Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan’s Teachings

Let’s say that the tonal , since it is keenly aware of how taxing it is to speak of itself, has created the terms “I,” “myself,” and so forth as a balance and thanks to them it can talk with other tonals , or with itself, about itself.

Now when I say that the tonal forces us to do something, I don’t mean that there is a third party there. Obviously it forces itself to follow its own judgments.

On certain occasions, however, or under certain special circumstances, something in the tonal itself becomes aware that there is more to us. It is like a voice that comes from the depths, the voice of the nagual . You see, the totality of ourselves is a natural condition which the tonal cannot obliterate altogether, and there are moments, especially in the life of a warrior, when the totality becomes apparent. At those moments one can surmise and assess what we really are.

When we die, we die with the totality of ourselves. A sorcerer asks the question. “If we’re going to die with the totality of ourselves, why not, then, live with that totality?”

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A warrior treats his tonal in a very special manner. Life can be merciless with you if you are careless with your tonal .

To see a man as a tonal entails that one cease judging him in a moral sense, or excusing him on the grounds that he is like a leaf at the mercy of the wind. In other words, it entails seeing a man without thinking that he is hopeless or helpless. You know exactly what I am talking about. One can assess people without condemning or forgiving them.

Youth is in no way a barrier against the deterioration of the tonal . You say you think there might be a great many reasons for one’s condition. I find that there is only one, our tonal . It is not that our tonal is weak because, for example, we drink; it is the other way around, one drinks because one’s tonal is weak. That weakness forces one to be what he is. This happens to all of us, in one form or another.

But aren’t I also justifying our behavior by saying that it’s our tonal ? No, I’m giving you an explanation that you have never encountered before. It is not a justification or a condemnation, though. Our tonals are weak and timid. All of us are more or less in the same boat.

There is no need to treat the body in an awful manner, but the fact is that all of us have learned to perfection how to make our tonal weak. I have called that indulging. Only a warrior has a “proper tonal.” The average man, at best, can have a “right tonal.”

The nagual is not experience or intuition or consciousness. Those terms and everything else you may care to say are only items on the island of the tonal . The nagual , on the other hand, is only effect. The tonal begins at birth and ends at death, but the nagual never ends. The nagual has no limit. I’ve said that the nagual is where power hovers; that was only a way of alluding to it. By reasons of its effect, perhaps the nagual can be best understood in terms of power.

* * *

One of the acts of a warrior is never to let anything affect him. Thus, a warrior may be seeing the devil himself, but he won’t let anyone know that. The control of a warrior has to be impeccable.

* * *

A proper tonal is a tonal that is just right, balanced and harmonious. There are, roughly speaking, two sides to every tonal. One is the outer part, the fringe, the surface of the island. That’s the part related to action and acting, the rugged side. The other part is the decision and judgment, the inner tonal , softer, more delicate and more complex. The proper tonal is a tonal where the two levels are in perfect harmony and balance.

* * *

You say you are puzzled because I have never talked about women in relation to my knowledge. You’re a man, therefore I use the masculine gender when I talk to you. That’s all. The rest is the same.

* * *

For a proper tonal everything on the island of the tonal is a challenge. Another way of saying it is that for a warrior everything in this world is a challenge. The greatest challenge of all, of course, is his bid for power. But power comes from the nagual , and when a warrior finds himself at the edge of the day it means that the hour of the nagual is approaching, the warrior’s hour of power.

One bids for power and that bidding is irreversible. I wouldn’t say that at the time power comes, that one is about to fulfill his destiny, because there is no destiny. The only thing that can be said then is that, at that point, one is about to fulfill his power.

* * *

The best of us always comes out when we are against the wall, when we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Men are very frail creatures, who make themselves even more frail with their indulging.

* * *

Seeing must be direct, for a warrior can’t use his time to unravel what he himself is seeing . Seeing is seeing because it cuts through all that nonsense. In the beginning seeing is confusing and it’s easy to get lost in it. As the warrior gets tighter, however, his seeing becomes what it should be, a direct knowing. A warrior asks a question, and through his seeing he gets an answer, but the answer is simple.

A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.

To be a warrior means to be humble and alert. When you come to see me you should come prepared to die. If you come here ready to die, there shouldn’t be any pitfalls, or any unwelcome surprises, or any unnecessary acts. Everything should gently fall into place because you’re expecting nothing.

It’s not that you have to live with all this. You are all this. A warrior doesn’t ever leave the island of the tonal . He uses it. This is your world. You can’t renounce it. It is useless to get angry and feel disappointed with oneself. All that that proves is that one’s tonal is involved in an internal battle; a battle within one’s tonal is one of the most inane contests I can think of. The tight life of a warrior is designed to end that struggle. From the beginning I have taught you to avoid wear and tear.

The warrior’s way is harmony–the harmony between actions and decisions, at first, and then the harmony between tonal and nagual.

It is the tonal that has to relinquish control. The tonal is made to give up unnecessary things like self-importance and indulging, which only plunge it into boredom. The whole trouble is that the tonal clings to those things when it should be glad to rid itself of that crap. The task then is to convince the tonal to become free and fluid. That’s what a sorcerer needs before anything else, a strong, free tonal . The stronger it gets the less it clings to its doings, and the easier it is to shrink it.

The tonal shrinks at given times, especially when it is embarrassed. Once the tonal has shrunk, the nagual , if it is already in motion, no matter how small that motion is, will take over and achieve extraordinary deeds.

The affairs of the nagual can be witnessed only with the body, not the reason.

We are fluid, luminous beings made out of fibers. The agreement that we are solid objects is the tonal ‘s doings. When the tonal shrinks, extraordinary things are possible. But they are only extraordinary for the tonal .

The nagual , once it learns to surface, may cause great damage to the tonal by coming out without any control. Your tonal has to be convinced about all of this with reasons, your nagual with actions, until one props the other. As I have told you, the tonal rules, and yet it is very vulnerable. The nagual , on the other hand, never, or almost never, acts out; but when it does, it terrifies the tonal .

The tonal must be protected at any cost. The crown has to be taken away from it, but it must remain as the protected overseer. Any threat to the tonal always results in its death. And if the tonal dies, so does the whole man. Because of its inherent weakness the tonal is easily destroyed, and thus one of the balancing arts of the warrior is to make the nagual emerge in order to prop up the tonal . I say it is an art, because sorcerers know that only by boosting the tonal can the nagual emerge. That boosting is called personal power.