Version 2006.05.05

## "A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with don Juan" - ©1971 by Carlos Castaneda
Part Two: The Task of 'Seeing'

### Chapter 17

I did not return to Mexico for months; I used the time to work on my field notes and for the first time in ten years, since I started the apprenticeship, don Juan's teachings began to make real sense. I felt that the long periods of time I had to stay away from the apprenticeship had had a very sobering and beneficial effect on me; they had allowed me the opportunity to review my findings and to arrange them in an intellectual order proper of my training and interest. The events that took place on my last visit to the field, however, pointed to a fallacy in my optimism about understanding don Juan's knowledge.

I made the last entry in my field notes on October 16, 1970. The events that took place on that occasion marked a transition. They not only closed a cycle of instruction, but they also opened a new one, which was so very different from what I had done thus far that I feel this is the point where I must end my reportage.

As I approached don Juan's house I saw him sitting in his usual place under his ramada in front of the door. I parked in the shade of a tree, took my briefcase and a bag of groceries out of the car and walked toward him, greeting him in a loud voice. I then noticed that he was not alone. There was another man sitting behind a high pile of firewood. Both of them were looking at me. Don Juan waved and so did the other man. Judging from his attire he was not an Indian but a Mexican from the Southwest. He was wearing Levis, a beige shirt, a Texan cowboy hat and cowboy boots. I talked to don Juan and then looked at the man; he was smiling at me. I stared at him for a moment.

"Here's little Carlos," the man said to don Juan, "and he doesn't speak to me any more. Don't tell me that he's cross with me!"

Before I could say anything they both broke up laughing and only then did I realize that the strange man was don Genaro.

"You didn't recognize me, did you?" he asked, still laughing.

I had to admit that his attire had baffled me.

"What are you doing in this part of the world, don Genaro?" I asked.

"He came to enjoy the hot wind," don Juan said. "Isn't that right?"

"That's right," don Genaro echoed. "You've no idea what the hot wind can do to an old body like mine."

I sat down between them.

"What does it do to your body?" I asked.

"The hot wind tells extraordinarily things to my body," he said.

He turned to don Juan, his eyes glittering.

"Isn't that so?"

Don Juan shook his head affirmatively.

I told them that the time of the hot Santa Ana winds was the worst part of the year for me, and that it was certainly strange that don Genaro would come to seek the hot wind while I was running away from it.

"Carlos can't stand the heat," don Juan said to don Genaro. "When it gets hot he becomes like a child and suffocates."

"Suffowhat?"

"Suffo... cates."

"My goodness!" don Genaro said, feigning concern, and made a gesture of despair which was indescribably funny.

Don Juan explained to him next that I had been away for months because of an unfortunate incident with the allies.

"So, you've finally encountered an ally!" don Genaro said.

"I think I did," I said cautiously.

They laughed loudly. Don Genaro patted me on the back two or three times. It was a very light tapping which I interpreted as a friendly gesture of concern. He rested his hand on my shoulder as he looked at me, and I had a feeling of placid contentment, which lasted only an instant, for next don Genaro did something inexplicable to me. I suddenly felt that he had put the weight of a boulder on my back. I had the sensation that he had increased the weight of his hand, which was resting on my right shoulder, until it made me sag all the way down and I hit my head on the ground.

"We must help little Carlos," don Genaro said and gave a conspiratorial look to don Juan.

I sat up straight again and turned to don Juan, but he looked away. I had a moment of vacillation and the annoying thought that don Juan was acting as if he were aloof, detached from me. Don Genaro was laughing; he seemed to be waiting for my reaction.

I asked him to put his hand on my shoulder once more, but he did not want to do it. I urged him at least to tell me what he had done to me. He chuckled. I turned to don Juan again and told him that the weight of don Genaro's hand had nearly crushed me.

"I don't know anything about it," don Juan said in a comically factual tone. "He didn't put his hand on my shoulder."

With that both of them broke up laughing.

"What did you do to me, don Genaro?" I asked.

"I just put my hand on your shoulder," he said innocently.

"Do it again," I said.

He refused. Don Juan interceded at that point and asked me to describe to don Genaro what I had perceived in my last experience. I thought he wanted me to give a bona fide description of what had happened to me, but the more serious my description became the more they laughed. I stopped two or three times but they urged me to go on.

"The ally will come to you regardless of your feelings," don Juan said when I had finished my account. "I mean, you don't have to do anything to lure him out. You may be sitting twiddling your thumbs, or thinking about women and then suddenly, a tap on your shoulder, you turn around and the ally is standing by you."

