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131: The First Three Precepts And The Seven Basic Principles Of The Art Of Stalking The Self

(The Eagle’s Gift by Carlos Castaneda)

The First Three Precepts Of The Rule For Stalkers

The first precept:

Everything that surrounds us is an unfathomable mystery

The second precept:

We must try to unravel these mysteries, but without ever hoping to accomplish this.

The third precept:

A warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds him and aware of his duty to try to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one. Consequently, for a warrior there is no end to the mystery of being, whether being means being a pebble, or an ant, or oneself. That is a warrior’s humbleness. One is equal to everything.

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The Seven Basic Principles Of The Art Of Stalking.

The first principle:

Warriors choose their battleground.

The second principle:

To discard everything that is unnecessary.

The third principle:

Don’t complicate things. Aim at being simple. Apply all the concentration you have to decide whether or not to enter into battle, for any battle is a battle for one’s life. A warrior must be willing and ready to make his last stand here and now. But not in a helter-skelter way.

The fourth principle:

Relax, abandon yourself, fear nothing. Only then will the powers that guide us open the road and aid us. Only then.

The fifth principle:

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:

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.

The seventh principle:

A stalker never pushes himself to the front Thus her benefactor was always looking on from behind the scenes. Thanks to that he was capable of avoiding or parrying conflicts. If there was strife, it was never directed towards him, but towards his front, the female warrior.

Only a master stalker can be a master of controlled folly. Controlled folly doesn’t mean to con people. It means, as my benefactor explained it, that warriors apply the seven basic principles of the art of stalking to whatever they do, from the most trivial acts to life and death situations.

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Applying these principles brings about three results

The first:

Stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously; they learn to laugh at themselves. If they’re not afraid of being a fool, they can fool anyone.

The second:

Stalkers learn to have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never fret.

The third:

Stalkers learn to have an endless capacity to improvise.

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