When the two policemen ran back to us, blowing their whistles, drawn by the noise of the car doors being opened and closed, don Juan very nimbly rushed to meet them. He listened to them attentively and assured them they had nothing to worry about. He explained that they must have encountered his father,
a feeble old Indian who suffered from brain damage. As he talked to them, he opened and closed the car doors, as if checking the locks. He moved the packages from the trunk to the back seat. His agility and youthful strength were the opposite of the old man’s movements of a few minutes ago. I knew that he was acting for the benefit of the policeman who had seen him before. If I had been that man, there would have been no doubt in my mind that I was now seeing the son of the old brain-damaged Indian.
Don Juan gave them the name of the restaurant where they knew his father and then bribed them shamelessly.
I did not bother to say anything to the policemen. There was something that made me feel hard, cold, efficient, silent.
We got in the car without a word. The policemen did not attempt to ask me anything. They seemed too tired even to try. We drove away.
“What kind of act did you pull out there, don Juan?” I asked, and the coldness in my tone surprised me.
“It was the first lesson in ruthlessness,” he said.
He remarked that on our way to Guaymas he had warned me about the impending lesson on ruthlessness.
I confessed that I had not paid attention because I had thought that we were just making conversation to break the monotony of driving.
“I never just make conversation,” he said sternly. “You should know that by now. What I did this afternoon was to create the proper situation for you to move your assemblage point to the precise spot where pity disappears. That spot is known as the place of no pity.
“The problem that sorcerers have to solve,” tie went on, “is that the place of no pity has to be reached with only minimal help. The nagual sets the scene, but it is the apprentice who makes his assemblage point move.
“Today you just did that. I helped you, perhaps a bit overdramatically, by moving my own assemblage point to a specific position that made me into a feeble and unpredictable old man. I was not just acting old and feeble. I was old.”
The mischievous glint in his eyes told me that he was enjoying the moment.
“It was not absolutely necessary that I do that,” he went on. “I could have directed you to move your assemblage point without the hard tactics, but I couldn’t help myself. Since this event will never be repeated, I wanted to know whether or not I could act, in some measure, like my own benefactor. Believe me, I surprised myself as much as I must have surprised you.”
I felt incredibly at ease. I had no problems in accepting what he was saying to me, and no questions, because I understood everything without needing him to explain.
He then said something which I already knew, but could not verbalize, because I would not have been able to find the appropriate words to describe it. He said that everything sorcerers did was done as a consequence of a movement of their assemblage points, and that such movements were ruled by the amount of energy sorcerers had at their command.
I mentioned to don Juan that I knew all that and much more. And he commented that inside every human being was a gigantic, dark lake of silent knowledge which each of us could intuit. He told me I could intuit it perhaps with a bit more clarity than the average man because of my involvement in the warrior’s path. He then said that sorcerers were the only beings on earth who deliberately went beyond the intuitive level by training themselves to do two transcendental things: first, to conceive the existence of the assemblage point, and second, to make that assemblage point move.
He emphasized over and over that the most sophisticated knowledge sorcerers possessed was of our potential as perceiving beings, and the knowledge that the content of perception depended on the position of the assemblage point.
At that point I began to experience a unique difficulty in concentrating on what he was saying, not because I was distracted or fatigued, but because my mind, on its own, had started to play the game of anticipating his words. It was as if an unknown part of myself were inside me, trying unsuccessfully to find adequate words to voice a thought. As don Juan spoke, I felt I could anticipate how he was going to express my own silent thoughts. I was thrilled to realize his choice of words was always better than mine could have been. But anticipating his words also diminished my concentration.
I abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. And right there I had, for the first time in my life, a clear knowledge of a dualism in me. Two obviously separate parts were within my being. One was extremely old, at ease, indifferent. It was heavy, dark, and connected to everything else. It was the part of me that did not care, because it was equal to anything. It enjoyed things with no expectation. The other part was light, new, fluffy, agitated. It was nervous, fast. It cared about itself because it was insecure and did not enjoy anything, simply because it lacked the capacity to connect itself to anything. It was alone, on the surface, vulnerable. That was the part with which I looked at the world.
I deliberately looked around with that part. Everywhere I looked I saw extensive farmlands. And that insecure, fluffy, and caring part of me got caught between being proud of the industriousness of man and being sad at the sight of the magnificent old Sonoran desert turned into an orderly scene of furrows and domesticated plants.
The old, dark, heavy part of me did not care. And the two parts entered into a debate. The fluffy part wanted the heavy part to care, and the heavy part wanted the other one to stop fretting, and to enjoy.
“Why did you stop?” don Juan asked.
His voice produced a reaction, but it would be inaccurate to say that it was I who reacted. The sound of his voice seemed to solidify the fluffy part, and suddenly I was recognizably myself.
I described to don Juan the realization I had just had about my dualism. As he began to explain it in terms of the position of the assemblage point I lost my solidity. The fluffy part became as fluffy as it had been when I first noticed my dualism, and once again I knew what don Juan was explaining.
He said that when the assemblage point moves and reaches the place of no pity, the position of rationality and common sense becomes weak. The sensation I was having of an older, dark, silent side was a view of the antecedents of reason.
“I know exactly what you are saying,” I told him. “I know a great number of things, but I can’t speak of what I know. I don’t know how to begin.”
“I have mentioned this to you already,” he said. “What you are experiencing and call dualism is a view from another position of your assemblage point. From that position, you can feel the older side of man. And what the older side of man knows is called silent knowledge. It’s a knowledge that you cannot yet voice.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because in order to voice it, it is necessary for you to have and use an inordinate amount of energy,” he replied. “You don’t at this time have that kind of energy to spare.
“Silent knowledge is something that all of us have,” he went on. “Something that has complete mastery, complete knowledge of everything. But it cannot think, therefore, it cannot speak of what it knows.
“Sorcerers believe that when man became aware that he knew, and wanted to be conscious of what he knew, he lost sight of what he knew. This silent knowledge, which you cannot describe, is, of course, intent —the spirit, the abstract. Man’s error was to want to know it directly, the way he knew everyday life. The more he wanted, the more ephemeral it became.”
“But what does that mean in plain words, don Juan?” I asked.
“It means that man gave up silent knowledge for the world of reason,” he replied. “The more he clings to the world of reason, the more ephemeral intent becomes.”
I started the car and we drove in silence. Don Juan did not attempt to give me directions or tell me how to drive—a thing he often did in order to exacerbate my self-importance. I had no clear idea where I was going, yet something in me knew. I let that part take over.