In Carlos Castaneda’s philosophy, nagual refers to several things. First the nagual is an inner state, a way of being that is not of this world. Then he is a man endowed with powers. His first power is his person, his energy. The nagual man or woman is a door that opens onto a universe that telescopes will never observe. They are also the head of a clan of sorcerers, in the positive sense of the word. Let’s say the head of a clan of warriors of light.
Real Tonal
Nagual is not a word invented by Carlos Castaneda. It comes from nahual, a word used by Amerindian religions certainly from pre-Columbian beliefs. It is a mythical animal endowed with strange powers. Its description goes back to very ancient sources, comparable to the Gnosis. Would the nahual be an Archon? Be sure the nagual has nothing to do with these beings.
I will confine myself here to the framework presented by Castaneda. A largely open framework, just in case. Nagual is not of this world. Here below, there is only tonal, another Castanedian word for everyday reality, the one we freely accept. Tonal is our concrete reality, everyday life — unreal montage based on consensus. Nagual is not there.
“But there is nagual elsewhere, on another planet?”
There is only tonal on the other planets, on the stars, etc. Everywhere tonal without nagual.
“So the nagual is a parallel universe?”
No, not at all. In the heart of the Milky Way, in other galaxies, in the depths of the multiverse, where you want, you will find only tonal. I know, I’ve been there. And I’m going back.
Surreal Nagual
Nagual is unimaginable. It is also our element, but it remains indescribable. We cannot define it because it does not belong to the mental world, to thought, to the logical mind. We can only say what it is not.
The nagual is not real. It is situated elsewhere, on a plane which is accessed only by the force of intention. The astral. Domain of dreams. Dreams are said to be misleading. Not. They always tell the truth. But when we wake up, our brain produces an instant dressing that makes them absurd, incomprehensible, totally unusable. The dreams of an awakened person have nothing to do with those of psychoanalysis. They are the conscious experience of nagual. They are more than real. They are beyond illusion.
Yes, we can only say what the nagual is not. I know only one way to speak more concretely: the nagual is a position of the assembly point (PA). But that definition doesn’t explain anything. You have to know what the AP is. We must be able to become aware of its location, somewhere in our brightness. And the hardest thing remains to be done: to move it by the force of intention alone. Superhuman task, inaccessible to the asleep. But an awakened person does it without thinking, without effort, without ceasing. Awakening is beyond the mind. Every awakened person has ceased to think. Beyond the mind, he cut his head, according to the pretty formula of Lao Tzu.
A warrior treats the world as an infinite mystery,and what people do as an unlimited folly. (Carlos Castaneda)
Somersault of the Spirit
In the Castaneda system there are two kinds of intentions. The warrior’s intention and a higher Intention, which together with the Energy constitute the two sources of all that is, has been and will be. No creator god, no personal principle, no supreme being who can hear our prayers. Such is the castaneddism that I practice with faith, but be careful: I believe it totally, absolutely, and at the same time, I do not believe it at all. It is a great gap that the warrior must accomplish at every moment.
It is a perilous leap of the Spirit, to speak like Juan Matus, the benefactor of Carlos Castaneda. We are brought to this unthinkable gymnastics as soon as our consciousness enters the Plerôme, thus becoming supra-consciousness. The Plerôme is the christianization of Gwenwed, the Circle of White Light of Celtic mysticism.
What is this jump? Why is it dangerous? We don’t risk breaking our bones like the clumsy gymnast, we risk no longer finding our marks. We risk losing our way. To no longer regain access to our physical body, to our self, to our place of life, Terra la Belle, which become our untidy planet.
In the form of pure spirit, which appears as our brightness, we risk wandering endlessly through the multiverse, that vastness out there.
The Aura
What Castaneda calls brightness, we call it aura. It’s a data cloud. In our aura are stored a staggering mass of information that updates in real time. This information is the memory of what we have been, what we are and what we can be. They also contain the memory of our planet and all its mineral, energetic and living components. As well as the memory of our solar system, the stars and all their systems, as well as other galactic memories.
Our luminosity is not only the memory of all this. It is also the door to achieve it. With a second door to pass to the other side. There is in our aura the royal way to the nagual. Everything that ordinary people will never reach. Nagual is extraordinary. The favorite place of light seekers.
Those who reject this lie called the world, human life, human nature, human knowledge, and everything in it. Illusions. Euphoric smoke, painted decor, trompe-l’oeil, cache-misère that is referred to as reality. And everyone subscribes to it by laziness of effort or by fear of looking too closely. False pretenses that it is up to you to dispel if you want to taste nagual.
The domain of nagual begins where reality ends. In the very place where, exhausted, the real and the unreal are reconciled in a shower of apocalyptic light and disappear immediately in the trap of nothingness.
“Oh, I understand! Nagual is nothing!”
