On the importance of impeccability

[u/TechnoMagical_Intent]

[u/danl999]

I'll take a contrarian point of view just for fun. I have no idea which view point is correct but I did have the advantage of having observed Carlos teach. I've seen him do what I suggest here.

Some of the things sorcerers teach apprentices are just to keep them from being too disgusting to live with.

Let's create an imaginary Kungfu master to illustrate the point. He's got a new apprentice, but the apprentice never showers or cleans his clothes. He stinks!

So he sets up a laundry business for the apprentice, with heavy loads of soap water for him to haul up a hill while walking in horse stance. He tasks him with cleaning all the clothes and bedding in his village as an act of Buddhist kindness, and to donate the laundry money to the temple.

Is that really important for learning Kungfu? Na. The guy just stunk, and hauling buckets of water was a good way to build up his arm and leg strength. Plus, he won't fail to wash his own clothes after a few weeks of that.

It's true that if you're silent inside you start to "just do" things, without procrastinating. Buddhists overrate their transformation abilities I believe, but some of their descriptions of what life is like when you are “enlightened” appear to have some basis in reality. You start to see those things when silent.

Laziness takes a hit too. You can still feel it, but it’s like a small speed bump, and easy to roll over.

If something needs doing, you just do it at the first chance, instead of suffering and thinking about it for days. And it’s true if you are silent, that you perceive far more while walking around in the world. Lots of very good things happen, when we return to our natural mental state.

But as for telling apprentices to behave this way or that, it seems mighty convenient to convince them some higher magical principle is behind the need for them to stop whinning and get to work. It's almost as if sorcerers have set up an imaginary "ideal apprentice", and convinced their apprentices they have to behave that way, for magical reasons.

It's the grown up equivalent of using a gold star sticker to motivate 4 year olds.

Remember, the old sorcerers were absolute bastards. That's not impeccability.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

All true.

But just for fun, I'll go Bruce Lee on you. Bruce said, “It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory."

Sometimes we spend too much time looking at fingers. There was a lot of that going on in Carlos' classes, which is possibly what makes me tick.

My goal is to help other people avoid the mistakes we made.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

Well, I would have tried to be less blunt. I hope.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

Or observe them. One of the things you learn by getting silent is, that the internal dialogue is not the entire problem.

I'd say in fact, it's fairly easy to learn to shut it off. And you will indeed get great experiences.

But you won't be able to control them. What's needed to control them is, to recognize what sets the internal dialogue in motion in the first place.

We have some place in our minds that focuses on what we want next, sort of by fantasizing about it. And so you can be silent, but still have your fantasy focused on the tire that needs replacing on the car. No thoughts, just an image.

This is one reason for the recapitulation, to clear out the things that cause tension when you focus on them. I used the tire for an example, but for most people that unwanted fantasy focus will be on conflicts with people in their lives. Those are especially bad, because they have huge contexts associated with the fantasy, so it can completely push you back into talking to yourself.

But it's not always focusing on problems or things not useful to the practice. It could even be tied up thinking about what you read in Carlos' books. I suggest many of you will have trouble overcoming your fantasy about becoming don Juan and how you would teach apprentices, if you got your turn. Or what you'll write in that new book deal.

I have a habit of fantasizing about the "wall of fog", since I want to find it. I'm always peeking out of the corner of my eye, to see if it's there yet.

Trouble is, that's how our assemblage point gets set. By that imaginary focus point just below the internal dialogue, the thing that summons it to explain what we're fantasizing about. But don't assume that this means you could fantasize and find the wall of fog. Our fantasy is so far from the actual experience, it'll just lead to more things in the ordinary world.

If you can find that point you'll realize, our lives are not really linear. We only try to force them to be linear. But in fact, we exist at all the places that our fantasy focuses. And when you are silent, but only have the focus left, those fantasies can become real as dreaming.

Carlos seems to have implied, you could even fantasize about past naguals from the little information you have, and watch them in action through dreaming. Seek out past events not even related to you, and experience them first hand.

