warriors run the risk of getting stranded in inconceivable aloneness.
The inquisitive, rational part of me commented, that I had Seen him in
the black world, as a Ball of Luminosity. It was possible, therefore,
to
be in that world with people. "Only if people follow you around by
moving their own assemblage points,
when you move yours," he replied.
"I
shifted mine, in order to be with
you; otherwise you would have been there alone with the Allies." We
stopped walking, and don Juan said, that it was time for me to go. "I
want you to bypass all lateral shifts," he said, "and go directly to
the next total world: the black world. In a couple of days you'll have
to do the same thing by yourself. You won't have time to piddle
(urinate) around.
You'll have to do it, in order to escape death." He said, that breaking
the Barrier of Perception is the culmination of
everything Seers do. From the
moment that Barrier is broken, human and
his fate take on a different meaning for warriors. Because of the
transcendental importance of breaking that Barrier, the new Seers
use
the act of breaking it, as a final test. The test consists of jumping
from a mountaintop into an abyss, while in a state of normal awareness.
If the warrior, jumping into the abyss, does not erase the daily world
and assemble another one, before he reaches bottom, he dies. "What you
are going to do is, to make this world vanish," he went on,
"but you are going to remain somewhat yourself. This is the ultimate
bastion of Awareness, the one the new Seers
count on. They know, that
after they burn with consciousness, they somewhat retain the sense of
being themselves." He smiled and pointed to a street, that we could
see, from where we were
standing, the street, where Genaro had shown me the mysteries of
Alignment. "That street, like any other, leads to Eternity," he said.
"All you
have to do is, follow it in total silence. It's time. Go now! Go!" He
turned around and walked away from me. Genaro was waiting for him at
the corner. Genaro waved at me and then made a gesture of urging me to
come on. Don Juan kept on walking without turning to look.
296
Genaro
joined him. I started to follow them, but I knew that it was wrong.
Instead, I went in the opposite direction. The street was dark, lonely,
and bleak. I did not indulge in feelings of failure or inadequacy. I
walked in inner silence. My assemblage point was moving at great speed.
I Saw the three Allies. The line of their middle made them look, as if
they were smiling sideways. I felt, that I was being frivolous. And
then
a windlike force blew the world away.
Epilogue
297-298
A
couple of days later, all the Nagual's Party and all the apprentices
got together on the flat mountaintop, don Juan had told me about. Don
Juan said, that each of the apprentices had already said goodbye to
everybody, and that all of us were in a state of Awareness, that
admitted no sentimentalism. For us, he said, there was only action. We
were warriors in a state of total war. Everyone, with the exception of
don Juan, Genaro, Pablito, Nestor, and
me, moved a short distance away from the flat mountaintop, in order to
allow Pablito, Nestor, and me privacy to enter into a state of normal
awareness. But before we did, don Juan took us by the arms and walked
us around
the flat top. "In a moment, you're going to intend the movement of your
assemblage
points," he said. "And noone will help you. You are now alone. You
must remember then, that intent begins with a command. The old Seers used to say,
that if warriors are going to have an
internal dialogue, they should have the proper dialogue. For the
old Seers that meant a
dialogue about sorcery and the enhancement of their
self-reflection. For the new Seers,
it doesn't mean dialogue, but the
detached manipulation of Intent through sober commands." He said over
and over again, that the manipulation of Intent begins with
a command, given to oneself; the command is then repeated, until it
becomes the Eagle's command, and then the assemblage point shifts,
accordingly, the moment warriors reach inner silence. The fact, that
such a maneuver is possible, he said, is something of the
most singular importance to Seers, old and new
alike, but for reasons
diametrically opposed. Knowing about it, allowed the old Seers to move
their assemblage point to inconceivable dreaming positions in the
incommensurable (unequal) Unknown; for the new Seers
it means refusing to be
food, it means escaping the Eagle by moving their assemblage points to
a particular dreaming position, called Total Freedom. He explained,
that
the old Seers discovered,
that it is possible to move
the assemblage point to the limit of the Known and keep it fixed there
in a state of prime Heightened Awareness. From that position, they Saw
the feasibility (possibility) of slowly shifting their assemblage
points permanently
to other positions beyond that limit: a stupendous feat, fraught
(filled) with
daring, but lacking sobriety, for they could never retract the movement
of their assemblage points, or perhaps they never wanted to. Don Juan
said, that adventurous men, faced with the choice of dying in
the world of ordinary affairs or dying in Unknown Worlds, will
unavoidably choose the latter, and that the new Seers, realizing,
that
their predecessors had chosen merely to change the locale of their
death, came to understand the futility of it all; the futility of
struggling to control their fellow men, the futility of assembling
other worlds, and, above all, the futility of self-importance.
299-300
One of
the most fortunate decisions, that the new Seers made, he
said,
was never to allow their assemblage points to move permanently to any
position other, than Heightened Awareness. From that position, they
actually resolved their dilemma of futility and found out, that the
solution is not simply to choose an alternate world, in which to die,
but to choose Total Consciousness, Total Freedom. Don Juan commented,
that by choosing Total Freedom, the new Seers
unwittingly continued in the tradition of their predecessors and became
the quintessence (purity and concentration) of the Death Defiers. He
explained, that the new Seers discovered,
that if the assemblage point
is made to shift constantly to the confines of the Unknown, but is made
to return to a position at the limit of the Known, then when it is
suddenly released, it moves like lightning across the entire cocoon of
human, aligning all the emanations inside the Cocoon at once. "The
new Seers burn with the
Force of Alignment," don Juan went on,
"with the Force of Will, which they have turned into the Force of
Intent through a life of impeccability. Intent is the Alignment of all
the amber emanations of Awareness, so it is correct to say, that Total
Freedom means Total Awareness."
"Is that, what all of you are going to do, don Juan?" I asked.
"We most certainly will, if we have sufficient energy," he replied.
"Freedom is the Eagle's gift to human. Unfortunately, very few men
understand, that all we need, in order to accept such a magnificent
gift, is to have sufficient energy. If that's all we need, then, by all
means, we must become misers (накопители) of
energy."
After that, don Juan made us enter into a state of normal awareness. At
dusk, Pablito, Nestor, and I jumped into the abyss.
And don Juan and
the Nagual's Party burned with the Fire From Within. They
entered
into Total Awareness, for they had sufficient energy to accept the
mind-boggling Gift of Freedom. Pablito, Nestor, and I didn't die at the
bottom of that gorge, and
neither did the other apprentices, who had jumped at an earlier
time, because we never reached it; all of us, under the impact of such
a
tremendous and incomprehensible act, as jumping to our deaths, moved
our
assemblage points and assembled other worlds. We know now, that we were
left to remember Heightened Awareness and to
regain the Totality of Ourselves. And we also know, that
the more we
remember, the more intense our elation, our wondering, but also the
greater our doubts, our turmoil. So far, it is as if we were left only
to be tantalized by the most
far-reaching questions about the nature and the fate of human, until
the
time, when we may have sufficient energy not only to verify everything
don Juan taught us, but also to accept the Eagle's gift ourselves.
