INTENT

to intend is to wish without wishing, to do without doing

Yet without the slightest chance or desire to understand it, a sorcerer handles the spirit. He
recognizes it, beckons it, entices it, becomes familiar with it, and expresses it with his acts...
sorcerers meet the abstract without thinking about it or seeing it or touching it or feeling its
presence

the spirit's descent is always shrouded. It happens and yet it seems not to have happened at all.

the only way to intend is by focusing your intent on whatever you want to intend

there is no technique for intending. One intends through usage.

make a command now not to fret, not even even at the worst moments of doubt. it will be a slow
process until that command is heard and obeyed as if it were the Eagle's command

TECHNIQUES FOR INTENDING

I want you to say intent three or four times or even more, but bring it out from the depths of you..
allow the word to burst out from your midsection loud and clear. In fact, you should shout the
word intent with all your strength... shout as loud and as many times as it's needed. What you
and I want to do with all this shouting.. is to catch the attention not of the visible reality, but
rather the attention of the unseen, the force that is the source of your existence, a force that we
hope will carry you across the chasm.

Usually intent was called from within a small, dark, isolated room. A candle was placed on a
black table with the flame just a few inches before the eyes then the word intent was voiced
slowly, enunciated clearly and deliberately as many times as one felt was needed. The pitch of
the voice rose or fell without any thought... the indispensable part of the act of calling intent was
a total concentration on what was intended.

WILL

Watch carefully everything you do. the very thing that could help you develop your will is admist
all the little things that you do.

Let's say the warrior learns to tune his will, to direct it to a pinpoint, to focus it wherever he
wants. it is as if his will, which comes from the midsection of his body, is one single luminous
fiber, a fiber that he can direct at any conceivable place.

but not after a moment of happiness, because happiness is too disruptive to afford the warrior
the concentration needed to use the luminosity of the body and turn it into silence.
STOPPING THE WORLD

What DJ had struggled to vanquish, or rather suppress in me, was not my reason as the
capacity for rational thought, but my attention of the tonal, or my awareness of the world of
common sense.... his motive for doing so...was because that the daily world exists because we
know how to hold its images; consequently, if one drops the attention needed to maintain those
images the world collapses.

DJ's precondition for stopping the world was that one had to be convinced...one had to learn the
new description in a total sense, for the purpose of pitting it against the old one, and in that way
break the dogmatic certainty, which we all share, that the validity of our perceptions, or our
reality of the world, is not to be questioned.

STOPPING THE INTERNAL DIALOGUE

Sorcerers call it stopping the internal dialogue, and they are convinced that it is the single most
important technique that an apprentice can learn.

Stopping the internal dialogue is, however, the key to the sorcerers' world..the rest of the
activities are only props; all they do is accelerate the effect of stopping the internal dialogue.

DJ had asserted time and time again that the essential feature of his sorcery was shutting off
the internal dialogue... stopping the internal dialogue was an operational way of describing the
act of disengaging the attention of the tonal...once we stop our internal dialogue we also stop
the world.

On that occasion I also became cognizant that stopping the internal dialogue involved more
than merely curtailing the words I said to myself. My entire thought processes had stopped and I
felt I was practically suspended, floating. A sense of panic had ensued from that awareness and
I had to resume my internal dialogue as an antidote.

You willed to stop your internal dialogue and thus you set a new intent, a new command. Then
your command became the Eagle's command. The internal dialogue stops in the same way it
begins: by an act of will. The way to stop talking to ourselves is to use exactly the same method:
we must will it, we must intend it.

A hen remains still and listens to her eggs underneath her, directing all her attention to them.
She listens and never lets her concentration waver. In this unbending manner she intends the
chicks to hatch. It's quiet listening that animals do naturally, but which human beings have
forgotten, and therefore must cultivate. Now, doze like a hen does and listen with your inner ear
while I talk. Concentrate on the warmth in your womb and don't let your attention wander. Be
aware of the sounds around you, but don't allow your mind to follow them.

LOSING SELF IMPORTANCE

A warrior is aware that the world will change as soon as he stops talking to himself..and he must
be prepared for that monumental jolt... the world is such-and-such and so-and-so only because
we tell ourselves that that is the way it is. if we stop telling ourselves that the world is so-and-so,
the world will stop being so-and-so.

Women have their own abyss. Women menstruate... that was the door for them. During their
period they become something else...no matter how well-made the disguise is, it falls away and
women are bare. When a women menstruates she cannot focus her attention. That's the crack
the Nagual told me about. Instead of fighting to focus, a woman should let go of the images, by
gazing fixedly at distant hills, or by gazing at water, like a river, or by gazing at the clouds.

