"….conclusions arrived at through reasoning had very little or no influence in altering the course of our lives. Hence, the countless examples of people who have the clearest convictions and yet act diametrically against them time and time again; and have as the only explanation for their behaviour the idea that to err is human." [p36] Conviction that comes from insight is of course completely different.

I remember some guy at Harnham (Harnham Buddhist monastery) saying that he thought I was truly searching for the truth compared to the monks. No-one could have said anything else that could possibly have geared my ego into action as much as this. Now that I am retired and the only thing I am working on is my journey, I can reflect further on this flattery.

You cannot maintain a high level of journey angst when you are working on it full-time. Firstly it would be stressful, and secondly an angst-induced state of mental agitation is not conducive to learning. At the time Harnham was a respite between jobs or during job holidays. In later years my holidays were always time when I resought the journey after leaving the path as a teacher; at some stage in my teaching what had been a comfortable balance between teaching and the journey had got lost and teaching had become an acceptable compromise that paid the bills with the journey relegated time-wise to the holidays. So on reflection the comment was only a description of angst that was caused by not being involved full-time in life's learning.

Searching for the unknown is clearly an important motivation, I have no choice in the matter. Once I hit bottom, and started on the real journey conversation on journey's issues became a highpoint even if I was drunk and didn't remember them - as when young. The integral morality of the Path forced me into many conflicts especially at work where careerism and profiteering have destroyed one of the few real professions - teaching. And this integral morality could also be described as robust, as there is such a strength inherent in this journey that not following the Path of Learning (searching for the unknown) is fraught with problems - often addiction and other of society's ills.

As for adventurous, that is romantic but perhaps justified - less so in my case. Castaneda himself although outwardly beginning his search amongst mushrooms returned to many strange encounters with Don Juan. How many peoples' travels out East are fuelled by their search for Wisdom - searching for the unknown? The mountaineer who took me and the delinquents in Yorkshire was never his true self except in the mountains of Nepal, and the rest of the year he lived off the connection. But the adventure is the outward appearance of inner travels, and not the journey itself, unfortunately far too many who are currently travelling are seeking the outward form of adventure, and miss out on the inner journey.

But there is no doubt that people, who are taken out of the familiar, the home and the workplace that they create as a protection - certainly a protection from the Path and as such a protection from the search for the unknown, become people at their best.

"Don Juan explained that in a state of heightened awareness" we "behave almost as naturally as in everyday life but can bring their minds to focus on anything with uncommon force and clarity" [p xi]. "What transpires in such a state becomes a part of" …. "everyday awareness only through a staggering effort of recovery" [p xii]. This has got to be connected with insight meditation but how?

When younger I reached a form of heightened awareness during meditation - on occasions as meditation was not regular. Now meditation is regular there are no great heights - just meditation. How much is this the same thing?

When I write I write in some mundane heightened awareness, no bells and banjos, just a state of writing in which the story just comes. I have some vague notional plot that doesn't usually change yet at the same time need not be adhered to. The details within the plot come out within the session of writing and on occasions contain knowledge that I would say was not in truth part of my previous awareness. Yet I cannot say that for sure - fascinating! What I can say for sure is that I can reread something that I have written, and be surprised at the depth of its content - as if I didn't really know it …. yet I had written it.

Why do I blog so much, especially Nature Insight blog? During meditation an insight would come. It would come in without shape, and then engage with the chattering mind and form a concept - shape. This concept would like detail and by blogging the insight is given more concrete form.

How does this relate to heightened awareness and staggering recovery?

"This is simply the case of something unknowable vaguely resembling something known." [p41] What about God as the white man with a beard, and then the black God of St Lucia. Then we have parallels with Unity, all emanations - the Eagle's Emanations or Commands.

