Petty
Tyrants
From
The Fire From Within
by Carlos Castaneda
Pocket Books, August 1995 ISBN: 0671732501.
Don Juan
did not discuss the mastery of awareness with me until months later.
We were at that time in the house where the nagual's party lived.
"Let's
go for a walk," don Juan said to me, placing his hand on my shoulder.
"Or better yet, let's go to the town's square, where there are
a lot of people, and sit down and talk."
I was
surprised when he spoke to me, as I had been in the house for a couple
of days then and he had not said so much as hello.
As don
Juan and I were leaving the house, la Gorda intercepted us and demanded
that we take her along. She seemed determined not to take no for an
answer. Don Juan in a very stern voice told her that he had to discuss
something in private with me.
"You're
going to talk about me," la Gorda said, her tone and gestures betraying
both suspicion and annoyance.
"You're
right," don Juan replied dryly. He moved past her without turning
to look at her.
I followed
him, and we walked in silence to the town's square. When we sat down
I asked him what on earth we would find to discuss about la Gorda. I
was still smarting from her look of menace when we left the house.
"We
have nothing to discuss about la Gorda or anybody else," he said.
"I told her that just to provoke her enormous self-importance.
And it worked. She is furious with us. If I know her, by now she will
have talked to herself long enough to have built up her confidence and
her righteous indignation at having been refused and made to look like
a fool. I wouldn't be surprised if she barges in on us here, at the
park bench."
"If
we're not going to talk about la Gorda, what are we going to discuss?"
I asked.
"We're
going to continue the discussion we started in Oaxaca," he replied.
"To understand the explanation of awareness will require your utmost
effort and your willingness to shift back and forth between levels of
awareness. While we are involved in our discussion I will demand your
total concentration and patience."
Half-complaining,
I told him that he had made me feel very uncomfortable by refusing to
talk to me for the past two days. He looked at me and arched his brows.
A smile played on his lips and vanished. I realized that he was letting
me know I was no better than la Gorda.
"I
was provoking your self-importance," he said with a frown. "Self-importance
is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended
by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires
that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.
"The
new seers recommended that every effort should be made to eradicate
self-importance from the lives of warriors. I have followed that recommendation,
and much of my endeavors with you has been geared to show you that without
self-importance we are invulnerable."
As I listened
his eyes suddenly became very shiny. I was thinking to myself that he
seemed to be on the verge of laughter and there was no reason for it
when I was startled by an abrupt, painful slap on the right side of
my face.
I jumped
up from the bench. La Gorda was standing behind me, her hand still raised.
Her face was flushed with anger.
"Now
you can say what you like about me and with more justification,"
she shouted. "If you have anything to say, however, say it to my
face!"
Her outburst
appeared to have exhausted her, because she sat down on the cement and
began to weep. Don Juan was transfixed with inexpressible glee. I was
frozen with sheer fury. La Gorda glared at me and then turned to don
Juan and meekly told him that we had no right to criticize her.
Don Juan
laughed so hard he doubled over almost to the ground. He couldn't even
speak. He tried two or three times to say something to me, then finally
got up and walked away, his body still shaking with spasms of laughter.
I was
about to run after him, still glowering at la Gorda-at that moment I
found her despicable - when something extraordinary happened to me.
I realized what don Juan had found so hilarious. La Gorda and I were
horrendously alike. Our self-importance was monumental. My surprise
and fury at being slapped were just like la Gorda's feelings of anger
and suspicion. Don Juan was right. The burden of self-importance is
a terrible encumbrance.
I ran
after him then, elated, the tears flowing down my cheeks. I caught up
with him and told him what I had realized. His eyes were shining with
mischievousness and delight.
"What
should I do about la Gorda?" I asked.
"Nothing,"
he replied. "Realizations are always personal."
He changed
the subject and said that the omens were telling us to continue our
discussion back at his house, either in a large room with comfortable
chairs or in the back patio, which had a roofed corridor around it.
He said that whenever he conducted his explanation inside the house
those two areas would be off limits to everyone else.
