On his path of impeccability, the warrior must strive to erase his personal history. He forgets little by little all that constituted his past, the facts, the places and the people, all those who mattered to him. Darlings, brides, family, children, buddies, jobs, bosses, schemes, holidays, trips, everything he’s done, everything he’s heard, everything he’s seen, everything he’s been through, everything, he has to forget everything. At the end of this work on himself the impeccable warrior erased his story.
What for?
What is the purpose of the demonstration? Such a hard work, so total, without knowing why we undertake it? Castaneda recommends that we erase our personal history, period. The explanations will come later, from the mouth of another warrior of the Nagual named Florinda. Castaneda justifies this work of forgetfulness with this simple phrase: it is a necessary condition for the warrior of light. Necessary and sufficient? No, I seem to be messing around, but I’m appalled. It’s hard to do it completely. It means breaking all our emotional ties, parents, children, old friends… which doesn’t mix well with the path that has heart.
The warrior of light is not a being without humanity. He is elsewhere, beyond the human, yes, but not inhuman. What is the purpose of erasing his history? Precisely. Personal history is a brake that opposes the progress of the warrior. So we have to eliminate it. Well, I’ll tell you, I don’t like it. Maybe we have to qualify it?
Male Warrior Non-Fair
My sweet has just read The Eagle’s Gift. She says: “It is one of the non-doing who leads to erase one’s ego, to lose the feeling of one’s own importance. Florinda explains that this non-doing was at the time only applied to men; other times and mores, now and in Western countries, the ego that makes moron is growing fast in both men and women.” Thank you dear soul, you fill me.
In this book, Castaneda relates to the witch Florinda the words of Don Juan on the negative force of personal life and on the necessity for a warrior to erase it. Juan Matus had forbidden him to talk about his own life. Florinda burst out laughing and replied:
-This applies only to men. The non-fair of your personal life is to tell stories over and over again – but not a single one about your real self. You see, being a man means you have a dense, compact history behind you. You have family, friends, acquaintances, and each of these beings has a specific idea of you. Being a man means you’re responsible. You can’t disappear as easily as a woman. To be able to erase yourself, you need many efforts.
A woman can disappear easily. A woman can, for example, marry. She then belongs to her husband. In a family with a lot of children, girls are discarded very early. No one is counting on them and there is a chance that some will disappear without a trace. Everyone accepts their disappearance easily. A son, on the other hand, is something we rely on. A son finds it difficult to slip away and disappear. And even if he does, he leaves traces behind. Moreover, the sons feel guilty about disappearing. The daughters do not. (source)The gift of the eagle, chapter 14, Florinda
A heavy secret
I’ll tell you why I don’t like this speech. Aside from the fact that he stigmatizes women by describing a reality that is no longer ours, it seems suspicious to me. Invented by Carlos. Yes, because he has to justify behavior unworthy of a warrior who has heart. So he invents the whole scene: Florinda’s speech, the fact that she laughs, etc. Let’s not be fooled. Don Juan Matus has returned several times to the past of his apprentice who leaves something to be desired. Carlitos abandoned the little boy he had made to a woman. Abandoned her too. A warrior worthy of the name pays his debts and repairs. There is still time. This is what the Nagual tells him.
Despite these warnings, Carlos’ ego remains stronger than his impeccability. He lets the situation rot, counting on time to erase it from his memory.
That’s why I think very strongly that he added this tirade from Florinda — a tirade that was invented, as well as Florinda probably — to justify the unjustifiable. As proof, this last sentence of Florinda: “When the Nagual trained you to keep your mouth shut on your personal life, he intended to help you overcome your feeling of having harmed your family and friends, who relied on you in one way or another.” (source)The gift of the eagle, chapter 14, Florinda
Ego scheming
There was no way that this woman was aware of an intimate detail that Castaneda had never told her about. Only the Nagual Matus was aware of it. You can’t imagine him telling that to another apprentice. That sentence alone justifies that long lie. So he clears himself of an episode of his life thanks to the duty to forget — too convenient! Another thing: it hits hard what justifies the gift of the Eagle: the need for remembrance. The warrior’s first duty is to remember himself.
