01-10-2011, 12:00 AM
I think the border line is right here, in the build up of awareness, this the ticket to Infinity:
"Tell me, don Juan," I said to end the conversation on a different note,
"what is a being that is going to die, really? I have heard you talk
about it so many times, but you haven't actually defined it for me."
"Human beings are beings that are going to die," he said.
"Sorcerers
firmly maintain that the only way to have a grip on our world, and on
what we do in it, is by fully accepting that we are beings on the way to
dying. Without this basic acceptance, our lives, our doings, and the
world in which we live are unmanageable affairs."
"But is the mere acceptance of this so far-reaching?" I asked in a tone of quasi-protest.
"You
bet your life!" don Juan said, smiling. "However, it's not the mere
acceptance that does the trick. We have to embody that acceptance and
live it all the way through. Sorcerers throughout the ages have said
that the view of our death is the most sobering view that exists.
What
is wrong with us human beings, and has been wrong since time
immemorial, is that without ever stating it in so many words, we believe
that we have entered the realm of immortality. We behave as if we
were never going to die- an infantile arrogance. But even more injurious
than this sense of immortality is what comes with it: the sense that we
can engulf this inconceivable universe with our minds."
"Tell me, don Juan," I said to end the conversation on a different note,
"what is a being that is going to die, really? I have heard you talk
about it so many times, but you haven't actually defined it for me."
"Human beings are beings that are going to die," he said.
"Sorcerers
firmly maintain that the only way to have a grip on our world, and on
what we do in it, is by fully accepting that we are beings on the way to
dying. Without this basic acceptance, our lives, our doings, and the
world in which we live are unmanageable affairs."
"But is the mere acceptance of this so far-reaching?" I asked in a tone of quasi-protest.
"You
bet your life!" don Juan said, smiling. "However, it's not the mere
acceptance that does the trick. We have to embody that acceptance and
live it all the way through. Sorcerers throughout the ages have said
that the view of our death is the most sobering view that exists.
What
is wrong with us human beings, and has been wrong since time
immemorial, is that without ever stating it in so many words, we believe
that we have entered the realm of immortality. We behave as if we
were never going to die- an infantile arrogance. But even more injurious
than this sense of immortality is what comes with it: the sense that we
can engulf this inconceivable universe with our minds."