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62: Awareness Develops From The Moment Of Conception; The New Cycle Must Come Of Itself

(The Fire from Within by Carlos Castaneda)

After dinner don Juan went on with his explanation about the glow of awareness. Genaro sat by me, listening as if he had never heard the explanation before.

Don Juan said that the pressure that the emanations outside the cocoon, which are called emanations at large, exert on the emanations inside the cocoon is the same in all sentient beings.

Yet the results of that pressure are vastly different among them, because their cocoons react to that pressure in every conceivable way. There are. however, degrees of uniformity within certain boundaries.

“Now,” he went on, “when seers see that the pressure of the emanations at large bears down on the emanations inside, which are always in motion, and makes them stop moving, they know that the luminous being at that moment is fixated by awareness.”

“To say that the emanations at large bear down on those inside the cocoon and make them stop moving means that seers see something indescribable, the meaning of which they know without a shadow of doubt. It means that the voice of seeing has told them that the emanations inside the cocoon are completely at rest and match some of those which are outside.”

He said that seers maintain, naturally, that awareness always comes from outside ourselves, that the real mystery is not inside us. Since by nature the emanations at large are made to fixate what is inside the cocoon, the trick of awareness is to let the fixating emanations merge with what is inside us. Seers believe that if we let that happen we become what we really are – fluid, forever in motion, eternal.

There was a long pause. Don Juan’s eyes had an intense shine. They seemed to be looking at me from a great depth. I had the feeling that each of his eyes was an independent point of brilliance. For an instant he appeared to be struggling against an invisible force, a fire from within that intended to consume him. It passed and he went on talking.

“The degree of awareness of every individual sentient being,” he continued, “depends on the degree to which it is capable of letting the pressure of the emanations at large carry it.”

After a long interruption, don Juan continued explaining. He said that seers saw that from the moment of conception awareness is enhanced, enriched, by the process of being alive. He said that seers saw, for instance, that the awareness of an individual insect or that of an individual man grows from the moment of conception in astoundingly different ways, but with equal consistency.

“Is it from the moment of conception or from the moment of birth that awareness develops?” I asked.

“Awareness develops from the moment of conception,” he replied. “I have always told you that sexual energy is something of ultimate importance and that it has to be controlled and used with great care. But you have always resented what I said, because you thought I was speaking of control in terms of morality; I always meant it in terms of saving and rechanneling energy.”

Don Juan looked at Genaro. Genaro nodded his head in approval.

“Genaro is going to tell you what our benefactor, the nagual Julian, used to say about saving and rechanneling sexual energy,” don Juan said to me.

“The nagual Julian used to say that to have sex is a matter of energy,” Genaro began. “For instance, he never had any problems having sex, because he had bushels of energy. But he took one look at me and prescribed right away that my peter was just for peeing. He told me that I didn’t have enough energy to have sex. He said that my parents were too bored and too tired when they made me; he said that I was the result of very boring sex, cojida aburrida. I was born like that, bored and tired. The nagual Julian recommended that people like me should never have sex; this way we can store the little energy we have.”

“He said the same thing to Silvio Manuel and to Emilito. He saw that the others had enough energy. They were not the result of bored sex. He told them that they could do anything they wanted with their sexual energy, but he recommended that they control themselves and understand the Eagle’s command that sex is for bestowing the glow of awareness. We all said we had understood.”

“One day, without any warning at all, he opened the curtain of the other world with the help of his own benefactor, the nagual Elias, and pushed all of us inside, with no hesitation whatsoever. All of us, except Silvio Manuel, nearly died in there. We had no energy to withstand the impact of the other world. None of us, except Silvio Manuel, had followed the nagual’s recommendation.”

“What is the curtain of the other world?” I asked don Juan.

“What Genaro said – it is a curtain,” don Juan replied. “But you’re getting off the subject. You always do. We’re talking about the Eagle’s command about sex. It is the Eagle’s command that sexual energy be used for creating life. Through sexual energy, the eagle bestows awareness. So when sentient beings are engaged in sexual intercourse, the emanations inside their cocoons do their best to bestow awareness to the new sentient being they are creating.”

He said that during the sexual act, the emanations encased inside the cocoon of both partners undergo a profound agitation, the culminating point of which is a merging, a fusing of two pieces of the glow of awareness, one from each partner, that separate from their cocoons.

“Sexual intercourse is always a bestowal of awareness even though the bestowal may not be consolidated,” he went on. “The emanations inside the cocoon of human beings don’t know of intercourse for fun.”

Genaro leaned over toward me from his chair across the table and talked to me in a low voice, shaking his head for emphasis.

“The nagual is telling you the truth,” he said and winked at me. “Those emanations really don’t know.”

Don Juan fought not to laugh and added that the fallacy of man is to act with total disregard for the mystery of existence and to believe that such a sublime act of bestowing life and awareness is merely a physical drive that one can twist at will.

Genaro made obscene sexual gestures, twisting his pelvis around, on and on. Don Juan nodded and said that that was exactly what he meant. Genaro thanked him for acknowledging his one and only contribution to the explanation of awareness.

Both of them laughed like idiots, saying that if I had known how serious their benefactor was about the explanation of awareness, I would be laughing with them.

I earnestly asked don Juan what all this meant for an average man in the day-to-day world.

“You mean what Genaro is doing?” he asked me in mock seriousness.

Their glee was always contagious. It took a long time for them to calm down. Their level of energy was so high that next to them, I seemed old and decrepit.

“I really don’t know,” don Juan finally answered me. “All I know is what it means to warriors. They know that the only real energy we possess is a life-bestowing sexual energy. This knowledge makes them permanently conscious of their responsibility.”

“If warriors want to have enough energy to see, they must become misers with their sexual energy. That was the lesson the nagual Julian gave us. He pushed us into the unknown, and we all nearly died. Since everyone of us wanted to see, we, of course, abstained from wasting our glow of awareness.”

I had heard him voice that belief before. Every time he did, we got into an argument. I always felt compelled to protest and raise objections to what I thought was a puritanical attitude toward sex.

I again raised my objections. Both of them laughed to tears.

“What can be done with man’s natural sensuality?” I asked don Juan.

“Nothing,” he replied. “There is nothing wrong with man’s sensuality, it’s man’s ignorance of and disregard for his magical nature that is wrong. It’s a mistake to waste recklessly the life-bestowing force of sex and not have children, but it’s also a mistake not to know that in having children one taxes the glow of awareness.”

“How do seers know that having children taxes the glow of awareness?” I asked.

“They see that on having a child, the parents’ glow of awareness diminishes and the child’s increases. In some supersensitive, frail parents, the glow of awareness almost disappears. As children enhance their awareness, a big dark spot develops in the luminous cocoon of the parents, on the very place from which the glow was taken away. It is usually on the midsection of the cocoon. Sometimes those spots can even be seen superimposed on the body itself.”

I asked him if there was anything that could be done to give people a more balanced understanding of the glow of awareness.

“Nothing,” he said. “At least, there is nothing that seers can do. Seers aim to be free, to be unbiased witnesses incapable of passing judgment; otherwise they would have to assume the responsibility for bringing about a more adjusted cycle. No one can do that. The new cycle, if it is to come, must come of itself.”

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