The Power of Silence (22 page)

"That
was the omen," don Juan said. "Hardness and transformation were the
indication of the spirit."

He said
that his first act of the day, as a nagual, was to let me know his intentions.
To that end, he told me in very plain language, but in a surreptitious manner,
that he was going to give me a lesson in ruthlessness.

"Do
you remember now?" he asked. "I talked to the waitress and to an old
lady at the next table."

Guided by
him in this fashion, I did remember don Juan practically flirting with an old
lady and the ill-mannered waitress. He talked to them for a long time while I
ate. He told them idiotically funny stories about graft and corruption in
government, and jokes about farmers in the city. Then he asked the waitress if
she was an American. She said no and laughed at the question. Don Juan said
that that was good, because I was a Mexican-American in search of love. And I
might as well start here, after eating such a good breakfast.

The women
laughed. I thought they laughed at my being embarrassed. Don Juan said to them
that, seriously speaking, I had come to Mexico to find a wife. He asked if they
knew of any honest, modest, chaste woman who wanted to get married and was not
too demanding in matters of male beauty. He referred to himself as my
spokesman.

The women
were laughing very hard. I was truly chagrined. Don Juan turned to the waitress
and asked her if she would marry me. She said that she was engaged. It looked
to me as though she was taking don Juan seriously.

"Why
don't you let him speak for himself?" the old lady asked don Juan.

"Because
he has a speech impediment," he said. "He stutters horribly."

The
waitress said that I had been perfectly normal when I ordered my food.

"Oh!
You're so observant," don Juan said. "Only when he orders food can he
speak like anyone else. I've told him time and time again that if he wants to
learn to speak normally, he has to be ruthless. I brought him here to give him
some lessons in ruthlessness."

"Poor
man," the old woman said.

"Well,
we'd better get going if we are going to find love for him today," don
Juan said as he stood to leave.

"You're
serious about this marriage business," the young waitress said to don
Juan.

"You
bet," he replied. "I'm going to help him get what he needs so he can
cross the border and go to the place of no pity."

I thought
don Juan was calling either marriage or the U.S.A. the place of no pity. I
laughed at the metaphor and stuttered horribly for a moment, which scared the
women to death and made don Juan laugh hysterically.

"It
was imperative that I state my purpose to you then," Juan said, continuing
his explanation. "I did, but it bypassed you completely, as it should
have."

He said
that from the moment the spirit manifested itself, every step was carried to
its satisfactory completion with absolute ease. And my assemblage point reached
the place of no pity, when, under the stress of his transformation, it was
forced to abandon its customary place of self-reflection.

"The
position of self-reflection," don Juan went on, "forces the
assemblage point to assemble a world of sham compassion, but of very real
cruelty and self-centeredness. In that world the only real feelings are those
convenient for one who feels them.

"For a
sorcerer, ruthlessness is not cruelty. Ruthlessness is the opposite of
self-pity or self-importance. Ruthlessness is sobriety."

We spent a
night at the spot where I had recollected my experience in Guaymas. During that
night, because my assemblage point was pliable, don Juan helped me to reach new
positions, which immediately became blurry non-memories.

The next
day I was incapable of remembering what had happened or what I had perceived; I
had, nonetheless, the acute sensation of having had bizarre experiences. Don
Juan agreed that my assemblage point had moved beyond his expectations, yet he
refused to give me even a hint of what I had done. His only comment had been
that some day I would recollect everything.

Around
noon, we continued on up the mountains. We walked in silence and without
stopping until late in the afternoon. As we slowly climbed a mildly steep
mountain ridge, don Juan suddenly spoke. I did not understand any of what he
was saying. He repeated it until I realized he wanted to stop on a wide ledge,
visible from where we were. He was telling me that we would be protected there
from the wind by the boulders and large, bushy shrubs.

"Tell
me, which spot on the ledge would be the best for us to sit out all
night?" he asked.

Earlier, as
we were climbing, I had spotted the almost unnoticeable ledge. It appeared as a
patch of darkness on the face of the mountain. I had identified it with a very
quick glance. Now that don Juan was asking my opinion, I elected a spot of even
greater darkness, one almost black, on the south side of the ledge. The dark
ledge and the almost black spot in it did not generate any feeling of fear or
anxiety. I felt that I liked that ledge. And I liked its dark spot even more.

"That
spot there is very dark, but I like it," I said, when we reached the
ledge.

He agreed
that that was the best place to sit all night. He said it was a place with a
special level of energy, and that he, too, liked its pleasing darkness.

We headed
toward some protruding rocks. Don Juan cleared an area by the boulders and we
sat with our backs against them.

I told him
that on the one hand I thought it had been a lucky guess on my part to choose
that very spot, but on the other I could not overlook the fact that I had
perceived it with my eyes.

"I
wouldn't say that you perceived it exclusively with your eyes," he said.
"It was a bit more complex than that."

"What
do you mean by that, don Juan?" I asked.

"I
mean that you have possibilities you are not yet aware of," he replied.
"Since you're quite careless, you may think that all of what you perceive
is simply average sensory perception."

He said
that if I doubted him, he dared me to go down to the base of the mountain again
and corroborate what he was saying. He predicted that it would be impossible
for me to
see
the dark ledge merely by looking at it.

I stated vehemently
that I had no reason to doubt him. I was not going to climb down that mountain.