The seers "saw that it is the Eagle that bestows awareness. The Eagle creates sentient beings so that they will live and enrich the awareness it gives them with life. They also saw that it is the Eagle who devours that same enriched awareness after making sentient beings relinquish it at the moment of death." [p38] "the Eagle's Emanations are an immutable thing-in-itself, which engulfs everything that exists, the known and the unknowable." [p40] To describe something as important as awareness by Eagle's Emanations sounds ludicrous, and in so doing ignorance from outside can easily belittle the concept and the religion/epistemology as second rate. But in fact careful analysis succeeds in doing two things:-

1) It confirms understanding from other sources such as theosophy, Hinduism, Buddhism, and so on.

2) By confirming that understanding it also gives integrity to the understanding described as Eagle's Emanations.

Am I being condemnatory to describe it as sounding ludicrous? "Genaro …. thinks that the Seers who called that force the Eagle were either very stupid or were making a grand joke, because eagles not only lay eggs, they also lay turds" [p44].

"For a seer men are luminous beings. Our luminosity is made up of that portion of the Eagle's emanations which is encased in our egglike cocoon. That portion …. is what makes us men." [p45] Is this not like a Divine Spark?

"They are something indescribable." …. The portions "filaments area aware of themselves, alive and vibrating, that there are so many of them that numbers have no meaning and that each of them is an eternity in itself" [p46]. Such a comment would fit seamlessly in the Upanishads.

There is much more about this I need to come to terms with but what is contained in this blog entry helps with the next one - Alignment, so it is included here. Hopefully I will remember to refer to this entry.

The seer describes the process of seeing as alignment. Alignment sounds interesting as it sounds like centreing. Especially in my younger years (pre 40) meditation was very much a centreing, it would occur as this alignment. I would wait until going to bed, and would feel this presence - great stillness. The atmosphere would look as if it were vibrating - particular vibration, and then I would feel the centreing - grounding. Restlessness would disappear and I would simply feel that I was on the Path - although I could not describe that Path. I now consider this experience as a "bells and banjos" experience - still legitimate. For long periods I did not do meditation and so coming back to it I got a reward of the bells and banjos. Now that meditation is regular, I do not need rewards to pull me back to the Path.

Compare this with how Don Juan describes the perceptions of a seer "they say that perception is a condition of alignment; the emanations inside the cocoon (BZ a seer sees a human as a cocoon containing a filament of emanation - this filament comparable with the Divine Spark of life) become aligned with those outside that fit them. Alignment is what allows awareness to be cultivated by every living creature" [p 49]. I have no pretensions of calling myself a seer but am comfortable in comparing Don Juan's description with my own experience. I could quite happily label the atmospheric vibrations as emanations, and easily equate my centreing feeling with an alignment to the Path.

"When seers see perception, they witness that the luminosity of the Eagle's emanations outside those creatures' cocoons brightens the luminosity of the emanations inside the cocoons. The outside luminosity attracts the inside one; it traps it, so to speak, and fixes it. The fixation is the awareness of every specific being. .… Each one of them (BZ each filament) is a source of boundless energy. Think of it this way: since some of the emanations outside the cocoon are the same as the emanations inside, their energies are like a continuous pressure. But the cocoon isolates the emanations that are inside its web and thereby directs the pressure. …. (BZ the old seers) saw and realised that awareness is a glow in the cocoon of living beings. …. the glow of awareness" [p 50]

I came across an interesting discussion concerning internal and external energy in Dan Reid's book, "A Complete Guide to Chi-Gung" (book from here). "In the ordinary view, our physical bodies form a very clear, concrete boundary between our "insides" and the outside world, but from the chi-gung point of view there is no precise border between the human energy system and the external energy fields because all energy fields intersect and interact. Furthermore, the human energy system as a whole constitutes a microcosmic replica of the greater force fields of nature and the cosmos, and the human system therefore responds by harmonic resonance to the vibrant forces of greater systems. In fact one of the most effective ways to re-balance the human energy system with chi-gung is to establish harmonic resonance between the internal energies of the human system and the external energies of nature and the cosmos" [p 183]. Whilst I recognise this quote is not talking about the same fundamental Eagle's emanations, the process of recognising the harmony of the energy system and the lack of a concrete physical boundary is similar.

