Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/152

 "Journey to Ixtlán", certainly a lifetime would not be enough to fully implement them.

FIRE WITHIN

One is not complete without sadness or longing, as without them there is no sobriety, there is no kindness. Wisdom without kindness and knowledge without sobriety are useless.

Men greatest enemy is personal importance. What weakens is feeling offended by what peers do or fail to do. Personal importance requires that one passes the greater part of life offended by something or someone.

Nothing can temper a warrior spirit better than the challenge of dealing with impossible people who occupy positions of power. Only in such circumstances can warriors acquire the sobriety and serenity necessary to withstand the pressure of what cannot be known.

A mature warrior must be a discipline paragon in order to overcome the almost invincible laxness of our human condition. More important still than seeing is what warriors do with what they see.

Impeccability begins with a single act, which has to be premeditated, precise and sustained. If this event is repeated long enough, one acquires the sense of an uncompromising intent that can be applied to anything. If this is achieved, the way is clear. So, one thing leads to another until after the warrior develops his full potential.

The worst that could happen is having to die, and given that this is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have already lost everything have nothing to fear.

COMMENTARY

Castaneda recognizes in his comment, that the book Fire From Within is another achievement from Florinda Matus influence over him. In this way, it can be seen that after Don Juan and Don Genaro, Florinda Matus has a great influence in the construction of his warrior path.

Castaneda takes the nagual Julian life as a reflection point, who was a libertine, vicious man and even a coward. But when he is about to die from his excesses, nagual Elias saves him and gives him a choice: either decide to dramatically change his life at once or will die. The nagual Elias warns him that he can never heal, will always have to walk on the edge of the abyss, that a false step, an error or a small abandonment or insubordination and irresponsibility display, will be the end.

The author says that he was shook, when discovering the fierce battle Julian always lived in. Step by step, he had to go to fight "his licentious inertia" and learned to walk "the warrior path" ...at the precipice edge.

That is the mood needed to "straighten our deformed tonal". That is the kind of spirits which Toltecáyotl claims as true and unique. As this is "something special", not because we cannot do so, any human being has the ability, but because of our weakness, stupidity and lack of energy is immeasurable.