Encounters With The Nagual: Part 1 - Chapter 09. The Threshold Of Silence.

Encounters With The Nagual © 2004 by Armando Torres:

Part 1 - Chapter 09. The Threshold Of Silence.

One of Carlos' characteristics was that he was unpredictable. Sometimes he arrived on time to his appointments, other times he was an hour late.

The system had its advantages in that it made the less interested stand up and leave, and forced the more committed to cultivate patience.

One afternoon the appointment was at the University of Mexico.

Among many other questions, he was asked if he believed in God.

In answering, Carlos asked us not to confuse his words with a religious message.

He said, "Sorcerers abide by their experience. They have exchanged 'believing' with seeing. They speak of the spirit, not because they believe in its existence, but because they have seen it.

"But, no, they do not see it as a loving father who watches over us from up above. For them, the spirit is something much more direct and immediate. It is a state of awareness which transcends reason.

"Everything that reaches our senses is a sign from the spirit. The only thing you need to have is the necessary speed to silence your mind and capture the message. By means of these indications, the spirit talks to us in a very clear voice."

One of the people present remarked that, even taken as a metaphor, the idea of listening to the spirit or speaking with it had an excessively religious air.

But Carlos was adamant in his definition.

He said, "That voice is not a metaphor. It is literal. Sometimes it speaks in words. Other times it just whispers, or presents a scene before our eyes, like a movie. In those ways the spirit transmits its commands to us; a command which can be summarized in a single expression. 'Intent. Intent.'

"The voice of the spirit speaks equally to everyone, but generally we do not realize it. We are so preoccupied with our thoughts that instead of being silent and listening, we prefer all kinds of subterfuges. That is why the reminding voice exists."

They asked him what the reminding voice is.

He answered, "It is a resource of our attention, or a way of accessing another level of awareness. We can use almost anything to tune in to the spirit, because, finally, it is behind all that exists. But certain things attract our attention more than others.

"In general, people have their prayers, their amulets, or elaborate rituals either private or collective.

"The ancient sorcerers were prone to mysticism. They used astrology, oracles and incantations, magical sticks-- anything that could deceive the vigilance of reason.

"But for the new seers, those resources are a waste and they hide a danger. Those techniques deviate a person's attention from focusing on his or her immediate bond with the spirit because instead of being lead to freedom from reason, those persons become addicted to symbols.

"Today's warriors prefer less ostentatious methods. Don Juan recommended intending inner silence directly."

Emphasizing the words, Carlos specified that sorcery is 'the art of silence.'

He said, "Silence is a passageway between worlds. When our mind stays silent, incredible aspects of our being emerge. Starting from that moment, a person becomes a vehicle of intent, and all his acts begin to ooze power.

"During my apprenticeship, my benefactor showed me inexplicable feats which frightened me, but at the same time stirred up my ambition. I wanted to be as powerful as he was.

"I often asked him how I could learn his tricks, but he placed a finger on his lips and stared at me. It took years before I could appreciate the magnificent lesson of his answer. The key to sorcery is silence."

One of the present asked Carlos to define that concept.

He answered, "It is not definable. When you practice it, you perceive it. If you try to understand it, you block it.

"Do not see it as something difficult or complex. It is not something from another world. It is just silencing the mind.

"I could tell you that silence is like a dock where ships arrive. If the dock is occupied, there is no space for anything new. That is my image of the matter, but the truth is I do not know how to speak about it."

Carlos explained that inner silence is not only the absence of thoughts, but rather, it is about suspending judgment and witnessing without interpreting. He maintained that entering silence could be defined in the typically contradictory terms of sorcerers as learning, 'How to think without words.'

"For many of you, what I am saying does not make sense because you are accustomed to consult your mind about everything.

"The ironic thing is that, for starters, our thoughts are not even ours. They sound through us-- which is a different matter. And since our thoughts have been pestering us ever since we learned to use our reason, we have ended up getting used to them.