In order to stop the view of the world which one has held since the cradle, it is not enough to just
wish or make a resolution. One needs a practical task; that practical task is called the right way
of walking. It seems harmless and nonsensical. As everything else which has power in itself or
by itself, the right way of walking does not attract attention.

There were two major activities or techniques used to accelerate the stopping of the internal
dialogue; erasing personal history and dreaming.

TECHNIQUES FOR SHUTTING OFF THE INTERNAL DIALOGUE

1-NOT-DOINGS

a perceptual game of focusing attention on features of the world that were ordinarily overlooked,
such as the shadows of things...not-doing, like everything else, is a very important technique but
it was not the main issue.

Not-doing is a term that comes to us from our own sorcerery tradition... it refers to everything
that is not included in the inventory that was forced upon us.

A man of knowledge... knows that the rock is a rock only because of doing, so if he doesn't want
the rock to be a rock all he has to do is not-doing.

Getting rid of a disease: Talking is doing for you, but talking is not appropriate and if you want
to know what I mean by not-doing you have to do a simple exercise. Since we are concerned
with not-doing it doesn't matter whether you do the exercise now or ten years from now. He
made me lie down and took my right arm and bent it at my elbow. Then he turned my hand until
the palm was facing the front; he curved my fingers so my hand looked as if I were holding a
doorknob, and then he began to move my arm back and forth with a circular motion that
resembled the act of pushing and pulling a lever attached to a wheel. DJ said that a warrior
executed that movement every time he wanted to push something out of his body, something
like a disease or an unwelcoming feeling. The idea was to push and pull an imaginary opposing
force until one felt a heavy object, a solid body, stopping the free movements of the hand. In the
case of the exercise, not-doing consisted in repeating it until one felt the heavy body with the
hand, in spite of the fact that one could never believe it was possible to feel it. I began moving
my arm and in a short while my hand became ice cold. I had begun to feel a sort of mushiness
around my hand. It was as if I were paddling through some heavy viscous liquid matter.

A warrior always tries to affect the force of doing by changing it into not-doing. Doing would be
to leave the pebble lying around because it is merely a small rock. Not-doing would be to
proceed with that pebble as if it were something far beyond a mere rock. In this case, that
pebble has soaked in you for a long time and now it is you, and as such, you cannot leave it
lying around but must bury it. If you would have personal power, however, not-doing would be to
change that pebble into a power object. Your life is not tight enough to do that. if you would see,
you would know that your heavy concern has changed that pebble into something quite
unappealing, therefore the best thing you can do is to dig a hole and bury it and let the earth
absorb its heaviness. JTI,191. Everything I have taught you so far has been an aspect of not-
doing.. a warrior applies not-doing to everything in the world, and yet I can't tell you more about
it than what I have said today. You must let your own body discover the power and the feeling of
not-doing.

To say no or yes to your question is doing. But since you are learning not-doing I have to tell
you that it really doesn't matter whether or not all this is true. it is here that a warrior has a point
of advantage over the average man. An average man cares that things are either true or false,
but a warrior doesn't. An average man proceeds in a specific way with things he knows are true,
and in a different way with things he knows are not true. If things are said to be true, he acts and
believes in what he does. But if things are said to be untrue, he doesn't care to act, or he
doesn't believe in what he does. A warrior, on the other hand, acts in both instances. if things
are said to be true, he would act in order to do doing. If things are said to be untrue, he still
would act in order to do not-doing.

EXAMPLES OF NOT-DOING

..turn his concepts into a viable way of life by a process of repetition...anything new in our lives
must be repeated to us to the point of exhaustion before we open ourselves to it.

The obsessive entanglement of the first attention in self-absorption or reason is a powerful

binding force, and that ritual behavior because it is repetitive, forces the FA to free some energy
from watching the inventory, as a consequence of which the AP loses its rigidity.

The best way to make a hit on the second attention is through ritual acts, monotonous chanting,
intricate repetitious movements.

together with the right way of walking..a teacher must teach his apprentice another possibility,
which is even more subtle: the possibility of acting without beliving, without expecting rewards-
acting just for the hell of it . I wouldn't be exaggerating if I told you that the success of a
teacher's enterprise depends on how well and how harmoniously he guides his apprentice in
this specific respect.

2-GAZING

Gazing was the way to trap our second attention... dreamers have to be gazers before they can
trap their second attention.

