Seeing must be direct, for a warrior can't use his time to unravel
what he himself is
seeing .
Seeing is
seeing because it cuts through all that nonsense. In the beginning
seeing is confusing and it's easy to get lost in it. As the warrior
gets tighter, however, his
seeing becomes what it should be, a
direct knowing. A warrior asks a question, and through his
seeing
he gets an answer, but the answer is simple.
A rule of thumb for a
warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen
as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.
To be
a warrior means to be humble and alert. When you come to see me you should come
prepared to die. If you come here ready to die, there shouldn't be any pitfalls,
or any unwelcome surprises, or any unnecessary acts. Everything should gently
fall into place because you're expecting nothing.
It's not that you
have to live with all this. You are all this. A warrior doesn't ever leave the
island of the
tonal . He uses it. This is your world. You can't
renounce it. It is useless to get angry and feel disappointed with oneself. All
that that proves is that one's
tonal is involved in an internal
battle; a battle within one's
tonal is one of the most inane
contests I can think of. The tight life of a warrior is designed to end that
struggle. From the beginning I have taught you to avoid wear and tear.
The warrior's way is harmony--the harmony between actions and decisions, at
first, and then the harmony between
tonal and
nagual.
It is the
tonal that has to
relinquish control. The
tonal is made to give up unnecessary things
like self-importance and indulging, which only plunge it into boredom. The whole
trouble is that the
tonal clings to those things when it should be
glad to rid itself of that crap. The task then is to convince the
tonal to become free and fluid. That's what a sorcerer needs before
anything else, a strong, free
tonal . The stronger it gets the less
it clings to its doings, and the easier it is to shrink it.
The
tonal shrinks at given times, especially when it is embarrassed.
Once the
tonal has shrunk, the
nagual , if it is
already in motion, no matter how small that motion is, will take over and
achieve extraordinary deeds.
The affairs of the
nagual can
be witnessed only with the body, not the reason.
We are fluid, luminous
beings made out of fibers. The agreement that we are solid objects is the
tonal 's doings. When the
tonal shrinks, extraordinary
things are possible. But they are only extraordinary for the
tonal
.
The
nagual , once it learns to surface, may cause great
damage to the
tonal by coming out without any control. Your
tonal has to be convinced about all of this with reasons, your
nagual with actions, until one props the other. As I have told you,
the
tonal rules, and yet it is very vulnerable. The
nagual , on the other hand, never, or almost never, acts out; but
when it does, it terrifies the
tonal .
The
tonal must be protected at any cost. The crown has to be taken away
from it, but it must remain as the protected overseer. Any threat to the
tonal always results in its death. And if the
tonal
dies, so does the whole man. Because of its inherent weakness the
tonal is easily destroyed, and thus one of the balancing arts of
the warrior is to make the
nagual emerge in order to prop up the
tonal . I say it is an art, because sorcerers know that only by
boosting the
tonal can the
nagual emerge. That
boosting is called personal power.
My advantage over you at
this moment is that I know how to get to the
nagual , and you
don't. But once I have gotten there I have no more advantage and no more
knowledge than you.
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The most demanding aspect of the teachings of Don Juan Matus, is in regard to the duality of the warrior; how is it possible to reconcile the two halves of our double nature that comprise the whole.
Our dual nature is at best both an advantage and something of a burden… it can inhibit our actions and cloud our judgement at times.
The balancing of the two sides of our being is the answer to this dilemma.
Don Juan makes it clear that all that remains of the Toltec teachings is in a sense ‘stalking’ and its counterpart ‘dreaming’.
“Stalkers deal with people, with the world of ordinary affairs. Stalkers are the practitioners of controlled folly as the dreamers are the practitioners of dreaming. Controlled folly is the basis for stalking, as dreams are the basis for dreaming. Generally speaking, a warrior’s greatest accomplishment in the second attention is dreaming, and in the first attention his greatest accomplishment is stalking. In the absence of self-importance, a warrior’s only way of dealing with the social milieu is in terms of controlled folly.”
STALKING ~
A warrior follows the rule of the stalkers. The Rule applies to everyone but the stalker takes it on as the only means of buffering the onslaughts of power that come in the pursuit of knowledge. The rule is that a warrior has essentially given up the concerns of his everyday life in the pursuit of knowledge. He is only interested in unravelling the mysteries of the universe. He must come to the understanding that this mystery is infinite, and as such this is a hopeless task but he must proceed anyway. In doing so the warrior becomes a part of the mystery themselves – everything within his universe becomes equal unimportant and as to nothing. This principle is the Rule of stalkers.
Don Juan lays out the principles for the warrior in regard to stalking:
- To choose the battlefield
- To discard everything which is unnecessary
- To choose your battles with care
- To relax, abandon yourself and to fear nothing
- When overcome the warrior retreats for a moment; occupying himself with diversionary tactics
- A warrior compresses time – making every moment count, aiming at success and ready to make his last stand at any moment
- A stalker never Pushes himself to the front – this last principle can only be applied with the implementation of the former six principles
The application of these principles results in three things:-
“The first is that stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously; they learn to laugh at themselves. If they’re not afraid of being a fool, they can fool anyone. The second is that stalkers learn to have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never fret. And the third is that stalkers learn to have an endless capacity to improvise.”
Don Juan also outlined the mood for stalking this being:- Ruthlessness, Cunning, Patience and Sweetness. This is the guiding attitude a warrior needs to adopt to stalk effectively.
One of the principle tools of stalking is recapitulation. This comprises the stalkers ‘sweeping breath’, the purpose of which is to free the warrior from the bonds of energetic filaments that become attached to them though energetic exchanges. The breath itself gives the life-giving healing force needed to purge the luminous being.
The aim of a stalker is to lose human form. This is can be achieved through a powerful recapitulation followed by implementation of the not-doings of the self such as erasing personal history, losing self-importance and breaking of routines.
The stalker is the epitome of a warrior in this way is both light and fluid. Free of human form the stalker is also unpredictable, deliberate in action, patient, not concerned about being understood nor concerned about the self-reflection of others – but instead this state allows the individual to be light-hearted and jovial and they truly enjoy their lives.
