Encounters With The Nagual: Part 1 - Chapter 04. Self-Importance.

Encounters With The Nagual © 2004 by Armando Torres:

Part 1 - Chapter 04. Self-Importance.

I arrived in the hotel lobby at the agreed time, and I had barely waited one minute when I saw Carlos coming down from the rooms upstairs. We greeted each other and went into the restaurant where a delicious breakfast was served. At one point, I wanted to ask him something, but he made a gesture that I should shut my mouth. We ate in silence.

When we were done, we left the hotel, and walked down to Donceles street, towards the zocalo.

While we browsed through the second hand bookstores, Carlos told me that he generally did not speak privately with people, but that my case was different because he had received an 'indication' about it.

I did not know what he was talking about and I preferred to stay quiet since any comment I might make would only show my ignorance.

Carlos added that I should not confuse his deference toward me as being a personal concern.

He explained, saying, "I have said many times that my energetic condition prevents me from taking pupils, and people are disappointed with me because of that. But there is no way."

We talked about all kinds of things. He asked me many questions about my life, asked for my phone number, and told me that he was giving a talk at a friend's house the following night.

Carlos invited me to attend, but said our relationship should remain secret.

I replied that I would love to be there, and he gave me the address and the schedule.

In one of the bookstores we visited, we came across a copy of one of his books called "A Separate Reality". It was on the fiction shelf; which annoyed him a lot.

Carlos commented that people are so wrapped up in their everyday existence that they can not even conceive of the mystery that surrounds us. When they encounter something unknown, they automatically classify it in a comfortable category and then they forget it.

I noticed that he thumbed through the books with great interest and that he would sometimes fondly and respectfully brush his hand over them. He said that some of them were more than just books. They were at times storage rooms of inner knowledge. He said that we could surrender to that silent knowledge in whatever form it was shown to us.

He added that the information we need in order to increase our awareness hides in places we rarely think of, and, if we were not so rigid, then everything in our surroundings would tell us incredible secrets.

Carlos said to me, "All we need to do is open ourselves to knowledge, and it will come rushing to us like an avalanche."

While studying a table of books that were so cheap they were almost free, he was struck by how cheap used books were compared to new ones. In his opinion it proved that people are not really looking for information. What they look for is achieving the status of a buyer.

I asked him what kind of reading he preferred and he answered that he would like to know everything. However, today he was looking for a certain book of poetry, a particular, old edition which had never been printed again. He asked me to help him find it.

For a long time, we leafed through heaps of books. At the end, he went out with a package of them, but not the one he was looking for. With a guilty smile, Carlos admitted, "This always happens to me."

Near noon, Carlos and I sat down to rest on a bench in a square where various printers were offering their services. I took the opportunity to confess that his statements of the previous night had left me perplexed, and asked him to explain in more detail what 'the war of the sorcerers' was about.

He very kindly explained that it was natural that the topic should affect me since, like all human beings, I had been taught from birth to perceive the world in much the same way as a sheep in a flock.

He told me stories of his sorcery cohorts, and how after many years of tenaciously fighting their weaknesses they had finally overcome society's collective coercion.

Carlos advised me to be patient, and in due course things would become clear to me.

After a while of relaxed conversation, he shook my hand in what was clearly a gesture of farewell. I could not contain my curiosity, and I asked him what he had meant when he had said that he had an 'indication' about my person.

Instead of responding, he looked attentively at a point above my left shoulder. Immediately my ear became hot and began to hum.

Then he told me that he did not know the answer himself, because he had not been able to read the nature of the sign. But the sign had been something so clear that he was obliged to pay attention.

Carlos added, "I can not guide you, but I can put you in front of an abyss which will test all your abilities.

"It depends on you whether you hurl yourself off it and fly, or whether you run to hide in the security of your routines."

His words made me even more curious, and I asked him what abyss he was talking about.

He told me it was my own dream.

The answer shocked me since he seemed attuned to my internal dilemma.

The following night, it was about fifteen minutes before seven in the evening when I arrived at a nice house near Coyoacan. A pleasant girl who seemed to be the owner of the house greeted me at the door.

