Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/123

 INTRODUCTION

The introduction is very clear, as it indicates that the book is a collection of the most memorable events of his life, which prepare the nagual to enter on the infinity active side. These events relate to the experiences of Don Juan teachings that lasted thirteen years. These stories are important because they affect the human being and not because they are " Carlos Castaneda stories". This is the sense of the work. While reading the stories, the lessons gather further depth, perhaps because Castaneda makes us see the "abstract Center of these power stories".

He notes that the highest Toltec aspiration, as that of all ancient wise people, was facing the "final journey" that all human beings have to take at the end of life. Toltecáyotl as Zoroastrianism, Hinduism or Buddhism, are intended to provide an opportunity for "truly ambitious" human beings, seeking to transcend the material existence plain and after death, retain consciousness and individual purpose. The greatest achievement of a conscious human being.

Don Juan affirms that all human beings have "two minds". The first is the inner voice, completely ours, and that gives us "order, purpose and simplicity". The second, external, always transmits "conflict, doubt, despair, self-assertion".

Don Juan again discusses the "intent" and defines it as a force that exists in the universe. The Toltec, Don Juan says, called the intent to walk the warrior path and always achieve what they intended. But makes a very important annotation, states that the intent is called to perform acts that have to do with the spirit, with the abstract.

The intent is that force which exists in the universe, but that is not available for worldly purposes or grotesque actions born of ordinary life. It is not available to the ego, ignorance, or human stupidity.

The central story is of an old prostitute who performs "her show in front of mirrors". It is a sad story where the mirrors suddenly trap, fleetingly, images of the reader, in this grotesque live in nothingness, of nothing and for nothing. Senseless figures before the life mirror.

"Don Juan considered that collecting their lives memorable events, for shamans was a preparation for entering the specific region they called the active infinity side...

—I simply see it as a sad story, don Juan, but that is all —I declared.

—True, it is a sad story, just like your other stories —Don Juan answered—, but what makes it different and memorable is that it affects each of us as human beings, not just you, as in your other stories. Don't you see? As Madame Ludmila, each of us, young or old, one way or another, does figures before a mirror. Consider what you know of the people. Think of any human being on this earth, and will know without a doubt, that no matter who he is, or what they think of themselves, or what they do, the result of their actions is always the same: foolish figures before a mirror" C.C.

A TREMOR IN THE AIR – A POWER TRIP