The tragedy of today’s man is not his social condition, but the lack of will to change himself. It is very easy to design collective revolutions, but to genuinely change, to put an end to self-pity, to erase the ego, to abandon our habits and whims… ah, that’s something else entirely! Sorcerers say that true rebellion, and humanity’s only way out as a species, is to stage a revolution against their own stupidity. As you can understand, this is solitary work. ~ Carlos Castaneda, Encounters with the Nagual
Evolution is possible when we have personal power. As La Gorda says in The Eagle’s Gift, …there are no steps to anything a warrior does. There is only personal power…
And yet, we talk, and talk and talk. Even when we don’t know what to say we talk…about the weather, the time, the person over there, further strengthening illusions we continue to talk and solidify perception and fixate the assemblage point and weakening or even losing our personal power. Talking is not the same as taking action and that’s why language often gets in the way. Talk becomes empty, shallow and hollow lacking depth and experience. You’ve all heard the expression, walk your talk? Well, yeah, if you aren’t walking your talk then you are not taking action and if you are not taking action then you are not evolving. So how can we possibly evolve amidst all the chatter and bla-bla? Practice. Doing. Acting. Walking.
An hour of practice can sweep years of explanations off the table, and real results appear, results that stay with you forever. As you turn yourself into a witness of power, the obsessive pressure of your mind to be in charge will be cancelled out, and in its place the childlike spirit of adventure and discovery will be reborn in you. In that state you don’t think anymore, you act. ~ Carlos Castaneda
To evolve, one must have command over the totality of oneself. This means that you encounter power by removing yourself from the concerns of the “group mind” by filling yourself with decisions of power and strategies that bring you to awareness. It involves practicing silence to fighting the domestic condition of having ‘membership’ in a social group and removing yourself as a hostage in another person’s inventory with an obligation to uphold an image before others; you are an autonomous, individual who has come to realize that our next evolutionary step is done by means of discipline, determination and strategy. Our evolution is measured by the ability to realize, to be aware, to come to the understanding that we will not evolve as long as we continue to repeat patterns over and over again.
In order to evolve we have to open our minds to perceive everything that is available to us. Once we remove ourselves from the stories that maintain consensual reality within the social order we acquire personal power. Anytime we actively practice with discipline, determination, strategy and intent we are increasing our personal power by becoming free of the false matrix, the illusions. And as we continue to amass personal power we are able to access new levels of awareness, we are able to perceive beyond what we have previously imagined, we are actively creating, and most of all, we are evolving!
Human evolution is possible when we have personal power. Personal power is attainable when we free ourselves from the story. Isn’t it about time? ~ Keep Dancing!
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
Female Warrior - The Toltec Path 