We went
back to the house. Don Juan told everyone what la Gorda had done. The
delight all the seers showed in taunting her made la Gorda's position
extremely uncomfortable.
"Self-importance
can't be fought with niceties," don Juan commented when I expressed
my concern about la Gorda.
He then
asked everyone to leave the room. We sat down and don Juan began his
explanations.
He said
that seers, old and new, are divided into two categories. The first
one is made up of those who are willing to exercise self-restraint and
can channel their activities toward pragmatic goals, which would benefit
other seers and man in general. The other category consists of those
who don't care about self-restraint or about any pragmatic goals. It
is the consensus among seers that the latter have failed to resolve
the problem of self-importance.
"Self-importance
is not something simple and naive," he explained. "On the
one hand, it is the core of everything that is good in us, and on the
other hand, the core of everything that is rotten. To get rid of the
self-importance that is rotten requires a masterpiece of strategy. Seers,
through the ages, have given the highest praise to those who have accomplished
it."
I complained
that the idea of eradicating self-importance, although very appealing
to me at times, was really incomprehensible; I told him that I found
his directives for getting rid of it so vague I could not follow them.
"I've
said to you many times," he said, "that in order to follow
the path of knowledge one has to be very imaginative. You see, in the
path of knowledge nothing is as clear as we'd like it to be."
My discomfort
made me argue that his admonitions about self-importance reminded me
of Catholic die-turns. After a lifetime of being told about the evils
of sin, I had become callous.
"Warriors
fight self-importance as a matter of strategy, not principle,"
he replied. "Your mistake is to understand what I say in terms
of morality."
"I
see you as a highly moral man, don Juan," I insisted.
"You've
noticed my impeccability, that's all," he said.
"Impeccability,
as well as getting rid of self-importance, is too vague a concept to
be of any value to me," I remarked.
Don Juan
choked with laughter, and I challenged him to explain impeccability.
"Impeccability
is nothing else but the proper use of energy," he said. "My
statements have no inkling of morality. I've saved energy and that makes
me impeccable. To understand this, you have to save enough energy yourself."
We were
quiet for a long time. I wanted to think about what he had said. Suddenly,
he started talking again.
"Warriors
take strategic inventories," he said. "They list everything
they do. Then they decide which of those things can be changed in order
to allow themselves a respite, in terms of expending their energy."
I argued
that their list would have to include everything under the sun. He patiently
answered that the strategic inventory he was talking about covered only
behavioral patterns that were not essential to our survival and well-being.
I jumped
at the opportunity to point out that survival and well-being were categories
that could be interpreted in endless ways, hence, there was no way of
agreeing what was or was not essential to survival and well-being.
As I kept
on talking I began to lose momentum. Finally, I stopped because I realized
the futility of my arguments.
Don Juan
said then that in the strategic inventories of warriors, self-importance
figures as the activity that consumes the greatest amount of energy,
hence, their effort to eradicate it.
"One
of the first concerns of warriors is to free that energy in order to
face the unknown with it," don Juan went on. "The action of
rechanneling that energy is impeccability."
He said
that the most effective strategy was worked out by the seers of the
Conquest, the unquestionable masters of stalking. It consists of six
elements that interplay with one another. Five of them are called the
attributes of warriorship: control, discipline, forbearance, timing,
and will. They pertain to the world of the warrior who is fighting to
lose self-importance. The sixth element, which is perhaps the most important
of all, pertains to the outside world and is called the petty tyrant
He looked
at me as if silently asking me whether or not I had understood.
"I'm
really mystified," I said. "You keep on saying that la Gorda
is the petty tyrant of my life. Just what is a petty tyrant?"
"A
petty tyrant is a tormentor," he replied. "Someone who either
holds the power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them
to distraction."
Don Juan
had a beaming smile as he spoke to me. He said that the new seers developed
their own classification of petty tyrants; although the concept is one
of their most serious and important findings, the new seers had a sense
of humor about it. He assured me that there was a tinge of malicious
humor in every one of their classifications, because humor was the only
means of counteracting the compulsion of human awareness to take inventories
and to make cumbersome classifications.