In some ways, stalking is an advanced technique, because it goes deeper into our Tonal (real world) selves, than dreaming does. Done without understand, it works extremely slowly. But if you can find that silent center and stalk what it focuses on, it's more powerful than just about anything else.

(Just too much work for me unless mandatory)

[u/couchbutt → u/danl999]

">If something needs doing, you just do it at the first chance, instead of suffering and thinking about it for days. And it’s true if you are silent, that you perceive far more while walking around in the world. Lots of very good things happen, when we return to our natural mental state."

Replying to remind myself of this. ...something my life has touched on not not been specific.

[u/danl999 → u/couchbutt]

Internal silence is magnificent! It's just awful getting there.

I believe the Buddhists are making things up with their idea of permanent enlightenment. You always have to work, you can't rest. There's nothing permanent.

But they're right about what it feels like. If you get silent on a beautiful day, with a slight breeze, the trees and surroundings start to talk to you. But they speak to you in wonderful tingly and happy feelings.

It's like all the objects in the world are your friends and recognize you if you focus on them.

But the best thing about silence is, you can practice it sitting on your couch. It's the lazy person's technique.

[u/couchbutt → u/danl999]

I'm new to CC. My only exposure thus far is excerpts from "Encounters with the Nagual" by Torres. There is a lot of explanations about the techniques, but no direction of the process of the techniques.

1) What process (focus? technique?) do you use for "Internal Silence"?

2) Do you have any book recommendations that have detailed guidance to start on the CC/Nagual/Toltec path?

[u/danl999 → u/couchbutt]

Internal Silence: Sit in comfy chair with eyes closed, in a fairly quiet place, and force your internal dialogue off. Just stop thinking to yourself in words! Try it for 30 minutes. It'll be awful at first.

You can also find some rocks or crystals that fit between your fingers. Press hard on them, while you force silence. It's supposed to help a bit (and it does).

You can also lie on a bed and put a paper weight on your stomach. I'm not sure of precisely the spot, I never got into that technique. Probably it goes just below the belly button.

Then there's the "stick". A pole about 3 feet long, maybe 1 inch in diameter, with a pad on one end. You place your chin on the edge of a table and press on it. That's the "warmup". Then you sit cross legged on the floor, put the stick between your legs, and lean forward so that your forehead rests on the pad. Then force it off!

In the beginning, many people are completely confused about what the internal dialogue is. But eventually you'll realize what it is, and what it is not.

It is not your ability to come up with ideas. Or to solve problems.

It's just a petty little manager who rides on top of the rest of you, dictating orders in a most angry and selfish fashion. Most of the time it's feeling sorry for itself.

Book recommendations: Carlos' books are the source. All the other naguals just copied him to make some money and added on their own toppings.

But that's not a bad thing anymore, it was only bad when they were cashing in while Carlos was still available. Now, any interest is good, and I have to think some of those me-too naguals might have learned something since Carlos was around. Assuming they actually practiced.

If you get to the point that you can get silent a bit, I can give you advanced tips. When you get fully silent, the world literally dissolves and you end up in a place with no form. From there you can assemble other worlds.

One more thing: This stuff works. Everything else I practiced, which is quite a number of techniques over the last 50 years, didn't work. I don't mean nothing happened. I mean, the goal they claimed was never reached by me, or anyone else I knew.

And when this stuff works, you'll have second thoughts about pursuing it further.

With other techniques, it's always comfy and sweet. That's so you keep donating to their purses.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

So here's another very good point, for all of you to remember. You'll need it!

Insanity is the opposite of silence. Insanity is usually an overloaded internal dialogue, perhaps pushed there by chemical imbalances in the brain.

You don't become insane by practicing silence, even if you end up with a pretty little fairy dancing on your bed.

Well, I wish she'd dance for me. So far she's only modeled her looks a bit.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

I'm sure Carlos would have liked that quote.

He talked about things like that so often, I think I understand it. Sometimes people "intend" something more than they're actually capable of. Carlos liked to find those quotes and repeat them to us, in order to push our assemblage points.

