I felt I should be sad and weep, but something in me was so overjoyed to hear that the nagual Juan Matus was about to be free that I jumped and yelled with sheer delight. I knew that sooner or later I would reach another state of awareness and I would weep with sadness. But that day I was filled with happiness and optimism.
I told don Juan how I felt. He laughed and patted my back.
“Remember what I’ve told you,” he said. “Don’t count on emotional realizations. Let your assemblage point move first, then years later have the realization.”
We walked to the big room and sat down to talk. Don Juan hesitated for a moment. He looked out of the window. From my chair I could see the patio. It was early afternoon; a cloudy day. It looked like rain. Thunderhead clouds were moving in from the west. I liked cloudy days. Don Juan did not. He seemed rest-less as he tried to find a more comfortable sitting position.
Don Juan began his elucidation by commenting that the difficulty in remembering what takes place in heightened awareness is due to the infinitude of positions that the assemblage point can adopt after being loosened from its normal setting. Facility in remembering everything that takes place in normal awareness, on the other hand, has to do with the fixity of the assemblage point on one spot, the spot where it normally sets.
He told me that he commiserated with me. He suggested that I accept the difficulty of recollecting and acknowledge that I might fail in my task and never be able to realign all the emanations that he had helped me align.
“Think of it this way,” he said, smiling. “You may never be able to remember this very conversation that we are having now, which at this moment seems to you so commonplace, so taken for granted.
“This indeed is the mystery of awareness. Human beings reek of that mystery; we reek of darkness, of things which are inexplicable. To regard ourselves in any other terms is madness. So don’t demean the mystery of man in you by feeling sorry for yourself or by trying to rationalize it. Demean the stupidity of man in you by understanding it. But don’t apologize for either; both are needed.
“One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against the stupidity in each of us.”
He explained that stalking practices are not something one can rejoice in; in fact, they are downright objectionable. Knowing this, the new seers realize that it would be against everybody’s interest to discuss or practice the principles of stalking in normal awareness.
I pointed out to him an incongruity. He had said that there is no way for warriors to act in the world while they are in heightened awareness, and he had also said that stalking is simply behaving with people in specific ways. The two statements contradicted each other.
“By not teaching it in normal awareness I was referring only to teaching it to a nagual,” he said. “The purpose of stalking is twofold: first, to move the assemblage point as steadily and safely as possible, and nothing can do the job as well as stalking: second, to imprint its principles at such a deep level that the human inventory is bypassed, as is the natural reaction of refusing and judging something that may be offensive to reason.”
I told him that I sincerely doubted I could judge or refuse anything like that. He laughed and said that I could not be an exception, that I would react like everyone else once I heard about the deeds of a master stalker, such as his benefactor, the nagual Julian.
“I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the na-gual Julian was the most extraordinary stalker I have ever met,” don Juan said. “You have already heard about his stalking skills from everybody else. But I’ve never told you what he did to me.”
I wanted to make it clear to him that I had not heard anything about the nagual Julian from anyone, but just before I voiced my protest a strange feeling of uncertainty swept over me. Don Juan seemed to know instantly what I was feeling. He chuckled with delight.
“You can’t remember, because will is not available to you yet,” he said. “You need a life of impeccability and a great surplus of energy, and then will might release those memories.
“I am going to tell you the story of how the nagual Julian behaved with me when I first met him. If you judge him and find his behavior objectionable while you are in heightened awareness, think of how revolted you might be with him in normal awareness.”
I protested that he was setting me up. He assured me that all he wanted to do with his story was to illustrate the manner in which stalkers operate and the reasons why they do it.
“The nagual Julian was the last of the old-time stalkers,” he went on. “He was a stalker not so much because of the circumstances of his life but because that was the bent of his character.”
Don Juan explained that the new seers saw that there are two main groups of human beings: those who care about others and those who do not. In between these two extremes they saw an endless mixture of the two. The nagual Julian belonged to the category of men who do not care; don Juan classified himself as belonging to the opposite category.
“But didn’t you tell me that the nagual Julian was generous, that he would give you the shirt off his back?” I asked.
“He certainly was,” don Juan replied. “Not only was he generous; he was also utterly charming, win-ning. He was always deeply and sincerely interested in everybody around him. He was kind and open and gave away everything he had to anyone who needed it, or to anyone he happened to like. He was in turn loved by everyone, because being a master stalker, he conveyed to them his true feelings: he didn’t give a plugged nickel for any of them.”
I did not say anything, but don Juan was aware of my sense of disbelief or even distress at what he was saying. He chuckled and shook his head from side to side.
“That’s stalking,” he said. “You see, I haven’t even begun my story of the nagual Julian and you are already annoyed.”
He exploded into a giant laugh as I tried to explain what I was feeling.
“The nagual Julian didn’t care about anyone,” he continued. “That’s why he could help people. And he did; he gave them the shirt off his back, because he didn’t give a fig about them.”
“Do you mean, don Juan, that the only ones who help their fellow men are those who don’t give a damn about them?” I asked, truly miffed.
“That’s what stalkers say,” he said with a beaming smile. “The nagual Julian, for instance, was a fabulous curer. He helped thousands and thousands of people, but he never took credit for it. He let people believe that a woman seer of his party was the curer.
“Now, if he had been a man who cared for his fel-low men, he would’ve demanded acknowledgment. Those who care for others care for themselves and demand recognition where recognition is due.”
Don Juan said that he, since he belonged to the category of those who care for their fellow men, had never helped anyone: he felt awkward with generos-ity; he could not even conceive being loved as the nagual Julian was, and he would certainly feel stupid giving anyone the shirt off his back.
“I care so much for my fellow man,” he continued, “that I don’t do anything for him. I wouldn’t know what to do. And I would always have the nagging sense that I was imposing my will on him with my gifts.
“Naturally, I have overcome all these feelings with the warriors’ way. Any warrior can be successful with people, as the nagual Julian was, provided he moves his assemblage point to a position where it is immater-ial whether people like him, dislike him, or ignore him. But that’s not the same.”
Don Juan said that when he first became aware of the stalkers’ principles, as I was then doing, he was as distressed as he could be. The nagual Elias, who was very much like don Juan, explained to him that stalkers like the nagual Julian are natural leaders of people. They can help people do anything.
“The nagual Elias said that these warriors can help people to get cured,” don Juan went on, “or they can help them to get ill. They can help them to find happiness or they can help them to find sorrow. I suggested to the nagual Elias that instead of saying that these warriors help people, we should say that they affect people. He said that they don’t just affect people, but that they actively herd them around.”