The new
seers, in accordance with their practice, saw fit to head their classification
with the primal source of energy, the one and only ruler in the universe,
and they called it simply the tyrant. The rest of the despots and authoritarians
were found to be, naturally, infinitely below the category of tyrant.
Compared to the source of everything, the most fearsome, tyrannical
men are buffoons; consequently, they were classified as petty tyrants,
pinches tiranos.
He said
that there were two subclasses of minor petty tyrants. The first subclass
consisted of the petty tyrants who persecute and inflict misery but
without actually causing anybody's death. They were called little petty
tyrants, pinches tiranitos. The second consisted of the petty tyrants
who are only exasperating and bothersome to no end. They were called
small-fry petty tyrants, repinches tiranitos, or teensy-weensy petty
tyrants, pinches tiranitos chiquititos.
I thought
his classifications were ludicrous. I was sure that he was improvising
the Spanish terms. I asked him if that was so.
"Not
at all," he replied with an amused expression. "The new seers
were great ones for classifications. Genaro is doubtless one of the
greatest; if you'd observe him carefully, you'd realize exactly how
the new seers feel about their classifications."
He laughed
uproariously at my confusion when I asked him if he was pulling my leg.
"I
wouldn't dream of doing that," he said, smiling. "Genaro may
do that, but not I, especially when I know how you feel about classifications.
It's just that the new seers were terribly irreverent."
He added
that the little petty tyrants are further divided into four categories.
One that torments with brutality and violence. Another that does it
by creating unbearable apprehension through deviousness. Another which
oppresses with sadness. And the last, which torments by making warriors
rage.
"La
Gorda is in a class of her own," he added. "She is an acting,
small-fry petty tyrant. She annoys you to pieces and makes you rage.
She even slaps you. With all that she is teaching you detachment."
"That's
not possible!" I protested.
"You
haven't yet put together all the ingredients of the new seers' strategy,"
he said. "Once you do that, you'll know how efficient and clever
is the device of using a petty tyrant. I would certainly say that the
strategy not only gets rid of self-importance; it also prepares warriors
for the final realization that impeccability is the only thing that
counts in the path of knowledge.
He said
that what the new seers had in mind was a deadly maneuver in which the
petty tyrant is like a mountain peak and the attributes of warriorship
are like climbers who meet at the summit.
"Usually,
only four attributes are played," he went on. "The fifth,
will, is always saved for an ultimate confrontation, when warriors are
facing the firing squad, so to speak."
"Why
is it done that way?
"Because
will belongs to another sphere, the unknown. The other four belong to
the known, exactly where the petty tyrants are lodged. In fact, what
turns human beings into petty tyrants is precisely the obsessive manipulation
of the known."
Don Juan
explained that the interplay of all the five attributes of warriorship
is done only by seers who are also impeccable warriors and have mastery
over will. Such an interplay is a supreme maneuver that cannot be performed
on the daily human stage.
"Four
attributes are all that is needed to deal with the worst of petty tyrants,"
he continued. "Provided, of course, that a petty tyrant has been
found. As I said, the petty tyrant is the outside element, the one we
cannot control and the element that is perhaps the most important of
them all. My benefactor used to say that the warrior who stumbles on
a petty tyrant is a lucky one. He meant that you're fortunate if you
come upon one in your path, because if you don't, you have to go out
and look for one."
He explained
that one of the greatest accomplishments of the seers of the Conquest
was a construct he called the three-phase progression. By understanding
the nature of man, they were able to reach the incontestable conclusion
that if seers can hold their own in facing petty tyrants, they can certainly
face the unknown with impunity, and then they can even stand the presence
of the unknowable.
"The
average man's reaction is to think that the order of that statement
should be reversed," he went on. "A seer who can hold his
own in the face of the unknown can certainly face petty tyrants. But
that's not so. What destroyed the superb seers of ancient times was
that assumption. We know better now. We know that nothing can temper
the spirit of a warrior as much as the challenge of dealing with impossible
people in positions of power. Only under those conditions can warriors
acquire the sobriety and serenity to stand the pressure of the unknowable."
