The Power of Silence (21 page)

He
emphasized over and over that the most sophisticated knowledge sorcerers
possessed was of our potential as perceiving beings, and the knowledge that the
content of perception depended on the position of the assemblage point.

At that
point I began to experience a unique difficulty in concentrating on what he was
saying, not because I was distracted or fatigued, but because my mind, on its
own, had started to play the game of anticipating his words. It was as if an
unknown part of myself were inside me, trying unsuccessfully to find adequate
words to voice a thought. As don Juan spoke, I felt I could anticipate how he
was going to express my own silent thoughts. I was thrilled to realize his
choice of words was always better than mine could have been. But anticipating
his words also diminished my concentration.

I abruptly
pulled over to the side of the road. And right there I had, for the first time
in my life, a clear knowledge of a dualism in me. Two obviously separate parts
were within my being. One was extremely old, at ease, indifferent. It was
heavy, dark, and connected to everything else. It was the part of me that did
not care, because it was equal to anything. It enjoyed things with no
expectation. The other part was light, new, fluffy, agitated. It was nervous,
fast. It cared about itself because it was insecure and did not enjoy anything,
simply because it lacked the capacity to connect itself to anything. It was
alone, on the surface, vulnerable. That was the part with which I looked at the
world.

I
deliberately looked around with that part. Everywhere I looked I saw extensive
farmlands. And that insecure, fluffy, and caring part of me got caught between
being proud of the industriousness of man and being sad at the sight of the
magnificent old Sonoran desert turned into an orderly scene of furrows and
domesticated plants.

The old,
dark, heavy part of me did not care. And the two parts entered into a debate.
The fluffy part wanted the heavy part to care, and the heavy part wanted the
other one to stop fretting, and to enjoy.

"Why
did you stop?" don Juan asked.

His voice
produced a reaction, but it would be inaccurate to say that it was I who
reacted. The sound of his voice seemed to solidify the fluffy part, and
suddenly I was recognizably myself.

I described
to don Juan the realization I had just had bout my dualism. As he began to
explain it in terms of the position of the assemblage point I lost my solidity.
The fluffy part became as fluffy as it had been when I first noticed my
dualism, and once again I knew what don Juan was explaining.

He said
that when the assemblage point moves and reaches the place of no pity, the
position of rationality and common sense becomes weak. The sensation I was
having if an older, dark, silent side was a view of the antecedents of reason.

"I
know exactly what you are saying," I told him. "I know a great number
of things, but I can't speak of what I know. I don't know how to begin."

"I
have mentioned this to you already," he said. "What you are
experiencing and call dualism is a view from another position of your
assemblage point. From that position, you can feel the older side of man. And
what the older side of man knows is called silent knowledge. It's a knowledge
that you cannot yet voice."

"Why
not?" I asked.

"Because
in order to voice it, it is necessary for you to have and use an inordinate
amount of energy," he replied. "You don't at this time have that kind
of energy to spare.

"Silent
knowledge is something that all of us have," he went on. "Something
that has complete mastery, complete knowledge of everything. But it cannot
think, therefore, it cannot speak of what it knows.

"Sorcerers
believe that when man became aware that he knew, and wanted to be conscious of
what he knew, he lost sight of what he knew. This silent knowledge, which you
cannot describe, is, of course, intent - the spirit, the abstract. Man's error
was to want to know it directly, the way he knew everyday life. The more he
wanted, the more ephemeral it became."

"But
what does that mean in plain words, don Juan?" I asked.

"It
means that man gave up silent knowledge for the world of reason," he
replied. "The more he clings to the world of reason, the more ephemeral
intent
becomes."

I started
the car and we drove in silence. Don Juan did not attempt to give me directions
or tell me how to drive - a thing he often did in order to exacerbate my
self-importance. I had no clear idea where I was going, yet something in me
knew. I let that part take over.

Very late
in the evening we arrived at the big house don Juan's group of sorcerers had in
a rural area of the state of Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico. The journey seemed
to have taken no time at all. I could not remember the particulars of our
drive. All I knew about it was that we had not talked.

The house
seemed to be empty. There were no signs of people living there. I knew,
however, that don Juan's friends were in the house. I could feel their presence
without actually having to see them.

Don Juan
lit some kerosene lanterns and we sat down at a sturdy table. It seemed that
don Juan was getting ready to eat. I was wondering what to say or do when a
woman entered noiselessly and put a large plate of food on the table. I was not
prepared for her entrance, and when she stepped out of the darkness into the
light, as if she had materialized out of nowhere, I gasped involuntarily.

"Don't
be scared, it's me, Carmela," she said and disappeared, swallowed again by
the darkness.

I was left
with my mouth open in mid-scream. Don Juan laughed so hard that I knew
everybody in the house must have heard him. I half expected them to come, but
no one appeared.

I tried to
eat, but I was not hungry. I began to think about the woman. I did not know
her. That is, I could almost identify her, but I could not quite work my memory
of her out of the fog that obscured my thoughts. I struggled to clear my mind.
I felt that it required too much energy and I gave up.

Almost as
soon as I had stopped thinking about her, I began to experience a strange,
numbing anxiety. At first I believed that the dark, massive house, and the
silence in and around it, were depressing. But then my anguish rose to
incredible proportions, right after I heard the faint barking of dogs in the
distance. For a moment I thought that my body was going to explode. Don Juan
intervened quickly. He jumped to where I was sitting and pushed my back until
it cracked. The pressure on my back brought me immediate relief.

