Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan’s Teachings

R: I’ve allowed myself to be easily pulled to self-pity/depression, then anger. And yet, I can intend myself to turn that all off, breath deeply, listen.

M: Me thinks we all go through this as we re-base ourselves. It’s observed that self-pity and depression are dependencies that (probably) become ingrained early in life – and they are serious dependencies. Anger, a derivative of frustration, is an extension of those dependencies. You are a very kind and loving person that has experienced turmoil and confusion in history, and situations such as that cause a form of “oscillation” between self-aggrandizement on one side, and self-deprecation on another. In these situations of oscillation, my analogy is like that of a piece of metal being flexed frequently. Eventually the metal will tire and fatigue at the crease of flexure, weaken then eventually break. The “way of knowledge” provides an alternative “middle” where everything “is as it must be”.

R: I’ll work on that. And I’ll force myself to exercise. And limit the internal dialogue crap.

M: “Force” is a very strong human-form term, perhaps. Feeling into your words, “dialogue crap” feels angry. Perhaps finding a “flow” … would be more appropriate.

M: The physical body schnarff is only a tool of focus, not a result. The body as a tool of focus can become the limitation to progress because the body’s action can become the dependency. In my observation, this happened to CC himself, and somewhere he couldn’t move beyond it. It is necessary to move beyond the body and the body’s actions.

R: There are many money related things to deal with. (note: I’ve removed the story)

M: It is very significant that you have opened in this dialogue to the extent that you have. The economics “are” important because they are a distraction and can form a significant dependency. IF one doesn’t have enough to get by comfortably, then one is so distracted that they cannot have sufficient time to evolve in other respects. On the other extreme side, if one is obsessed with money and wealth, then yet another side of the dependency coin is formed. Although your report indicates that you’ve experimented with art forms as a technique of altering your perceptions, the observation suggested by this is that the method is seeking assistance from outside yourself, not within, by using art forms as a tool for change. Perhaps, since you have proficiency in a specific (gem) business, if you can re-base yourself into a ‘comfortable’ level of effort where it functions with your life but does not control it, then you’d find more mental freedom and peace within yourself for these over evolutionary functions.

R: (Note: more story removed) I only tell you that as you are open to me for some reason you have not stated (and I am very very grateful).

M: Do you “really” need to know? Do you “really” not understand? Perhaps … Place yourself out into the sun, with your face downward toward the earth. Extend your arms comfortably outward, palms facing the earth. Feel the energy in your palms, which are now facing downward from the sun in their own shadows. Feel the sensations at the palms of your hands, and if it is imbalanced, left to right, attempt with your mind to find a balance as if the energy in your palms were streaming down to the earth to balance your body as a center point. With that accomplished in balance, allow the perception at the palms of your hands to increase to it’s natural level. Then, with that mediation, slowly elevate the angle of your face toward the sun. The energy can then be channeled through your upper body to and then through your hands, and this can form an energy stream.

M: When this is accomplished, contemplate softly, very softly, who I might be in any way that you might consider.

R: (note: More removed story)

M: My own version of this is classical piano. When I was very young, perhaps aged four, I was plopped at a keyboard, and I played. Well. By age five, I was plopped in front of an audience of about 600 – 800 people, scared to death to the point of being shaky, and declared “a prodigy” by professionals, using terms such as “oh my god, listen to this”. Even then, I didn’t care and wholly resented the “pressure” to perform “for them”. No one heard my plea that this was “just me”, and that I was only using the piano as an implement to describe what I was feeling – and expression tool – an extension of my body to express. I could never understand “why” everyone made such a fuss over what was “just me”.

M: By age 13 or 14 or so, it was discovered that I could simply compose spontaneously based on what I was trying to ‘say’ to myself, FOR myself, at the time. About that time, having recognized that the music department was using me for political gain and funding, “they” decided that I had to have a higher teacher (up to this point, there had been a sequence of three, but #1 and #2 were my favorites because they nourished my expression – in other words, did not meddle). This teacher approached the piano like a drill instructor in the Marine Corps with strict cadence and music selections that were intended for one purpose: win competition.

M: That did it. No power on earth could make me play the piano. Halt. Stop. Perhaps it was the wooden ruler smacking the top of the keyboard that did it, and the temper tantrum from this new instructor. In any case, the piano was history for me until approximately age 22 when I discovered that it was an important element of expression, but there was no longer a mentor as there had been in the early years, so the attempt was half-hearted. About age 33, with many other things falling apart in my life and immediately before joining with the psychologist group previously mentioned, with some encouragement of a neighbor who had a Steinway “C” (about 7′ 6″) and some assistance in locating pianos, searched for a concert grand (9′), because that is was I had grown up with, and the acoustic result and touch needed to be replicated from my past. After several weeks, and perhaps fifty pianos, I found ‘my piano’ and it remains with me today so that I can be expressive for myself, and very – very rarely for any other, and even then on my own selection. I have composed perhaps 35 multi-movement pieces, each movement with it’s own emotion and communication, and wholly refuse to publish.

R: (Note: More removed story)

M: To me, this is just simply another example of mismanaged youth and certainly what I have reported to you above is another example. The facts of history – our individual histories – are important in the recapitulation of ourselves. The ultimate resolution is, though, what we eventually do about it.

M: Since you mentioned it for yourself, I was born in San Diego. My mother, the Sevillana, born of nobility, married my father overseas. He was a Captain in the Marine Corps at the time, having graduated from Annapolis. They had been married for about eight years, having travelled through pre-Maoist China in the period of ‘the sand pebbles’ (Yangtze river patrol) in the mid-30’s. In early 1941, they conceived their only child. In Fall of 1941, working from wherever they were at the time (don’t know) overseas, my father was re-assigned to Pearl Harbor to become commander of a Marine Corps detachment on the Battleship Oklahoma based at Pearl. My father would not allow his pregnant wife to travel to Pearl. As a ranking officer (Major, I believe by then) he had some information. My mother, who had a measured I.Q. of something like 205, played wonderful piano, could speak fluently Spanish (naturally), English, French and German, was sent into San Diego (the Military can move people to their bases quickly), came into the United States, a citizen of Spain but the wife of a ranking officer, and 5 days later, I popped out, in the middle of November 1941. About three weeks later, the Japanese attacked my father’s battleships at Pearl and he went to war. My mother had no domestic skills (she spent her pre-married life going to school and deciding what yacht to go out on) and the country mobilized for war, removing her domestic support system. My father’s family had/has a ranch along the eastern border near the Sabine River – with cattle ranching lands north of San Antonio, and San Diego was considered to be a military target, so the threat problem and the support structure for mother and self was resolved by sending us to a rural area.

M: Rural life and my mother’s (ah, well, social stature) was difficult for her, but at least we were relatively safe and she had a structure. I will never forget the day, about 1945, that a man appeared: my father. I had no idea who he was, was not imprinted with a father, didn’t know what ‘a father was’ by then. My mother and self would read Thomas Merton, Thomas Aquinas, and other philosophers, (didn’t get many comic books) and the ranch had no other children so I grew up in relative isolation, raised by very gentle grandparents and my intellectual mom. We spent a great deal of time “contemplating” the ways things work. I had no children to play with. None. The closest town was about 19 miles away. My play companion was my imagination and a cocker spaniel.