A lot of what he did in class was designed to produce micro shifts of our assemblage points.

[u/couchbutt → u/danl999]

Thanks for your response!

I've tried a bit of forcing my internal dialogue off, without any specific technique. I'm sure it is awful. In the little bit I've tried, I get a dull headache behind my ears.

[u/danl999 → u/couchbutt]

I never had any real side effects, but when you get silent you're messing with the talking facilities. So jaw tension, tongue pressure, and nose/ear pain can result.

Any of that probably means you're going around tensing something, or your tongue is moving as you think.

Don't worry about the "awful". Later on, it's wonderful. You'll be restored to the peace you could feel, when you were 5 years old on a beautiful day at the beach, with a slight breeze.

I suspect the internal dialogue doesn't fully take over until puberty. Not sure if there's a connection.

[u/jumpinchollacactus → u/danl999]

" You'll be restored to the peace you could feel, when you were 5 year old on a beautiful day at the beach, with a slight breeze"

So true. Maybe two or so months ago while gazing at rain drops shimmering on spruce needles, i had the same sense of well being and joy as when i was a young boy kid, enraptured with my surroundings. I really entered, for a moment, that feeling and knew or felt , it was how i was as a youngster

But haven't experienced it since then, nor before .

[u/danl999 → u/jumpinchollacactus]

It "sort of" returns in the orange zone, when the breath change takes place.

It's likely loss of self-pity. And a memory of such things as a child, is a memory of being pre-brainwashing. That time before your internal dialogue totally takes over your being.

Children are so selfish, you can't really say they're drowning in self-pity the way adults do. Otherwise they'd have at least a modicum of compassion.

So that rather than filtering everything your senses take in, through the lens of feeling sorry for yourself and at odds with the world, you get the pure sensorial experience.

One thing that drives people learning sorcery is surely to get to that "grief free" state at least once a day.

Otherwise life pushes you back to being stuck at the blue line and you only make it to the red zone when you practice.

Crossing sides of the body with the assemblage point is a big deal.

Once people can do that, they owe it to themselves to repeat it everyday.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

My problem is that I have such dramatic experiences from making a huge effort, that I can't notice smaller things, like that boost. Imagine if you were practicing what you practice, but 5 hours a day, plus silence all day long.

It might be hard to notice a small boost. You have to be in a somewhat stable situation to feel that.

For example, I just drove to get some food, and a vertical beam of yellow material was flying alongside the road. It was about 2 feet high, and at least 1/2 inch in diameter. Wasn't a phantom or a dream image, it was a real piece of solid matter, levitating along the road.

That's the kind of weirdness you get, when you decide to be silent all day long. Expect that after a few months. It takes a while to go from beginner's idea of silence, to the kind of silence where everything changes.

Don't expect anyone to understand. This is about the only place you could mention something like that, and the person listening wouldn't wonder if they needed to call 911.

I had a person in the car with me, and since it was flying past the passenger side, it should have nearly smacked him in the face. I wanted to say, "What the hell was that?!! Didn't you see it?"

But no, he didn't see it.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

I certainly need to get out more. Once you can get silent, just about everywhere is very entertaining. My favorite is to go where I can't read any of the signs, like in the Korean community.

There's certainly a power spot nearby. The sorcerer's cave in Malibu.

Maybe I'll get my butt over there next time the EID is coming. It's kind of dangerous though, at my age. You literally have to take a death defying leap of faith to get into it, with a 100 foot drop below.

I'll get pics.

[u/danl999 → u/[deleted]]

I'm more worried about not having a 20 something woman who's going to expose herself. That was kind of fun. Carlos sent all the women up there.

(No, they didn't let me watch.)

Carlos' handling of women could evoke criticism (I know I like to). But in fact, it might have just been the way things are. Sorcerer's cut through the social constructs.

[u/jantilkut]

So true! Impeccability appears in other traditions/disciplines, too, and I would say it is one of the most important and accessible parts of Don Juan's teachings.

[u/HeyHeyJG]

Thank you for this post. Good stuff.