"What can I do if something like that happens?" I asked.

"Hey! Hey! Wait a minute!" don Genaro said. "That's not a good question. You shouldn't ask what can you do, obviously you can't do anything. You should ask what can a warrior do?"

He turned to me, blinking. His head was slightly tilted to the right, and his mouth was puckered.

I looked at don Juan for a cue whether the situation was a joke, but he kept a solemn face.

"All right!" I said. "What can a warrior do?"

Don Genaro blinked and made smacking sounds with his lips, as if he were searching for a right word. He looked at me fixedly, holding his chin.

"A warrior wets his pants," he said with Indian solemnity.

Don Juan covered his face and don Genaro slapped the ground, exploding in a howling laughter.

"Fright is something one can never get over," don Juan said after the laughter had subsided, "When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge, thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times."

"What happens if you stare at an ally for too long?" I asked.

Don Genaro looked at me and made a comical gesture of outstaring.

"Who knows?" don Juan said. "Maybe Genaro will tell you what happened to him."

"Maybe," don Genaro said and chuckled.

"Would you please tell me?"

Don Genaro got up, cracked his bones stretching his arms, and opened his eyes until they were round and looked crazy.

"Genaro is going to make the desert tremble," he said and went into the chaparral.

"Genaro is determined to help you," don Juan said in a confidential tone. "He did the same thing to you at his house and you almost saw"

I thought he was referring to what had happened at the waterfall, but he was talking about some unearthly rumbling sounds I had heard at don Genaro's house.

"By the way, what was it?" I asked. "We laughed at it, but you never explained to me what it was."

"You have never asked."

"I did."

"No. You have asked me about everything else except that."

Don Juan looked at me accusingly.

"That was Genaro's art," he said. "Only Genaro can do that. You almost saw then."

I told him that it had never occurred to me to associate "seeing" with the strange noises I had heard at that time.

"And why not?" he asked flatly.

"Seeing means the eyes to me," I said.

He scrutinized me for a moment as if there were something wrong with me.

"I never said that seeing is a matter of the eyes alone," he said and shook his head in disbelief.

"How does he do it?" I insisted.

"He has already told you how he does it," don Juan said sharply.

At that very moment I heard an extraordinary rumble.

I jumped up and don Juan began to laugh. The rumble was like a thunderous avalanche. Listening to it, I had the funny realization that my inventory of experiences in sound conies definitely from the movies. The deep thunder I heard resembled the sound track of a movie when the whole side of a mountain falls into a valley.

Don Juan held his sides as if they hurt from laughing. The thunderous rumble shook the ground where I stood. I distinctly heard the thump of what seemed to be a monumental boulder that was rolling on its sides. I heard a series of crushing thumps that gave me the impression that the boulder was rolling inexorably toward me. I experienced a moment of supreme confusion. My muscles were tense; my whole body was ready for fleeing.

I looked at don Juan. He was staring at me. I then heard the most frightening thump I had ever heard in my life. It was as if a monumental boulder had landed right behind the house. Everything shook, and at that moment I had a most peculiar perception. For an instant I actually "saw" a boulder the size of a mountain right behind the house.

It was not as if an image had been superimposed on the scenery of the house I was looking at. It was not the view of a real boulder either. It was rather as if the noise was creating the image of a boulder rolling on its monumental sides. I was actually "seeing" the noise. The inexplicable character of my perception threw me into the depths of despair and confusion. Never in my life would I have conceived that my senses were capable of perceiving in such a manner. I had an attack of rational fright and decided to flee for my life. Don Juan held me by the arm and ordered me imperatively not to run away and not to turn around either, but face the direction in which don Genaro had gone.

I heard next a series of booming noises, which resembled the sound of rocks falling and piling on top of each other, and then everything was quiet again. A few minutes later don Genaro came back and sat down. He asked me if I had "seen." I did not know what to say. I turned to don Juan for a cue. He was staring at me.

"I think he did," he said and chuckled.

I wanted to say that I did not know what they were talking about. I felt terribly frustrated. I had a physical sensation of wrath, of utter discomfort.

"I think we should leave him here to sit alone," don Juan said.

They got up and walked by me.

"Carlos is indulging in his confusion," don Juan said very loudly.

I stayed alone for hours and had time to write my notes and to ponder on the absurdity of my experience. Upon thinking about it, it became obvious to me that from the very moment I saw don Genaro sitting under the ramada the situation had acquired a farcical mood. The more I deliberated about it the more convinced I became that don Juan had relinquished the control over to don Genaro and that thought filled me with apprehension.

