Hail and well met fellow warriors,

If I can have but a moment of your time I'd like to tell you about a grand weapon I've recently discovered. One that could make you invincible in the field of battle. Inner dialogues and indulgences will fall by the millions before your indomitable assault. If you suffer from gout, the plague, mosquito bites, or mad cow disease; well this probably won't help. But if a shift to a quieter mind and less indulgent behaviors is for you then read on, for I'm about to reveal the best tool I know of for this purpose.

What makes this tool so effective is that it's perfectly easy for our rational minds to understand it. In fact, once aware of it there's no way not to understand it. No going back now, Bippo! The tool is simply to put a little bit of awareness into mental postures. First, let me define that for you, (it's ok, I can do that since I made it up). A mental posture is the position we put our mind into when we analyze something. Now don't get hung up on the word analyze, I'm not talking about anything too complicated or limited mostly to scientists. I'm talking about the simple analysis we use for most of the judgements we make every day. "Am I having a good day?", "Do I like this pizza?", "How about this song?". Of course, sometimes we do analysis about questions which tend to have greater emotional importance to us, and for these questions it's even more useful to become aware of the mental posture we put ourselves in while we do so. "Did America choose right in the last presidential election?", "Am I a success or a failure?", "Should that girl I adore be with me or that rich guy?".

Once again, a mental posture is the position we put our minds in when we do these analysis. The last question makes for an obvious example of how this works. How would we approach that question if someone we were head over heels for was dating someone else? Would we judge the other suitor fairly? Or would we look for any tiny thing at all to cling to as to why that person was the wrong one for our beloved? I think the latter is probably the more common approach by far. In fact here it's even been put to music.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6XmNoauuOo

That's "Two Princes" by the Spin Doctors. As the singer explains, the girl should be with him because he knows what a prince and lover ought to be, unlike that other bastard. If you click the link and give it a listen it's pretty obvious the mental posture demonstrated is not one of unbiased appraisal of the other suitor. When considering the mental posture the song is obviously written from, it's actually quite comical what a desperate attempt to justify that posture the song is.

Another thing I need to point out here. Once the mental posture is selected, our analysis usually involves coming up with a couple reasons that support that posture and then we're done. We're pretty lazy thinkers most of the time when you get down to it. What we call analysis or even thinking is usually just an attempt to justify the mental posture we first went into regarding a particular topic. Think about that statement a moment. Most of the time we say we're thinking all we're really doing is coming up with a couple of reasons to say why the mental posture we chose is supported. Considering this, doesn't it seem like we ought to pay attention to the mental postures we adopt and how/why we go into them?

Let's consider the question "Did I have a good day?". I've asked myself this question a number of times in my life, and I've answered it in different ways. Sometimes, I've had a task checklist for the day and I've answered it based on how well I did on completing it. Other times I looked back at the events of the day and decided based on how many of them I saw as positive versus negative. After using either of these methods I would then answer the question with a yes or no and change my mood a bit to fit that answer. Another way I might answer the question was that I would be in strong mood and that mood would almost by itself determine the answer. If I wake up with the flu, accidentally burn my lunch, drop a heavy weight on my foot, spend hours fighting with my parents, and then win the lottery I'm likely to say afterward that it was a good day. This reveals something interesting. Not only can our mental posture change our mood, but our mood can change our mental posture. It works both ways. I know people whose mental posture towards Trump is such that the mere mention of his name will bring them to anger, their mental posture changing their mood. On the other hand, some of these same people in a very good mood will adapt a more forgiving posture if someone whom they feel has wronged them manages to seek reconciliation at that time, their mood changing their mental posture.

Alright, let's get back to that all important question "Do I like this pizza?". A common way I've answered this question is similar to the last one in that I use a checklist. Is it spicy? Does it have topping X? Topping Y? Topping Z? Does it have my favorite type of crust? Is there enough sauce on it? After getting the answers to these and other questions, I would shift my mental posture regarding the pizza towards whichever part of the like/dislike spectrum I had previously told myself each answer suggested. I like spicy foods, so if the pizza was spicy I had already decided I liked it. Ironically, after telling myself that I liked a pizza I stopped the analysis. I paid it very little attention to the taste of it after that point. When I finished with it, I told myself it was a good meal based on my checklist even though I usually paid just a cursory amount of attention to it while actually eating it! The only time I was more attentive to whether or not I was enjoying it was when it had flavors I was unfamiliar with.