The old seers developed complex techniques of gazing in order to descend into the depths of
the inorganic worlds.

Once you can stop the world you are a gazer. And since the only way of stopping the world is by
trying, the Nagual made all of us gaze at dry leaves for years and years. I think its the best way
to reach our second attention.

The difficulty in gazing is to learn to quiet down the thoughts.... (leaf gazing was used because
leaves are easy to get) but anything else would do the same job.

the position of the body was of great importance while one was gazing. one had to sit on the
ground on a soft mat of leaves, or on a cushion made out of natural fibers. (she came back with
a small, thick, round cushion made out of the same natural fibre used in making nets.) The back
had to be propped up against a tree, or a stump or a flat rock.(the Nagual had made me plant
those thick poles so they could use them to prop themselves.) The body had to be thoroughly
relaxed. SRP,263

the eyes were never fixed on the object, in order to avoid tiring them. the gaze consisted in
scanning very slowly the object gazed at, going counterclockwise but without moving the head.

If you gaze with your eyes open, you get dizzy and the eyes get tired, but if you half-close them
and blink alot and move them from mountain to mountain, or from cloud to cloud, you can look
for hours, or days if necessary.

The first thing the Nagual did was to put a dry leaf on the ground and made me look at it for
hours. Everyday he brought a leaf and put it in front of me. At first I thought that it was the same
leaf that he saved from day to day, but then I noticed that leaves are different. The Nagual said
that when I realize that, we are not looking anymore but gazing.

Around six in the morning the shadows wake up, and they are best around five in the afternoon.
Then they are fully awake. SRP,268... The shadows tell me everything I want to know. They tell
me things because they have heat, or cold, or because they move, or because they have colors.
(I learned what they mean) in my dreaming. Dreamers must gaze in order to do dreaming and
then they must look for their dreams in their gazing.
in observing shadows one had to cross the eyes and yet keep a sharp image in focus. The idea
was to let one shadow be superimposed on the other by crossing the eyes. He explained that
through that process one could ascertain a certain feeling which emanated from shadows.

3-THE RIGHT WAY OF WALKING

(the right way of walking) is the most effective way to stop your internal dialogue.

His method was effective on two counts. It allowed me to stop my internal dialogue after years
of trying, and it trained my attention. By forcing me to concentrate on the peripheral view, DJ
reinforced my capacity to concentrate for long periods of time on one single activity.

His recommendation had been to not look at anything directly but, by slightly crossing the eyes,
to keep a peripheral view of everything that presented itself to my eyes.... if one kept one's
unfocused eyes at a point just above the horizon, it was possible to notice, at once, everything
in almost the 180 degree range in front of one's eyes. He assured me that that exercise was the
only way of shutting off the internal dialogue

The right way of walking was a subterfuge. The warrior, first by curling his fingers, drew
attention to the arms; and then by looking, without focusing his eyes, at any point directly in front
of him on the arc that started at the tip of his feet and ended above the horizon, he literally
flooded his tonal with information. The tonal without its one-to-one relation with the elements of
its description, was incapable of talking to itself and thus one became silent. TOP,230..the
position of the fingers did not matter at all, that the only consideration was to draw attention to
the arms by clasping the fingers in various unaccustomed ways, and that the important thing
was the manner in which the eyes by being kept unfocused, detected an enormous number of
features of the world without being clear about them. He added that the eyes in that state were
capable of picking out details which were too fleeting for normal vision... TOP,230.

CLEANING THE TONAL

replacing self-pity with death as what you think about when you start stressing.)..self-pity was
useful to you because you either felt important important and deserving of better conditions,
better treatment, or because you were unwilling to assume responsibility for the acts that
brought you to the state that elicited, or because you were incapable of bringing the idea of your
impending death to witness your acts and advise you

In the beginning, one has to talk to the tonal. It is the tonal that has to relinquish control. But it
should be made to do so gladly. For example, your tonal has relinquished some controls without
much struggle, because it became clear to it that, had it remained the way it was, the totality of
you would be dead by now.In other words, the tonal is made to give up unnecessary things like
self-importance and boredom. The whole trouble is that the tonal clings to those things when it
should be glad to rid itself of that crap. the task then is to convince the tonal to become free and
fluid.
A grave issue for a warrior is to know exactly when to allow his tonal to shrink and stop it. This is
a great art. A warrior must struggle like a demon to shrink his tonal; and yet at the very moment
the tonal shrinks, the warrior must reverse all that struggle to immediately halt that shrinking.

STORING POWER

Power has the pecularity of being unnoticeable when it is being stored.

