A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

I finally went out last Thursday and bought a book that I've been meaning to read and study for a while now - Barnes and Noble actually had it! I've been trying to understand and learn more about animism which was once the "religion" that was practiced by all of humanity. Christian missionaries encountered it wherever they went and quite effectively stamped it out, to the point that today it survives only amongst the few aboriginal peoples left on Earth. I put the word "religion" in quotes because animism is really as much or more of a world-view than a religion. It has no universal rules or dogma, no codified beliefs, no universal rituals, no wars have ever been fought over it - in its simplest form it is merely the belief that the world is a sacred place and that humanity (which is also sacred, but no more or less so than anything else in the world) belongs in this place.

In my study of animism, and through it shamanism, I have continually encountered references to the works of Carlos Castaneda who was a Peruvian born American author. He wrote a series of books that describe his training in traditional Mesoamerican shamanism, which he referred to as a form of sorcery. The books and Castaneda, who rarely spoke in public about his work, have been controversial for many years. In his books, Castaneda narrates in first person the events leading to and ensuing after his meeting a Yaqui shaman named don Juan Matus in 1960. Castaneda's experiences with don Juan inspired the works for which he is known. He claimed to have inherited from don Juan, through a long apprenticeship, the position of nagual, or leader of a party of seers. He also used the term "nagual" to signify that part of perception which is in the realm of the unknown yet still reachable by man, implying that, for his party of seers, don Juan was a connection in some way to that unknown. Castaneda often referred to this unknown realm as nonordinary reality, which indicated that this realm was indeed a reality, but radically different from the ordinary reality experienced by human beings. Nagual has been used by anthropologists to mean a shaman or sorcerer who is capable of shape-shifting into an animal form, and/or, metaphorically, to "shift" into another form through Toltec magic rituals and shamanism.

Castaneda approached the work as an anthropologist (as he was - from UCLA), but realized while in the process of collecting data that this approach would not work, thus he assumes the role of an ethnographer and a student. He has a marvelous ear and his sparse but gritty descriptions allow the reader to place himself on the dirt floor of don Juan's front porch at twilight when the crack between worlds takes place. So far, the book (The Teachings of Don Juan, A Yaqui Way of Knowledge) has been everything that I hoped it would be, offering valuable insights into what it means to learn and grow and experience what it is to be human. For example, on the subject of learning, don Juan says, "A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps. Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because that is the nature of his lot, for good or bad." In order to best do this don Juan says, "You have to be a strong man, and your life has to be truthful." When Castaneda asks don Juan what a truthful life is, he replies: "A life lived with deliberateness, a good, strong life."

Sage advice, in my humble opinion, but today the passage that is still resonating within me, and that I will ponder for some time, is the following:

"Anything is one of a million paths (un camino entre cantidades de caminos). Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what you heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."

I have stopped reading for a while, until I think that I have absorbed this lesson, and that may take some time. Already it is clear to me that portions of the path I walk are not deliberate - that not choosing is in fact a choice. The complexity of life and the nearly infinite number of choices that I make every day makes discerning the true nature of the path I am on very difficult. For now I will simply practice being more deliberate and listening to my heart.