There's a lesson here when you consider both of these facts about these kinds of checklists. First is that they pull our attention away from really appraising things, and second that we shift our moods and then make our judgements based on them. Instead of creating these lists, (which are, we have to admit, largely arbitrary), why not just appraise things for what they are? Every time you eat some food, try to put aside your checklist and see how it really tastes. Do so without comparing it to other things. Same with music. Don't worry if it's rap, country, or whatever genre it is. Don't worry about who sings it or whatever else may be in your checklist to decide if you like a song. Just listen to it for what it is on it's own. When you put aside your checklist like this, and listen/taste/experience with pure curiosity you won't have any list to control your mood. Those things you've always liked you'll probably like more, being as now you're experiencing them more fully. Even better, many of the things you formerly didn't like you'll find yourself actually liking this way.  At least, that's been my experience. Seemingly accompanying this automatically has come a greater desire for diversity in what I eat, listen to, etc. At the same time, working off of checklists has become much more unsatisfying. Actually, it probably always was I'm just now more aware of the fact.

Here's another song to consider. In this one Gwen Stefani sings about getting dumped. Give it a listen and consider it from the position of her apparent mental posture and see if you can't notice her doing anything to reinforce it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONg4SK39-Kg

Did you notice it? Well, you'd have to be pretty obtuse not to, she does it continuously throughout the whole song! "don't tell me how bad things are... here's how bad things are". By continually repeating her justifications for her sad mental posture she is only reinforcing it with more emotional energy. Will she ever get out of that state? Sure, when she runs out of energy. Perhaps she should be singing the chorus to herself. Actually, there's nothing in the song that says she's not, and it takes on a whole different meaning when interpreted that way.

I suggest continually paying attention to your mental posture and how you are affecting it and vice versa. Sometimes, you may find a mental posture is tough to shift away from. In these cases it can be useful to ask yourself why you have that posture. Where did you get it and what have you been telling yourself that reinforces it? How old were you at that time and what made you interested in it then? What mental postures did others involved have regarding the topic? These sorts of probing questions can lead to events worth recapping to free yourself from being stuck in undesirable postures.

Also I'd suggest dropping any checklists you find yourself having for going into a mental posture. I'm finding it very empowering, and I'm sure I've got a ways to go yet. Without a checklist telling me what to do in response to things that happen around/to me, I choose what mental posture to adopt instead. It's feels like a matter of taking responsibility really. If I feel like something isn't good or is going wrong then I look at it from the perspective of why am I reacting with this mental posture and how do I change it rather than judging or blaming the event.

Consider the case of a rich man who works 80 hours a week and a beach bum. The rich man may argue the other is lazy, and that's why he gets to eat dry aged steaks at 5 star restaurants while the bum will dine on tuna from a can. Without checklists, the bum may very well enjoy that tuna fish just as much or more than he would enjoy the steak were he to eat it, even though the restaurant serving it has ferns! There's a lot of power in that, when such things cannot phase you. Questions that more strongly define us like if we are a success or failure, a winner or loser in various contexts, a good person, intelligent, etc. are great candidates to drop checklists from, as that's where they have the most power over us.

Dropping these checklists silences a lot of the inner dialogue, encourages new behaviors, discourages indulgences, and if we consider that others are responsible for their own mental postures towards us, (whether those are based on checklists or whatever), fights self importance. It empowers us in our tonal, trains us to look at things with care and curiosity, and make it easier for us to shift, (and shifting our mental posture is just a smaller scale of shifting our entire AP).

(possibly to be revised later, I'm tired.)

