Menlo Park Lecture - Jan '94
The following notes
are an attempt to transcribe the Taisha Abelar public talk in Menlo Park,
California, on January 7, 1994.
Tonight's talk with be
on Stopping. To Stop you must only do one thing. Decide to be a warrior
or not.
The assemblage point fluctuates
naturally in sleep. It will also move under the influence of drugs, deep
meditation, starvation, sensory deprivation.
The assemblage point is
located behind you at the level of your shoulder blades.
Sorcerers use Discipline
to move their assemblage points.
Everyone of us can 'see'
energy - even now - but you are no longer aware of it. Infants on the other
hand perceive energy directly. However, as they get older the 'Usher' introduces
them to the world of ordinary reality. Instead of seeing amorphous energy,
the infant one day will assemble the energy configuration into...a table.
A toy. A dog. A tree. Each time the transformation comes from the Usher.
First and foremost we
live in a world of energy. Only secondarily do we live in a world of objects.
The position of the assemblage point determines the reality that we assemble
of the energy.
The sorcerer [presumably
unlike the hunger artists and sensory deprivers] seeks to FIX the assembly
point at a new location [not just move it]. To agglutinate energy again
into new sets of 'objects' and hence into a new 'reality.'
This world is not as important
as we make it out to be. Our language is biased; we call it 'reality' when
it is really only one of many modes of the assemblage point. For convenience
though let us refer to it as 'ordinary' reality.
Ordinarily once the Ushers
do their work of helping us perceive the various energy configurations
as 'objects,' the assemblage point is fixed once and for all and the assemblage
point does not move thereafter.
We are forced to maintain
a world of everyday life until we die.
By the way death, from
a sorcerer's standpoint, is not the fast process that it appears to be.
The glow of the assemblage point fades quickly, but all the other energy
strands that make up the energy egg of the human being can take a long
long time to disperse. This process can also be slowed down, for example
if you were buried in a lead coffin right after death.
The alternative to being
stuck all your life on one assemblage point is to move it by the practice
of Discipline, and then to fix it at a new location while awake.
A firm foundation in the
warrior's way is required for heavy duty stopping and dreaming.
Discipline is not the
same thing as practiced by Catholic girls in a convent. Nor the same thing
as what USED to be practiced by the nuns themselves. It is not getting
up early to do aerobics before going to work, or eating sensibly. These
are just routines, habits. Not a warrior's Discipline.
From the point of view
of a warrior, stalker or dreamer, Discipline is abstract - an unbending
hooking to a purpose - so that the actual implementation of the Discipline
is actually very flexible and fluid. It takes courage of steel, there is
no room for doubt or hesitation which will otherwise rise up to pull you
back to the everyday world of tantrums and self-indulgence.
Discipline leads to harmony,
well being and balance. Everyday life, on the other hand, is indulgence.
Unbending unyielding purpose
is what is requird for Discipline in our quest for freedom.
At the Phoenix Bookstore
[ed. note - Santa Monica, CA I think] talks recently - some of you were
there - Carlos Castaneda gave a talk of the 'warrior's way.'
You can't 'learn' to be
a warrior! It is just a decision you have to make one day for yourself
on your own. Asking someone to teach you to be a warrior is the wrong approach,
it is the 'poor baby me' approach to warriorship.
Carlos Castaneda said
that first and foremost the transfiguring event in a warrior's life, what
is at the bedrock of becoming a warrior, is accepting responsibility for
your own death. This is the bottom line. Don't assume you are immortal.
Face infinity and death
in the mirror at night.
Just by doing this, taking
death as an advisor this way, lots of things will fall off, fall away from
you.
Assume responsibility
for your perception of the world. Not just the single perception you were
born into. Instead intend the movement of your assemlage point to other
areas of the luminous egg. If you tighten your belt, curtail the other
things in your life the pont will JUST MOVE ON ITS OWN without any exercises
or routines on your part. The lamp of awareness, strong now that you have
cut the excess baggage out of your life, will shine on all the other possible
positions of your assemblage point.
The next rule of being
a warrior is to pay your debts. A warrior is very generous. He or she does
not look at the world in terms of what other people owe him or her. The
warrior looks at the world in terms of opportunities to discharge his or
her debts to other people so he or she will not be tied up forever.
