"Carlos Castaneda - The Fire from Within" - читать интересную книгу автора (Castaneda Carlos)

That apprenticeship ended with an incomprehensi-
ble act that both don Juan and don Genaro led me to
perform. They made me jump from the top of a flat
mountain into an abyss.

I have described in one of my accounts what took
place on that mountaintop. The last drama of don
Juan's teachings for the right side was played there by
don Juan himself; don Genaro; two apprentices, Pa-
blito and Nestor; and me. Pablito, Nestor, and I
jumped from that mountaintop into an abyss.

For years afterward I thought that just my total trust
in don Juan and don Genaro had been sufficient to
obliterate all my rational fears on facing actual anni-
hilation. I know now that it wasn't so; I know that the
secret was in don Juan's teachings for the left side,
and that it took tremendous discipline and persever-
ance for don Juan, don Genaro, and their companions
to conduct those teachings.

It has taken me nearly ten years to recollect what
exactly took place in his teachings for the left side that
led me to be so willing to perform such an incompre-
hensible act: jumping into an abyss.

It was in his teachings for the left side that don Juan
let on what he, don Genaro, and their companions
were really doing to me. and who they were. They
were not teaching me sorcery, but how to master three
aspects of an ancient knowledge they possessed:
awareness, stalking, and intent. And they were not
sorcerers; they were seers. And don Juan was not only
a seer, but also a nagual.

Don Juan had already explained to me, in his teach-
ings for the right side, a great deal about the nagual
and about seeing. I had understood seeing to be the
capacity of human beings to enlarge their perceptual
field until they are capable of assessing not only the
outer appearances but the essence of everything. He
had also explained that seers see man as a field of
energy, which looks like a luminous egg. The majority
of people, he said, have their fields of energy divided
into two parts. A few men and women have four or
sometimes three parts. Because these people are more
resilient than the average man, they can become na-
guals after learning to see.