Version 2007.11.06

## "Encounters With The Nagual" - ©2004 by Armando Torres
Part II. Warriors' Dialogue

### The Mark Of The Nagual

In spite of his reticence, [* reticence- the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary] on another occasion Carlos himself 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.

He explained:

"Stalking is the central activity of an energy tracker. Although it can be applied with astonishing results to our dealings with people, it is designed mainly to tune the practitioner. 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 his material interests, the warrior pursues a bigger prey; his self-importance. That prepares him to face the challenge of dealing with his fellow men-something that dreaming by itself cannot resolve. Sorcerers who don't learn how to stalk, turn into grumpy people."

"Why?"

"Because they don't 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 an animal or a human being at any given moment.

"Warriors know that any habit is an addiction. It can tie you to the consumption of drugs, or going to church every Sunday: The difference is in form, not in 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's familiar to us.

"Routines are templates of behavior, which we mechanically follow even when they don't make sense anymore. To be a stalker, you must have freed yourself from these imperatives of survival.

"Because he is the owner of his decisions, a warrior stalker is a person who has banished from his life all vestiges of addiction. He only has to recover his energetic integrity to be free. And since he has freedom of choice, he can be involved in calculated forms of behavior; either to deal with people or with other conscious entities.

"The result of this maneuver is not a routine participation, but stalking; because it consists of studying the behaviors of others."

"What is the sense of all this?"

He answered:

"From your point of view, none. Freedom doesn't obey reasons. However, your entire being shakes when you break your routines, because it exposes the myth of immortality."

Pointing at people returning from work, he told me:

"What do you believe they went 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."

"And couldn't it happen that the warrior may end up making of his purpose something ordinary"

"No. This 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; it 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 an animal results in a hunting piece. If we apply unbending attention to another person, it produces a client, a pupil, or a romantic relationship. And applied to an inorganic being, it provides what sorcerers call 'an ally'. But only if we apply stalking to ourselves, can it be considered a Toltec art, because it produces something precious: Awareness."