by hanshan » Tue Dec 20, 2005 3:57 pm
<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://pages.ripco.net/~saxmania/petermax2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://pages.ripco.net/~saxmania/triadinterviews.html&h=306&w=182&sz=24&tbnid=S0hATTjrexUJ:&tbnh=112&tbnw=66&hl=en&start=72&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpeter%2Bmax%26start%3D60%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN" target="top"><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.p4a.com/item_images/medium/11/00/24-01.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.dking-gallery.com/pix/MaxEarth.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan4.html" target="top"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Tales of Power</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em> Dreaming entails cultivating a peculiar control over one's dreams to the extent that the experiences undergone in them and those lived in one's waking hours acquire the same pragmatic valence. The sorcerers' allegation is that under the impact of dreaming the ordinary criteria to differentiate a dream from reality becomes inoperative.<br><br><br> There are three kinds of bad habits which we use over and over when confronted with unusual life situations. First, we may disregard what's happening or has happened and feel as if it had never occurred. That one is the bigot's way. Second, we may accept everything at its face value and feel as if we know what's going on. That's the pious man's way. Third, we may become obsessed with an event because either we cannot disregard it or we cannot accept it wholeheartedly. That's the fool's way. There is a fourth, the correct one, the warrior's way. A warrior acts as if nothing had ever happened, because he doesn't believe in anything, yet he accepts everything at its face value. He accepts without accepting and disregards without disregarding. He never feels as if he knows, neither does he feel as if nothing had ever happened. He acts as if he is in control, even though he might be shaking in his boots. To act in such a manner dissipates obsession.<br><br> Sorcerers say that we are inside a bubble. It is a bubble into which we are placed at the moment of our birth. At first the bubble is open, but then it begins to close until it has sealed us in. That bubble is our perception. We live inside that bubble all of our lives. And what we witness on its round walls is our own reflection.<br> If what we witness on the walls is our own reflection, then the thing that's being reflected must be the real thing. The thing reflected is our view of the world. That view is first a description, which is given to us from the moment of our birth until all our attention is caught by it and the description becomes a view<br><br>Our mistake is to believe that the only perception worthy of acknowledgment is what goes through our reason .</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br>****<br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan5.html" target="top">The Second Ring o</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->[/link]<br><br><br> <!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>From that moment on there is a breakage, a division of sorts in the otherwise unified personality. The result of engaging the attention of the nagual and developing it to the height and sophistication of our daily attention of the world is the other self, an identical being as oneself, but made in dreaming .<br> There are no definite standard steps for reaching that double, as there are no definite steps for us to reach our daily awareness. We simply do it by practicing.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> <br><br> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>First after leaves, gaze at small plants. Small plants are very dangerous. Their power is concentrated; they have a very intense light and they feel when dreamers are gazing at them; they immediately move their light and shoot it at the gazer.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan8.html" target="top"><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The Power of Silence</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>It isn't that as time goes by you're learning sorcery; rather, what you're learning is to save energy. And this energy will enable you to handle some of the energy fields which are inaccessible to you now. And that is sorcery: the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the ordinary world we know. Sorcery is a state of awareness. Sorcery is the ability to perceive something which ordinary perception cannot.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->Ulterior means knowledge without words, outside our immediate comprehension, not beyond our ultimate possibilities for understanding. The ulterior arrangement of the abstract is knowledge without words or the edifice of intent . The ulterior arrangement of the abstract is to know the abstract directly, without the intervention of language.<br><br>And what any of us does with that increased perception, with that silent knowledge, depends on our own temperament.<br><br>The difficulty is our reluctance to accept the idea that knowledge can exist without words to explain it. Accepting this proposition is not as easy as saying you accept it. The whole of humanity has moved away from the abstract. It takes years for an apprentice to be able to go back to the abstract, that is, to know that knowledge and language can exist independent of each other.<br><br>The crux of our difficulty in going back to the abstract is our refusal to accept that we can know without words or even without thoughts. Knowledge and language are separate.<br><br><br>The secret of our chains is that they imprison us, but by keeping us pinned down on our comfortable spot of self-reflection, they defend us from the onslaughts of the unknown.<br> Once our chains are cut, we are no longer bound by the concerns of the daily world. We are still in the daily world, but we don't belong there anymore. In order to belong we must share the concerns of people. And without chains we can't.<br> What distinguishes normal people is that we share a metaphorical dagger: the concerns of our self-reflection. With this dagger, we cut ourselves and bleed; and the job of our chains of self-reflection is to give us the feeling that we are bleeding together, that we are sharing something wonderful: our humanity. But if we were to examine it, we would discover that we are bleeding alone; that we are not sharing anything; that all we are doing is toying with our manageable, unreal, man-made reflection.<br><br>Not thinking about death protects us from worrying about it. But that purpose is an unworthy one for average men and a travesty for sorcerers. Without a clear view of death, there is no order, no sobriety, no beauty. Sorcerers struggle to gain this crucial insight in order to help them realize at the deepest possible level that they have no assurance whatsoever their lives will continue beyond the moment. That realization gives sorcerers the courage to be patient and yet take action, courage to be acquiescent without being stupid.[/i]<br><br>...this poem by José Gorostiza.<br><br><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:blue;font-family:georgia;font-size:x-small;"><br> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>...this incessant stubborn dying,<br> this living death,<br> that slays you, oh God,<br> in your rigorous handiwork,<br> in the roses, in the stones,<br> in the indomitable stars<br> and in the flesh that burns out,<br> like a bonfire lit by a song,<br> a dream,<br> a hue that hits the eye.