Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan’s Teachings

R: That does set it to be conditional. Perhaps I’ve never really committed to following the path of knowledge! I think I will cut myself a little slack on that one and just “get” that I need to take a look at just what my commitment to that path is. “JUST”! that’s a good one.

M: You’re welcome.

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R: As I said, I’ve been working on The Active Side of Infinity. Please comment on this quote, “By means of discipline it is possible for anyone to bring the energy body closer to the physical body.”

M: My experience with the above would be described a bit differently. The energy body, is a component or extension of ourselves. In those that are not well integrated, it might seem like it is separate, however the physical body and it’s energy image are linked. Although the energy body may persist after the termination of the physical body, the relationship is such that there physical body always has at least “some” energy image, though in most it is a low level, low intensity, low amplitude, image.

R: I assume that discipline is the path of knowledge.

M: Broadly said, yes, and as you are aware there are many elements of that knowledge. By saying that the physical body can bring the energy body closer, really what happens is that energy that extends from the physical body helps assemble the energy body and links with it as a component of self.

R: “Normally, the distance between the two is enormous. Once the energy body is within a certain range, which varies for each of us individually, anyone, through discipline, can forge it into the exact replica of their physical body — that is to say, a three-dimensional, solid being. Hence the sorcerers’ idea of the other or the double. By the same token, through the same processes of discipline, anyone can forge their three-dimensional, solid physical body to be a perfect replica of their energy body — that is to say, an ethereal change of energy invisible to the human eye, as all energy is.”

M: In my experience, this is a little misleading. What is known as a physical manifestation of “the double” is, no doubt, an energy form that others even in the physical state of being (normal humanity, in other words) may interact with. The energy form, to them, appears as a physical structure to all of their senses, but it is energy nonetheless.

R: I’ve always pretty much left this stuff to just speak for itself, having no knowledge/experience of it.

M: By the time CC got late into his writings, he had become detached, really decoupled, from DJM for quite a number of years. Since, in my very best impression and knowledge, CC didn’t have “the power” directly (as previously stated) it is my opinion that he wandered off the path of first-experience knowledge quite a bit. The Eagle’s gift, the Power of Silence, The Fire from Within, were about the end-points of what I’d consider to be accurate reporting.

R: “I’ve not described a mythical proposition. There is nothing mythical about sorcerers. Sorcerers are practical beings, and what they describe is always something quite sober and down-to-earth.

R: “The difficulty in understanding what sorcerers do is that they proceed from a different cognitive system.”

R: Is that inner silence?

M: Cognition is defined as … 1. The mental process or faculty of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment. 2. That which comes to be known, as through perception, reasoning, or intuition; knowledge.

M: … taken from the dictionary. Note that perception is one of the “paths” that “knowing” comes through. The inner silence only makes the process of gaining knowledge through perceptional means, more efficient or for many, even possible. Those with strong abilities (like your grandmother, and perhaps even you when open) can often “get through” their own mind noise with little choice. Others must “quiet” the mind to find the perceptionally based information. All of this is like someone hearing something “through” or blocked by, the rumble of a large vocal crowd. The “crowd,” in my analogy, is akin to internal “mind noise”. The one that is attempting to be heard is a source of information that has a clear message if the crowd would be quiet. Some individuals can “tune” through even their own mind noise to hear, metaphorically. Others need to quiet their mind noise, and the best-case path of perceptionally based knowledge comes in any case for maximal efficiency, with both quiet minds (inner silence) and tuning.

R: “The energy body is of key importance in whatever has been taking place in your life. It is an energetic fact that your energy body, instead of moving away form you, as it normally happens, is approaching you with great speed.”

M: Some have a sense of fear of “something approaching” and they even try to push it away. The energy body is intrinsic to ourselves. Being afraid of “it” is being afraid of some element, of ourselves.

R: “It means that something is going to knock the daylights out of you. A tremendous degree of control is going to come into your life, but not your control, the energy body’s control.”

M: This is another way of saying that when one truly recognized him/herself, the knowledge can “knock the daylights” out of you. The cognition of rapid awareness, knowledge, of self can be the most frightening. I’ve had these experiences, of course.

R: “There are scores of outside forces controlling you at this moment. The control that I am referring to is something outside the domain of language.””

M: Outside the domain of language, yes. Outside the domain of knowledge, no.

R: “It is your control and at the same time it is not.”

M: Two components to this. First, anyone can block or distort knowledge, and awareness. Secondly, anyone can trigger emotions based usually on fear, and this process is reflex, not in control when it occurs to the novice. Blocks and distortions are also usually reflexes, and reflexes to the novice are not “controlled”. With sufficient evolution, the individual has NO need to control, only have cognition of knowledge from all sources, with full objectivity (detachment from the human form).

R: “It cannot be classified,”

M: Disagree. All knowledge can be understood …

R: “but it can certainly be experienced. And above all, it can certainly be manipulated. Remember this: It can be manipulated, to your total advantage, of course, which again, is not your advantage, but the energy body’s advantage. However, the energy body is you, so we could go on forever like dogs biting their own tails, trying to describe this. Language is inadequate. All these experiences are beyond syntax.”

R: Does it all boil down to inner silence? To get there, that is?

M: As said, a quiet mind is quiet because it does not have to be noisy to mount defenses. A noisy mind, is a dependent mind, hiding behind the noise. This – all of it – works closely together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. To have an objective mind, a detached mind, that can stalk and observe, and wholly perceive, then integrate knowledge, one has to be comfortable with him/herself and their environment. The body is the world’s smallest prison.

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R: I’ve been having a feeling of, a sense of, a moment of a kind of knowing something that when the feeling comes, it’s like I already knew that, but then it is so fleeting, like the fleetingness of sensing colors as “smell/taste,” to the point where writing about it now seems next to impossible and I literally have know idea, at this point, what I’m even talking about, other than to try and somehow describe … what I can’t even recall … that sounds crazy, but here goes: It has to do with people and our place with each other as people living/being together on the earth (though I’m adding the “on the earth” as an obvious that isn’t involved in the sense, the sense is of just … people together interacting). And there is a sense of relief involved with it. Relief from … preconceptions … false preconceptions … preconceptions about our responsiblities in our interacting roles. It’s like a sense of a higher order that is actually real but we don’t see it. And it’s the sense of it IN ITS REALNESS that is uplifting to me, like, this is real and it needs to be brought into focus so that it is no longer fleeting and out of mind.

R: Well, that’s beating around it, lets see if I can zoom in on it … nope, … maybe I can beat around it somemore … I know that it has come over me about … it’s come over me twice. Both times while walking in crowds … I just can’t nail it down … but it’s like we don’t owe each other anything out of our already being everything for each other, no, there is no sense involved of “not owing,” that’s my “now added,” it’s just the sense of being everything for each other … not like an obligation at all, though, just as how it really is … so there is no thought about creating it that way, it just is that we are somehow all together in a way that is whole and complete … and we are, in our ignorance of this, running all around on our daily tracks presenting ourselves “out of” a place that we hold ourselves in as not related to each other other than in our socialized ways.