posted July 31, 2006 12:36 AM         

You must let go of your desire to cling. The very same thing happened to me. I held on to things, such as the food I liked, the mountains where I lived, the people I used to enjoy talking to. But most of all I clung to the desire to be liked. Those things are our barriers to losing our human form. Our attention is trained to focus doggedly. That is the way we maintain the world. Now is the time to let go of all that. In order to lose your human form you should let go of all that ballast.

***

Wait before revealing a finding. Wait for the most appropriate time to let go of something that you hold.

***

Losing the human form brings the freedom to remember your self. Losing the human form is like a spiral. It gives you the freedom to remember and this in turn makes you even freer.

A warrior knows that he is waiting and knows also what he is waiting for, and while he waits he feasts his eyes on the world. The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy.

Accept your fate in humbleness. The course of a warrior's destiny is unalterable. The challenge is how far he can go within those rigid bounds, how impeccable he can be within those rigid bounds. If there are obstacles in his path, the warrior strives impeccably to overcome them. If he finds unbearable hardship and pain on his path, he weeps, but all his tears put together could not move the line of his destiny the breadth of one hair. Fulfill your fate as a warrior not as a petty person.

Detachment does not automatically mean wisdom, but it is nonetheless, an advantage because it allows the warrior to pause momentarily to reassess situations, to reconsider positions. In order to use that extra moment consistently and correctly, however, a warrior has to struggle unyieldingly for a lifetime.
A warrior is someone who seeks freedom. Sadness is not freedom. We must snap out of it. Having a sense of detachment entails having a moment's pause to reassess situations.
Formlessness is, if anything, a detriment to sobriety and levelheadedness. An aspect of being detached, the capacity to become immersed in whatever one is doing, naturally extends to everything one does, including being inconsistent, and outright petty. The advantage of being formless is that it allows us a moment's pause, providing that we have the self-discipline and courage to utilize it.

We unwittingly focus on fear and distrust, as if those were the only possible options available to us, while all along we have the alternative of deliberately centering our attention on the opposite, the mystery, the wonder of what is happening to us.

***

In dreaming one has to use the same mechanisms of attention as in everyday life. Our first attention has been taught to focus on the items of the world with great force in order to turn the amorphous and chaotic realm of perception into the orderly world of awareness.
The second attention serves the function of a beckoner, a caller of chances. The more it is exercised, the greater the possibility of getting the desired result. But that is also the function of attention in general, a function so taken for granted in our daily life that it has become unnoticeable; if we encounter a fortuitous occurrence we talk about it in terms of accident or coincidence, rather than in terms of our attention having beckoned the event.

posted July 31, 2006 12:43 AM         

To elucidate the control of the second attention, I've presented the idea of will . Will can be described as the maximum control of the luminosity of the body as a field of energy; or it can be described as a level of proficiency, as a state of being that comes abruptly into the daily life of a warrior at any given time. It is experienced as a force that radiates out of the middle part of the body following a moment of the most absolute silence, or a moment of sheer terror, or profound sadness. Those things afford the warrior the concentration needed to use the luminosity of the body and turn it into silence.
For a human being sadness is as powerful as terror. Both can bring the moment of silence. Or the silence comes of itself, because the warrior tries for it throughout his life. It is a moment of blackness, a moment still more silent than the moment of shutting off the internal dialogue. That blackness, that silence, gives rise to the intent to direct the second attention, to command it, to make it do things. This is why it's called will . The intent and the effect are will ; they are tied together.
We don't feel our will because we think that it should be something we know for sure that we are doing or feeling, like getting angry, for instance. Will is very quiet, unnoticeable. Will belongs to the other self. We are in our other selves when we do dreaming .

* * *

The power that governs the destiny of all living beings is called the Eagle or the Indescribable Force . Providing the luminous shell that comprises one's humanness has been broken, it is possible to find in the Indescribable Force the faint reflection of man. The Indescribable Force 's irrevocable dictums can then be apprehended by seers, properly interpreted by them, and accumulated in the form of a governing body. Thus the rule was formed.
The rule is not a tale. The rule states that every living thing has been granted the power, if it so desires, to seek an opening to freedom and to go through it.
To cross over to freedom does not mean eternal life as eternity is commonly understood--that is, as living forever. What the rule states is that one can keep the awareness which is ordinarily relinquished at the moment of dying. I cannot explain what it means to keep that awareness. My benefactor told me that at the moment of crossing, one enters into the third attention, and the body in its entirety is kindled with knowledge. Every cell at once becomes aware of itself, and also aware of the totality of the body.
This kind of awareness is meaningless to our compartmentalized minds. Therefore the crux of the warrior's struggle is not so much to realize that the crossing over stated in the rule means crossing to the third attention, but rather to conceive that there exists such an awareness at all.
There is a common error, that of overestimating the left-side awareness, of becoming dazzled by its clarity and power. To be in the left-side awareness does not mean that one is immediately liberated from one's folly--it only means an extended capacity for perceiving, and above all, a greater ability to forget.

One has to be utterly humble and carry nothing to defend, not even one's person. One's person should be protected, but not defended.
It takes a very long time to clean out the garbage that a luminous being picks up in the world. We are so stiff and feel so self-important.
Will is such a complete control of the second attention that it is called the other self.

* * *

A warrior is never under siege. To be under siege implies that one has personal possessions that could be blockaded. A warrior has nothing in the world except his impeccability, and impeccability cannot be threatened. Nonetheless, in a battle for one's life a warrior should strategically use every means available.

* * *

We must live our lives impeccably for no other reason than to be impeccable.