I don't understand how you're all still on the sorcerer's path. And sorry, but I can't bring myself to believe that any of you are actual seers or warriors. I have been "trying" to focus on silence and what really matters lately but it's way too hard. The enemy has bested us in a fashion that is beyond our language. It is truly horrible what is going on, and the more I try the more I see it. I don't think one can actually practice sorcery without a teacher. Here are some excerpts from the books

ANOTHER SORCERER IS NEEDED TO GUIDE A NOVICE IN THE NAGUAL
We cannot be on our own while being in the left side awareness and have to be cushioned by warriors who have gained totality of themselves and know how to handle themselves in that state. EG,299.

BECOMING AN APPRENTICE WAS NOT A PERSONAL CHOICE, BUT A DESIGN OF POWER
neither is it a matter of personal choice who is selected to learn the sorcerer's knowledge that leads to that awareness. The decision of picking you was a design of power; no one can discern the designs of power. TOP,58.

THE SPIRIT SOMETIMES HAS TO TRICK A PERSON INTO BECOMING AN APPRENTICE
only a crackpot would undertake the task of becoming a man of knowledge of his own accord. A sober headed man has to be tricked into it. SR,28
...because of man's unwillingness to understand, the spirit was forced to use trickery. And trickery became the essence of the sorcerer's path. POS, 23
Sorcerer's are convinced that all of us are a bunch of nincompoops..we can never relinquish control voluntarily (of our tonal) thus we have to be tricked...you were convinced that that trickery was directed at fooling your reason...for me, tricking meant to distract your attention, or to trap it as the case required. TOP, 232

The way I see it, all of you who are stuck between the world of a sorcerer and the world of an ordinary man are in a most horrible limbo of your own doings, as am I. Defining sorcery as shifting the AP, I'm sure there are many here who have flirted with it and can be called sorcerers, but warriors...? How can you possibly endure the warrior's life without a teacher? Think about the unbelievable complexity of Don Juan's teaching over the years and how his lineage developed it. As far as I can see, most ones on this forum are people who have or are trying to have somewhat polished tonals (maybe even clean ones) whilst flirting with sorcery. But I don't see how a sad bunch like us can possibly have any chances of attempting the flight into the abstract without being obliterated by the forces of infinity.
I will still do my best at everything I do and whenever I have enough emphasis I will try to obtain inner silence. I will also keep on practice dreaming and continuously clean and polish my tonal, but other than that, I see nothing. Like Carlos feels about his father; I never had a chance.

Greetings,
I have already posted a couple of things and will continue to do so (probably a lot) until I feel satisfied with myself.
Am I just merely indulging and feeding the flyer? Yeah, most of it is probably that, but I also feel this has a somewhat important value to it. 
And after analyzing this strategy, I have concluded that if I post enough I will actually gain sobriety. 
I guess I am just one of those people that learns better when you explain it to others. I very badly need the clarity that posting my processed knowledge of the warrior's path will bring.
If you feel my self importance gets way too much in the way of trying to say, please refresh me with the harshest comments you can think of. Just look at the amount of times I wrote "I" in this post. Oof...
Anyways, I hope my attempt to clear some specific things about sorcery and my stories can boost or give a little jolt to someone's path.

There are some feelings that are simply too complex or intense for us to put into words. I like what Don Juan says about the failure of words:

"The flaw with words is that they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment. For this reason, a sorcerer seeks to act rather than to talk and to this effect he gets a new description of the world--a new description where talking is not that important, and where new acts have new reflections."

The Japanese word Natsukashii represents an intense nostalgia, an unquenchable desire to return to the 'golden times' of whatever context is concerned.

The German word Sehnsucht means extreme longing.

I think since I'm an INFP, I experience things in a more emotional manner than in a rational manner, and for this reason I have unveiled a deep feeling I have been feeling over the past couple years. It's a sad longing for some unbelievably amazing time. It's as if I used to be part of a group of amazing people capable of amazing things, like if they lived on an MMO world but in real life with tremendous power (I apologize for the gaming terminology, I am a millennial).

The most intense version of this feeling came to me when I read the Second Ring of Power, which despite being one of the worst books due its lack of Don Juan and just depicting Carlos indulging like a buffoon, there's a part of the book that really killed me. It's when Carlos hears by the little sisters that Don Juan left the world together with his band and Eligio. They went into another world to experience inconceivable acts of perception while Carlos is stuck in a nightmare of the flyer's doing. Of course he is only indulging so much because he is in the first attention, but when he remembers everything he becomes a formless warrior.