A Million Suns
Not at all. For a nagual warrior, nothingness would rather be ordinary reality. It is a decoy, a facade, a fake. If you seek the absolute, you must go beyond the contingent. If you are thirsty for truth, you must give up reality. Admit once that objective reality is totally subjective. Everything is reversed, and you put the kaliyuga head in the right place.
Then begins the ordinary madness, where opposites are abolished. Beware. This terrible madness demands to be controlled if you do not want to end up under a chemical tank top. This control requires constant vigilance. All the attention of the warrior focuses on this task, at least for the first time, until new automatisms are set up. And then there is still vigilance. Never trust automatisms, they hypnotize the overly confident researcher. They are the screen behind which the Archons bear their dark machinations.
From the first contact with the truth, the ultimate traces of factitious reality evaporate definitively. You are free. On the other side of the illusion, you touch the absolute. Beyond hallucinations, the truth advances naked. The ruins of an artificial reality are fading around her. Your judgment is free from all constraint. Mental programs that have enslaved you since childhood are just a memory. Then your eyes faint: the truth is a diamond that shines brighter than a million suns. This is the reward of the warrior of light.
A Damn Trap
This freedom that the nagual gives is so complete, so perfect, so clear that it becomes incomparable. I could never have imagined such a jewel of blissful calm. There is no equivalent in reality, because reality is a manufactured trap. A damned trap. You want the truth? You want freedom? Renounce illusions. Stop chasing chimeras. Focus on yourself. Deep within your inner lake are still waters that no storm in the world ever reaches.
Take your death for counsel. On a hundred thousand occasions it reminds you that a shroud has no pocket. That a physical body has no eternity. Let logic lead to nothing worth. Let reason forge the bars of your prison. That certainty can only lead to disaster. In the conquest of the absolute, the warrior possesses the perfect armor: absolute humility.
Yet without faith, there is no knowledge. Belief is an indispensable condition for any fulfillment. But pushing faith to the point of certainty that does not admit the slightest doubt is the sign of animal stupidity. There is no room for supra-consciousness in such an attitude. If belief is indispensable, it is imperative to go beyond it.
Take a hundred men, you will find a man of faith. Take one hundred men of faith, you will find a man of knowledge. (Rumi)
I Teach by Groping
The teaching of a nagual is not understandable. He does not speak to the wise, he snobbes it. Its purpose is to detach us from the devouring mind, all means are good that succeed. Indefinable, out of the world, not rational, the nagual is nevertheless pragmatic. The actions he suggests to the warrior of awakening are always perfect. So the warrior acts without understanding, without even consulting his reason that in any season he leaves at home.
The action uses him much more than the action. In all circumstances, he will act without waiting for the result of his action. Nagual is beyond cause-effect automatisms. It seems to have its own conscience that awards punishments and rewards. Let us punish more and more severely if the warrior insists on repeating the same mistakes. Increasingly huge rewards to settle every day its daily impeccability.
It is a daily teaching, in direct transmission, always in the concrete, listening to the deep body. At the time, 25 years ago, I was severely brainwashed. Expiatory victim of the dictatorship of the gut of the skull, I crawled in the mind, I pedalled in the ego. And I was the only one to ignore it. It took me a good decade to
1 stop the machine in my head,
2 make inner silence,
3 stop the world,
4 open my heart,
5 free my word
6 heal my fellow men.
The six points, in that order. The seeker of light must be honest and precise.
Unnecessary Knowledge?
I am well aware that I am a well of useless knowledge for most of you. But I cannot help but share it. This frantic quest for knowledge is more than a personal characteristic. I have continued my life since childhood, it will not end with death.
I want to be forgiven if I wave it like a flame. It announces the color of the man better than any human tendency: ideologies, convictions, religions, policies… It is beyond any category. Its limits are rare: some convictions like believe without believing, the assembly point and places of consciousness, the tonal and nagual, the spirit and the matter.
Beliefs are beliefs that refuse to become certainties. They can evolve, grow, change or disappear. A certainty is not possible in my mental universe. It borders on madness. It is a death trap for freedom. I am convinced that we are divine beings trapped in an animal body. That is my view of things at the moment. I haven’t always said that, and tomorrow maybe I won’t say it again. Living involves permanent change. Who doesn’t evolve is already dead.
Lao Surlam in 7 lessons
The golden age is like happiness: it is recognized only when it is past. (Lao Surlam)
To understand where you come from is to know who you are to guess where you are going. (Lao Surlam)
Crystal your intimate structure organizes the light. Crystal clavicle you open the memory of the world. Crystal clairvoyant you are worth a thousand times gold. (Lao Surlam)
Without the Source, there would be nothing. But without anything, the Source remains. (Lao Surlam)
They have eyes, let them look! They have ears, let them listen! They have a spirit, let them use it! They have a mouth, let them shut up! (Lao Surlam)
Who is free? The being or its clothing ? (Lao Surlam)
“For those who follow, go ahead. It is your turn.” (Lao Surlam)