<br> <br> ...and you, yourself,<br> perhaps have died eternities of ages out there,<br> without us knowing about it,<br> we dregs, crumbs, ashes of you;<br> you that still are present,<br> like a star faked by its very light,<br> an empty light without star<br> that reaches us,<br> hiding<br> its infinite catastrophe.<br> </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <br><br> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>As the feeling of the individual self became stronger, man lost his natural connection to silent knowledge. Modern man, being heir to that development, therefore finds himself so hopelessly removed from the source of everything that all he can do is express his despair in violent and cynical acts of self-destruction. The reason for man's cynicism and despair is the bit of silent knowledge left in him, which does two things: one, it gives man an inkling of his ancient connection to the source of everything; and two, it makes man feel that without this connection, he has no hope of peace, of satisfaction, of attainment.<br> War is the natural state for a warrior, and peace is an anomaly. But war, for a warrior, doesn't mean acts of individual or collective stupidity or wanton violence. War, for a warrior, is the total struggle against that individual self that has deprived man of his power.<br><br><br> The position of self-reflection forces the assemblage point to assemble a world of sham compassion, but of very real cruelty and self-centeredness. In that world the only real feelings are those convenient for the one who feelings them.<br><br><br> The only worthwhile course of action, whether for sorcerers or average men, is to restrict our involvement with our self-image. What a nagual aims at with his apprentices is the shattering of their mirror of self-reflection.<br> Each of us has a different degree of attachment to his self-reflection. And that attachment is felt as need.<br> It is possible for sorcerers, or average men, to need no one, to get peace, harmony, laughter, knowledge, directly from the spirit--to need no intermediaries. <br><br>human beings are creatures of inventory. Knowing the ins and outs of a particular inventory is what makes a man a scholar or an expert in his field.<br> Sorcerers know that when an average person's inventory fails, the person either enlarges his inventory or his world of self-reflection collapses. The average person is willing to incorporate new items into his inventory if they don't contradict the inventory's underlying order. But if the items contradict that order, the person's mind collapses. The inventory is the mind. Sorcerers count on this when they attempt to break the mirror of self-reflection.<br> * * *<br>Continuity is so important in our lives that if it breaks it's always instantly repaired. <br><br> A sorcerer's ticket to freedom is his death. I myself have paid with my life for that ticket to freedom, as has everyone else in my household. And now we are equals in our condition of being dead.<br> You too are dead. The sorcerers' grand trick, however, is to be aware that they are dead. Their ticket to impeccability must be wrapped in awareness. In that wrapping, sorcerers say, their ticket is kept in mint condition.<br><br>In a fight for your life, you feel no pain. If you feel anything, it's exultation.<br><br><br> One of the most dramatic differences between civilized men and sorcerers is the way in which death comes to them. Only with sorcerer-warriors is death kind and sweet. They could be mortally wounded and yet would feel no pain. And what is even more extraordinary is that death holds itself in abeyance for as long as the sorcerers need it to do so. The greatest difference between an average man and a sorcerer is that a sorcerer commands his death with his speed.<br> In the world of everyday life our word or our decisions can be reversed very easily. The only irrevocable thing in our world is death. In the sorcerers' world, on the other hand, normal death can be countermanded, but not the sorcerers' word. In the sorcerers' world decisions cannot be changed or revised. Once they have been made, they stand forever.<br> * * *<br>One of the most dramatic things about the human condition is the macabre connection between stupidity and self-reflection.<br> It is stupidity that forces us to discard anything that does not conform with our self-reflective expectations. <br><br>The world of daily life consists of two points of reference. We have for example, here and there, in and out, up and down, good and evil, and so on and so forth. So, properly speaking, our perception of our lives is two-dimensional. None of what we perceive ourselves doing has depth.<br> A sorcerer perceives his actions with depth. His actions are tridimensional for him. They have a third point of reference.<br> Our points of reference are obtained primarily from our sense perception. Our senses perceive and differentiate what is immediate to us from what is not. Using that basic distinction we derive the rest.<br> In order to reach the third point of reference one must perceive two places at once.<br> Normal perception has an axis. "Here and there" are the perimeters of that axis, and we are partial to the clarity of "here." In normal perception, only "here" is perceived completely, instantaneously, and directly. Its twin referent, "there," lacks immediacy. It is inferred, deduced, expected, even assumed, but it is not apprehended directly with all the senses. When we perceive two places at once, total clarity is lost, but the immediate perception of "there" is gained.<br> * * *<br>To discover the possibility of being in two places at once is very exciting to the mind. Since our minds are our rationality, and our rationality is our self-reflection, anything beyond our self-reflection either appalls us or attracts us, depending on what kind of persons we are.<br><br>...they remain keenly aware that we are perceivers and that perception has more possibilities than the mind can conceive.<br><br><br> Man has a dark side. It's called stupidity. In the same measure that ritual forced the average man to construct huge churches that were monuments to self-importance, ritual also forced sorcerers to construct edifices of morbidity and obsession. As a result, it is the duty of every nagual to guide awareness so it will fly toward the abstract, free of liens and mortgages.<br> Ritual can trap our attention better than anything I can think of. But it also demands a very high price. That high price is morbidity; and morbidity could have the heaviest liens and mortgages on our awareness.<br> Human awareness is like an immense haunted house. The awareness of everyday life is like being sealed in one room of that immense house for life. We enter the room through a magical opening: birth. And we exit through another such magical opening: death.<br> Sorcerers, however, are capable of finding still another opening and can leave that sealed room while still alive. A superb attainment. But their astounding accomplishment is that when they escape from that sealed room they choose freedom. They choose to leave that immense, haunted house entirely instead of getting lost in other parts of it.<br> Morbidity is the antithesis of the surge of energy awareness needs to reach freedom. Morbidity makes sorcerers lose their way and become trapped in the intricate, dark byways of the unknown.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i></i>