no nagual?
“Stay at your table and listen.
Don’t even listen, just wait.
Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone.
The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked …
in raptures, it will writhe before you.” –Kafka
If you ask me, Kafka is describing seeing. Maybe he himself was a nagual, but how did he achieve this on his own? He makes it sound almost easy … Do you think creative geniuses are more likely to be naguals? don Juan said there were plenty of nagual men around … well, maybe not “plenty”, but you get my drift.
D5 Creation
It seems to me that Kafka might unconciously be acknowledging seeing. But he’s not the only one. i’ve read a few things where it seems like the author is talking about seeing. But i really doubt that any of them actually see. One of these instances is the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance by Robert Pirsig. What he is trying to find is the essence of everything. The thing is, he’s trying to do it by reasoning things out and he goes insane.
Don Juan did say somewhere that poets intuit the link between man and the Spirit. i don’t know if ‘creative genius’ ‘are more apt to be naguals. Why do you suppose this might be?
Why do you doubt it? Do you believe that a nagual is necessary for seeing ? (that’s a bit of why I posited that Kafka might actually have been one.)
by the way, I recently met a bona fide “creative genius”, and me (and my womb) got such a JOLT of energy …
… it made me wonder if he were a nagual, albeit unknown to him.
i doubt it because there are not many people who choose to live like we strive to. The percentage is so pitifully low. But this also begs the question: What makes a nagual a nagual? Is it just someone who is either a 3,4 or 5 sided double-being? Or does this person have to be leader of a group of warriors? Or something else?
I was using nagual to mean a person of the correct energy configuration. Don Juan certainly spoke of meeting many of these men in his search for someone to carry on his lineage … but that until C.C. they were all well-ensconced in their (business?) milieus and not available to leave and lead. It gave me the impression that for the most part they were successful and happy — perhaps above the normal success/happiness rate of the majority of the population? Do you think it means nothing to these men that they have this energy configuration — whether they are conscious of it or not, per se? Consider how the nagual Julian was using his energy before he knew anything about his energy …
Well if these men don’t even know that they are 3/4/5 sided they are sort of like the analogy of having an unbreakable canteen of water in the desert. The potential is there (water), but you can’t get at it. So what’s the point?
Julian wasted his energy horribly before he became the Nagual Julian (as you know). So obviously being a double-being meant nothing to him at that time because he didn’t know that he WAS a double-being.
Getting back to naguals being more likely to be creative geniuses. i think that anyone can be a creative genius. Can’t say for certain in Naguals are more predisposed though. To get a possible accurate answer, maybe you need to ask a Nagual?
I’ve sometimes wondered similar things…
was Gandhi a double being? John Lennon? Salvador Dali?
Just curiosity really. As you said BratscheWarrior, these people probably didn’t see much, if at all. But they did seem to have a natural ability to intuit and lead better than most average people.
Gandhi was hardly a great leader. The decisions he made led many people for their deaths. What would have happened if as you said, he would have intuited the outcome of his actions? i wonder how a warrior would have handled his situation.
All this and yet, he still could have been a double-being.
Now, what about Jesus? He was a powerful leader. The difference between him and Gandhi is that it was after Jesus’ death that his words were twisted and people decided to die in his name.
It wasn’t my intention to get into a discussion on what constitues a great leader. However, I’m sure that many would say that as far as leaders go, Gandhi was much better than many, if not most of the famous leaders of the world. But he certainly wasn’t a seer, he made misjudgements, and he had not defeated self-importance.
And on the other hand, I don’t know that Jesus was a great leader. From what I’ve heard and read, he seemed to be a great teacher, and if what has been written about him is “true”, it seems that there’s a very strong chance that he did see to some extent… But then again, who knows? Not me.
When it comes down to it, I really couldn’t care less about who is or isn’t a double being. It’s just a somewhat childish and pointless curiosity that has popped up in my thinking before.
True, it doesn’t really matter. i think a discussion on what makes a leader great would be interesting though.
Well then… what do you think makes a great leader? Have there really been any in your opinion? If so, who?.. and why?
Thinking about all the situations in the CC’s books where there happened seeing by somebody, I have thought that seeing doesn’t really mean one is a leader (a Nagual). Didn’t – or doesn’t – every warrior see sometimes? (La Gorda crossed her eyes and saw… etc.)
I think that seeing is about seeing visions (about places, people, situations) and/or inner knowing. I don’t think seeing is about having “a great vision” for the whole life or for the world – that’s all just day dreaming. I guess writers are quite good at day dreaming.
I have seen visions when I was younger. But because I don’t have the ability to see at will, that doesn’t really mean much. And everything that I’ve seen is either stricly personal or oddidies without the slightest clue what it’s supposed to mean.
Personally I don’t understand what is so important or fascinating in leaders. I think it’s quite booring to try to find out who has been a leader type and who has not – we have our responsibilities for ourselves. Let everybody else be this or that or not be. They are all gone, or if they are still living, most of them is going to the wrong direction anyway. Not to the freedom, but to the Biggest Ego there can be.
I agree, and yet I do believe that intent may have a guiding nature. Like Don Juan mentioned on several occasions, we don’t need anything but the spirit. And as such, the spirit or intent seems to be a guiding force.
And also, I believe that as a being eliminates self importance and loses the human form, they become less human, and more spirit. And because of this I feel that humans can still become guiding forces in a very abstract way.
It is one thing to romanticize reaching that position… the romanticization is very obviously based soley on self-importance. But from a position of no-self, that romanticization isn’t possible. In fact, considering it one way or another probably doesn’t even occur. Such a being just moves like the wind in whatever direction intent drives them.
The Tao Te Ching mentions leadership in many of its chapters. I believe it is touching on the same thing. A saying such as, ‘a great leader is one who’s community is unaware of their leadership’ [paraphrased]… is one example.