I vociferously
disagreed with him. I told him that in my opinion tyrants can only render
their victims helpless or make them as brutal as they themselves are.
I pointed out that countless studies had been done on the effects of
physical and psychological torture on such victims.
"The
difference is in something you just said," he retorted. "They
are victims, not warriors. Once I felt just as you do. I'll tell you
what made me change, but first let's go back again to what I said about
the Conquest. The seers of that time couldn't have found a better ground.
The Spaniards were the petty tyrants who tested the seers' skills to
the limit; after dealing with the conquerors, the seers were capable
of facing anything. They were the lucky ones. At that time there were
petty tyrants everywhere.
"After
all those marvelous years of abundance things changed a great deal.
Petty tyrants never again had that scope; it was only during those times
that their authority was unlimited. The perfect ingredient for the making
of a superb seer is a petty tyrant with unlimited prerogatives.
"In
our times, unfortunately, seers have to go to extremes to find a worthy
one. Most of the time they have to be satisfied with very small fry."
"Did
you find a petty tyrant yourself, don Juan?"
"I
was lucky. A king-size one found me. At the time, though, I felt like
you; I couldn't consider myself fortunate."
Don Juan
said that his ordeal began a few weeks before he met his benefactor.
He was barely twenty years old at the time. He had gotten a job at a
sugar mill working as a laborer. He had always been very strong, so
it was easy for him to get jobs that required muscle. One day when he
was moving some heavy sacks of sugar a woman came by. She was very well
dressed and seemed to be a woman of means. She was perhaps in her fifties,
don Juan said, and very domineering. She looked at don Juan and then
spoke to the foreman and left. Don Juan was then approached by the foreman,
who told him that for a fee he would recommend him for a job in the
boss's house. Don Juan told the man that he had no money. The foreman
smiled and said not to worry because he would have plenty on payday.
He patted don Juan's back and assured him it was a great honor to work
for the boss.
Don Juan
said that being a lowly ignorant Indian living hand-to-mouth, not only
did he believe every word, he thought a good fairy had touched him.
He promised to pay the foreman anything he wished. The foreman named
a large sum, which had to be paid in installments.
Immediately
thereafter the foreman himself took don Juan to the house, which was
quite a distance from the town, and left him there with another foreman,
a huge, somber, ugly man who asked a lot of questions. He wanted to
know about don Juan's family. Don Juan answered that he didn't have
any. The man was so pleased that he even smiled through his rotten teeth.
He promised
don Juan that they would pay him plenty, and that he would even be in
a position to save money, because he didn't have to spend any, for he
was going to live and eat in the house.
The way
the man laughed was terrifying. Don Juan knew that he had to escape
immediately. He ran for the gate, but the man cut in front of him with
a revolver in his hand. He cocked it and rammed it into don Juan's stomach.
"You're here to work yourself to the bone," he said. "And
don't you forget it." He shoved don Juan around with a billy club.
Then he took him to the side of the house and, after observing that
he worked his men every day from sunrise to sunset without a break,
he put don Juan to work digging out two enormous tree stumps. He also
told don Juan that if he ever tried to escape or went to the authorities
he would shoot him dead-and that if don Juan should ever get away, he
would swear in court that don Juan had tried to murder the boss. "You'll
work here until you die," he said. "Another Indian will get
your job then, just as you're taking a dead Indian's place."
Don Juan
said that the house looked like a fortress, with armed men with machetes
everywhere. So he got busy working and tried not to think about his
predicament. At the end of the day, the man came back and kicked him
all the way to the kitchen, because he did not like the defiant look
in don Juan's eyes. He threatened to cut the tendons of don Juan's arms
if he didn't obey him.
In the
kitchen an old woman brought food, but don Juan was so upset and afraid
that he couldn't eat. The old woman advised him to eat as much as he
could. He had to be strong, she said, because his work would never end.