This paying of debts leads
to an unbiased affection for all things. Most of what we consider to be
affection is the trading of favors with other people. The warrior, on the
other hand, gives affection with no expectation of return. It is not that
the warrior is trying to eliminate affection, be an unfeeling person. The
warrior's affection is just so unbiased it unravels everyday connections.
The warrior's affection is so unbiased that if the warrior goes into another
reality completely different from this one the warrior's affection will
extend to all the other new beings that exist in that other reality.
If someone has really
INJURED you this also needs to be paid back. The concept of paying debts
is not a sentimental concept limited to returning the good connections.
The point is to loosen all connections. If you are connected to someone
who injured you, you may need to sever that connection by paying back the
injury. So it is not a moral issue; it goes two ways.
The warrior's path is
an escape hatch, somewhere to go after you have finished dismantling everyday
life. There is no room for crapping out, for fear, for indulgence, for
regrets or for nostalgia when going into the unknown.
Unbending determination
is the only choice you can make or terrible things will happen to you once
you have accumulated enough energy [by using death as an advisor to cut
loose the excess baggage].
You CANNOT be half assed,
half willing or, with your partial energy, even worse things will happen
to you [than if you had never taken this path].
Take back the energy used
to support the everyday world [by using death as an advisor and paying
back debts]. The everyday world is a gigantic edifice but it rest on just
three cornerstones:
1. How
we present ourselves in the world, how we fit into the social structure.
The recapitulation lets you think about all this, how you fit in, it is
a looking glass of how others see you in your hopes and fears. All this
takes energy. The warrior looks instead at what he or she is doing the
face of death and what conduct, what intensity is really appropriate in
that light.
2. The
second cornerstone is our biological need to mate and to reproduce. We
are social animals. Sorcerers say - let the others do it. Sorcerers need
the energy that goes into the social dance and biological need to get their
freedom. We refuse to be the flower that blooms -and dies - to propagate
the species. Security of the family is one of the strongest attractions
to the social order. There is a tremendous fear of being alone, of dying
alone. Sorcerers have to learn to be ALONE for long stretches, which is
why Don Juan and the others would test us by keeping us alone, on our own,
to see how we handled solitude. Why are you so afraid to have no moives,
no friends. It is also important to learn to keep mental silence, mental
solitude, for long periods. The world will then collapse on its own without
the inner talk! Dreaming is also very alone, facing the dangers in the
dreaming world alone.
We are talking about
STOPPING tonight and have to get used to solitude. As women we just don't
want
to be an old maid, a bitter old maid with a mole and whiskers on her cheek
as was held up to me. We learn these things, the need to be beautiful to
catch a good mate and we fund the entire cosmetics industry with our fears
and worries. In recapitulation we have a chance to see this and to look
for alternatives.
The warrior's way [is
not to get trapped in the biological imperative to mate and the social
dance motivated by loneliness it] is to give unbounded affection instead,
not to count the number of affairs we have or be in a relationship and
daydream about alternatives that would be even better for us. A warrior's
affection so transcends the social order that the warrior can move to any
other position of the assemblage point, even an unknown universe and still
be full of affection. So don't be afraid to chip away at this second cornerstone
of everday reality, that if you do so you won't have any affections or
feelings left.
3. The
third cornerstone of ordinary reality is very sublte; it is self importance.
We joked about putting out a bumper sticker 'Self-importance kills' because
a false sense of self importance, when undercut, is a great source of suicide
and illness not to mention taking away from a zest for living. Everyone
manifests self importance one way or another, either by wanting to be best
in something or by wanting to play the martyr and be the worst - the use
my bones as stepping stones to your own glory syndrome. Don't substitute
false humility or false modesty for pride about your self importance. The
important thing to realize is that you are no MORE and no LESS important
than any other living thing. To think otherwise is like one ant in a heap
carrying an especially big load and thinking it is the most important,
the best ant when in a moment I will step on that ant and all his companions
and they will be equal in their death. Something will 'step' on all of
us someday, just like one of us might step on an ant hill. We are all equal
and self importance is nothing but a reward from the social order of everyday
reality, like the drip of a drug into your brain to keep you hooked on
the social order. It is better to save your energy and take your freedom
instead.
The 'Selector.' A very
simple mechanical model of a needle pointing in a certain direction and
we get our engergy configuration lined up at a new assemblage point. The
Selector does it all for you if you have enough energy it pulls certain
things in the universe down to you. Once you have restored your energy
by the recapitulation there is no need for chanting or special rituals
to move your assemblage point. Where why how the Selector moves the assemblage
point we don't know all we can do is acquiesce in the movement, act implacably
under the terrible pressure of the Selector.
