THE END IS CLOSE

[scout1]

AND ITS COMING FAST..
NOT EVERY SINGLE OF US IS GONNA LAST

[scout1]

"The big flaw I am talking about," he said, "is something you ought to bear in mind every second of your existence. For me, it's the issue of issues, which I will repeat to you over and over until it comes out of your ears."



After a long moment, I gave up any further attempt to remember.



"We are beings on our way to dying," he said. "We are not immortal, but we behave as if we were. This is the flaw that brings us down as individuals and will bring us down as a species someday."



Don Juan stated that the sorcerers' advantage over their average fellow men is that sorcerers know that they are beings on their way to dying and they don't let themselves deviate from that knowledge. He emphasized that an enormous effort must be employed in order to elicit and maintain this knowledge as a total certainty.



http://aquakeys.com/d7a6_...easurements-of-cognition



"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."



---



"Sorcerers, however, do have the upper hand. As beings on their way to dying, they have someone whispering in their ear that everything is ephemeral. The whisperer is death; the infallible advisor; the only one who won't ever tell you a lie."

[dreamways]

scout1 wrote:"The big flaw I am talking about," he said, "is something you ought to bear in mind every second of your existence. For me, it's the issue of issues, which I will repeat to you over and over until it comes out of your ears."



After a long moment, I gave up any further attempt to remember.



"We are beings on our way to dying," he said. "We are not immortal, but we behave as if we were. This is the flaw that brings us down as individuals and will bring us down as a species someday."



Don Juan stated that the sorcerers' advantage over their average fellow men is that sorcerers know that they are beings on their way to dying and they don't let themselves deviate from that knowledge. He emphasized that an enormous effort must be employed in order to elicit and maintain this knowledge as a total certainty.



http://aquakeys.com/d7a6_...easurements-of-cognition



"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."

"Sorcerers, however, do have the upper hand. As beings on their way to dying, they have someone whispering in their ear that everything is ephemeral. The whisperer is death; the infallible advisor; the only one who won't ever tell you a lie."
Personally, I think that the way the topic of death is handled in Castaneda's books doesn't really hit the mark, because he doesn't make it clear enough that this is not just another exercise for our minds. I think there is a better way to view it for sorcerers, and that is the phenomenon of death's embodiment in one of our energy bodies. The way Castaneda describes death is as something subtle, but if you look at the energy body which is associated with the Pranic Chakra, between the Throat and Heart Chakras, you can see for yourself that it is about as dead as dead can be, yet it is still available to us. You can literally consult with your own personal death by speaking with it, you don't have to imagine or visualize anything, you can do it directly. Just intend to meet your dead energy body in a lucid dream by saying out loud, "I want to consult with my own personal death!" Since it is one of your own energy bodies, it is all about you specifically, it won't start talking about anything unrelated and waste your time. Just one thing though, this energy body doesn't always materialize in a humanoid form, sometimes it looks like an animal. I have seen it as a sphere, a ghost version of my self, a skeleton and a saber-tooth tiger. 

Another thing that you can do in lucid dreams is intend to see what happens to people after they die, both sorcerers and regular people. That had more of an impact on me then anything about death itself.

[scout1]

It should be taken with caution - there is kamma mechanism of rebirth. The being can re-appear after the death of physical body in the ghost, demon, animal realm, at the place of deprivation, of suffering, in hell. There is contradiction, but we know description from Egyptians e.g., there are two parts of the Soul, one part goes to Underworld ( the hollow memory, shade) and the second "reincarnates" in bardo ? "ka" and "ba" terms if i recall that properly.



dependent co-arising = re-appearing of being after the death of physical body



(or after 40 days in bardo "rebirth" - not of an ego - according to Tibetan traditions)



vs.



Carlos Castaneda in Encounters of Nagual by Armando Torres (Chapter Survival of Assemblage point)



"You see, when an ordinary person dreams, he is not able to focus his attention on anything;

he doesn't have anything but his fragmented memories, fed with experiences he has

accumulated in the course of his life. If that person dies, the difference is that his dream

lengthens and he doesn't wake up again. It is the dream of death.

"The journey of death can take him to a virtual world of appearances, where he will

contemplate the materialization of his beliefs, of his heavens and private hells, but nothing

else. Such visions start disappearing in time, as the impulses of memory wear out."

"And what happens to the souls of those who die?"

"The soul doesn't exist, what exists is energy. Once the physical body disappears, the only

thing left is an energy entity fed by memory.

"Some individuals are so oblivious of themselves that they die almost without realizing it.

They are like people with amnesia, people who have a blockage of the assemblage point and

can no longer align memories, they don't have any continuity; as such , they feel permanently

on the brink of oblivion. When they die, those people disintegrate almost instantaneously; the

impulse of their lives only lasts for a few years at the most.

"However, most people take a little longer disintegrating, between one hundred and two

hundred years. The ones who had lives full of meaning can resist for half a millennium. The

range expands even more for those who were able to create bonds with masses of people; they

can retain their awareness during entire millennia."

"How do they achieve that?"

"Through the attention of their followers. Memory creates bonds among live beings and those

who have left. That's how they stay aware. And that's why cults of historical personalities are

so pernicious. That was the intent of those who, in the past, were mummified: To preserve

their name in history. Ironically, it is the greatest damage that can be inflicted on energy. If

you seriously want to punish a person, bury him in a lead casket; his confusion never ends.

"It doesn't matter what he does or how he has lived; an ordinary person doesn't have the

smallest chance of continuing ahead. For sorcerers who live facing eternity, five years or five

millennia are nothing. That's why they say that death is instantaneous disintegration."

I wanted to know if dead people can return to contact the living.

He answered:

"Relationships among residents of various spheres of awareness can only be made through the

alignment of the assemblage point. Death is a final perceptive barrier. Living people can go to

the realm of the dead through dreams, but that is the kind of thing a warrior won't enter into,

because it only wears away his energy. Something very different, on the other hand, it is to

contact sorcerers who have left."

[scout1]

"Do you mean that when we dream, we approach the state of the dead?"



"We don't just approach it, we are there! But since the vitality of our body remains intact, we

can return. To die is literally a dream.



"You see, when an ordinary person dreams, he is not able to focus his attention on anything;

he doesn't have anything but his fragmented memories, fed with experiences he has

accumulated in the course of his life. If that person dies, the difference is that his dream

lengthens and he doesn't wake up again. It is the dream of death."

[Guest]