She warned him that the man who had held his job had died just a day
earlier. He was too weak to work and had fallen from a second-story
window.
Don Juan
said that he worked at the boss's place for three weeks and that the
man bullied him every moment of every day. He made him work under the
most dangerous conditions, doing the heaviest work imaginable, under
the constant threat of his knife, gun, or billy club. He sent him daily
to the stables to clean the stalls while the nervous stallions were
in them. At the beginning of every day don Juan thought it would be
his last one on earth. And surviving meant only that he had to go through
the same hell again the next day.
What precipitated
the end was don Juan's request to have some time off. The pretext was
that he needed to go to town to pay the foreman of the sugar mill the
money that he owed him. The other foreman retorted that don Juan could
not stop working, not even for a minute, because he was in debt up to
his ears just for the privilege of working there.
Don Juan
knew that he was done for. He understood the man's maneuvers. Both he
and the other foreman were in cahoots to get lowly Indians from the
mill, work them to death, and divide their salaries. That realization
angered him so intensely that he ran through the kitchen screaming and
got inside the main house. The foreman and the other workers were caught
totally by surprise. He ran out the front door and almost got away,
but the foreman caught up with him on the road and shot him in the chest.
He left him for dead.
Don Juan
said that it was not his destiny to die; his benefactor found him there
and tended him until he got well
"When
I told my benefactor the whole story," don Juan said, "he
could hardly contain his excitement. That foreman is really a prize,
' my benefactor said. 'He is too good to be wasted. Someday you must
go back to that house. '
"He
raved about my luck in finding a one-in-a-million petty tyrant with
almost unlimited power. I thought the old man was nuts. It was years
before I fully understood what he was talking about."
"That
is one of the most horrible stories I have ever heard," I said.
"Did you really go back to that house?"
"I
certainly did, three years later. My benefactor was right. A petty tyrant
like that one was one in a million and couldn't be wasted."
"How
did you manage to go back?"
"My
benefactor developed a strategy using the four attributes of warriorship:
control, discipline, forbearance, and timing."
Don Juan
said that his benefactor, in explaining to him what he had to do to
profit from facing that ogre of a man, also told him what the new seers
considered to be the four steps on the path of knowledge. The first
step is the decision to become apprentices. After the apprentices change
their views about themselves and the world they take the second step
and become warriors, which is to say, beings capable of the utmost discipline
and control over themselves. The third step, after acquiring forbearance
and timing, is to become men of knowledge. When men of knowledge learn
to see they have taken the fourth step and have become seers.
His benefactor
stressed the fact that don Juan had been on the path of knowledge long
enough to have acquired a minimum of the first two attributes: control
and discipline. Don Juan emphasized that both of these attributes refer
to an inner state. A warrior is self-oriented, not in a selfish way,
but in the sense of a total and continuous examination of the self.
"At
that time, I was barred from the other two attributes," don Juan
went on. "Forbearance and timing are not quite an inner state.
They are in the domain of the man of knowledge. My benefactor showed
them to me through his strategy."
"Does
this mean that you couldn't have faced the petty tyrant by yourself?"
I asked.
"I'm
sure that I could have done it myself, although I have always doubted
that I would have carried it off with flair and joyfulness. My benefactor
was simply enjoying the encounter by directing it. The idea of using
a petty tyrant is not only for perfecting the warrior's spirit, but
also for enjoyment and happiness."
"How
could anyone enjoy the monster you described?"
"He
was nothing in comparison to the real monsters that the new seers faced
during the Conquest. By all indications those seers enjoyed themselves
blue dealing with them. They proved that even the worst tyrants can
bring delight, provided, of course, that one is a warrior."
Don Juan
explained that the mistake average men make in confronting petty tyrants
is not to have a strategy to fall back on; the fatal flaw is that average
men take themselves too seriously; their actions and feelings, as well
as those of the petty tyrants, are all - important. Warriors, on the
other hand, not only have a well-thought-out strategy, but are free
from self-importance. What restrains their self-importance is that they
have understood that reality is an interpretation we make. That knowledge
was the definitive advantage that the new seers had over the simple-minded
Spaniards.
