Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/148

 own text a different mood, a kind of tension. "It had suddenly activated acquiring a tension state: a tension that dictated the direction of my efforts".

What is stripped of so much confusion, product of the lack of energy, is "The warrior path". A warrior is a being suitable for war and is prepared through discipline, inflexible intent, self-control and tons of humility and wisdom. The war is against stupidity and arrogance, which suffocates and annihilate us.

JOURNEY TO IXTLÁN We almost never realize that we can suppress anything in our lives at any time and in the blink of an eye.

Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives and friends all one makes. On the other hand, the warrior has no personal history, does not need to give explanations; no one gets angry or disappointed from his actions. And above all, nobody ties him down with thoughts and expectations.

Death is our eternal companion. It is always on our left, an arm distance away from us. Death is the only wise counselor a warrior has. Every time the warrior feel that everything is wrong and that he is about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if this is true. His death will tell him he is wrong, that nothing really matters except its touch. His death will tell him: «I have not yet touched you.»

For a warrior, being inaccessible means frugally touching the world around him. And, above all, deliberately avoid exhausting himself and others. A warrior does not use nor squeeze people until reducing them to nothing, especially the people he loves.

When a man worries, desperately clings onto anything; and once he clings, necessarily he gets exhausted, or exhausts the thing or person that he is clinging. A warrior hunter, on the other hand, knows that he will attract prey to his traps over and over again, so he does not worry. To worry is place oneself reachable, without knowing it.

A man, any man deserves whatever faith assigns to men: joy, pain, sorrow and struggle. No matter his acts nature, provided he acts as a warrior.

If his spirit is distorted, he should simply fix it, debugging and perfecting it, because there is no worthier task in life. Not fixing the spirit is to seek death, and that is equal to not seeking anything, because death is going to reach us anyway. Searching for warrior spirit perfection is the only task worthy of our transience and our human condition.

The warrior art is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.

COMMENTARY

Castaneda explained that the "warrior path" is the product of many centuries, possibly thousands of years of Toltec experimentation, observation and reflection. He says that it is an energy structure, such structure come from the ability to "see" energy. For this reason, "the warrior path" is a "superb conglomeration" of energy facts, irreducible truths exclusively determined by the energy flow direction in the universe. This "structure" is perfect and there is nothing in excess or missing, is to