Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/20

 From the beginning Don Juan instructed Castaneda in the two knowledge areas. In the of the tonal (right) Castaneda was very confused trying to find an explanation to his psychotropic experiences, hanging onto his reason and cultural beliefs as an attempt to consistently explain the incomprehensible teachings of an old Indian.

With respect to the nagual area (left), Castaneda could remember very little or nothing of what he had learned. As in the Toltequity world there is no continuity of time and space; as explained by Don Juan, there is the "glue" that joins events and places in a continuous timeline. So that this problem occurs almost throughout the book. In an attempt to describe it irrationally, Castaneda chronologically mixes memories of the past, the present experiences and "memories of the future".

The teaching technique for apprentices who aspire Toltequity knowledge could be explained in the following steps:


 * 1) The "Power" points to an apprentice.
 * 2) The nagual "hooks" the apprentice.
 * 3) The nagual "works" with his apprentice the right part of the knowledge to clean up all debris that the apprentice has been gathering throughout his life, but at the same time, works the left part (with the benefactor ), called nagual, through what Castaneda called "levels of increased consciousness". This knowledge will not be remembered by the apprentice until him, on his path to knowledge, manages to gather enough energy to finally "assembling" all acquired knowledge, both in the tonal and the nagual.

This work could have been effected by knowledge stages, without following the chronology of the Castaneda books; however, we prefer not having from the beginning, that first risk and decided to take the second, since our aim is to advance, along with the reader, through the Castaneda books, avoiding, as far as possible, falling into the same Castaneda confusion, so as to rescue the essence and origin of our ancient Anahuac civilization.

"Sweeping the tonal island", says Don Juan, requires the apprentice decision and that he assumes and is responsible for that decision, no matter what are the consequences. It also requires an inflexible will and a fierce discipline. This part of the teaching -vital and irreplaceable- has nothing to do with plants of power or esoteric concepts; on the contrary, the battlefield is the everyday life. The objective is to defeat vices and weaknesses, recklessness and irresponsibility. An apprentice has to learn to polish his spirit and strengthen his body through internally making his discipline and responsibility.

The path of knowledge is a cultural heritage of our Toltec grandparents, who perfected it based on sacrifice and much effort. It is not "picnic of our imagination". It's like any another way humans has undertaken towards total freedom. In India, China, Mesopotamia and/or Egypt, other cultures have struggled to reach higher levels of consciousness. If a great ____________________