Version 2007.11.04

## "Encounters With The Nagual" - ©2004 by Armando Torres
Part I. A Romance with Knowledge

### Self-importance

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Self-importance can be fought in various ways, but first of all it is necessary to know that it's there.

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I arrived in the hotel lobby at the agreed time, and had barely waited one minute when I saw him coming down from the rooms upstairs. We greeted each other and went into the restaurant where a delicious breakfast was served. At one point, I wanted to ask him something, but he made a gesture that I should shut my mouth. We ate in silence.

When we were done, we left to walk down to Donceles street, towards the Zocalo.

While we browsed through the second hand bookstores, he told me that he generally did not speak privately with people, but that my case was different because he had received an indication about it. I didn't know what he was talking about, and I preferred to stay quiet, since any comment I might make would only show my ignorance.

He added that I shouldn't confuse his deference with a personal concern.

"I have said many times that my energetic condition prevents me from taking pupils. People are disappointed with me because of that, but there is no way!"

We talked about all kinds of things. He asked me many questions about my life, asked for my phone number, and told me that he was giving a talk at a friend's house the following night. I was invited to attend, but our relationship should remain secret. I replied that I would love to be there and he gave me the address and the schedule.

In one of the bookstores we visited, we came across a copy of one of his books, called "A Separate Reality". It was on the fiction shelf, which annoyed him a lot. He commented that people are so wrapped up in their everyday existence that they cannot even conceive of the mystery that surrounds us. When we encounter something unknown, we automatically classify it in a comfortable category and then we forget it.

I noticed that he thumbed through the books with great interest and that he would sometimes fondly and respectfully brush his hand over them. He said that they were more than just books, they were storage rooms of knowledge, and that one should surrender to knowledge, no matter in what form it was presented. He added that the information we need in order to increase our awareness hides in places we rarely think of, and if we were not so rigid, everything in our surroundings would tell us incredible secrets.

"All we need to do is open ourselves to knowledge, and it will come rushing to us like an avalanche."

While studying a table of books that were so cheap they were almost free, he was struck by how cheap used books were, compared to new ones. In his opinion, it proved that people are not really looking for information. What they look for is achieving the status of a buyer.

I asked him what kind of reading he preferred and he answered that he would like to know everything. However, today he was looking for a certain book of poetry, a particular, old edition which had never been printed again. He asked me to help him find it.

For a long time, we leafed through heaps of books. At the end, he went out with a package of them, but not the one he was looking for. With a guilty smile, he admitted:

"This always happens to me!"

Near noon, we sat down to rest on a bench in a square where various printers were offering their services. I took the opportunity to confess that his statements of the previous night had left me perplexed, and asked him to explain in more detail what 'the war of the sorcerers' was about.

He explained, in a very kind way, that it was natural that the topic should affect me, since like all human beings I had been taught from birth to perceive the world in much the same way as a flock of sheep. He told me stories of his cohorts, and how after many years of tenaciously fighting their weaknesses they had finally overcome this collective coercion. He advised me to be patient, and in due course things would become clear to me.

After a while of relaxed conversation, he shook my hand in what was clearly a gesture of farewell. I could not contain my curiosity and asked him what he had meant when he said he had had 'an indication' about my person.

Instead of responding, he looked attentively at a point above my left shoulder. Immediately my ear became hot and began to hum. After a while, he told me that he didn't know the answer himself, because he had not been able to read the nature of the sign. But it had been something so clear that he was obliged to pay attention.

He added: "I cannot guide you, but I can put you in front of an abyss which will test all your abilities. It depends on you whether you hurl yourself off it to fly, or run to hide in the security of your routines."

His words made me even more curious. I asked him which abyss he was talking about.

He told me it was my own dream.

The answer shocked me. Somehow, Carlos had noticed my internal dilemma.

It was a quarter to seven when I arrived at a nice house near Coyoacan. A pleasant girl who seemed to be the owner of the house received me. I explained that I had been invited to the talk that Carlos was going to give, and she let me enter. We introduced ourselves: She told me her name was Martha.

There were eight people in the room. Then another two guests arrived, and after them Carlos appeared. As usual, he greeted us effusively. This time, he was dressed in a very formal manner, with a tie and a vest, and he was carrying a briefcase which gave him an intellectual look. He began to talk about many topics and, almost unnoticeably, he introduced the main subject of this talk: How to erase self-importance.