I explained that I had been invited to the talk that Carlos was going to give, and she let me enter.

We introduced ourselves, and she told me her name was Martha.

There were eight people in the room. Then another two guests arrived, and shortly thereafter Carlos appeared.

This time, Carlos was dressed in a very formal manner with a tie and a vest, and he was carrying a briefcase which gave him an intellectual look.

As usual, he greeted us effusively.

He began to talk about many topics, and almost un-noticeably he introduced the main subject of this talk-- How to erase self-importance.

As a preamble, he stated that the significant role we grant ourselves in everything we do, say, or think, constitutes a kind of 'cognitive dissonance' which clouds our senses and prevents us from seeing things clearly and objectively.

"We are like atrophied birds. We were born with everything necessary to fly free, however, we are permanently forced to fly in tight circles around our own self. The cord that ties us down is self-importance.

"The path which transforms an ordinary human being into a warrior is very arduous.

"Our sensation of being at the center of everything, and our need to always have the last word, is forever getting in the way. We feel important.

"And as we feel important, any intent to change is a slow, complicated and painful process.

"And our self-importance isolates us. If not for our feeling of self-importance, we would all flow in the sea of awareness.

"We would know that the self does not exist for its own sake, but rather, we would realize that the self's destiny is to feed the Eagle.

"The sense of importance grows in a child while he or she is perfecting their social comprehension. We were trained to construct a world of agreements that we refer to in order to communicate with each other.

"But this gift included an annoying attachment. Our idea of 'me'.

"The self is just a mental construction, and it came from outside of us. It is time we get rid of it."

Carlos said that all the mistakes that occur when we communicate are living proof that the agreement we have received is completely artificial.

"The sorcerers from ancient Mexico, after experimenting for millennia with situations that alter their ways of perceiving the world, discovered a portentous fact.

"We are not forced to live in this single reality because the universe is constructed according to very fluid principles that can accommodate almost infinite forms, and that can produce countless ranges of perception.

"Having verified this, the sorcerers deduced that what human beings actually receive from outside is the ability to fix our attention in one of those ranges in order to recognize and explore it.

"However, as average human beings we molded ourselves to just one of those ranges and learned to perceive it as something unique.

"This is how the idea that we live in an exclusive world arose, and our feelings of self-importance were generated as a consequence.

"No doubt the description of the world we have received and learned is a valuable possession. However, it is similar to the rigid stake that is tied to a tender sapling to strengthen and guide it.

"Our learned world view allows us to grow up as 'normal' people within society, but that society is molded rigidity to just one limited range of our perceptions.

"To achieve this world view we had to learn how to 'skim'-- that is, how to make selective pickings from the enormous volume of data that arrives to our senses.

"But once those few selective perceptions are converted into 'reality', the rigidity of our attention works as an anchor. It ignores the discarded data, and thereby prevents us from exploring our incredible perceptual potential.

"In our desire to manage and control the world which surrounds us, we have given up witnessing everything perceptually possible.

"We sacrifice our potential flights of awareness in exchange for the security of the known.

"We could be impeccable warriors, and we can live strong, audacious, healthy lives overfilling with wonder.

"But will you dare?"

"Your human perceptions have been limited only by timidity; your natual fear of the unfamiliar and of making decisions.

"Our social heritage is a stable house where we can live, but we have transformed it into a fort for the defense of the self-- a jail where we condemn our energy to weaken in lifelong imprisonment.

"Our best years, feelings, and efforts are wasted in forever repairing and bolstering that vaporous house because we have ended up identifying ourselves with it.

"We, as children during our process of becoming socialized beings, grew and acquired a sense of self, and with it we acquired a false conviction of our own importance.

"And that which in the beginning had been a healthy feeling of self-preservation, ends up transformed into a selfish clamor for attention.

"Of all the gifts socialization has bestowed on us, the cruelest is self-importance. It converts us from magically vivid creatures into poor, arrogant, graceless devils."

Pointing at his feet, Carlos said that feeling important induces us to do absurd things.