Stalking. I - stalkers
in general - use behavior to move the assemblage point to create maximum
cognitive dissonance.
You cannot choose where
to move your assemblage point when you are living as a stalker because
if you choose you will not have enough cognitive dissonance between the
old point and the new point to work with. This is why warriors are under
tremendous pressure, because the Selector - or spirit - chooses difficult
new positions that are so scary or different that sometimes the assemblage
point of the warrior, when subjected to the pressure to move, starts vibrating
in place, you can see this energetically. If the warrior lapses into an
internal dialog about what is going on, then the point will not relocate
it will snap back to its normal position which for you is ordinary reality.
It takes tremendous pressure
to move the point and what you need to do is to keep the pressure up but
it should be harmonious pressure or you culd actually go crazy. Once you
have energy and unbending intent the point will move very easily with no
problems and after you do the recapitulation it will move sometimes and
you won't even be aware of it.
I had certain tasks chosen
for me by the Selector. I had to completely live as different people, this
was not just acting during the day or being aware you are acting it was
complete immersion in a new self. 24 hours a day. You ARE that new person.
Let me be Sheila Waters for you. [Puts on wig and eyeglasses.] I have to
wear eyeglasses when I am Sheila Waters.
Sheila Waters was pointed
out to me by the Selector (spirit or whatever you want to call it) I had
to become a business woman, get an MBA, real estate license, paralegal,
invest in commodities, keep business relationships with attorneys and accountants
and all the other people in the business world. I got things done and made
and lost fortunes. Because when you are in that assemblage position there
is a natural desire to succeed, not fail, so naturally the tendency is
to try to make lots of money, not just stand still or lose money. If you
are not impeccable it is easy to lose money by not listening to your own
inner voice. I decided that I had to have some really great timber land
in the north and it was really great land perfect in every way; except
that it was near Mt. St. Helena and when the volcano blew up it was ruined.
I used to read the Wall Street Journal and watch Ruyckhaueser [spelling?].
Other personas. [Takes
off glasses and wig.] In Mexico I was under Emilito's supervision he was
more of a guardian or spectator than a teacher, would not interfere with
the roles the Selector chose for me. I was Ricky, the first position chosen
for me, an American gringo male trying to pass himself off as a Mexican.
I dressed in mans clothing, passed for a man, romanced a lady and even
used the urinals. Don't ask me to tell you what I had to do to use the
urinals, I will put it in my new book Stalking the Double.
The second assemblage
point chosen for me was a young ingenue from Texas, niece of some women
in Mexico who were of course really the women sorcerers from Don Juan's
party. I had blonde hair by choice and would parade in the square waiting
to attract men to this virginal thing, because of course I had to be a
virgin, and the blonde hair was very startling and attractive.
It is essential to be
absolutely fluid. That is the point of all the not-doing exercises, so
that you can be absolutely fluid and when the Selector moves your assemblage
point you will have the Discipline to be able to fix it at its new location.
You cannot view yourself
as just a cynical manipulator of behavior, acting out one role then another.
It must be real to you, absolutely real.
Next I was a crazy beggar.
Sat on the church steps bitten by fleas and mosquitos all day but although
I am allergic to bites in my role as a crazy beggar woman I did not care,
did not mind them at all. I was a crazy female outcast beggar so I had
4 strikes against me and all the time in the world to just sit there and
watch the world go by because no one noticed me or cared.
To conclude. Nothing is
real, just a manipulation of behaviour, just a result of the accidental
fixation of our assemblage point at birth. That is what the stalker learns
from being so many different people. Each position is equally real and
hence equally phantoms. We cherish our present positions, but even the
closest, most real ones are just phantoms when you move to another postion.
It took years of recapitulation
to undermine the sense of reality . At the same time I had to replace reality
with the warrior's way to avoid the trap of cynicism. Turn my response
to the world into controlled folly, the warrior's delight!
If ou have the energy
all the things it [Selector, spirit] puts around you become things of beauty
and strength, in the highest sense your life becomes surrounded by a display
of living art.
Remember that you are
already dead, already a phantom like everything else, and lose your sense
of self importance.
Know beyond a shadow of
a doubt that nothing is real.
-
continued
on next page
|