..the best way of getting energy is to let the sun inside the eyes, especially the left eye. It
consisted of moving my head slowly from side to side as I caught the sunlight with my half-
closed left eye... one could use not only use the sun but could use any kind of light that could
shine on the eyes. SRP,241....we take the sunlight with the left eye. She began to move her
head slowly from side to side as she glanced directly into the sun through her half closed eyes.

.. The naugal Elias believed sexual energy had been given to us so we can use it in dreaming....
he believed dreaming had fallen into disuse because it can upset the precarious mental balance
(mb is nothing but the fixation of the AP on one spot we're accustomed to.) of susceptible
people...because if you're not careful with your sexual energy, you will get erratic shifts of your
AP... and maybe lose your mind.

DREAMING

Dreaming is not just having dreams; neither is it daydreaming or wishing or imagining.

Dreaming is the art of displacing the assemblage point at will from its habitual position in order
to enhance and enlarge the scope of what can be perceived. TAOD, 19 dreaming is concerned
with the displacement of the assemblage point

through discipline it is possible to cultivate and perform, in the course of sleep and ordinary
dreams, a systematic displacement of the assemblage point.

with our attention we can hold the images of a dream in the same way we hold the images of
the world.. the art of the dreamer is the art of attention.

Exercising the dreaming attention is the essential point in dreaming

the dreaming attention comes into play when it is called, when it is given a purpose..(not a
process which leads to an end result) It is rather an awakening. Something suddenly becomes
suddenly functional.

dreaming seemed to begin as a unique state of awareness arrived at by focusing the residue of
consciousness (second attention), which one still has when asleep, on the elements, or the
features, of one's dream
the concentration needed to be aware that one is having a dream is the forerunner of the
second attention. That concentration is a form of consciousness that is not in the same category
as the consciousness needed to deal with the daily world.

what you call dreams are real for a warrior. Dreaming is real for a warrior because in it he can
act deliberately, he can choose and reject, he can select from a variety of items those which
lead to power, and then he can manipulate them and use them, while in an ordinary dream he
cannot act deliberately. In dreaming you have power; you can change things; you may find out
countless concealed facts; you can control whatever you want.

the act of convincing yourself you are indeed a dreamer, although you have never dreamt
before, and the act of being convinced... it requires imagination, discipline and purpose....you
get an unquestionable bodily knowledge that you are a dreamer...You feel that you are a
dreamer with all cells of your body....Intending the first gate of dreaming was one of the means
discovered by the sorcereres of antiquity for reaching the second attention and the energy body.
TAOD,26 it starts with an initial act, which by the fact of being sustained breeds unbending
intent. Unbending intent leads to internal silence, and internal silence to the inner strength
needed to make the AP shift in dreams to suitable purpose. put your silent determination,
without a single thought, into convincing yourself that you have reached your energy body and
that you are a dreamer...doing this will automatically put you in the position to be aware that you
are falling asleep.

the active element of such training (being aware of your dreams) is persistence, and that the
mind and all its rational defenses cannot cope with persistence. Sooner or later...the mind's
barrier's fall,under its impact and the dreaming attention blooms.

that the best position for a woman to start from is to sit with her legs crossed and then let the
body fall, as it may do once the attention is on dreaming.

In a woman both the attention and the energy for dreaming originate from the womb.

don't let the dream slip into something else. (the idea is to be able to engage your dreaming
attention like looking for a specific object like your hands in the dream) TAOD,21 ...everytime
you look at anything in your dreams it changes shape..the trick in learning to set up dreaming is
obviously not just to look at things but to sustain the sight of them.

a warrior chooses the topic by deliberately holding an image in his mind while he shuts off his
internal dialogue. In other words if he is not capable of not talking to himself for a moment and
then holds the image or the thought of what he wants in dreaming, even if only for an instant,
then the desired topic will come to him.