As a preamble, he stated that the significant role we grant ourselves in everything we do, say, or think; constitutes a kind of 'cognitive dissonance' which clouds our senses and prevents us from seeing things clearly and objectively.

"We are like atrophied birds. We were born with everything necessary to fly; however, we are permanently forced to fly in tight circles around our own self. The chain that ties us down is self-importance.

"The path which transforms an ordinary human being into a warrior is very arduous. Our sensation of being at the center of everything, and the need to always have the last word, is forever getting in the way. We feel important. And when one is important, any intent to change is a slow, complicated and painful process.

"That feeling isolates us. If not for that feeling, we would all flow in the sea of awareness, and we would know that the self doesn't exist for its own sake: Its destiny is to feed the Eagle.

"The sense of importance grows in a child while he is perfecting his social comprehension. We have been trained to construct a world of agreements that we can refer to in order to communicate with each other. But this gift included an annoying attachment:

Our idea of 'me'. The self is a mental construction. It came from outside, and its time for us to get rid of it."

Carlos said that all the mistakes that occur when we communicate are living proof that the agreement we have received is completely artificial.

"After experimenting for millennia with situations that alter our ways of perceiving the world, the sorcerers from ancient Mexico discovered a portentous fact: We are not forced to live in a single reality because the universe is constructed according to very fluid principles which can accommodate almost infinite forms producing countless ranges of perception.

"Starting from this verification, they deduced that what human beings actually receive from outside is the ability to fix our attention in one of those ranges in order to explore and recognize it. We mold ourselves to it and learn how to perceive it as something unique. This is how the idea that we live in an exclusive world arose; and the feeling of being an individual self was generated in consequence.

"There is no doubt that the description we have received is a valuable possession, similar to the rigid stake that is tied to a tender sapling to strengthen and guide it. It allows us to grow up as normal people, within a society that is molded to that rigidity. To achieve it, we had to learn how to 'skim'- that is, how to make selective readings from the enormous volume of data that arrives to our senses. But once those readings are converted into 'reality', the rigidity of our attention works as an anchor, because it prevents us from becoming aware of our incredible possibilities.

"Don Juan claimed that what limits human perception is timidity. To be able to manage the world which surrounds us, we have had to give up our perceptual gift; that is, the possibility of witnessing everything. We sacrifice the flight of awareness in exchange for the security of the known. We can live strong, audacious, healthy lives: We can be impeccable warriors; but we don't dare!

"Our heritage is a stable house where we can live, but we have transformed it into a fort for the defense of the self; or rather, into a jail, where we condemn our energy to weaken in lifelong imprisonment. Our best years, feelings, and forces are wasted in forever repairing and bolstering that house because we have wound up identifying ourselves with it.

"In the process of becoming a social being, a growing child acquires a false conviction of his own importance; and what was a healthy feeling of self-preservation in the beginning ends up transformed into a selfish clamor for attention.

"Of all the gifts we have received, self-importance is the cruelest. It converts a magical, vivid creature into a poor, arrogant, graceless devil."

Pointing at his feet, he said that feeling important forces us to do absurd things.

"Look at me! Once I bought a pair of very fine shoes, which weighed almost a kilo each. I wasted five hundred dollars for the privilege of dragging these big shoes around!

"Because of our self-importance, we are stuffed to the point of bitterness, envy, and frustration. We allow ourselves to be guided by feelings of complacency, and we escape from the task of knowing ourselves with pretexts like 'I can't be bothered' or 'how tiring!'. Behind all that, there is an anxiety which we try to silence with an internal dialogue increasingly more dense and less natural."

At this point of his talk, Carlos took a pause in order to respond to some questions. He took the opportunity to tell us several stories illustrating the way self-importance deforms human beings; transforming them into rigid shells. Confronted with them, a warrior doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

"After many years of studying with Don Juan, I became so frightened of his practices that I went away for a while. I could not accept what he and my benefactor were doing to me. It seemed inhuman; unnecessary. I yearned for sweeter treatment! I took the opportunity to visit various spiritual teachers, from all over the world, hoping to find some knowledge in their doctrines that would justify my desertion.

