Encounters With The Nagual: Part 2 - Chapter 23. The Mark Of The Nagual.

Encounters With The Nagual © 2004 by Armando Torres:

Part 2 - Chapter 23. The Mark Of The Nagual.

In spite of Carlos' reticence, on another occasion he accepted answering my questions on the topic of stalking as long as we kept to theoretical considerations.

Taking advantage of his goodwill, I asked him to explain the practical uses of the art of stalking.

Carlos explained, "Stalking is the central activity of an energy tracker.

"Although stalking can be applied with astonishing results to our dealings with people, it is designed mainly to tune the practitioner's attention.

"Manipulating and controlling others is an arduous task, but it is incomparably more difficult to control ourselves.

"For that reason, stalking is the technique that distinguishes the nagual.

"Stalking can be defined as the ability to fix the assemblage point in new positions.

"The warrior who is stalking is a hunter, but as opposed to an ordinary hunter who has his mind set on material interests, the warrior pursues a bigger prey; his self-importance.

"That in turn prepares him to face the challenge of dealing with his fellow men-- something that dreaming by itself cannot resolve.

"Sorcerers who do not learn how to stalk turn into grumpy people."

I asked Carlos, "Why?"

He said, "Because they do not have the patience to tolerate people's stupidity.

"Stalking is natural to us due to a characteristic of our animal heritage. To survive we have all developed habits of behavior which mold our energy and help us adapt.

"By studying those routines, an attentive observer can accurately predict the behavior of a animal or a human being at any given moment.

"Warriors know that any habit is an addiction.

"The addition of habits can tie you to the consumption of drugs, or to going to church every Sunday. The difference between those two outcomes is in their forms, and not in their essence.

"In the same way, when we get used to thinking that the world is reasonable, or that the things we believe in are the only reality, we are victims of a habit which clouds our senses, and makes us see only what is familiar to us.

"Routines are templates of behavior that we mechanically follow even when they do not make sense anymore.

"To be a stalker you must free yourself from these imperatives of survival.

"Because a warrior is the owner of his decisions, a warrior stalker is a person who has banished from his life all vestiges of addiction.

"You only have to recover your energetic integrity to be free.

"And since a warrior has freedom of choice, he or she can be involved in calculated forms of behavior whether dealing with people or with other conscious entities.

"Because warriors study the behaviors of others, their resulting conscious maneuvers are no longer a routine participation. It is called stalking."

I asked Carlos, "What is the sense of all this?"

He answered, "From your point of view, it makes no sense.

"Freedom does not obey reasons. It is because freedom exposes the myth of immortality that when you break your routines your entire being shakes."

Pointing at the people returning from work, Carlos told me, "What do you believe they had gone out to do?

"These people went out to live their last day!

"The sad thing is that probably very few of them know it.

"Every day is unique, and the world is not the way everyone has told us it is.

"To cancel the force of habit is a decision that you make once and for all. Starting from that act, a warrior becomes a stalker."

I asked Carlos, "And could it not happen that the warrior may end up making of his purpose something ordinary?"

He responded, "No. And that is something that you have to understand because otherwise your search for impeccability will lose its freshness, and you will end up betraying it.

"To break routines is not the purpose of the path. That is only one of its means.

"The goal is to be aware. Keeping that in mind, another definition of stalking is 'an unbending attention on a total result'.

"That kind of attention applied to hunting an animal results in a prize.

"If we apply unbending attention to another person, it produces a client, a pupil, or a romantic relationship.

"And applied to an inorganic being, stalking attention provides what sorcerers call 'an ally'.

"But only if we apply stalking to ourselves can it be considered a Toltec art. Then it produces something precious. Awareness."