Carlitos is not at all contradictory. I am not either. I sometimes support two contradictory theories in the same article. Speech does not matter much. Only the music of words that carries you has its role to play in awakening. Music, rhythm, dance of words. Nothing else. We have five senses, and much more. Why would we want words to have only one?
If it is a question of erasing ordinary memories, of unravelling the bonds that bind us to such and such circumstance of our life, the case is heard. I’ve lived a hundred lives in this one, I’ve forgotten ninety-nine.
The memory of the external facts of my life has largely faded in my mind or disappeared. But the encounters with the other reality, the collision with the unconscious, have indelibly permeated my memory. There was always plenty and wealth there. Everything else goes into the background. (Carl Gustav Jung)
Hunting
If by misfortune a warrior is obsessed with a tenacious past, if he is embarrassed by the elastic that brings him back, forgetting can do nothing for him. Let him act on the opposite: remembrance. Let him find the totality of the buried memory, let him clean this engram and continue his journey. This is the strategy of the New Seers to escape the Eagle. One of the key points of nagualism. Why would Don Juan suggest the contrary to Castaneda? Why help her to forget her shame, her duty as a warrior, father and human being? I repeat: Castaneda invents.
If it is only a question of not bringing it back again and again while recounting its exploits, I suggest above all self-control, one of the bases of impeccability. If we have to mitigate the shock we cause to those around us, there is another: the hunt. It’s about being someone else with the ones you love. Reduce the stupor and disorientation they might feel by discovering in their father, brother, husband, an unknown, destabilizing and quite frankly terrifying being. Some will say that we cannot lie to those we love. But is there a lie?
Terrifying
Did I say terrifying? Yes, the warrior who snatches from the human condition has something terrifying for everyone. Something from the UFO or the monster. His intransigence is scary. His miracles are scary. His humor does not make ordinary people laugh. Besides, is he still mortal? Sometimes it seems that not. It’s because he looks like the former gods, like those supermen who came from the sky to terraform this planet. They too had something terrifying.
He who does not hide his superhumanity is a silly Buddha, from the strong formula of Flornoy who applied it willingly to himself. The temptation of the foolish Buddha is even more terrifying. It is the second enemy of the warrior stated by Castaneda: clarity. If the warrior is not able to overcome this blinding clarity, he becomes terrifying, and cannot defeat the next enemy: the powers. He takes them for himself, takes credit for them and ends up believing that he is the equal of God. How many of them have died!
How does it works?
The warrior flees the mind that he assimilates to the ego. The mind is an absolute brake on the path of awakening. To live by listening to one’s deep body, to welcome in oneself the soul of the world, none of this requires the slightest spark of intelligence, mind or ego. All this, on the contrary, demands the most sincere humility.
The ego is the only part of human being which will not know awakening (Lamaist proverb)
I don’t know
This path is the most difficult. It forces us to deny ourselves from age to age. To constantly improve. The work on ourselves must be permanent. If it stops, we ruin days, weeks of effort. Months and years are sometimes reduced to nothing, as if the progress made had never been. The obscure stupidity invades the most awake being. Even madness sometimes. I have known the case.
Some steps are higher than others. Much higher. Who does not move backwards. The warrior, at any cost, must climb them. If he needs the skills of an experienced mountaineer, he becomes that mountaineer. How does it work? I don’t know. The warrior just does it.
To erase the ego is to eliminate parasites, dogs, suckers and psychopumps. They only. You can keep your friends, your brothers, your children. Your body will know what to do. And remember, the warrior doesn’t ask how, the warrior does.
They didn’t know it was impossible, so they did it. ( Marcel Pagnol — wrongly attributed to Mark Twain, JF Kennedy, Churchill … )
The warrior does it because he knows it’s possible. Those who don’t know don’t even try.