Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/43

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unknown but is knowable and what we will never know (the nagual, power itself).

Lopez Austin, on page 176 of Human body and ideology, says: "This suggests that, as the use of right hand was linked to everyday activities, especially those requiring dexterity, the left was more closely linked to the world of the supernatural"."

-"We are all a bunch of idiots when we enter the witchcraft world, and entering this world does not guarantee, in any way, that we will change. Some of us will remain idiots until the end...

In other words, the tonal makes up the rules by which the world is captured. So in a figured sense , the tonal constructs the world...

—The nagual is the part of ourselves that we never deal with.

—What did you say?

—The nagual is a part of us for which there is no description: no words, no names, no sensations or knowledge..." C.C.

THE TONAL DAY

Don Juan explains Castaneda that human beings in their life use a small portion of their totality; however, when they die, they do it with their totality; then asks: why not live with totality if we shall succumb with it?

Many Castaneda readers have sought a false door of the nagual through drug convenience or "snob" frivolity; of "searching the path" in the unknown. Don Juan is clear and repetitive in that the first thing an apprentice must work on is "sweeping his tonal island". One cannot enter the nagual unless there is certain control on the everyday world and his self. The warrior path involves great discipline, sobriety, containment, and humility. So people who take this teaching as a way of evading reality, more so if using drugs, generally end up more "unbalanced" than when they started.

The tonal is very delicate, and common men use their full ability in hurting and warping their tonal. The tonal easily deteriorates; vices, comfort and abuses are elements used to accomplish this task.

There are strong and weak tonals. Each person has a tonal and it can be in excellent condition, or damaged. The apprentice, through the warrior path, can strengthen and make his tonal resilient, which can be achieved through scrupulous compliance with the techniques that enable energy saving (tonal comes from Tonalli, in Nahuatl language used by Toltecs, means energy).

Don Juan, when talking about the Indians, said they were "the unfortunate of our times"; that their fall started since the westerners arrival, whom were devoted to destroying not only their tonal, but also destroyed the tonal of their time. Life became hell, but paradoxically the conquest and colonial rigor "benefited" those Indians who were beings of knowledge, because them, upon seeing their tonal destroyed, took refuge in the nagual, and westerners could never enter there; moreover, they never knew it existed.

Also in this chapter, Don Juan tells Castaneda, at a time when he is in danger by an encounter with the power, write, because "taking field

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