Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan’s Teachings

L: After I “gave up” many natural sides of me, I became what can be called a “good girl”.

M: This requires further discussion.

M: Opening it back up to flow with the nature of the universe so that you can find peace will probably take some un-doing.

L: How can this un-doing be started?

M: Study your worst conflicts and fears. Learn them in the form that they are petty tyrants. Then, recapitulate and discover why they are in place. Then we can open more.

L: I just know that sometimes a switch in my perception spontaneously still takes place (usually after having focused many hours on work or when I am tired) and normal objects like food, clothes, clouds, or anything, become something similar to the fluid plasmic forms I used to see in front of my eyes (it did not matter if my eyes were open or closed, I simply could not stop “seeing” what was there in front of me) when I was small. Normally I tend to escape from this, trying to focus back into analytical interpretation. I feel that what happens to me is that I can see “objectively”. But it frightens me.

M: It will take some undoing and loosing more of the human form so that you can ultimately be yourself.

L: I can make a list of the facts that slow down the process of loosing the human form in me. Though invented by my ego, they still are real, and they keep me so busy that I forget about myself.

M: Making a list is only a tool. Dissolve the list within yourself.

L: After you wrote to me the second time, Rick, I visited your web site again and realized that you work (beautifully) with clay. This brought me back to something that is very related to the plasmic forms I used to see. Though I am very creative and can design in paper (or digitally) wonderful three dimensional objects, (and I am fascinated with fractals), I simply CANNOT create with clay or make any kind of sculpture, or three dimensional object. Because if I do so, instantly the frightening amorphous creatures/shapes become alive out of the forming material and I get frozen with fear. I know that it has a lot to do with a switch in attention that happens in me and that I cannot control, but anyway this subject has stayed as a mystery for me all this time.

M: A great place to initiate exploration: “why?”.

L: The most common answer to why is: “I am afraid”

M: Then, again, “why”?

L: I spend a lot of time on my own. This brings me sometimes to spontaneous energy dancing.

M: We all do, those of us “on the way of knowledge”: it is necessary; but by definition it does not have to be isolation. The spontaneous energy will eventually be focused into true ability when the fear subsides and more of the human form is lost.

L: How do we find the true ability? What is the source? Do allies have a task here? Is some special practice needed?

M: You will learn that when fear is removed, much opens quickly. Your ability to trust starts with your ability to trust yourself. Your ability to love and connect, starts with your ability to love yourself.

L: I dream very lively dreams. But never tried to do real dreaming work on purpose.

M: You don’t have much choice: the dream for you is a safe place initially for exploration and eventually a safe place for allies in the third attention to approach you.

L: As I wrote to you I had a very vivid dream experience last night

L: I know these (or many other) personal details are not yet really important at this stage, not as a picture of what I am or potentially can be. I simply needed to make this a little less “ghostly” and also felt like sharing. If you or Michael want or find it necessary to know more about me, I am open to answer those questions. I imagine Michael is somewhere in America.

M: Yes, have lived in Lima, Peru in the mid-sixties; know the culture well; aged 58.

L: I will be glad to hear from you again. I will be reading your Castaneda’s work compilation this weekend. I printed it all. – Linda

M: Hello. My name is Michael. In the Spanish culture: (snip); of the family of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, author of the book “Nafragios”, circa 1526.

L: Hello. My name is Linda. I remember having read “Naufragios” at school. Literature class about Spanish writers. The name Alvar Nu–ez Cabeza de vac is familiar to me.

M: Alvar was trained by the Iguase tribe in the area now know as Florida, as a sorcerer. He held in his ability set the energy of the universe and performed acts of biblical note. These artifacts of ability tend to run in the family: then run in yours.

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R to M: Michael, reading this last note to Linda — trying to be what I’m not has shown up from it for me. I see myself as a child wanting attention. I always want attention. I’m hiding behind that want somehow. As well, there is a sense of a hugeness and being on the brink of that hugeness that has opened for me from this note. Thank you both Rick

M to R: Ah, there is so very much more to come. Yes, the point being without commenting on your conclusions, there is high value and there is a hugeness (to use your word) and perhaps you are just beginning to view a little – just a little perhaps – from the perspective that run through myself continually.

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R: Hi Michael,

Last night I was contemplating “lost human form dependencies,” while lying in bed. I was doing it in a way that had me keeping my internal dialogue off for the most part … it is continuing now and the “I” used repeatedly in this writing is showing itself for what it is … well, … that’s inaccurate, anyway … … … What is the “I” word doing when it rolls out on automatic; that is, when it rolls out as one’s “natural” way of speaking?

M: In the way you describe, it is something sourced “from you”.

R: Back to what I (ha ha) … back to what was started above. … I guess I’ll keep using “I” as I’m allowing myself to be disrupted from this writing by continuing to catch it.

M: It’s an interesting “check point” of self as you experiment with the “I” form to “self-test” what your meaning actually IS with the pronoun. The value for you, at least now, is in these self-tests to aid in understanding meaning and impeccability in your statements.

R: It’s a bit of a challenge to describe last night as the value of it was in the turning off of the internal dialogue that occurred as a result of contemplating “lost human form dependencies.” There were clearly insights coming into mind that were noticed for insights coming by way of the process I was involving myself in. One in particular was the faint and quick, but clear vision of a slowly, causally walking man and the accompanying thought to “slow the … something something” I knew, last night, the missing two words and they didn’t make sense to me then and I’ve now forgotten them. But I took it so somehow mean that there is a process I normally use in my internal dialogue life that goes to quickly and that slowing it down allows the internal dialogue to be off and that that was a key.

M: Yes. True. It’s an important discovery for you. Slow the thoughts for reflex and impeccability.

R: So, not really understanding the meaning of the “slow guy,” with the words “slow the … ” I continued to do what I was doing there, sort of an intending the internal dialogue off by contemplating the term “lost human form” (really just repeating to myself in a reminding way that human form equalled internal dialogue), and along with that then was this image of this slow casual guy and “slow the … ” That continued and I then strongly assumed that I could will myself from there into dreaming as I’d been able to do in the past on one clear occasion and perhaps on others. It didn’t exactly work as plainly as that one time where I went right into dreaming without loosing a moment of consciousness, but I did then have a mild volitional dream (mild as it became volitional only at the end of it.)

M: Progress!

R: So that was that. But more than this reporting of it is the knowledge of the experience and that knowledge as a tool for continuing progress.

M: Yes.

R: Love, Rick