The Eagle's Gift: Part SEP - Introduction to the Six Explanatory Propositions.

The Eagle's Gift. ©1982 by Carlos Castaneda.

Part S.E.P. - Introduction to the Six Explanatory Propositions.

In spite of the amazing maneuvers that don Juan did with my awareness along the years, I stubbornly insisted in trying to intellectually evaluate what he did.

Although I have written at length about these maneuvers, it has always been from a strictly experiential point of view. And even more restrictively, my writings have always been from a strictly rational perspective on the experiences.

Unfortunately, immersed as I was in my own rationality, I could not recognize the true goals of the teachings of Don Juan.

To understand the stretch of don Juan's goals with a certain degree of precision, it was necessary that I lose my human form, and arrive at the totality of myself.

The teachings of Don Juan were meant to guide me through the second stage of a warrior's development so that I would verify, and accept without restriction, that within each of us lies another type of awareness outside the bounds of common rationality.

This stage of warrior-ship was divided into the two categories of action, and explanation.

The first category, for which Don Juan required Don Genaro's help, dealt with physical activities consisting of showing me certain procedures, actions, and methods that were designed to exercise and enhance my awareness- primarily letting my body directly experience the other type of awareness.

The second category had to do with the six explanatory propositions which don Juan gave my intellect in an attempt to describe the other type of awareness.

Due to the difficulties that I had in adapting my rationality in order to accept the plausibility of what he was teaching me, Don Juan improvised and presented these explanatory propositions in terms similar to an academic presentation.

The first thing he did, however, as an introductory step, was to create a division in me by means of a specific blow on the right shoulder blade. This blow made me enter an unusual state of awareness which I could not recall once I was back to normality.

Until the moment in which Don Juan made me enter such a unique state of awareness, I had an undeniable sense of continuity which I thought of as the normal product of my vital life experiences. The idea that I had about myself was that of being a entity that could fully explain everything I had done. I was convinced that the dwelling of all my awareness and experiences was in my head.

However, Don Juan showed me with his blow that there exists a point in the spinal cord at the height of the shoulder blades that is obviously a center of an enhanced awareness.

When I questioned the Nagual Don Juan about the nature of this blow, he explained that the Nagual is a director; a guide who bears the responsibility of opening the way; and that a Nagual must be impeccable to instill in his apprentices a sense of confidence and clarity. Only under these conditions can a nagual possibly give this blow on the back to force a displacement of awareness.

Because the power of the nagual is what allows the transition, if the nagual is not an impeccable practitioner, the displacement does not occur- as when I tried, unsuccessfully, to put the other apprentices in a state of heightened awareness by hitting them on the back before we ventured onto the bridge.

I asked Don Juan what this displacement of awareness implied. He said that the nagual has to strike on a precise spot, which varies from person to person but which is always located in the general area of the shoulder blades. A nagual has to see to specify the spot which is located in the periphery of one's luminosity and not on the physical body itself. Once the nagual identifies it, he pushes it in, more that striking it, and thus creates a concavity; a depression in the luminous shield. The state of heightened awareness resulting from this blow lasts as long as this depression lasts. Some luminous shields go back to their original forms by themselves; some have to be struck in another point to be restored; and some others never go back to their original shapes.

Don Juan said that seers see awareness as a peculiar glow. Everyday awareness is a glow on the right side which extends from the physical body's exterior to the periphery of our luminosity. Heightened awareness is a more intense shine associated with great speed and concentration; a shine which saturates the periphery of the left side.

Don Juan said that seers explain what happens with the blow of the nagual as a temporal dislodging of a center located in the luminous cocoon of the body. The Eagle's emanations are in reality evaluated and selected in that center. The blow alters their normal behavior.

Through their observations, seers have reached the conclusion that warriors must be put in that state of disorientation. The change in the way awareness works under these conditions makes this state an ideal territory to elucidate the commands of the Eagle. It allows warriors to function as if they were in everyday awareness, with the difference that they can concentrate in everything they do with unprecedented clarity and strength.

Don Juan said that my situation was analogous to the one he had experienced. His benefactor created a deep division in himself, making him shift again and again from the awareness of the right side to the awareness to the left side.

The clarity and freedom of his left side awareness were in direct opposition to the rationalizations and endless defenses of his right side. He told me that all warriors are cast into the depths of the same situation that this polarity molds, and that the Nagual creates and reinforces the division in an effort to lead his apprentices to the conviction that there is an awareness in human beings yet unexplored.