He said, "Look at me. Once I bought a pair of very fine shoes which weighed almost a kilogram each. I wasted five hundred dollars for the privilege of dragging these big shoes around!

"Because of our self-importance, we are overstuffed to the point of bitterness, envy, and frustration.

"We allow ourselves to be guided by feelings of complacency, and we escape the task of knowing ourselves with pretexts like 'I can not be bothered', or 'how tiring!'

"Yet behind all that, there is an anxiety which we try to silence with an internal dialogue increasingly more dense and less natural."

At this point of his talk, Carlos took a pause in order to respond to some questions. He told us several stories illustrating the way self-importance deforms human beings, and transforms them into rigid shells.

Then Carlos said, "When a sorcerer is confronted with the rigid shells of his fellow human beings, such a warrior does not know whether to laugh or to cry.

"After many years of studying with Don Juan, I became so frightened of his practices that I went away for a while.

"I could not accept what don Juan and my benefactor don Genero were doing to me. It seemed inhuman, and unnecessary. I yearned for sweeter treatment.

"I took the opportunity to visit various spiritual teachers from all over the world, hoping to find some knowledge in their doctrines that would justify my desertion of don Juan.

"I met a Californian guru who considered himself the real McCoy.

"He accepted me as his pupil, and gave me the task of begging for charitable alms in a public square. Thinking that this was a new experience for me that probably would teach me an important lesson, I mustered my courage and did what he requested.

"Later when I returned to him, I said, 'Now you do it!' He became angry with me and expelled me from the class.

"On another trip, I went to see a well-known Hindu teacher.

"I went to his house early in the morning, and stood in line with others. However, this gentleman kept us waiting for hours.

"When he appeared at the top of a stairway, he had a condescending air as if he were granting us a great favor by acknowledging us.

"He began to descend the steps in a very dignified manner, but his feet got entangled in his ample tunic. He fell to the floor, cracked his head, and died there right in front of us."

Carlos told us that the demon of self-importance does not only affect those who believe themselves to be masters. It is a general problem.

For example, one of the strongest ramparts of self-importance is the concern with one's personal appearance.

Carlos said, "My stature was always a sore spot for me, so don Juan used to stoke the fire of my self-importance by making fun of my size and looks.

"He once told me, 'The shorter someone is, the more an egomaniac. You are small, and ugly as a bedbug, so you think your only option is to be famous because otherwise you do not exist.'

"Strangely, don Juan said that the mere sight of me made him want to vomit, but he added that he was infinitely grateful to me for this.

"I was convinced that he exaggerated my defects, so I let myself be offended by his comments.

"But one day I was in a store in Los Angeles, and I came to realize that he had been right.

"I heard a man beside me say 'Short', and I felt so irritated that, without stopping to think, I turned around and punched him furiously in the face.

"Afterwards, I realized that the man had not made the comment about me at all. He had just been short of money.

"One piece of advice don Juan gave us was that, during our training as warriors, we should abstain from using what he called 'tools for the perpetuation of the self'.

"This category included such things as mirrors, the exhibition of academic titles, or albums of pictures with our personal history.

"The sorcerers of don Juan's group took this advice literally, while the apprentices initially did not.

"However, I eventually adopted his recommendation but I did so in an extreme way, and from then on I did not even allow anyone to take pictures of me.

"Once, during a lecture, I explained that pictures are a perpetuation of self-concern, and that the purpose behind my reluctance to be photographed was to maintain a measure of doubt about my person.

"Later, a more salient reason presented itself to me for consideration when I found out that a certain lady among the lecture's attendees, who believed herself to be a spiritual guide, had commented that if she had the face of a Mexican waiter she would not allow herself to be photographed either.

"So, while observing the quirks of self-importance and the homogeneous way it contaminates absolutely everybody, the seers have divided human beings into categories to which Don Juan gave the most ridiculous names he could think.

"The urines, the farts, and the vomits.

"We all fit into one of them.