"Once, I met a Californian guru who considered himself the real McCoy. He accepted me as his pupil, and gave me the task of begging for charitable alms in a public square. Thinking that this was a new experience for me, and probably would teach me an important lesson, I mustered my courage and did what he requested. When I returned to him, I said: 'Now you do it!'. He became angry with me and expelled me from the class.

"On another trip, I went to see a well-known Hindu teacher. I went to his house early in the morning, and stood in line with others. However, this gentleman kept us waiting for hours. When he appeared at the top of a stairway, he had a condescending air, as if granting us a great favor by admitting us. He began to descend the steps in a very dignified manner, but his feet got entangled in his ample tunic, and he fell to the floor and cracked his head. He died there, right in front of us."

On another occasion, Carlos told us that the demon of self-importance does not only affect those who believe themselves to be masters: It is a general problem. One of the strongest ramparts of self-importance is the concern with one's personal appearance.

"That was always a sore spot for me. Don Juan used to stoke the fire of my resentment by making fun of my stature. He used to tell me: 'the shorter you are, the more egomaniac! You are small, and ugly as a bedbug; your only option is to be famous because otherwise you don't exist!' He claimed that the mere sight of me made him want to vomit- for which he was infinitely grateful to me.

"I was offended by his comments, since I was convinced that he exaggerated my defects. But one day I came into a store in Los Angeles, and I realized that he was right. I heard someone beside me saying: 'Short!' and I felt so irritated that, without stopping to think, I turned around and punched him furiously in the face. Afterwards, I realized that the man had not made the comment about me at all. He had just been short of money.

"One piece of advice Don Juan gave us was that, during our training as warriors, we should abstain from using what he called 'tools for the perpetuation of the self'. This category included such objects as mirrors, the exhibition of academic titles, and albums of pictures with our personal history. The sorcerers of his group took this advice literally, but we, the apprentices, didn't care. However, for some reason, I interpreted his command in an extreme way, and from then on I did not even allow anyone to take pictures of me.

"Once, during a lecture, I explained that pictures are a perpetuation of self-concern; and that the purpose behind my reluctance was to maintain a measure of doubt about my person. Later I found out that a certain lady among the public, who believed herself to be a spiritual guide, had commented that, if she had had the face of a Mexican waiter, she wouldn't allow herself to be photographed either.

"While observing the quirks of self-importance, and the homogeneous way it contaminates absolutely everybody, the seers have divided human beings into three categories which Don Juan gave the most ridiculous names he could think of: the urines, the farts, and the vomits. We all fit into one of them.

"The urines are characterized by their servility: They are toady, sticky, and cloying. They are the people who always want to do you a favor: They take care of you; They hold you back; They pamper you; They have so much compassion! In that way they hide the underlying reality: They are incapable of taking an initiative, and can never do anything by themselves. They need another person's command to feel that they are doing something. And, unfortunately for them, they assume that others are as kind as they are; and because of that they are always hurt, disappointed, and tearful.

"The farts, on the other hand, are the opposite. Irritating, mean and self-sufficient, they constantly impose themselves and interfere. Once they get hold of you, they won't leave you alone. They are the most unpleasant people you'll ever meet. If you are calm, the fart will arrive and wind you up and pull you in, and use you as much as possible. They have a natural gift as teachers and humanity's leaders. They are the kind who will kill to stay in power.

"The vomits are in-between these two categories. As neutrals, they are neither imposing nor will they be led. They are show-offs, ostentatious, and exhibitionistic. They give you the impression that they are something great, but in actual fact they are nothing. It's all boast. They are caricatures of people who believe too much in themselves, but, if you don't pay any attention to them, they are undone by their insignificance."

Somebody in the audience asked him if belonging to one of those categories is an obligatory characteristic, that is to say, an innate condition of our luminosity.

He answered:

"Nobody is born like this, we make ourselves this way! We get into one or the other of those categories because of some tiny incident that marked us in childhood, whether it is pressure from our parents or other imponderable factors. It starts there, and as we grow up, we become so involved in the defense of the self that at some point we can no longer remember the day we stopped being authentic, and became actors instead. When an apprentice enters the world of sorcerers, his basic personality is already formed, and nothing can cancel it out. The only option left to him is to laugh at it all.

"But, although it is not our congenital condition, sorcerers can detect what type of importance we grant ourselves through their seeing because the molding of our nature over the years produces permanent deformities in the energetic field that surrounds us."