* * *

An unconquerable pessimism overtakes a warrior at a certain point on his path. A sense of defeat, or perhaps more accurately, a sense of unworthiness, comes upon him almost unawares. A warrior's resolution to live impeccably in spite of everything cannot be approached as a strategy to ensure success.
The warrior enters into a state of unsurpassed humility; when the true poverty of his human resources becomes undeniable, the warrior has no recourse but to step back and lower his head.
It is monstrous to think that the world is understandable or that we ourselves are understandable. What we are perceiving is an enigma, a mystery that one can only accept in humbleness and awe. The two sides of a human being are totally separate and it takes great discipline and determination to break that seal and go from one side to the other. We have been put together by forces incomprehensible to our reason. The only thing we do not have is time. Every minute might be our last; therefore, it has to be lived with the spirit.

Perception suffers a profound jolt when we are placed in states of quietude in darkness. Our hearing takes the lead then, and the signals from all the living and existing entities around us can be detected--not with our hearing only, but with a combination of the auditory and visual senses, in that order. In darkness the eyes become subsidiary to the ears.

posted July 31, 2006 12:53 AM         

There is no way on earth that we can order anyone or ourselves to rally knowledge. It is rather a slow affair; the body, at the right time and under the proper circumstances of impeccability, rallies its knowledge without the intervention of desire.

* * *

The first principle of the art of stalking is that warriors choose their battleground. A warrior never goes into battle without knowing what the surroundings are.
To discard everything that is unnecessary is the second principle of the art of stalking .
Warriors don't have the world to cushion them, so they must have the rule. Yet the rule of stalkers applies to everyone.
The first precept of the rule is that everything that surrounds us is an unfathomable mystery.
The second precept of the rule is that we must try to unravel these mysteries, but without ever hoping to accomplish this.
The third, that a warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds him and aware of his duty to try to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one. Consequently, for a warrior there is no end to the mystery of being, whether being means being a pebble, or an ant, or oneself. That is a warrior's humbleness. One is equal to everything.

* * *

Apply all the concentration you have to decide whether or not to enter into battle, for any battle is a battle for one's life. This is the third principle of the art of stalking . A warrior must be willing and ready to make his last stand here and now. But not in a helter-skelter way.
The fourth principle of the art of stalking is; relax, abandon yourself, fear nothing. Only then will the powers that guide us open the road and aid us. Only then.
The fifth principle is; when faced with odds that cannot be dealt with, warriors retreat for a moment. They let their minds meander. They occupy their time with something else. Anything would do.
The sixth principle: warriors compress time; even an instant counts. In a battle for your life, a second is an eternity; an eternity that may decide the outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time. Warriors don't waste an instant.

* * *

We're warriors, and warriors have only one thing in mind--their freedom. To die and be consumed by the Indescribable Force is no challenge. On the other hand, to sneak around the Indescribable Force and be free is the ultimate audacity.

What's needed to enter fully into the other self is to abandon the intent of our first attention.

* * *

When I talk about time, I am not referring to something which is measured by the movement of a clock. Time is the essence of attention; the Indescribable Force 's emanations are made out of time; and properly, when one enters into any aspect of the other self, one is becoming acquainted with time.
The wheel of time is like a state of heightened awareness which is part of the other self, as the left side awareness is part of the self of everyday life. It can physically be described as a tunnel of infinite length and width; a tunnel with reflective furrows. Every furrow is infinite, and there are infinite numbers of them. Living creatures are compulsorily made, by the force of life, to gaze into one furrow. To gaze into it means to be trapped by it, to live that furrow.
Will belongs to the wheel of time. It is something like the runner of a vine, or an intangible tentacle which all of us possess. A warrior's final aim is to learn to focus it on the wheel of time in order to make it turn. Warriors who have succeeded in turning the wheel of time can gaze into any furrow and draw from it whatever they desire. To be trapped compulsorily in one furrow of time entails seeing the images of that furrow only as they recede. To be free from the spellbinding force of those grooves means that one can look in either direction, as images recede or as they approach.

* * *

Warriors have no life of their own. From the moment they understand the nature of awareness, they cease to be persons and the human condition is no longer part of their view. You have your duty as a warrior and nothing else is important. So do your best.
The challenge of a warrior is to arrive at a very subtle balance of positive and negative forces. This challenge does not mean that a warrior should strive to have everything under control, but that a warrior should strive to meet any conceivable situation, the expected and the unexpected, with equal efficiency. To be perfect under perfect circumstances is to be a paper warrior.
I will give you a formula, an incantation for times when your task is greater than your strength;

I am already given to the power that rules my fate.
And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend.
I have no thoughts, so I will see.
I fear nothing, so I will remember myself.
Detached and at ease,
I will dart past the Eagle to be free.

It takes an enormity of strength to let go of the intent of everyday life. One must place one's attention on the luminous shell. A warrior must evoke intent . The glance is the secret. The eyes beckon intent .

The reason why seeing seems to be visual is because we need the eyes to focus on intent . Our eyes can catch another aspect of intent and that's called seeing . The true function of the eyes is to be the catchers of intent.

* * *

You should trust yourself. On the left side there are no tears. A warrior can no longer weep. The only expression of anguish is a shiver that comes from the very depths of the universe. It is as if one of the Indescribable Force 's emanations is anguish. The warrior's shiver is infinite.

posted August 02, 2006 06:38 AM         

Lialei... I just finished commenting on your other post by Carlos Castenada! I can see that you are immersing yourself in his research. You may also want to read Shaman's Path by Gary Doore, as it parallels to the subject of Shamanism.

posted August 03, 2006 02:08 AM         

Didn't see you here. For some reason, recent posts don't show up to me until the next person posts.