Encounters With The Nagual: Part 2 - Chapter 13. Practicing Silence.

Encounters With The Nagual © 2004 by Armando Torres:

Part 2 - Chapter 13. Practicing Silence.

As a base for inner silence, Carlos suggested that I fight against what he called my 'domestic condition'; that is, my membership in a social group. He referred to that as a first step toward freedom.

He said, "To put our interactions on trial means, to analyze all over again a heap of things we have always considered as facts, beginning with our sexual role, and ending with our involvement in family obligations, and religious and civic commitments.

"The purpose is not to judge or to subvert anything, but to observe. Observing, in itself, has an effect on things."

I asked Carlos to explain how the passive act of witnessing can modify anything.

He answered that attention, however tenuous, is never passive because it is made from the same matter which makes up the universe. Even the mere act of exercising our attention implies an energy transfer.

Carlos explained, saying, "It is like velocity which when applied to an object adds force to it. Likewise, the focus of our attention adds more reality to things.

"However, our common reality has a limit. Beyond that limit, the world we know disintegrates.

"The secret of the sorcerers' marvels is the channeling of attention. It does not matter how they apply it-- nor whether for good or for bad.

"The sorcerer's intention is that which changes; not the force of their focus. For the new seers, the magic of sorcery is not in its results, but in the ways we get to them.

"In conclusion, as an apprentice, your best intent is silencing your mind."

The next time I returned to see Carlos, I admitted that, although I had spent much time trying to follow his advice, I did not notice any substantial advance in my struggle to achieve inner silence. On the contrary, I had noticed that my thoughts were more agitated and more confused than ever.

He explained that this sensation is a normal consequence of the practice.

Carlos said to me, "Like all beginners, you are trying to classify silence like another element in your inventory of beliefs.

"The objective of your inventory should be to make you aware of the weight of our prejudices. We use almost all our available energy on maintaining an image of the world, and we do it by means of conscious or unconscious suggestions.

"When an apprentice is liberated from that jail, he has the sensation that he has fallen into an ocean of peace and silence. It does not matter if he speaks, sings, cries, or meditates, that sensation remains.

"In the first stages of the path, it is very difficult to handle silence as a practice. As soon as we detect an absence of thoughts, a mischievous little voice congratulates us for it. And that automatically breaks the state of silence.

"The problem happens because you confuse the objective of sorcerers with an ideal. The concept of 'silence' is too delicate for a mind like yours; accustomed as it is to classifications. It is obvious that you have thought about the exercise in auditory terms, as a lack of sound. But that is not what it is about.

"What sorcerers want is something simpler. They try to resist the suggestions, and that is all.

"If you are able to make yourself the owner of your mind, and you are able to think properly without prejudice or false convictions, you will be able to cancel out the domesticated part of your nature. This is a supreme achievement. Then you will understand what the exercise is about.

"Once you learn how to prevent the commands of your mind, without your being offended by them, and without your giving them any kind of attention, they will stay in your interior for some time, but eventually they will leave.

"So, it is not so much a question of preventing them, but rather of killing them with boredom.

"To reach that state, you have to rattle your inventory of ideas.

"I asked you to begin with your beliefs, but it would have worked equally well if, for example, you had listed all of your relationships and affections; or the most attractive elements in your personal history; or your hopes, goals, and concerns; or your likes, preferences, and aversions.

"The important thing is that you become aware of your thought patterns.

"The maintenance of all inventories is based on the order of its components. When we rattle that order, or when it lacks some of the pieces that we gave it, the whole pattern begins to crumble.

"This is the way it is with routines of the mind. If you change one parameter, suddenly there is an open door where once there was a wall; and that changes everything.

"And the mind will tremble. That is what you have been experiencing as thee extraordinary activation of your interior dialogue.

"You did not even notice your interior dialogue before, but now you know it is there. Eventually, someday, your internal dialogue's presence will be so heavy that you will do something about it.

"That day you will stop being an ordinary man, and will become a sorcerer."