He insisted
that we climb down. I thought he was doing it just to tease me. I got nervous,
though, when it occurred to me that he might be serious. He laughed so hard he
choked.

He
commented on the fact that all animals could detect, in their surroundings,
areas with special levels of energy. Most animals were frightened of these
spots and avoided them. The exceptions were mountain lions and coyotes, which
lay and even slept on such spots whenever they happened upon them. But, only
sorcerers deliberately sought such spots for their effects.

I asked him
what the effects were. He said that they gave out imperceptible jolts of
invigorating energy, and he remarked that average men living in natural
settings could find such spots, even though they were not conscious about
having found them nor aware of their effects.

"How
do they know they have found them?" I asked.

"They
never do," he replied. "Sorcerers watching men travel on foot trails
notice right away that men always become tired and rest right on the spot with
a positive level of energy. If, on the other hand, they are going through an
area with an injurious flow of energy, they become nervous and rush. If you ask
them about it they will tell you they rushed through that area because they
felt energized. But it is the opposite - the only place that energizes them is
the place where they feel tired."

He said
that sorcerers are capable of finding such spots by perceiving with their
entire bodies minute surges of energy in their surroundings. The sorcerers'
increased energy, derived from the curtailment of their self-reflection, allows
their senses a greater range of perception.

"I've
been trying to make clear to you that the only worthwhile course of action,
whether for sorcerers or average men, is to restrict our involvement with our
self-image," he continued. "What a nagual aims at with his
apprentices is the shattering of their mirror of self-reflection."

He added
that each apprentice was an individual case, and that the nagual had to let the
spirit decide about the particulars.

"Each
of us has a different degree of attachment to his self-reflection," he
went on. "And that attachment is felt as need. For example, before I started
on the path of knowledge, my life was endless need. And years after the nagual
Julian had taken me under his wing, I was still just as needy, if not more so.

"But
there are examples of people, sorcerers or average men, who need no one. They
get peace, harmony, laughter, knowledge, directly from the spirit. They need no
intermediaries. For you and for me, it's different. I'm your intermediary and
the nagual Julian was mine. Intermediaries, besides providing a minimal chance
- the awareness of intent - help shatter people's mirrors of self-reflection.

"The
only concrete help you ever get from me is that I attack your self-reflection.
If it weren't for that, you would be wasting your time. This is the only real
help you've gotten from me."

"You've
taught me, don Juan, more than anyone in my entire life," I protested.

"I've
taught you all kinds of things in order to trap your attention," he said.
"You'll swear, though, that that teaching has been the important part. It
hasn't. There is very little value in instruction. Sorcerers maintain that
moving the assemblage point is all that matters. And that movement, as you well
know, depends on increased energy and not on instruction."

He then
made an incongruous statement. He said that any human being who would follow a
specific and simple sequence of actions can learn to move his assemblage point.

I pointed
out that he was contradicting himself. To me, a sequence of actions meant
instructions; it meant procedures.

"In
the sorcerers' world there are only contradictions of terms," he replied.
"In practice there are no contradictions. The sequence of actions I am
talking about is one that stems from being aware. To become aware of this
sequence you need a nagual. This is why I've said that the nagual provides a
minimal chance, but that minimal chance is not instruction, like the
instruction you need to learn to operate a machine. The minimal chance consists
of being made aware of the spirit."

He
explained that the specific sequence he had in mind called for being aware that
self-importance is the force which keeps the assemblage point fixed. When
self-importance is curtailed, the energy it requires is no longer expended.
That increased energy then serves as the springboard that launches the
assemblage point, automatically and without premeditation, into an
inconceivable journey.

Once the
assemblage point has moved, the movement itself entails moving from
self-reflection, and this, in turn, assures a clear connecting link with the
spirit. He commented that, after all, it was self-reflection that had
disconnected man from the spirit in the first place.

"As I
have already said to you," don Juan went on, "sorcery is a journey of
return. We return victorious to the spirit, having descended into hell. And
from hell we bring trophies.

Understanding
is one of our trophies."

I told him
that his sequence seemed very easy and very simple when he talked about it, but
that when I had tried to put it into practice I had found it the total
antithesis of ease and simplicity.

"Our
difficulty with this simple progression," he said, "is that most of
us are unwilling to accept that we need so little to get on with. We are geared
to expect instruction, teaching, guides, masters. And when we are told that we
need no one, we don't believe it. We become nervous, then distrustful, and
finally angry and disappointed. If we need help, it is not in methods, but in
emphasis. If someone makes us aware that we need to curtail our
self-importance, that help is real.

"Sorcerers
say we should need no one to convince us that the world is infinitely more
complex than our wildest fantasies. So, why are we dependent? Why do we crave
someone to guide us when we can do it ourselves? Big question, eh?"

Don Juan
did not say anything else. Obviously, he wanted me to ponder the question. But
I had other worries in my mind. My recollection had undermined certain
foundations that I had believed unshakable, and I desperately needed him to
redefine them. I broke the long silence and voiced my concern. I told him that
I had come to accept that it was possible for me to forget whole incidents,
from beginning to end, if they had taken place in heightened awareness. Up to
that day I had had total recall of anything I had done under his guidance in my
state of normal awareness. Yet, having had breakfast with him in Nogales had not existed in my mind prior to my recollecting it. And that event simply must
have taken place in the world of everyday affairs.