Don Juan and don Genaro returned at dusk. They sat down next to me, flanking me. Don Genaro drew closer and almost leaned on me. His thin and frail shoulder touched me lightly and I experienced the same feeling I had had when he tapped me. A crushing weight toppled me over and I tumbled onto don Juan's lap. He helped me to sit up straight and asked in a joking tone if I was trying to sleep on his lap.

Don Genaro seemed to be delighted; his eyes shone. I wanted to weep. I had the feeling I was like an animal that had been corralled.

"Am I frightening you, little Carlos?" don Genaro asked and seemed really concerned. "You look like a wild horse."

"Tell him a story," don Juan said. "That's the only thing that calms him."

They moved away and sat in front of me. Both of them examined me with curiosity. In the semidarkness their eyes seemed glassy, like enormous dark pools of water. Their eyes were awesome. They were not the eyes of men. We stared at each other for a moment and then I moved my eyes away. I noticed that I was not afraid of them, and yet their eyes had frightened me to the point that I was shivering. I felt a most uncomfortable confusion.

After a moment of silence don Juan urged don Genaro to tell me what had happened to him at the time he had tried to outstare his ally. Don Genaro was sitting a few feet away, facing me; he did not say anything. I looked at him; his eyes seemed to be four or five tunes the size of ordinary human eyes; they were shining and had a compelling attraction. What seemed to be the light of his eyes dominated everything around them. Don Genaro's body seemed to have shriveled and looked more like the body of a feline. I noticed a movement of his cat-like body and became frightened.

In a completely automatic way, as if I had been doing it all my life, I adopted a "fighting form" and began beating rhythmically on my calf. When I became aware of my acts I got embarrassed and looked at don Juan, He was peering at me as he does ordinarily; his eyes were kind and soothing. He laughed loudly. Don Genaro made a purring sound and stood up and went inside the house.

Don Juan explained to me that don Genaro was very forceful and did not like to piddle around and that he had been just teasing me with his eyes. He said that, as usual, I knew more than I myself expected. He made a comment that everyone who was involved with sorcery was terribly dangerous during the hours of twilight and that sorcerers like don Genaro could perform marvels at that time.

We were quiet for a few minutes. I felt better. Talking to don Juan relaxed me and restored my confidence. Then he said that he was going to eat something and that we were going for a walk so that don Genaro could show me a technique for hiding.

I asked him to explain what he meant by a technique for hiding. He said he was through with explaining things to me because explaining only forced me to indulge.

We went inside the house. Don Genaro had lit the kerosene lantern and was chewing a mouthful of food.

After eating, the three of us walked into the thick desert chaparral Don Juan walked almost next to me. Don Genaro was in front, a few yards ahead of us.

It was a clear night, there were heavy clouds, but enough moonlight to render the surroundings quite visible. At one moment don Juan stopped and told me to go ahead and follow don Genaro. I vacillated; he pushed me gently and assured me it was all right. He said I should always be ready and should always trust my own strength.

I followed don Genaro and for the next two hours I tried to catch up with him, but no matter how hard I struggled I could not overtake him. Don Genaro's silhouette was always ahead of me. Sometimes he disappeared as if he had jumped to the side of the trail only to appear again ahead of me. As far as I was concerned, this seemed to be a strange and meaningless walk in the dark.

I followed because I did not know how to return to the house. I could not understand what don Genaro was doing. I thought he was leading me to some recondite place in the chaparral to show me the technique don Juan had talked about At a certain point, however, I had the peculiar sensation that don Genaro was behind me.

I turned around and caught a glimpse of a person some distance behind me. The effect was startling. I strained to see in the darkness and I believed I could make out the silhouette of a man standing perhaps fifteen yards away. The figure was almost merged with the bushes; it was as if he wanted to conceal himself. I stared fixedly for a moment and I could actually keep the silhouette of the man within my field of perception even though he was trying to hide behind the dark shapes of the bushes.

Then a logical thought came to my mind. It occurred to me that the man had to be don Juan, who must have been following us all the time. The instant I became convinced that that was so, I also realized I could no longer isolate his silhouette; all I had in front of me was the undifferentiated dark mass of the desert chaparral.

I walked toward the place I had seen the man, but I could not find anybody. Don Genaro was nowhere in sight either, and since I did not know my way I sat down to wait. A half hour later, don Juan and don Genaro came by. They called my name out loud. I stood up and joined them.