"The urines are characterized by their servility: They are toady, sticky, and cloying. They are the people who always want to do you a favor. They take care of you. They hold you back. They pamper you. They have so much compassion! In that way they hide the underlying reality. They are incapable of taking an initiative, and can never do anything by themselves. They need another person's command to feel that they are doing something. And, unfortunately for them, they assume that others are as kind as they are, and because of that they are always hurt, disappointed, and tearful.

"The farts, on the other hand, are the opposite. Irritating, mean and self-sufficient, they constantly impose themselves and interfere. Once they get hold of you, they will not leave you alone. They are the most unpleasant people you will ever meet. If you are calm, the fart will arrive and wind you up and pull you in, and use you as much as possible. They have a natural gift as teachers and humanity's leaders, and they are the kind who will kill to stay in power.

"The vomits are in-between these two categories. As neutrals, they are neither imposing nor will they be led. They are show-offs, ostentatious, and exhibitionistic. They give you the impression that they are something great, but in actual fact they are nothing. It is all boast. They are caricatures of people who believe too much in themselves, but, if you do not pay any attention to them, they are undone by their insignificance."

Somebody in the audience asked him if belonging to one of those categories is an obligatory characteristic-- that is to say, an innate condition of our luminosity.

Carlos answered, "Nobody is born like this. We were influenced to make ourselves this way.

"We get into one or the other of those categories because of some tiny incident that has marked us in childhood-- whether it was pressure from our parents, or from other ponderable factors we have long forgotten.

"It starts there, and as we grow up, we become so involved in the defense of the self that at some point we can no longer remember the day we stopped being authentic, and became actors instead.

"When an apprentice enters the world of sorcerers, his basic personality is already formed, and nothing can cancel it out. The only option left is to laugh at it all.

"Sorcerers that see can detect what type of importance we grant ourselves because our nature is molded over the years; producing permanent deformities in the energetic field that surrounds us."

Carlos added that when we sleep, our self-importance occupies the bulk of our awareness in much the same fashion as when we are awake.

Sorcerers see that this is not a condition present at birth.

The basic condition of nagualism, therefore, is losing self-importance because losing self-importance liberates to us a surplus of awareness for our use as we intend our way forward.

Without the precaution of losing self-importance, the warrior's path would otherwise only lead us to a mental state of disorder.

Carlos related, "This is what has happened to many apprentices. They began well by saving their energy and developing their potential.

"But they did not reduce their self-importance in the same measure.

"They did not realize that as they gained power, they were also nurturing a parasite within themselves.

"If we are going to give in to the pressures of the ego, it is preferable that we do so as ordinary men; because a sorcerer who considers themself important is the saddest thing there is.

"Keep in mind that self-importance is treacherous. It can be disguised behind a facade of 'almost impeccable' humility because it is not in a hurry.

"Then, if after an entire life of practicing humility we minimally neglect the struggle against self-importance, there self-importance is again like a virus that was incubated in silence.

"It is like those frogs that wait for years under the sand of the desert, and with the first raindrops, wake up from their lethargy and reproduce.

"Don Juan whipped his benefactorial pupils' self-importance to the point of seeming cruelty.

"But, it is a benefactor's duty to attack the apprentices' self-importance until it explodes."

A benefactor understands the nature of self-importance; so the benefactor need not, and does not, feel pity.

Carlos said, "Don Juan told me that a warrior needs to learn to be humble in preparation for the arduous path ahead. Otherwise, she or he will not have the smallest chance facing the darts of the unknown.

"Don Juan recommended to us, the apprentices, a twenty-four hour vigil to control the octopus of the self.

"We paid no attention to him at the time, except for Eligio who was the most advanced of the apprentices.

"The rest of us surrendered in the most shameful way to our propensities.

"In the case of la Gorda, it has been fatal."

He told us the story of Maria Elena, nick-named 'la Gorda', who had been an advanced pupil of Don Juan.

Maria had developed great power as a warrior, but she did not know how to control her bad habits on the human stage.

Carlos said, "After don Juan left, Maria thought that she had it all under control, but that was not the case as selfish concerns remained attached to her.