I also associate this sadness of knowing the amazing people you once had contact to went away with the last scene of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which Frodo leaves the world with the highest of sorcerers and leaves Sam behind. Even though I was quite young when I watched that scene, I felt a tremendous sadness. As I'm writing this I also remembered that I associate it a little bit too with the Last Airbender, in which Ang used to belong with a group of awesome Avatars until everything was destroyed and he was frozen in the ice.

I think actually that the reason for all of this is pretty simple. These myths, whether they be Tolkien books or mythology or music or paintings or even television series, they all amount up to the same thing. We humans share, in the deep depths of our soul, a very powerful sentiment regarding all this. We have an eternal lasting for the time when we were the kings of the Earth, when we ran around with pure freedom and capable of extraordinary feats of perception and awareness. Everything changed when the flyers came, though, and they still are here. We are still trapped. I like Don Juan's metaphor for this:

"Our great collective flaw is that we live our lives completely disregarding that connection. The busyness of our lives, our relentless interests, concerns, hopes, frustrations, and fears take precedence, and on a day-to-day basis we are unaware of being linked to everything else.
Being cast out from the Garden of Eden sounds like an allegory for losing our silent knowledge, our knowledge of intent. Sorcery, then, is a going back to the beginning, a return to paradise."

On the Active Side of Infinity, before the chapter of the mudshadows/flyers, Don Juan hints at them by saying:

"The old sorcerers called it inner silence because it is a state in which perception doesn't depend on the senses. What is at work during inner silence is another faculty that man has, the faculty that makes him a magical being, the very faculty that has been curtailed, not by man himself but by some extraneous influence."

And on the chapter where he tells Carlos of the flyers he also says:

"What I'm saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. It is very smart, and organized. It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He's an average piece of meat. There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic."

The darkness of what we read in this chapter is so abhorring that I think none of us actually understands it. Maybe some of us shook and spit out a nervous laughter, but I think one day, as the we progress on the sorcerer's path, we will actually have enough personal power to truly understand what Don Juan meant by this, and that will be a scary fucking day.

Is it okay to feel sad?
Is it okay to have a weakness?
Is it okay to have fear?
I can go on and on...

Am I alone in this world..?

The battle I lead is not with who stands in front of me. It is an inner struggle. The source of my fear and shame has never been what the other might think, say, or do if I say this or do that. It was always of the next feeling or self-deprecating thought I would have and how I myself would handle the situation/s after that. However, unlike some others I tend to assume responsibility for my actions and don't go around pointing the finger for my distress if there is any. That is I have found the only way that I can have control over myself. When nothing depends on others be it allies or people or whatever it's solely up to me to make myself be this way or another way. The source of all of it is me and I cast the world and myself.  By the way is it okay to struggle..?

I have a goal to cut off dependencies of any sort. And I do, trust me it's fun and for myself worth it. I've been observing others and wondering why are they so predictable, so easy to read. Well it is actually funny because the more I assume responsibility and make conscious decisions I can see what the outcome of them will be well before I make them that is to say it becomes easy to assess situations and others. Mainly because that is not what they do which is the scary part. I've noticed they tend to "go with the flow" which I call sleep-walking or just being a zombie. Well you see once I realized there is a consequence to every action even if I decide not to act and began making conscious decisions I saw that I am not reacting anymore. Not to my own thoughts or emotions and not even to other peoples thoughts, emotions, or actions.

So what are zombies? They're the others who do not do what I do but instead unconsciously react to the situation they are presented with in other words they experience time in a very different way than I do and don't have that split second to realize what's even going on clearly. They're hit by time while I don't get pinned down by it in the same way because I'm not compelled to react to whatever arises which gives me that split second they lack to do with it what I choose instead of "go with the flow". Don't get me wrong here "going with the flow" can be a choice too but not in the sense the zombies use it. Because I'd still have the time to decide that I want to "go with the flow" where as their attention gets pinned down by what arises and they're compelled to do something and in most cases that is just a reaction.