"If you ask your mind, it will tell you that the purpose of sorcerers is nonsense because it cannot be rationally demonstrated. And instead of advising you to go and verify that purpose honestly, your mind will order you to hide behind a solid block of interpretations.

"Therefore, if you want to have a chance, there is only one possible way out. Disconnect your mind. Freedom is achieved without thinking.

"I know people who were able to stop their internal dialogue, and they no longer interpret. They are pure perception. They are never disappointed or regretful because everything they do starts from the center for decisions. They have learned to deal with their mind in terms of authority, and they live in the most authentic state of freedom."

Carlos continued by saying that silence is actually our natural condition.

He said, "We were born from silence and to there we will return. What contaminates us are all the superfluous ideas that percolate through us due to our collective way of living.

"Our relatives-- the primates-- have very ingrained social customs whose objective is to diminish the levels of tension inside the group. For example, they dedicate much of their time to caressing each other, smelling each other, or picking each others' lice.

"Those customs are genetic and they have not died out in us. Those social customs are here inside; within you and within me.

"It is just that human beings have learned how to substitute those particular customs with the exchange of words. Every time we have an opportunity, we tranquillize each other by talking about something.

"After millennia of coexistence, we have internalized these exchanges to the point that, whether we are asleep or awake, our mind is never quiet. It is always talking to itself.

"Don Juan affirmed that we are predatory animals who, by the power of domestication, have been converted into grass-eaters.

"We spend our lives regurgitating an endless list of opinions on almost everything.

"We receive thoughts in clusters, and one thought connects with other thought until the entire space of the mind is packed full.

"That noise has no use to us because almost in its entirety, it is devoted to the enlargement of the ego.

"Because silence goes against everything that we have been taught since we were children, silence should be attempted in a spirit of combat.

"At this moment we have a great advantage in having the experiences of sorcerer stalkers.

"Sorcerers nowadays recommend that we pass through the world without getting any attention and by treating everything equally. A warrior stalker becomes the owner of the situation-- for better or for worse-- because there is something terribly effective about acting without the mind."

Someone in attendance asked Carlos to give us some practical exercises to achieve silence.

He answered that this was a very private matter because the source of the internal dialogue is fed by our personal history.

He said, "However, through millennia of practice, sorcerers have observed that since deep down we are very similar, there are situations that have the effect of silencing all of us.

"My teacher gave me various techniques to silence my mind which when they are well understood can be reduced to a single one. Intent.

"Silence is intended crudely by making the effort. It is about insisting over and over again. Silence does not mean to repress our thoughts, but rather lies in learning how to control our thoughts.

"Silence begins with a command; an act of will which becomes the command of the Eagle.

"However, we must keep in mind that if, and as long as, we 'impose' silence on ourselves, we will never truly be there. Rather we will be trapped in the imposition. We have to learn to transform will into intent.

"Silence is calm. It is to yield and to let yourself go. It produces a sensation of absence like the one a child feels when he stares at fire. How wonderful to remember that feeling and to know that it can be evoked again.

"Silence is the fundamental condition of the path. I spent a lot of years battling to achieve it, but all I did was get entangled in my own attempt.

"In addition to the habitual conversation that was always going on in my mind, I began to blame myself for not being able to understand what it was that Don Juan expected from me.

"Everything changed one day while I was absent-mindedly contemplating some trees. Silence came rushing from them like a wild beast, stopping my world, and hurtling me into a paradoxical state because it was both new and at the same time well-known.

"The technique of observation-- that is, of contemplating the world without preconceived ideas-- works very well with the elements; for example, with flames, running water, cloud formations, or the sunset.

"The new seers call it 'to deceive the machine,' because in essence it consists of learning to intend a new description.

"We have to fight boldly to get it, but after it happens the new state of awareness is sustained naturally. You have a foot inside the door. The door then is already open, and it is just a matter of accumulating enough energy to pass through to the other side.

