i found this thought brilliant: > > i read recently that the process of history really got > > underway when mirrors became affordable to everyone. > > until then it was impossible - literally - to properly > > see one'self as anything distinctly different.
By chance I red recently in this book (in PC so can copy-paste) where the shaman explains that we can be so many wonderfult things but have our being static and chained into one single position--we hold on to this position of egotism and we give all our energy to defend the self (this position). It is as an artist who do not dare change/evolve in style and fearfully sticking to the style that brought her/him fame. He said that in Venezuela they had a way to hunt monkeys: they put seeds in chained gourds in the night and come to collect the trapped monkeys in the morning. The gourds have only a small opening, small enough to pass the fist. The monkey grabs on to the seeds and nothing can make it drop them. The monkey sees the hunter and tries to get away with all might and bleeding hands but never let go from these seeds. The shaman said that we are like like these monkeys and the seeds are our self image, our self-importance, our self-reflection. a few quotes by the same shaman: "...They imprison us, but by keeping us pinned down on our comfortable spot of self-reflection, they defend us from the onslaughts of the unknown." I was having one of those extraordinary moments in which everything about the sorcerers' world was crystal .clear. I understood everything. "Once our chains are cut," don Juan continued, "we are no longer bound by the concerns of the daily world. We are still in the daily world, but we don't belong there anymore. In order to belong we must share the concerns of people, and without chains we can't." Don Juan said that the nagual Elias had explained to him that what distinguishes normal people is that we share a metaphorical dagger: the concerns of our self-reflection. With this dagger, we cut ourselves and bleed; and the job of our chains of self-reflection is to give us the feeling that we are bleeding together, that we are sharing something wonderful: our humanity. But if we were to examine it, we would discover that we are bleeding alone; that we are not sharing anything; that all we are doing is toying with our manageable, unreal, man-made reflection. "Sorcerers are no longer in the world of daily affairs," don Juan went on, "because they are no longer prey to their self-reflection." 'The position of self-reflection," don Juan went on, "forces the assemblage point to assemble a world of sham compassion, but of very real cruelty and self-centeredness. In that world the only real feelings are those convenient for one who feels them. 'For a sorcerer, ruthlessness is not cruelty. Ruthlessness the opposite of self-pity or self-importance. Ruthlessness sobriety." "...I asked him what the effects were. He said that they gave out imperceptible jolts of invigorating energy, and he remarked that average men living in natural settings could find such spots, even though they were not conscious about having found them nor aware of their effects. "How do they know they have found them?" I asked. "They never do," he replied. "Sorcerers watching men travel on foot trails notice right away that men always become tired and rest right on the spot with a positive level of energy. If, on the other hand, they are going through an area with an injurious flow of energy, they become nervous and rush. If you ask them about it they will tell you they rushed through that area because they felt energized. But it is the opposite - the only place that energizes them is the place where they feel tired." He said that sorcerers are capable of finding such spots by perceiving with their entire bodies minute surges of energy in their surroundings. The sorcerers' increased energy, derived from the curtailment of their self-reflection, allows their senses a greater range of perception. "I've been trying to make clear to you that the only worthwhile course of action, whether for sorcerers or average men, is to restrict our involvement with our self-image," he continued. "What a nagual aims at with his apprentices is the shattering of their mirror of self-reflection." He added that each apprentice was an individual case, and that the nagual had to let the spirit decide about the particulars. "Each of us has a different degree of attachment to his self-reflection," he went on. "And that attachment is felt as need. For example, before I started on the path of knowledge, my life was endless need. And years after the nagual Julian had taken me under his wing, I was still just as needy, if not more so. "But there are examples of people, sorcerers or average men, who need no one. They get peace, harmony, laughter, knowledge, directly from the spirit. They need no intermediaries. For you and for me, it's different. I'm your intermediary and the nagual Julian was mine. Intermediaries, besides providing a minimal chance - the awareness of intent - help shatter people's mirrors of self-reflection. "The only concrete help you ever get from me is that I attack your self-reflection. If it weren't for that, you would be wasting your time. This is the only real help you've gotten from me." "...Once the assemblage point has moved, the movement itself entails moving from self-reflection, and this, in turn, assures a clear connecting link with the spirit. He commented that, after all, it was self-reflection that had disconnected man from the spirit in the first place. "As I have already said to you," don Juan went on, "sorcery is a journey of return. We return victorious to the spirit, having descended into hell. And from hell we bring trophies. Understanding is one of our trophies." I told him that his sequence seemed very easy and very simple when he talked about it, but that when I had tried to put it into practice I had found it the total antithesis of ease and simplicity. "Our difficulty with this simple progression," he said, "is that most of us are unwilling to accept that we need so little to get on with. We are geared to expect instruction, teaching, guides, masters. And when we are told that we need no one, we don't believe it. We become nervous, then distrustful, and finally angry and disappointed. If we need help, it is not in methods, but in emphasis. If someone makes us aware that we need to curtail our self-importance, that help is real. "Sorcerers say we should need no one to convince us that the world is infinitely more complex than our wildest fantasies. So, why are we dependent? Why do we crave someone to guide us when we can do it ourselves? Big question, eh?" ------------------------------------------ Faites un voeu et puis Voila ! www.voila.fr -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