Carlos went on to explain that self-importance feeds on the same kind of energy that lets us dream. Therefore, to lose self-importance is the basic condition of nagualism, because losing self-importance liberates an energy surplus for our use; and also because, without the precaution of losing self-importance, the warrior's path could turn us into aberrations.

"That is what has happened to many apprentices. They began well, saving their energy and developing their potential. But they didn't realize that, as they gained power, they were also nurturing a parasite within themselves. If we are going to give in to the pressures of the ego, it is preferable that we do it as ordinary men because a sorcerer who considers himself important is the saddest thing there is.

"Keep in mind that self-importance is treacherous: It can be disguised behind a facade of almost impeccable humility; because it is not in a hurry. After an entire life of practicing, it only takes a minimum of negligence, a tiny mistake- and there it is again; like a virus that was incubated in silence; or like those frogs that wait for years under the sand of the desert, and with the first raindrops wake up from their lethargy and reproduce.

"Considering its nature, it is a benefactor's duty to attack the apprentices' self-importance until it explodes. The benefactor cannot feel pity. A warrior must learn to be humble in preparation for the arduous path ahead, or he won't have the smallest chance facing the darts of the unknown.

"Don Juan whipped his pupils to the point of cruelty. He recommended a twenty-four hour vigil to control the octopus of the self. Of course, we paid no attention to him! Except for Eligio, the most advanced of the apprentices, the rest of us surrendered in the most shameful way to our propensities. In the case of la Gorda, it was fatal."

He told us the story of Maria Elena, an advanced pupil of Don Juan, who had developed great power as a warrior but didn't know how to control the bad habits of her human stage.

"She thought that she had it all under control, but that was not the case. A very selfish concern, a personal attachment, remained in her: She expected things from the group of warriors, and that finished her.

"La Gorda felt offended with me because she considered me unable to lead the apprentices to freedom, and she never accepted me as the new nagual. Once Don Juan's directive force disappeared she began to reproach me for my inadequacy, or rather my energetic anomaly, without keeping in mind that my energetic anomaly, too, was a command of the spirit. Soon after, she allied herself with the Genaros and the Sisters and began to behave as if she were the leader of the party. But what exasperated her most of all was the public success of my books.

"One day, in an outburst of self-sufficiency, she gathered us all together, stood in front of us and screamed: Bunch of Suckers! I'm leaving!'

"She knew the exercise of the fire from within, by means of which she could move the assemblage point to the world of the nagual and meet up with Don Juan and Don Genaro. But that afternoon she was very agitated. Some of the apprentices tried to calm her, and that infuriated her even more. I could not do anything; the situation inhibited my power.

After a brutal effort, anything but impeccable, she had a stroke and fell down dead. What killed her was her egomania."

As a moral of this strange story, Carlos added that a warrior never allows himself to reach the point of madness, because to die from an ego attack is the stupidest way to die.

"Self-importance is deadly, it stops the free flow of the energy and that is fatal. It is responsible for our end as individuals, and one day it will finish us as a species. When a warrior learns how to toss self-importance aside, his spirit unfolds, jubilant, like a wild animal liberated from its cage and set free.

"Self-importance can be fought in various ways, but first of all it is necessary to know that it's there. If you have a defect and you recognize it, half the work is done already!

"So, above all, realize it. Take a board and write on it: 'Self-importance kills', and hang it in the most visible spot in the house. Read that sentence every day, try to remember it while you work, meditate about it. Maybe the moment in which it's meaning penetrates your interior will arrive, and you decide to do something. To realize it is, by and of itself, a great help, because the fight against the self generates its own impetus.

"Ordinarily, self-importance feeds on our feelings, ranging from the desire to get along with people and be accepted by others, to arrogance and sarcasm. But its favorite area of action is pity for oneself and for those who surround us. In order to stalk it, above all, we have to deconstruct our emotions into their smallest particles, and detect the sources that nurture them.

"Feelings rarely present themselves in a pure form. They disguise themselves. To hunt them down like rabbits, we have to proceed very delicately and strategically because they are quick, and we cannot reason with them.

"We begin with the most obvious things, like: How seriously do I take myself? How attached am I? To what do I dedicate my time? These are things that we can begin to change, accumulating enough energy to liberate a little bit of attention that in turn will allow us to go deeper into the exercise.