We walked to the house in complete silence. I welcomed that quiet interlude, for I felt completely disoriented. In fact, I felt unknown to myself. Don Genaro was doing something to me, something which kept me from formulating my thoughts the way I am accustomed to doing. This became evident to me when I sat down on the trail. I had automatically checked the time when I sat down and then I had remained quiet as if my mind had been turned off.

Yet I sat in a state of alertness I have never experienced before. It was a state of thoughtlessness, perhaps comparable to not caring about anything. The world seemed to be, during that time, in a strange balance; there was nothing I could add to it and nothing I could subtract from it.

When we arrived at the house don Genaro rolled out a straw mat and went to sleep. I felt compelled to render my experiences of the day to don Juan. He did not let me talk.

October 18,1970

"I think I understand what don Genaro was trying to do the other night," I said to don Juan.

I said that in order to draw him out. His continual refusal to talk was unnerving me.

Don Juan smiled and shook his head slowly as if agreeing with what I had said. I would have taken his gesture as an affirmation except for the strange glint in his eyes. It was as if his eyes were laughing at me.

"You don't think I understand, do you?" I asked compulsively.

"I suppose you do... you do, in fact. You do understand that Genaro was behind you all the time. However, understanding is not the real point"

His statement that don Genaro had been behind me all the time was shocking to me. I begged him to explain it.

"Your mind is set to seek only one side of this," he said.

He took a dry twig and moved it in the air. He was not drawing in the air or making a figure; what he did resembled the movements he makes with his fingers when he cleans the debris from a pile of seeds. His movements were like a soft prodding or scratching the air with the twig.

He turned and looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders automatically in a gesture of bafflement. He drew closer and repeated his movements, making eight points on the ground. He circled the first point.

"You are here," he said. "We are all here; this is feeling, and we move from here to here."

He circled the second, which he had drawn right above number one. He then moved his twig back and forth between the two points to portray a heavy traffic.

"There are, however, six more points a man is capable of handling," he said. "Most men know nothing about them."

He placed his twig between points one and two and pecked on the ground with it.

"To move between these two points you call understanding. You've been doing that all your life. If you say you understand my knowledge, you have done nothing new."

He then joined some of the eight points to the others with lines; the result was a long trapezoid figure that had eight centers of uneven radiation.

"Each of these six remaining points is a world, just like feeling and understanding are two worlds for you," he said.

"Why eight points? Why not an infinite number, as in a circle?" I asked.

I drew a circle on the ground. Don Juan smiled.

"As far as I know there are only eight points a man is capable of handling. Perhaps men cannot go beyond that. And I said handling, not understanding, did you get that?"

His tone was so funny I laughed. He was imitating or rather mocking my insistence on the exact usage of words.

"Your problem is that you want to understand everything, and that is not possible. If you insist on understanding you're not considering your entire lot as a human being. Your stumbling block is intact Therefore, you have done almost nothing in all these years. You have been shaken out of your total slumber, true, but that could have been accomplished anyway by other circumstances."

After a pause don Juan told me to get up because we were going to the water canyon. As we were getting into my car don Genaro came out from behind the house and joined us. I drove part of the way and then we walked into a deep ravine. Don Juan picked a place to rest in the shade of a large tree.

"You mentioned once," don Juan began, "that a friend of yours had said, when the two of you saw a leaf falling from the very top of a sycamore, that that same leaf will not fall again from that same sycamore ever in a whole eternity, remember?"

I remembered having told him about that incident.

"We are at the foot of a large tree," he continued, "and now if we look at that other tree in front of us we may see a leaf falling from the very top."

He signaled me to look. There was a large tree on the other side of the gully; its leaves were yellowish and dry. He urged me with a movement of his head to keep on looking at the tree. After a few minutes wait, a leaf cracked loose from the top and began falling to the ground; it hit other leaves and branches three times before it landed in the tall underbrush.

"Did you see it?"

"Yes."

"You would say that the same leaf will never again fall from that same tree, true?"

"True."

"To the best of your understanding that is true. But that is only to the best of your understanding. Look again."

I automatically looked and saw a leaf falling. It actually hit the same leaves and branches as the previous one. It was as if I were looking at an instant television replay. I followed the wavy falling of the leaf until it landed on the ground. I stood up to find out if there were two leaves, but the tall underbrush around the tree prevented me from seeing where the leaf had actually landed.

Don Juan laughed and told me to sit down.

"Look," he said, pointing with his head to the top of the tree. "There goes the same leaf again."

I once more saw a leaf falling in exactly the same pattern as the previous two.

