This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling, soothed me, it cured me of my pains, and finally when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom.
Listen to that dog’s barking. That is the way my beloved earth is helping me now to bring this last point to you. That barking is the saddest thing one can hear.
That dog’s barking is the nocturnal voice of a man. It comes from a house in that valley towards the south. A man is shouting through his dog, since they are companion slaves for life, his sadness, his boredom. He’s begging his death to come and release him from the dull and dreary chains of his life.
That barking, and the loneliness it creates, speaks of the feelings of men, men for whom an entire life was like one Sunday afternoon, an afternoon which was not altogether miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal. They didn’t know where to go, or what to do. That afternoon left them only with the memory of petty annoyances and tedium, and then suddenly it was over; it was already night.
The antidote that kills that poison is here; this earth. The sorcerers’ explanation cannot at all liberate the spirit. Look at yourself, you have gotten to the sorcerers’ explanation, but it doesn’t make any difference that you know it. You’re more alone than ever, because without an unwavering love for the being that gives you shelter, aloneness is loneliness.
Only the love for this splendorous being can give freedom to a warrior’s spirit; and freedom is joy, efficiency, and abandon in the face of any odds.
The Second Ring of Power
Anything is possible if one wants it with unbending intent and you don’t let your thoughts interfere.
Power comes only after we accept our fate without recriminations.
* * *
When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when there is something we can still cling to.
A warrior doesn’t seek anything for his solace, nor can he possibly leave anything to chance. A warrior actually affects the outcome of events by the force of his awareness and his unbending intent .
* * *
You must lose your human form. You don’t yet know about the human mold and the human form. The human form is a force and the human mold is … well … a mold.
Everything has a particular mold. Plants have molds, animals have molds, worms have molds. Sorcerers have the avenue of their dreaming to lead them to the mold. The mold of men is definitely an entity, an entity which can be seen by some of us at certain times when we are imbued with power, and by all of us for sure at the moment of our death. The mold is the source, the origin of man, since, without the mold to group together the force of life, there is no way for that force to assemble itself into the shape of man.
The human form is a sticky force that makes us the people we are. The human form has no form. It’s anything, but in spite of not having form, it possesses us during our lives and doesn’t leave us until we die.
A warrior must drop the human form in order to change, to really change. Otherwise there is only talk about change. One cannot change one iota as long as one holds on to the human form. A warrior knows that he cannot change, and yet he makes it his business to try to change, even though he knows that he won’t be able to. That’s the only advantage a warrior has over the average man. The warrior is never disappointed when he fails to change.
The only thing that makes you think you are yourself is the form. Once it leaves, you are nothing. A warrior without form begins to see an eye. The formless warrior uses that eye to start dreaming . If you don’t have a form, you don’t have to go to sleep to do dreaming . The eye in front of you pulls you every time you want to go.
Everything has to be sifted through our human form. When we have no form, then nothing has form and yet everything is present.
* * *
The art of the dreamer is to hold the image of his dream . Our art as ordinary people is that we know how to hold the image of what we are looking at. We just do it; that is, our bodies do it. In dreaming we have to do the same thing, except that in dreaming we have to learn how to do it. We have to struggle not to look but merely to glance and yet hold the image.
Everything we say is a reflection of the world of people. You talk and act the way you do because you’re clinging to the human form.
Everything in a warrior’s world depends on personal power and personal power depends on impeccability. Part of being impeccable for a warrior is never to hinder others with his thoughts.
You indulge in not trying to change. That’s as wrong as feeling disappointed with our failures. Warriors, must be impeccable in their effort to change, in order to scare the human form and shake it away. After years of impeccability a moment will come when the form cannot stand it any longer and it leaves.
* * *
The art of a sorcerer is to be inconspicuous even in the midst of people. Concentrate totally on trying not to be obvious. To learn to become unnoticeable in the middle of all this is to know the art of stalking .
* * *
Be calm and self-controlled and give others your undivided attention.
* * *
The whole issue of sorcery is perception. A warrior must notice everything, that’s his trick, and there lies his advantage. * * *
It is an honor and a pleasure to be a warrior, and it is the warrior’s fortune to do what he has to do.
What is the art of stalking ? A hunter just hunts, a stalker stalks anything, including himself. An impeccable stalker can turn anything into prey. We can even stalk our own weaknesses. You do it in the same way you stalk prey. You figure out your routines until you know all the doing of your weaknesses and then you come upon them and pick them up like rabbits inside a cage.
Any habit is, in essence, a doing , and a doing needs all its parts in order to function. If some parts are missing, a doing is disassembled.
* * *
A warrior eats quietly, and slowly, and very little at a time.
* * *
The only deterrent to our despair is the awareness of our death, the key to the sorcerer’s scheme of things. The awareness of our death is the only thing that can give us the strength to withstand the duress and pain of our lives and our fears of the unknown. Volition alone is the deciding factor; in other words, one has to make up one’s mind to bring that awareness to bear witness to one’s acts.
We are human creatures. Who knows what’s waiting for us or what kind of power we may have.
* * *
It doesn’t matter what anybody says or does. You must be an impeccable man yourself. The fight is right here in this chest. It takes all the time and all the energy we have to conquer the idiocy in us. And that’s what matters. The rest is of no importance. To be an impeccable warrior will give you vigor and youth and power.
I have taught you to be dispassionate. The world of people goes up and down and people go up and down with their world; as sorcerers we have no business following them in their ups and downs. The art of sorcerers is to be outside everything and be unnoticeable. And more than anything else, the art of sorcerers is never to waste their power.
* * *
We hold the images of the world with our attention. Let your attention go from the images of the world. If you don’t focus your attention on the world, the world collapses. Instead of fighting to focus, let go of the images by gazing fixedly at distant hills, or by gazing at water, like a river, or by gazing at the clouds.
If you gaze with your eyes open, you get dizzy and the eyes get tired, but if you half-close them and blink a lot and move them from mountain to mountain, or from cloud to cloud, you can look for hours.
As I’ve told you, the tonal and the nagual are two different worlds. In one you talk, in the other you act. At first all of us secretly do not want the world of the nagual . We are afraid and have second thoughts. Our unbending intent and our impeccability gets us thru that.