"For example, instead of spending hours watching television, going shopping or talking to our friends about stupid stuff, we could dedicate a small part of that time to do physical exercises; to recapitulate our history; or go alone to a park, take our shoes off and walk barefoot on the grass. It seems simple, but with those practices our sensorial panorama changes. We recover something that was always there; which we had given up for lost.

"Starting from those small changes, we can analyze elements more difficult to detect; where our vanity is projected into insanity. For example, what are my convictions? Do I consider myself immortal? Am I special? Do I deserve to be noticed? This kind of analysis enters into the field of beliefs- the very core of our feelings- so you should undertake it through internal silence, and make a very fervent commitment to honesty. Otherwise, the mind will have its own way, and use all kind of justifications."

Carlos added that these exercises should be made with a sense of alarm, because it truly is about surviving a powerful attack.

"Realize that self-importance is an implacable poison. We have no time left: Urgency is what we need. It is now or never!

"Once you have dissected your feelings, you should learn how to rechannel your efforts beyond human concerns to the place of no pity. For seers, that place is an area in our luminosity, every bit as functional as the area of rationality. We can learn how to evaluate the world from a detached point of view, just as we learned as children to judge it from the point of view of reason. The only difference is that detachment as a focal point is much closer to the warrior's temper.

"Without that precaution, the emotional turbulence stirred up by the exercise of stalking our self-importance can be so painful that we may turn to suicide or insanity. When the apprentice learns how to contemplate the world from the position of no pity; perceiving that behind all situations which imply an energetic drain there is an impersonal universe, he stops being just a knot of feelings and becomes a fluid being.

"The problem with compassion is that it forces us to see the world through self-indulgence. A warrior without compassion is a person who has located his will at the center of indifference, and he doesn't soothe himself by saying 'poor me'. He is an individual who feels no pity for his weaknesses, and he has learned to laugh at himself.

"A way to define self-importance, is to understand it as the projection of our weaknesses through social interaction. It is like the screams and threatening postures some small animals adopt, to hide the fact that they don't really have any defenses. We are self-important because we are afraid; and the more fear, the more ego.

"However, and fortunately for warriors, self-importance has a weak point: It depends on recognition to maintain itself. It's like a kite that needs a current of air to ascend and to stay high; otherwise, it will fall down and break. If we don't grant any importance to the importance, it's finished.

"Knowing this, an apprentice renovates his relationships. He learns how to escape those who confirm his self, and frequents those who don't care about anything human. He looks for criticism, not flattery. Every so often, he starts a new life, erases his history, changes his name, explores new personalities, and annuls the suffocating persistence of his ego. He puts himself in situations where his authentic self is forced to take control. A power hunter doesn't have pity: He doesn't look for recognition in anybody else's eyes.

"The state of no pity is surprising. One attempts to reach it, step by step, through years of continuous pressure; but it happens suddenly, like an instantaneous vibration that breaks our mold, and allows us to look at the world with a serene smile. For the first time in many years, we feel free of the terrible weight of being ourselves, and we see the reality that surrounds us. Once there, we are not alone. An incredible push awaits us; help which comes from the core of the Eagle and transports us in a microsecond to universes of sobriety and sanity.

"When we don't have any pity for ourselves, we can face the impact of our personal extinction with elegance. Death is the force that gives the warrior value and moderation. Only by looking through the eyes of death can we notice that we are not important.

Then death comes to live by our side, and begins to tell us its secrets.

"The contact with death's unchangeable nature leaves an indelible mark on the character of the apprentice. He understands, once and for all, that all the energy of the universe is connected. There is no world of objects, related to each other through physical laws. What exists is a panorama of luminous emanations inextricably bundled together, within which we can make interpretations as far as the power of our attention will allow. All our actions count, because they release avalanches in the infinite. For that reason, none is worth more than any other, none is more important than any other.

"That vision destroys the tendency we have to be indulgent with ourselves. Witnessing this universal bond, the warrior is prey to contradictory feelings. On the one hand, indescribable joy and a supreme and impersonal reverence toward all that exists. On the other, a sense of the inevitable, and a deep sadness that has nothing to do with self-pity; a sadness that comes from the breast of infinity; a blast of solitude which will never leave him again.

"That purified feeling gives the warrior the sobriety, the subtlety, and the silence that he needs to venture there, where all human reasoning fail. Under such conditions, self-importance can't sustain itself."