"It is important that our intent is intelligent. The effort it takes to achieve silence would count for nothing if we did not first create conditions favorable to sustaining it.

"Therefore, besides the training using observation of the elements, a warrior is forced to do something very simple but very difficult. Ordering his or her life.

"We all live in a chain of intensity which we call 'time'. Since we can not see its source, we never stop to think of its end. While we are young we feel eternal, and when we grow old, the only thing left is to complain about the 'wasted time'.

"But that is an illusion. Time is not wasted. We waste ourselves.

"The idea that we have time is a misunderstanding that makes us waste energy on all kinds of commitments. When a man connects with inner silence, he puts a new value on his time. So another way to define silence would be to say that it is an acute awareness of the present.

"An infallible method for reaching silence is not-doing. This is an activity that we program with our mind, but which has the virtue of silencing our thoughts once it is in motion. Don Juan called that kind of technique 'to remove one thorn with another'."

As examples of not-doings, Carlos mentioned 'listening in the dark', 'changing the priority of our senses', and 'changing the command that compels us to fall asleep as soon as we close our eyes'.

He also listed, 'talking with plants', 'standing on our heads', 'walking backwards', 'observing shadows', and 'observing the distance or spaces between the leaves of trees'.

He said, "Any of those activities are effective to silence our internal dialogue, but they all have a defect.

"We cannot sustain them for a long time. After a while, we are forced to return to our routines. A not-doing that is exaggerated will automatically lose its power and become a doing.

"If what we want is to accumulate deep silence with a lasting effect, the best not-doing is solitude. Together with saving energy and abandoning those who consider us as 'facts', learning how to be alone is the third practical principle of the path.

"The warrior's world is the most solitary thing there is. Even when several apprentices unite to travel the routes of power together, each one knows that she or he is alone, and knows that they can not expect anything from the others.

"Nor can they depend on anybody. The only thing they can do is to share their path with those who accompany them.

"To be alone requires a great effort, because initially we will not have yet learned how to overcome the genetic command of socialization.

"In the beginning an apprentice should be forced by the teacher using traps if necessary. But after a while the apprentice learns how to enjoy it.

"It is normal then that sorcerers look for silence in the solitude of mountains or in the desert, and that they live alone during long periods."

Somebody commented that this was 'a hideous perspective'.

Carlos replied, "Hideous is to spend our old age like weeping children.

"One of the ironies of modern life is that the more communication increases, the more solitary we feel. Ordinary man's existence is one of harrowing loneliness. We look for company because we can not find ourselves.

"A socialized beings' love has been devaluated.

"Dreams are pure fantasy.

"Natural curiosity has strictly become a personal concern, and the only thing we will have left is our burdensome attachments.

"On the other hand, the warrior's solitude is like a lovers' retreat.

"It is a place for those who seek a remote niche to write poems to their love. And the warriors' love is everywhere, because their love is for this Earth, where we will wander for such a brief time.

"And so wherever a warrior goes, that warrior surrenders to this romance.

"Naturally a warrior may avoid dealing with the world of average men. Inner silence is solitary."

Carlos went on to say that the sorcerers of antiquity used power plants to stop the internal dialogue. But today's warriors prefer less risky and more controlled conditions.

"The same results produced by power plants can be obtained when we are up against the wall.

"When facing extreme situations like danger, fear, sensorial saturation, or aggression, something in us reacts and takes control. The mind becomes alert and automatically suspends its chatter. It deliberately creates the situation called stalking.

"However, the favorite method of warriors is recapitulation. Recapitulation stops the mind in a natural way.

"The main detonators of our thoughts are pending matters, expectations, and defense of the ego.

"It is very difficult to find a person whose internal dialogue is sincere. Usually, we hide our frustrations, and go to the opposite extreme where the content of our mind turns into an ode to 'me'.