When I had
calmed down, I realized I had lost, together with the anxiety that had nearly
consumed me, the clear sense of knowing everything. I could no longer
anticipate how don Juan was going to articulate what I myself knew.

Don Juan
then started a most peculiar explanation. First he said that the origin of the
anxiety that had overtaken me with the speed of wildfire was the sudden
movement of my assemblage point, caused by Carmela's sudden appearance, and by
my unavoidable effort to move my assemblage point to the place where I would be
able to identify her completely.

He advised
me to get used to the idea of recurrent attacks of the same type of anxiety,
because my assemblage point was going to keep moving.

"Any
movement of the assemblage point is like dying," he said. "Everything
in us gets disconnected, then reconnected again to a source of much greater
power. That amplification of energy is felt as a killing anxiety."

"What
am I to do when this happens?" I asked.

"Nothing,"
he said. "Just wait. The outburst of energy will pass. What's dangerous is
not knowing what is happening to you. Once you know, there is no real
danger."

Then he
talked about ancient man. He said that ancient man knew, in the most direct
fashion, what to do and how best to do it. But, because he performed so well,
he started to develop a sense of selfness, which gave him the feeling that he
could predict and plan the actions he was used to performing. And thus the idea
of an individual self appeared; an individual self which began to dictate the
nature and scope of man's actions.

As the
feeling of the individual self became stronger, man lost his natural connection
to silent knowledge. Modern man, being heir to that development, therefore
finds himself so hopelessly removed from the source of everything that all he
can do is express his despair in violent and cynical acts of self-destruction.
Don Juan asserted that the reason for man's cynicism and despair is the bit of
silent knowledge left in him, which does two things: one, it gives man an
inkling of his ancient connection to the source of everything; and two, it
makes man feel that without this connection, he has no hope of peace, of
satisfaction, of attainment.

I thought I
had caught don Juan in a contradiction. I pointed out to him that he had once
told me that war was he natural state for a warrior, that peace was an anomaly.

"That's
right," he admitted. "But war, for a warrior, doesn't mean acts of
individual or
collective stupidity or wanton violence. War, for a warrior, is the total
struggle against that individual self that has deprived man of his power."

Don Juan
said then that it was time for us to talk further about ruthlessness - the most
basic premise of sorcery. He explained that sorcerers had discovered that any
movement of the assemblage point meant a movement away from the excessive
concern with that individual self which was the nark of modern man. He went on
to say that sorcerers believed it was the position of the assemblage point
which made modern man a homicidal egotist, a being totally involved with his
self-image. Having lost hope of ever returning to the source of everything, man
sought solace in his selfness. And, in doing so, he succeeded in fixing his
assemblage point in the exact position to perpetuate his self-image. It was
therefore safe to say that any movement of the assemblage point away from its customary
position resulted in a movement away from man's self-reflection and its
concomitant: self-importance.

Don Juan
described self-importance as the force generated by man's self-image. He
reiterated that it is that force which keeps the assemblage point fixed where
it is at present. For this reason, the thrust of the warriors' way is to
dethrone self-importance. And everything sorcerers do is toward accomplishing
this goal.

He
explained that sorcerers had unmasked self-importance and found that it is self-pity
masquerading as something else.

"It
doesn't sound possible, but that is what it is," he said. "Self-pity
is the real enemy and the source of man's misery. Without a degree of pity for
himself, man could not afford to be as self-important as he is. However, once
the force of self-importance is engaged, it develops its own momentum. And it
is this seemingly independent nature of self-importance which gives it its fake
sense of worth."

His
explanation, which I would have found incomprehensible under normal conditions,
seemed thoroughly cogent to me. But because of the duality in me, which still
pertained, it appeared a bit simplistic. Don Juan seemed to have aimed his
thoughts and words at a specific target. And I, in my normal state of
awareness, was that target.

He
continued his explanation, saying that sorcerers are absolutely convinced that
by moving our assemblage points away from their customary position we achieve a
state of being which could only be called ruthlessness. Sorcerers knew, by
means of their practical actions, that as soon as their assemblage points move,
their self-importance crumbles. Without the customary position of their
assemblage points, their self-image can no longer be sustained. And without the
heavy focus on that self-image, they lose their self-compassion, and with it
their self-importance. Sorcerers are right, therefore, in saying that
self-importance is merely self-pity in disguise.

He then
took my experience of the afternoon and went through it step by step. He stated
that a nagual in his role leader or teacher has to behave in the most
efficient, but the same time most impeccable, way. Since it is not possible for
him to plan the course of his actions rationally, the nagual always lets the
spirit decide his course. For example, he said he had had no plans to do what
he did until the spirit gave him an indication, very early that morning when we
were having breakfast in Nogales. He urged me recall the event and tell him
what I could remember. I recalled that during breakfast I got very embarrassed
cause don Juan made fun of me.

"Think
about the waitress," don Juan urged me.

"All I
can remember about her is that she was rude."

"But
what did she do?" he insisted. "What did she do while she waited to
take our order?"

After a moment's
pause, I remembered that she was a hard-looking young woman who threw the menu
at me and stood there, almost touching me, silently demanding that I hurry up
and order.

While she
waited, impatiently tapping her big foot on the floor, she pinned her long
black hair up on her head. The change was remarkable. She looked more
appealing, more mature. I was frankly taken by the change in her. In fact, I
overlooked her bad manners because of it.