The Evolution of the Path

“Our vision of a world of objects. That vision has been very useful, but at the same time the worst among our calamities. Modern man’s concerns are the same as those of an animal: Use, possess, annihilate. But this animal has been domesticated, and is condemned to live inside a material inventory. Since every one of the objects he uses has a long history, modern man lives his life lost inside his own creation.” – Carlos Castaneda, Encounters with the Nagual

Encounters with the Nagual is a wonderful paper published by Armando Torres in 2004 and compiled from his personal conversations with Carlos Castaneda. Carlos spoke of many things with Armando but to me the most compelling is Carlos’ desire to ensure that the path of sorcery and nagualism evolves. Carlos said that the goal of modern seers is, more than ever, total freedom and in order to attain it, it becomes necessary that the strategies are continually refined. Evolving, evolution, conscious evolution.

Entheogen Healing Journey

The following was posted on 2/2/10 on Reality Sandwich – “Ayahuasca Retreat with Reality Sandwich – Embark on a 10-day healing journey with sacred plants in Peru, featuring Master Shaman Manculoto, RS’ Daniel Pinchbeck, Ken Jordan, and more.”  My detailed response posted here was also posted on Evolver, of which I am a member.

Why are people traveling to remote locations of the world, spending lots of money, taking jets in order to experience entheogens with Indigenous Shaman? This is so counterproductive to what Evolver is all about and while I mean no disrespect to Daniel Pinchbeck or any other contributors to Reality Sandwich, here are the issues that I have with this type of “healing” journey.

Warriors of Freedom

“Once you learn to discern the voice of Mother Culture humming in the background, telling her story over and over again to the people of your culture, you’ll never stop being conscious of it. Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’ll be tempted to say to the people around you, ‘How can you listen to this stuff and not recognize it for what it is?’” ~ Daniel Quinn, Ishmael

Castaneda said, “For modern man absolutely everything that exists is put into definite categories. We are labeling machines. We classify the world, and the world classifies us. We have become perceptual jailers of each other. The chain of human thought is powerful. Even our deepest feelings are classified and ordered so that nothing can escape. One example is the way we alienate ourselves from the actual time we are living in, in order to mindlessly go around repeating stereotypes. We have a collection of preset days: Mother’s Day, All Saints’ Day, Valentine Day, birthday anniversaries and weddings…They are like stakes we tie our life to so we won’t get lost, and thus we walk the Earth, revolving around our descriptions like beasts tied by the neck.”

Shamanic Consciousness

“It isn’t that a warrior learns shamanism as time goes by; rather, what he learns as time goes by is to save energy. This energy will enable him to handle some of the energy fields which are ordinarily inaccessible to him. Shamanism is a state of awareness, the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the everyday-life world that we know.” ~ Carlos Castaneda

When Carlos Castaneda wrote his books he was trying very hard to find a word that would embody a multitude of modalities from the Shamanic realm.  He chose sorcerer because it exemplified knowledge, man of knowledge or one who knows and who was capable at accomplishing extraordinary feats.  He also lived completely outside of the box and steered clear of derivatives.

Mother Earth – Our Ultimate Ally

“We are children of the Earth, it is our ultimate source. The option of sorcerers is to unite with the awareness of the Earth, for as long as the Earth will live.” – Carlos Castaneda, Encounters with the Nagual

Don Juan described an ally as being “a power capable of transporting a man beyond the boundaries of himself”; that is, an ally was a power that allowed one to transcend the realm of ordinary reality. Consequently, to have an ally implied having power; and the fact that a man of knowledge had an ally was by itself proof that the operational goal of the teachings had been fulfilled. Since that goal was to show how to become a person of knowledge, and since a person of knowledge was one who had an ally, another way of describing the operational goal of don Juan’s teachings was to say that they also showed how to obtain an ally. The concept “man of knowledge,” as a sorcerer’s philosophical frame, had meaning for anyone who wanted to live within that frame only insofar as he had an ally.

Reconnecting to the Shaman

“The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.” – Carlos Castaneda

The shaman or nagual resides in each of us.  While some may be more advanced, the realm of shamanism encompasses levels of heightened awareness that are available to anyone.  Shaman are the walkers on the wind, those who live on the precarious edge of existence, able to access knowledge at will and enter into dream, altered states, parallel realities by connecting with intent.  They are healers, dreamers, creators, manifestors, teachers, communicators, mediators, record keepers, and more.

They hold vast amounts of knowledge because they were trained to know and continue to immerse themselves into levels of heightened awareness or because they have chosen a path that allows them to turn off their mind and connect to the realm of spirit, of energy, breaking free of the foreign installation, the dominant paradigm and the mold of man.

Inorganic Beings – A Lesson Learned

“The Nagual said that it (the pyramid) was a guide to the second attention,” Pablito went on, “but that it was ransacked and everything destroyed. He told me that some of the pyramids were gigantic notdoings. They were not lodgings but places for warriors to do their dreaming and exercise their second attention. Whatever they did was recorded in drawings and figures that were put on the walls.  He stressed to me that all archaeological ruins in Mexico, especially the pyramids, were harmful to modern man. He depicted the pyramids as foreign expressions of thought and action. He said that every item, every design in them, was a calculated effort to record aspects of attention which were thoroughly alien to us. For don Juan it was not only ruins of past cultures that held a dangerous element in them; anything which was the object of an obsessive concern had a harmful potential.”  – The Eagle’s Gift

Avatar – That World is Our World

“A warrior’s love is the world. He embraces this enormous earth. The earth knows that he loves it and it bestows on him its care. That’s why his life is filled to the brim and his state, wherever he’ll be, will be plentiful. He roams on the paths of his love and, wherever he is, he is complete.” – don Juan, Tales of Power

One of my favorite quotes, previously used, will be used again. I go to the movies about once a year. I usually fall asleep. After seeing the previews for Avatar I knew that this would be my once a year theatre experience. I donned my 3-D glasses, was mesmerized for the entire three hours and never nodded off.

Nagualism and Buddhism

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”   Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha

Just because I say it, please, don’t believe it.  Have your own experience, form your own perceptions, encounter your own knowledge and explore your own awareness!!!

2012, The Dream and Organic Beings

The shamans of don Juan’s lineage saw that the essential condition of animate energy, organic or inorganic, is to turn energy in the universe at large into sensory data.  In the case of organic beings, this sensory data is then turned into a system of interpretation in which energy at large is classified and a given response is allotted to each classification, whatever the classification may be.   Don Juan said that the only thing shamans know about this is that the immense mass of energy called the dark sea of awareness supplies human beings with whatever is necessary to elicit this transformation of energy into sensory data, and that such a process could not possibly ever be deciphered because of the vastness of the original source.

Since returning from the pyramids in Mexico I have come to realize that my intention of going down there to connect with intent and open up to dream was an incredible success.  It has been difficult for me to post for the past few of months as a result of the constant spin of information going through my mind and body.  I say body because everything within my experience encompasses all the senses as though I am consistently residing on the precarious edge of some multi-universe or somehow plugged into some kind of time-travel course in awareness.   In one short post that was really just a quote from Taisha Abelar, it ended saying that I was kickin’ it in third attention and couldn’t find the words.  There were none.