And once one knows the habitual position of humans and what their quirks and behavior is it's soo easy to predict where the arising situation will lead them in terms of thoughts, choices, and actions... I like neutral not because I can't get punched in the face but because it's where I have the leeway to move from in one direction or the other or... I will play around with some alternative knowledge of humans.

I am also in a pit, literally in a fucked up scenario ("I blame you God!" haha, is this sarcasm?). Sometimes I feel low, sad, fear, shame, etc... But do you know what I found out? When I read an amazing book and it ends I'm left kind of naked because it was a great book but it had to end and what do I do now..? Well I found that all this above is content, material that can be used that I can play with and oh boy are there gems in all of it... It's food and it's good food. So, is it okay?

Spoiler Alert!
Questions are for yourselves to answer...

By the way you're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. (oops)
Stalk.

I've been thinking about this. I've watched documentaries about him which have shocked me, in terms of his character. Now I'm reading this book Sorcerer's Apprentice by Amy Wallace to hear what someone who was close to him has to say. So far, things are really eye opening.

I wish others to also join me in this quest for truth. If you don't want to, that's fine. But I've uploaded the book to genesis library to those who want to read it. (http://gen.lib.rus.ec)

So, last week I had severe dry eye which resulted in scratches to the cornea of both eyes, although much moreso my left. This created a situation where for about 3 days I basically had to keep my eyes shut almost all the time. I was able to use my right eye enough to handle walking from room to room and short tasks, but light was too painful for anything beyond that. 

Knowing that I had to keep my eyes shut to let them heal, I wondered what I would do during that time. As it turns out, most of my doings involve the use of sight, (whoda thunk?!). One thing that came to mind right away was listening to audio books. I've done that a lot in the past, and enjoy that so I thought why not? I found a playlist full of dramatized audio versions of the Goosebumps series, (scary stories for children), and having enjoyed those stories in the past decided to have a listen. I decided to try to visualize the story as I was listening to it. This turned out to be surprisingly difficult. I think the main problem was that instead of just holding onto ideas from the story with empty placeholders I was actively trying to constantly visualize things. This screwed up the timing between what I was imagining and the pace I was hearing the story whenever it would say stuff that has nothing to do with the visual idea of the story like 'I knew I couldn't leave him there, but I didn't know how to get him out.' There's a lot of this kind of thing in stories. I did better with stories I knew well, as I would slowly link what I was imagination with what I knew was coming next.

Aside from the audio books, I also indulged in sleep. It seemed to make sense at the time. I had to keep my eyes closed anyway and when you're healing sleep is supposed to be a good thing, or so I've always heard. I now realize that it was actually an indulgence to take several couple hour naps per day, plus a full nights sleep, and the reason I was doing it was just to give myself something "to do". The audio plays were somewhat of an indulgence too, even though listening to them with eyes closed turned out to be less familiar than I expected. Still, somehow between the excess sleep and some hours of radio stories I managed to get a lot of not-doing in there.

So what was this not-doing like? The best I can compare it to is waiting for something to happen. Waiting in a way as if you were about to leave a party and you've already said goodbye to everyone, but then your driver said hang on and had to rush back inside. You're still standing in the entryway. You don't want to start up anything new because you know you won't have time for it, so you just stand there "not doing" for a brief period until your ride comes back. Sure if it takes a while you'll decide to go back in a bit and maybe mingle some more or inquire what's keeping your driver, but until you decide to do that, (or to do something else to "occupy your time" while waiting), you're not-doing.

I was not-doing for some hours at a time. Just sort of "waiting" for my eyes to heal as I laid in bed with them closed, not knowing how long it would take and not feeling like I had anything else to do. During this period, I saw a lot of images, similar to how I see them before sleeping. Just a rampant, chaotic series of things changing form really. One thing dissolved into the next, and then into the next. The only theme that seemed to recur a lot was that of elephants, and I don't know why that is.