"She expected things from our group of warriors, and that finished her."

Soon after Don Juan's directive force had disappeared, Maria began to reproach Carlos for his inadequacy. She felt offended by him because she considered him unable to lead the apprentices to freedom.

Maria justified her feelings toward Carlos because of an energetic anomaly of his which differentiated him from the last 26 naquals of their lineage.

Carlos said, "So she never accepted me as the new nagual and leader.

"She did not keep in mind that my energetic anomaly, too, was a command of the spirit.

"She allied herself with the remaining apprentices, and began to behave as if she were the leader of the party.

"But then what exasperated her most of all was the public success of my books.

"One day, in an outburst of self-sufficiency, Maria gathered us all together, stood in front of us, and screamed, 'Bunch of Suckers. I am leaving.'

"She knew the exercise of 'the fire from within' by means of which she could move her assemblage point to the world of the nagual, and meet up with don Juan and don Genaro.

"But that afternoon she was very agitated. Some of the apprentices tried to calm her, but that infuriated her even more.

"I found myself inhibited and powerless in that situation, and I could not do anything.

"After her brutal effort, which was anything but impeccable, she had a stroke and fell down dead.

"Egomania killed her."

As a moral of this strange story, Carlos added that a warrior never allows himself to reach the point of madness, because to die from an ego-attack is a stupid way to die.

Carlos said, "Self-importance is deadly. It stops the free flow of energy and the free flow of our awareness; and that is fatal.

"Self-importance is responsible for our end as individuals, and one day it may finish us as a species.

"When a warrior learns how to toss self-importance aside, his spirit unfolds jubilantly like a wild animal liberated from its cage, and set free.

"Self-importance can be fought in various ways, but first of all it is necessary to know that it is there.

"If you have a defect but you recognize what it is, half the work is done already. So, above all, realize this.

"Take a board and write on it-- 'Self-importance kills'-- and hang it in the most visible spot in the house.

"Read that sentence every day, and try to remember it while you work.

"Meditate about it if you are so inclined.

"Maybe a moment will arrive in which its meaning penetrates your interior, and you decide to do something.

"To realize 'Self-importance kills' is, by and of itself, a great help, because the fight against the self generates its own impetus.

"Ordinarily, self-importance feeds on our feelings; ranging from our desire to get along with people and to be accepted by others, to our arrogance and sarcasm.

"But self-importance's favorite area of action is pity for oneself and for those who surround us.

"In order to stalk our self-importance, above all, we have to deconstruct our emotions into their smallest particles, and detect the sources that nurture them.

"Feelings rarely present themselves in a pure form. They disguise themselves.

"To hunt them down like rabbits, we have to proceed very delicately and strategically because they are quick, and we cannot reason with them.

"We begin with the most obvious things, like, 'How seriously do I take myself?', 'How attached am I?', 'To what do I dedicate my time?'.

"Those are things that we can begin to change.

"We accumulate enough energy to liberate a little bit of attention, and that in turn will allow us to go deeper still.

"For example, instead of spending hours watching television, going shopping, or talking to our friends about stupid stuff, you could dedicate a small part of that time to doing physical exercises, or to recapitulating your history; or maybe to going alone to a park where you can take your shoes off, and walk barefoot on the grass.

"It seems simple, but with anyone of those chosen practices our sensorial panorama changes. We recover something that was always there but which we had given up for lost.

"Starting from those small changes, you can analyze elements of your self-importance that are more difficult to detect; where your vanity is projected into insanity.

"For example, 'What are my convictions?', 'Do I consider myself immortal?', 'Am I special?, or 'Do I deserve to be noticed?'.

"This kind of analysis enters into the field of beliefs-- the very core of your feelings-- so you should undertake it through internal silence, and make a very fervent commitment to honesty.

Carlos added that those exercises should also be made with a sense of alarm, because it truly is about surviving a powerful attack.

He said, "Realize that self-importance is an implacable poison. We have no time left. Urgency is what we need. It is now or never.

"Otherwise, your mind will have its own way, and use all kind of justifications for keeping you imprisoned."