LOOKING AT OBJECTS IN THE DREAM SHOULD BE DONE IN GLANCES/OR WE LOSE

CONTROL
One only strives to immobilize the second attention only in the learning period. After that, one
has to fight the inconcivable pull of the second attention and give only cursory glances at
everything. In dreaming one has to be satisfied with the briefest possible views of everything. As
soon as one focuses on anything. one loses control. EG,142... ..I realized that if I did not stare
at things but only glanced at them, just as we do in our daily world, I could arrange my
perception. If I took my dreaming for granted, I could use the perceptual biases of my everyday
life. After a few moments the scenery became, if not completely familiar, controllable.
EG,52. ...take quick, deliberate glances at everything present in a dream. If they focus their
dreaming attention on something specific, it is only as a point of departure. From there,
dreamers move on to look at other items in the dream's content, returning to the point of
departure as many times as possible. TAOD,25 Every time you isolate it (starting point item)
and look at it, you get a surge of energy, so the beginning don't look at too many things in your
dreams. Four items will suffice....as soon as the images begin to shift...go back to your starting
point and start all over again. TAOD, 30,31 Remember that if you glance only briefly, the images
don't shift. TAOD,30...when they (object in dreams)..change shape you must move your sight
away from them and pick something else, and then look at your hands again. It takes a long
time to perfect this technique. JTI,100, 112... every time you look at your hands you renew the
power needed for dreaming, so in the beginning don't look at too many things... when you feel
you can gaze at things indefinitely you will be ready for a new technique. JTI,112 The most
serious problem the dreamer has in this respect is the unbending fixation of the second
attention on detail that would be thoroughly undetected by the attention of everyday life, creating
in this manner a nearly insurmountable obstacle to validation. What one seeks in dreaming is
not what one would pay attention to in everyday life. EG,142.

FIRST GATE OF DREAMING: a threshold we must cross by becoming aware of a particular

sensation before deep sleep...A sensation like a pleasant heaviness that doesn't let us open our
eyes. We reach that gate the instant we become aware that we're falling asleep, suspended in
darkness and heaviness......to do this..one just intends to become aware of falling asleep..
TAOD,22 ..the goal of dreaming is to intend that your energy body becomes aware that you are
falling asleep. Don't try to force yourself to be aware of falling asleep. Let your energy body do it

DON JUAN:
“You must start by doing something very simple,” he said. “Tonight in your dreams you must look at
your hands.”
“I’m going to remind you of all the techniques you must practice,” he said. “First you must focus your
gaze on your hands as the starting point. Then shift your gaze to other items and look at them in
brief glances. Focus your gaze on as many things as you can. Remember that if you only glance
briefly the images do not shift. Then go back to your hands.

STALKING

The very first principle of stalking is that a warrior stalks himself...he stalks himself ruthlessly,
cunningly, patiently and sweetly.

What a warrior really needs in order to be an impeccable stalker is to have a purpose.

..there are many ways of stalking oneself...for example poems.. as you read, I listen and I shut
off my internal dialogue and let my inner silence gain momentum. Then the combination of the
poem and the silence delivers the jolt

The fifth principle of the art of stalking is when faced with odds that cannot be dealt with,
warriors retreat for a moment. they let their minds meander. They occupy their time with
something else. Anything would do.

The sixth principle of the art of stalking is that warriors compress time; even an instant counts.
In a battle for your life, a second is an eternity; an eternity that may decide the outcome.
Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time. Warriors don't waste an instant.

example of stalking.. Don Juans' relationship with CC where DJ tells CC how much he despises
him but DJ used the relationship as a chance to develop his stalking skills....it is a rare
opportunity for a warrior to be given a genuine chance to be impeccable in spite of his basic
feelings

It's possible to insist, to properly insist, even though we know that what we're doing is useless..
but we must know first that our acts are useless and yet we must proceed as if we didn't know it.
That's a sorcerer's controlled folly.

Arranging means reconstructing the event, piece by piece, starting by recollecting the physical
details of the surroundings , then going to the person with whom one shared the interaction, and
going to oneself, to the examination of one's feelings. TAOD,148 And setting up the scene
consists of visualizing all the details pertinent to the events that one is going to recall. Once you
have all the elements in place, use the sweeping breath; the movement of your head is like a
fan that stirs everything in that scene... If you're remembering a room, for example breathe in
the walls, the ceiling, the furniture, the people you see. And don't stop until you have absorbed
every last bit of energy you left behind. Your body will tell you when you've had enough...
TSC,50.

I moved my head from right to left, breathing in the energy that was still hopelessly caught in the
exhibition hall. As I brought my head back to the right again. I exhaled all the embarassment
and self-pity that had enveloped me. I moved my head repeatedly, doing one sweeping breath
after the other until all my emotional turmoil was released. TSC,97.Remember, intend to inhale
energy that you left in the scene you're recapitulating, and to intend to exhale the extraneous
energy into you by others. TSC,50. That's more like it... when exhaling, throw out all the
thoughts and feelings you are reviewing. And don't just turn your head with your neck muscles.
Guide it with the invisible energy lines from your midsection. Enticing those lines to come out is
one of the accomplishments of the recapitulation. TSC,132