"Don Juan, as he had done before, covered the spot where I had once slept with small branches and leaves. Then he gave me a handful of leaves to put against the skin of my abdomen and told me to lie down and rest. He fixed another place for himself slightly to my left, about five feet away from my head, and also lay down.
In a matter of minutes I began to feel exquisite warmth and a sense of supreme well-being. It was a sense of physical comfort, a sensation of being suspended in mid-air. I could fully agree with Don Juan's statement that the "bed of strings" would keep me floating. I commented on the unbelievable quality of my sensory experience. Don Juan said in a factual tone that the "bed" was made for that purpose.
"I can't believe that this is possible!" I exclaimed.
Don Juan took my statement literally and scolded me. He said he was tired of my acting as an ultimately important being that has to be given proof over and over that the world is unknown and marvellous.
I tried to explain that a rhetorical exclamation had no significance. He retorted that if that were so I could have chosen another statement. It seemed that he was seriously annoyed with me. I sat up halfway and began to apologize, but he laughed and, imitating my manner of speaking, suggested a series of hilarious rhetorical exclamations I could have used instead. I ended up laughing at the calculated absurdity of some of his proposed alternatives.
He giggled and in a soft tone reminded me that I should abandon myself to the sensation of floating.
The soothing feeling of peace and plenitude that I experienced in that mysterious place aroused some deeply buried emotions in me. I began to talk about my life. I confessed that I had never respected or liked anybody, not even myself, and that I had always felt I was inherently evil, and thus my attitude towards others was always veiled with a certain bravado and daring.
"True," don Juan said. "You don't like yourself at all."
He cackled and told me that he had been "seeing" while I talked. His recommendation was that I should not have remorse for anything I had done, because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil was to place an unwarranted importance on the self.
I moved nervously and the bed of leaves made a rustling sound. Don Juan said that if I wanted to rest I should not make my leaves feel agitated, and that I should imitate him and lie without making a single movement. He added that in his "seeing" he had come across one of my moods. He struggled for a moment, seemingly to find a proper word, and said that the mood in question was a frame of mind I continually lapsed into. He described it as a sort of trap door that opened at unexpected times and swallowed me.
I asked him to be more specific. He replied that it was impossible to be specific about "seeing."
Before I could say anything else he told me I should relax, but not fall asleep, and be in a state of awareness for as long as I could. He said that the "bed of strings" was made exclusively to allow a warrior to arrive at a certain state of peace and well-being.
In a dramatic tone Don Juan stated that well-being was a condition one had to groom, a condition one had to become acquainted with in order to seek it.
"You don't know what well-being is, because you have never experienced it," he said.
I disagreed with him. But he continued arguing that well-being was an achievement one had to deliberately seek. He said that the only thing I knew how to seek was a sense of disorientation, ill-being, and confusion.
He laughed mockingly and assured me that in order to accomplish the feat of making myself miserable I had to work in a most intense fashion, and that it was absurd I had never realized I could work just the same in making myself complete and strong.
"The trick is in what one emphasizes," he said. "We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."
Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda
Nedavno me je Dreamybanny podsetila na meaning of life...
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