"Once you have dissected your feelings, re-channel your efforts beyond human concerns to the place of no pity.

"For seers, that place is an area in our luminosity every bit as functional as the area of rationality.

"We can learn how to evaluate the world from a detached point of view, just as we learned as children to judge it from the point of view of reason.

"The only difference is that detachment as a focal point is much closer to the warrior's desired temperance."

"Without the precaution of acknowledging the benefit of total detachment from all human concerns, the emotional turbulence stirred up by the exercise of stalking our self-importance can be so painful that we may turn to suicide or insanity.

"But when an apprentice learns how to contemplate the world from the position of no pity she, or he, stops being just a knot of feelings and becomes a fluid being."

"An apprentice then travels beyond human concerns with their implicit energetic drainage, and the apprentice now heads out into the impersonal universe.

Later, Carlos was addressing the idea of compassion, and he said, "The problem with compassion is that it forces us to see the world through self-indulgence.

"Warriors without compassion are persons who have located their will at the center of indifference-- The place of no pity.

"They do not soothe themselves by saying 'poor me'. They feel no pity for their weaknesses, and they have learned to laugh at themselves.

"Another way to define self-importance is to understand it as the projection of our weaknesses through social interaction.

"It is like the screams and threatening postures that some small animals adopt to hide the fact that they do not really have any defenses.

"We are self-important because we are afraid, and the more fear, the more ego.

"Fortunately for warriors, self-importance has a weak point.

"Self-importance depends on recognition to maintain itself. It is like a kite that needs a current of air to ascend and to stay aloft. Otherwise, the kite will fall down and break.

"If we do not grant any importance to self-importance, it is finished.

"Knowing this, an apprentice renovates their relationships, and learns how to escape those who confirm their 'self'.

"An apprentice frequents those who do not care about anything human.

"A warrior looks for criticism, and Not flattery.

"Every so often, she, or he, may start a new life. They erase their history, change their name, explore new personalities, and thereby annul the suffocating persistence of their ego.

"A warrior puts them-self in situations where their authentic self is forced to take control.

"A power hunter does not have pity, and does not look to anybody else's eyes for some recognition.

"The place of no pity is surprising.

"One attempts to reach it step by step through years of continuous pressure.

"But your reaching it happens suddenly.

"It is like an instantaneous vibration that breaks our mold, and allows us to look at the world with a serene smile.

"For the first time in many years, we feel free of the terrible weight of being ourselves, and we see the reality that surrounds us.

"Once at the place of no pity, we are not alone. An incredible push awaits us.

"Help comes from the core of the Eagle and transports us in a microsecond to universes of sobriety and sanity.

"When we do not have any pity for ourselves, we can face the impact of our personal extinction with elegance.

"Death is the force that gives the warrior value and moderation. Only by looking through the eyes of death can we notice that we are not important.

"Then death comes to live by our side, and begins to tell us its secrets.

"The contact with death's unchangeable nature leaves an indelible mark on the character of the apprentice.

"She, or he, understands, once and for all, that all the energy of the universe is connected.

"There is no world of objects related to each other through physical laws.

"What exists is a panorama of luminous emanations inextricably bundled together.

And if we are so inclined, we can even make some limited interpretations about these luminous bundles; as far as the power of our attention will allow.

"In this world, each of our actions count because they release avalanches in the infinite.

"For that reason, no single action is worth more than any other. None is more important than any other.

"Our journey and our new visions here destroy the tendency we had to be indulgent with ourselves.

"But the warrior is prey to contradictory feelings upon witnessing this universal bond.

"On the one hand we feel indescribable joy and a supreme impersonal reverence toward all that exists.

"On the other hand, a warrior senses their inevitable death and senses a deep sadness that has nothing to do with self-pity.

"This sadness comes from the breast of infinity as a blast of solitude which will never leave the warrior again.

"This new purified feeling gives the warriors the sobriety, the subtlety, and the silence that they need to venture there where all human reasoning fails.

"Under these conditions, self-importance can not sustain itself."