There are also vague connections between the filament explanation and theosophical descriptions of Divine Spark, at present I have not given this enough consideration to say more.

But what about left and right awareness as described by Don Juan? Then there is the Hermetic understanding - as above as below. This points me towards a leftness and a rightness. But again what does this mean?

I was given some indication during meditation today when I felt an imbalance. Physically I am very right-handed, first foot is the right foot in football I trained the left foot but my left hand does nothing. I have just watched myself typing and use two or three fingers on the right hand and one or two on the left. As for the so-called scientific areas of the right brain I am undoubtedly logical etc. - maths teacher. But with meditation I am learning more to accept intuition. Yet I have always believed intuition/insight has a fundamental place in the solution of all things mathematical - Finding an Insight for Maths problems.

In that meditation today there was a definite feeling of spirit trying to achieve balance and pouring into the left side during that time. Throughout I felt completely imbalanced and towards the end there was some sort of balance. I have resolved to focus on the left side when doing Chilel - often my mind would instinctively go to the right side whilst raising or holding chi now I intend to focus the raising and holding on the left side and see what happens.

I have no doubts that I am attempting to perceive in the terminology of Castaneda but who is to say I have not done the same with the doctrine of Buddhism. It is all about trying to describe in language what is beyond language whichever language schema you allow yourself to be fashioned by.

4/2/09

Yesterday's meditation balance was only temporary as there were balance issues in meditation today. Not surprising really, is it? I have not addressed the issue before.

9/2/09

Thjis has resulted in an improvement in health. Although I am far from balanced, the balancing process has released anger stored in the left side and also released ill health that was buried in the left side of my digestive system.

"There are untold dangers in the path of knowledge without sober understanding [p54]."

I contacted someone over the internet after reading a very emotional piece about how she had moved "from me to that". We discussed the "space beyond concepts and ideas". Her first pressing point was why I had gone private - her emotional piece was in a blog. I discussed the dangers and responsibility of the path of knowledge, the emails seemed to get stuck in this one. However for me it was useful because I moved from karmic responsibility to moral integrity before meditation - a good addition to Zandtao.

Today I received the ubiquitous western "too busy".

I don't know the person well enough but it is interesting that at just this time the above quotes got noted. Whether true of the person or not, it is a lesson learnt.To be fair to her the website is a lot, and I did mention my need to teach.

or download here

It was sad to watch what had happened to a man who had so greatly influenced my life. But all is not doom and gloom. First of all what influenced my life? His writings. And not all of them. Now the main book that I have read and reread is "Journey to Ixtlan". What happened when I read it? I tried to learn the meaning of the lessons contained therein. Here is one I quoted today in another blog:-

Death is always over your left shoulder.

Does that have meaning? In the context of the blog it has meaning irrespective of whether Castaneda was a charlatan. What does the Buddha say? (I should make an effort to source this as I always want to quote it!!) Paraphrasing "Don't believe it because I say it, believe it for the truth it gives you". Castaneda gave me some truth, I have no doubt about that - and that is all that matters. How much of what he wrote was fiction? Only he can know. But can we not learn life's lessons from fiction? Of course! What we cannot do is take, verbatim, the words of Castaneda as truth, as there is so much doubt cast on his authenticity. But whatever learning we have taken is unalterable because it is not the external words of the truth that matters but how we experience it internally - and that is unalterable.

On reading "Fire from Within" the book began to ask of me too much faith, I had to believe what he was writing. When I started then hearing of the doubts about his authenticity that process of believing clearly became flawed. And I stopped - as evidenced by the stopping of this blog.

What did Castaneda bring to me? He opened the door for me to Toltec Wisdom, and Wisdom is Wisdom wherever it comes from. He might have been a charlatan disguising himself in the shape of a shaman or nagual, but the Wisdom outlives him - outlives us all. I do hope the Tradition is able to continue. I have some evidence for that continuance by reading "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz.

or download here

There is much to be learnt from this clip!