When it had landed I knew don Juan was about to signal me again to look at the top of the tree, but before he did I looked up. The leaf was again falling. I realized then that I had only seen the first leaf cracking loose, or, rather, the first time the leaf fell I saw it from the instant it became detached from the branch; the other three times the leaf was already falling when I lifted my head to look.

I told that to don Juan and I urged him to explain what he was doing.

"I don't understand how you're making me see a repetition of what I had seen before. What did you do to me, don Juan?"

He laughed but did not answer and I insisted that he should tell me how I could see that leaf falling over and over. I said that according to my reason that was impossible.

Don Juan said that his reason told him the same, yet I had witnessed the leaf falling over and over. He then turned to don Genaro.

"Isn't that so?" he asked.

Don Genaro did not answer. His eyes were fixed on me.

"It is impossible!" I said.

"You're chained!" don Juan exclaimed. "You're chained to your reason."

He explained that the leaf had fallen over and over from that same tree so I would stop trying to understand. In a confidential tone he told me that I had the whole thing pat and yet my mania always blinded me at the end.

"There's nothing to understand. Understanding is only a very small affair, so very small," he said.

At that point don Genaro stood up. He gave a quick glance to don Juan; their eyes met and don Juan looked at the ground in front of him. Don Genaro stood in front of me and began swinging his arms at his sides, back and forth in unison.

"Look, little Carlos," he said. "Look! Look!"

He made an extraordinarily sharp, swishing sound. It was the sound of something ripping. At the precise instant the sound happened, I felt a sensation of vacuity in my lower abdomen. It was the terribly anguishing sensation of falling, not painful, but rather unpleasant and consuming. It lasted a few seconds and then it subsided, leaving a strange itch in my knees.

But while the sensation had lasted I experienced another unbelievable phenomenon. I saw don Genaro on top of some mountains that were perhaps ten miles away. The perception lasted only a few seconds and it happened so unexpectedly that I did not have time really to examine it. I cannot recall whether I saw a man-size figure standing on top of the mountains, or a reduced image of don Genaro. I cannot even recall whether or not it was don Genaro. Yet at that moment I was certain beyond any doubt that I was seeing him standing on top of the mountains. However, the moment I thought that I could not possibly see a man ten miles away the perception vanished.

I turned around to look for don Genaro, but he was not there.

The bafflement I experienced was as unique as everything else that was happening to me. My mind buckled under the strain. I felt utterly disoriented.

Don Juan stood up and made me cover the lower part of my abdomen with my hands and press my legs tightly against my body in a squat position. We sat in silence for a while and then he said that he was truly going to refrain from explaining anything to me, because only by acting can one become a sorcerer. He recommended that I leave immediately, otherwise don Genaro would probably kill me in his effort to help me.

"You are going to change directions," he said, "and you'll break your chains."

He said that there was nothing to understand about his or about don Genaro's actions, and that sorcerers were quite capable of performing extraordinary feats.

"Genaro and I are acting from here," he said and pointed to one of the centers of radiation in his diagram.

"And it is not the center of understanding, yet you know what it is."

I wanted to say that I did not really know what he was talking about, but he did not give me time and stood up and signaled me to follow him. He began to walk fast and in no time at all I was puffing and sweating trying to keep up with him.

When we were getting inside the car I looked around for don Genaro.

"Where is he?" I asked

"You know where he is," don Juan snapped at me.

Before I left I sat down with him, as I always do. I had an overwhelming urge to ask for explanations. As don Juan says, explanations are truly my indulgence.

"Where's don Genaro?" I asked cautiously.

"You know where," he said. "Yet you fail every time because of your insistence on understanding. For example, you knew the other night that Genaro was behind you all the time; you even turned around and saw him."

"No," I protested. "No, I didn't know that."

I was truthful at that. My mind refused to intake that sort of stimuli as being "real," and yet, after ten years of apprenticeship with don Juan my mind could no longer uphold my old ordinary criteria of what is real.

However, all the speculations I had thus far engendered about the nature of reality had been mere intellectual manipulations; the proof was that under the pressure of don Juan and don Genaro's acts my mind had entered into an impasse.

Don Juan looked at me and there was such sadness in his eyes that I began to weep. Tears fell freely. For the first time in my life I felt the encumbering weight of my reason. An indescribable anguish overtook me. I wailed involuntarily and embraced him.

He gave me a quick blow with his knuckles on the top of my head. I felt it like a ripple down my spine. It had a sobering effect. "You indulge too much," he said softly.