I went into the most contorted complaints, alluding to the fact that I was a social scientist, accustomed to practical directions that had substance to them, not to something vague which was dependent on magical solutions rather than practical means.
"Say whatever you want," don Juan responded, laughing. "Once you're through complaining, forget about your qualms and do what I have asked you to do."
Don Juan was right. All that I needed, or rather, all that a mysterious part of me which was not overt needed, was the idea. The 'me' that I had known through all my life needed infinitely more than the idea. It needed coaching, spurring, direction. I became so intrigued by my success that the tasks of erasing my routines, losing my self-importance and dropping my personal history became a sheer delight.
"You are smack in front of the warriors' way," don Juan said by way of explanation for my mysterious success.
Slowly and methodically, he had guided my awareness to focus more and more intensely on an abstract elaboration of the concept of the warrior that he called the warriors' way, the warriors' path. He explained that the warriors' way was a structure of ideas established by the shamans of ancient Mexico. Those shamans had derived their construct by means of their ability to see energy as it flows freely in the universe. Therefore, the warriors' way was a most harmonious conglomerate of energetic facts, irreducible truths determined exclusively by the direction of the flow of energy in the universe. Don Juan categorically stated that there was nothing about the warriors' way that could be argued, nothing that could be changed. It was in itself and by itself a perfect structure, and whoever followed it was corralled by energetic facts that admitted no argument, no speculation about their function and their value.
Don Juan said that those old shamans called it the warriors' way because its structure encompassed all the living possibilities that a warrior might encounter on the path of knowledge. Those shamans were absolutely thorough and methodical in their search for such possibilities. According to don Juan, they were indeed capable of including in their abstract structure everything that is humanly possible.
Don Juan compared the warriors' way to an edifice, with each of the elements of this edifice being a propping device whose only function was to sustain the psyche of the warrior in his role of shaman initiate, in order to make his movements easy and meaningful. He stated unequivocally that the warriors' way was the essential construct without which shaman initiates would be shipwrecked in the immensity of the universe.
Don Juan called the warriors' way the crowning glory of the shamans of ancient Mexico. He viewed it as their most important contribution, the essence of their sobriety.
"Is the warriors' way that overwhelmingly important, don Juan?" I asked him once.
"'Overwhelmingly important' is a euphemism. The warriors' way is everything. It is the epitome of mental and physical health. I cannot explain it in any other way. For the shamans of ancient Mexico to have created such a structure means to me that they were at the height of their power, the peak of their happiness, the apex of their joy."
On the level of pragmatic acceptance or rejection in which I thought I was submerged at the time, to embrace the warriors' path thoroughly and unbiasedly was nothing short of an impossibility for me. The more don Juan explained the warriors' path, the more intense the sensation I had that he was indeed plotting to overthrow all my balance.
Don Juan's guidance was, therefore, covert. It manifested itself with stupendous clarity, however, in the quotations drawn from Journey to Ixtlan. Don Juan had advanced on me in leaps and bounds at tremendous speed, without my being aware of it, and was suddenly breathing down my neck. I thought time and time again that I was either on the verge of accepting. In a bona fide manner, the existence of another cognitive system, or I was so thoroughly indifferent that I didn't care whether it happened one way or the other.
Of course, there was always the option of running away from all that, but it wasn't tenable. Somehow, don Juan's ministrations, or my heavy use of the concept of the warrior had hardened me to the point that I was no longer that afraid. I was caught, but really, it made no difference. All I knew was that I was there with don Juan for the duration.
QUOTATIONS FROM TALES OF POWER
The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.
There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn't do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.
The only possible course that a warrior has is to act consistently and without reservations. At a certain moment, he knows enough of the warriors' way to act accordingly, but his old habits and routines may stand in his way.
If a warrior is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such or so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.
To change our idea of the world is the crux of shamanism. And stopping the internal dialogue is the only way to accomplish it.
When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.
A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as grounds for regret but as a living challenge.
The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn't permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.
Solace, haven, fear, all of these are words which have created moods that one has learned to accept without ever questioning their value.
Our fellow men are black magicians. And whoever is with them is a black magician on the spot. Think for a moment. Can you deviate from the path that your fellow men have lined up for you? And if you remain with them, your thoughts and your actions are fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. The warrior, on the other hand, is free from all that. Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible to pay. So, fear your captors, your masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing freedom.
The flaw with words is that they always make us feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment. For this reason, a warrior seeks to act rather than to talk, and to this effect, he gets a new description of the world – a new description where talking is not that important, and where new acts have new reflections.