The main change I was getting from this though was that I felt I was becoming more "sober". To a degree that goes a bit beyond my normal use of that term. What I was becoming more sober towards was the difference between an authentic desire to do something, and an inauthentic, mind-created urge to doing something just to fill a need to "be doing something", or to do something because of the time, (eg, it's 12:00, time for lunch), or to meet some expectation, or whatever else the mind says is the reason why I "should" do whatever it suggests to do, which is never an authentic desire.

In addition to the concept of the difference, the energy is different too. The mind has to build up the energy to do something, often using the imagination, while authentic desires pop in ready to be acted on. If you ever just jump up and burst into song, or something else so quickly you're half-surprised by your own action it was probably authentic. If you're sitting here imagining what that is like and trying to figure out how to do that it isn't. Just wait and don't feel a need to do anything, or think about doing anything. You might not have an authentic desire to do anything for a while. Eventually, an authentic desire will arise. At least, that's my working theory. :/

Converting from spending nearly all of my time doing mind-generated actions to spending it doing only actions which stem from authentic desire seems like it might take a while and pose some challenges, (the first one I notice is that I need to continually reassure myself that I won't act in suicidally stupid ways by doing so).

When I was a kid I used to be afraid of dogs. We had stray dogs in my neighborhood and I despised the times my mother asked me to go to the shop to buy her something because of the dogs.

Many times as soon as I came out of the store they would start chasing me in packs 2-3, 4-5 dogs at a time. I would scream, cry, and run as if I'd seen the devil. Once I was back to safety the fear would start subsiding, however, it would take days until I was calm enough to go to the store again I was afraid to go out of our house.

One day I was away from home riding my bike in the park with no people around in a radius of about a mile when one huge dog and a smaller puppy started barking at me and chasing me. My heart, as usual, started pumping as fast as it could without me passing out of fear... Only this time I decided to face my fear. Without hitting the breaks I jumped off my bike (it slammed in a tree) and turned around screaming and running towards the dogs.

To my surprise they bent their tails and disappeared as fast as a fart in the wind only to leave the feeling of power in me just like the smell of a fart hovers around for a while. I beat my fear of dogs that day and was no longer their victim from that day on.

I used to be quite aware and lucid in my dreams back in those days and I would have many nightmares not only of dogs and shady men but monsters as well. It would be easy for me to gain awareness and lucidity in a nightmare when I saw how impossible or different the people, entities, environment was then what I'm used to in my daily life. I could not get rid of the objects that were producing the fear though and I never managed to turn a nightmare in a nice superman like flying trip.

That was so until I decided to challenge my fears in dreams the way I did with the dogs that day. I would set my intent before going to sleep to be aware in my dreams and if I had a nightmare to take control over it. I'd face a tremendously huge monster in dreams or a werewolf or people kidnapping me and I would try to run hide terrified at first. Then as soon as I'd get a small drop of lucidity and see that it is a dream I'd stop myself cold and face my fear, stop it in its tracks. I would cut fear and the intent I've set to the entities to chase me and stare them dead in the eyes until they started disappearing.

I'd wake up happy and calm due to my success.

How many things can you say you really know are true?

We are born.
We perceive.
We perceive differently at night.

We die.

What else? Is everything else an assumption?

I am reposting here my posts from 10 May 2014 that I originally wrote somewhere more private:

In shamanism, as I learned, the soul is seen to be divisible. In cases of for example trauma or danger (but also sometimes during joyous events) a part of the soul might leave in order to protect itself and/or protect the whole. Sometimes it does not come back and then one needs to do a soul retrieval. In cases when one knows one is going to experience something harder for oneself (could be surgery, anesthesia, or even travel if one is badly affected by travelling) one can protect oneself so this does not happen.

The soul, as I would understand it now, is luminosity (and at this point I would rather not go into what specifically that means for me).

Shamanism in some sense is a study of the soul. And of course about connecting to spirit, which connects one to the natural way of things.

The soul is an important aspect of being whole.

P.S. Below I talk a bit about soul retrieval and what relates to it, however, I do not provide a how to for soul retrieval (I focus more o preventing losing a part of the soul in certain circumstances like surgery or when known discomfort/suffering if coming up). I might add to it or make another thread for soul retrieval later.