"To recapitulate puts an end to all that. After a time of sustained effort, something crystallizes inside us. The habitual dialogue becomes incoherent and uncomfortable, and the only remedy is to stop it.

"An apprentice in this phase will normally find himself facing a cross-fire.

"On the one hand is the homogenization of his assemblage point.

"And on the other hand is some enormous parentheses of silence which strains through his mind and breaks it into fragments.

"Whenever and wherever the inertia of the internal dialogue comes to rest, the world is made over and becomes new.

"The resultant wave of energy feels like an unbearable vacuum opening under a warrior's feet. Because of this, a warrior may spend years in an unstable state of mind.

"The only thing that comforts a warrior in such a situation is to keep the purpose of their path clear to himself or herself, and to not lose under any circumstances the perspective of freedom. An impeccable warrior never loses his sanity.

"If, when applying some of these techniques, warriors feel that their minds shiver, and a voice that is not the habitual one begins to whisper things to them, that is normal and they should not be scared.

"They are not going mad. They are entering into the consensus of sorcerers."

Someone asked Carlos if moving the assemblage point also attracts silence.

He answered, "It is the opposite. Inner silence induces displacements of the assemblage point. And these displacements are cumulative.

"Once a certain threshold is reached, silence can move the point a great distance by itself, but not before inner silence is reached."

Carlos explained that the forces of society's collective consent creates a certain level of impedance that varies from person to person according to their energetic characteristics.

He said that overcoming the resistance of the world's description can vary from some seconds to an hour or more, but silence will come. To conquer the world's description by means of a sustained intent is what sorcerers call 'arriving at the threshold of silence.'

Carlos explained, saying, "That rupture is felt physically as a crack in the base of the skull, or as the sound of a bell. From that starting point, it becomes a matter of how much power has been accumulated as to how far we can go.

"There are those who have stopped their dialogue for some seconds and immediately get scared. They begin to wonder about things, or begin to describe what they feel to themselves.

"Others learn how to remain in that state for hours or days, and they even use it for useful activities.

"For example there are my books that on Don Juan's demand I have written from a basic state of silence.

"But experienced sorcerers go even further than that. They can enter the other world in a definite form.

"I met a warrior who lived there almost permanently. When I asked him something he answered by telling me what he was seeing; without caring if that answer was coherent with my question. He lived beyond my syntax. From my apprentice point of view, of course, he was crazy.

"In spite of its indefinable nature, we can measure silence through its results. Its final effect-- the one that sorcerers look for with avidity-- is that it brings us in tune with a magnificent dimension of our being where we have access to an instantaneous and total knowledge.

"This knowledge is not composed of reasons, but of certainties. Old traditions might describe that state as 'the kingdom of Heaven', but sorcerers prefer to give it a less personal name; silent knowledge.

"You can say that a man who controls silence has cleansed his bond with the spirit, and power rains down on him in streams. A snap of the fingers, and pow! The world is another.

"Don Juan referred to that state as 'the deadly somersault of thought', because we begin in the everyday world, but we never return there again."

The strange power of fascination that Carlos' talks had on me, made the mere idea of missing one of those encounters unbearably painful.

I remarked on it once, and he responded, "You are already hooked. Don Juan always incited everyone who surrounded him to have a romance with his knowledge."

I asked him what he meant.

Carlos explained, "It is the pure desire to know-- not to feel apathy-- to be vividly interested in what the spirit comes to tell you without your expecting anything from it. Having a passionate romance with knowledge is the only thing that can give us the power we need not to falter when signs are pointing in the direction of the unknown.

"When your path no longer corresponds to human expectations, and when it takes you to situations that challenge your reason, then we can say that you have begun an intimate relationship with knowledge.

"You had extraordinary luck when you silenced your mind for the moment which allowed power to point you out to me; but that is not enough.

"Now you have to adjust yourself to the spirit's message so that your life becomes the life of a warrior. From now on, your work will consist of cultivating an honest and clean bond with infinity."