He said
that he became convinced he could defeat the foreman using only the
single realization that petty tyrants take themselves with deadly seriousness
while warriors do not.
Following
his benefactor's strategic plan, therefore, don Juan got a job in the
same sugar mill as before. Nobody remembered that he had worked there
in the past; peons came to that sugar mill and left it without leaving
a trace
His benefactor's
strategy specified that don Juan had to be solicitous of whoever came
to look for another victim. As it happened, the same woman came and
spotted him, as she had done years ago. This time he was physically
even stronger than before.
The same
routine took place. The strategy, however, called for refusing payment
to the foreman from the outset. The man had never been turned down and
was taken aback. He threatened to fire don Juan from the job. Don Juan
threatened him back, saying that he would go directly to the lady's
house and see her. Don Juan knew that the woman, who was the wife of
the owner of the mill, did not know what the two foremen were up to.
He told the foreman that he knew where she lived, because he had worked
in the surrounding fields cutting sugar cane. The man began to haggle,
and don Juan demanded money from him before he would accept going to
the lady's house. The foreman gave in and handed him a few bills. Don
Juan was perfectly aware that the foreman's acquiescence was just a
ruse to get him to go to the house.
"He
himself once again took me to the house," don Juan said. "It
was an old hacienda owned by the people of the sugar mill-rich men who
either knew what was going on and didn't care, or were too indifferent
even to notice.
"As
soon as we got there, I ran into the house to look for the lady. I found
her and dropped to my knees and kissed her hand to thank her. The two
foremen were livid.
"The
foreman at the house followed the same pattern as before. But I had
the proper equipment to deal with him; I had control, discipline, forbearance,
and timing. It turned out as my benefactor had planned it. My control
made me fulfill the man's most asinine demands. What usually exhausts
us in a situation like that is the wear and tear on our self-importance.
Any man who has an iota of pride is ripped apart by being made to feel
worthless.
"I
gladly did everything he asked of me. I was joyful and strong. And I
didn't give a fig about my pride or my fear. I was there as an impeccable
warrior. To tune the spirit when someone is trampling on you is called
control."
Don Juan
explained that his benefactor's strategy required that instead of feeling
sorry for himself as he had done before, he immediately go to work mapping
the man's strong points, his weaknesses, his quirks of behavior.
He found
that the foreman's strongest points were his violent nature and his
daring. He had shot don Juan in broad daylight and in sight of scores
of onlookers. His great weakness was that he liked his job and did not
want to endanger it. Under no circumstances could he attempt to kill
don Juan inside the compound in the daytime. His other weakness was
that he was a family man. He had a wife and children who lived in a
shack near the house.
"To
gather all this information while they are beating you up is called
discipline," don Juan said. "The man was a regular fiend.
He had no saving grace. According to the new seers, a perfect petty
tyrant has no redeeming feature."
Don Juan
said that the other two attributes of warriorship, forbearance and timing,
which he did not yet have, had been automatically included in his benefactor's
strategy. Forbearance is to wait patiently - no rush, no anxiety-a simple,
joyful holding back of what is due.
"I
groveled daily," don Juan continued, "sometimes crying under
the man's whip. And yet I was happy. My benefactor's strategy was what
made me go from day to day without hating the man's guts. I was a warrior.
I knew that I was waiting and I knew what I was waiting for. Right there
is the great joy of warriorship."
He added
that his benefactor's strategy called for a systematic harassment of
the man by taking cover with a higher order, just as the seers of the
new cycle had done during the Conquest by shielding themselves with
the Catholic church. A lowly priest was sometimes more powerful than
a nobleman.
Don Juan's
shield was the lady who got him the job. He kneeled in front of her
and called her a saint every time he saw her. He begged her to give
him the medallion of her patron saint so he could pray to him for her
health and well - being.
"She
gave me one," don Juan went on, "and that rattled the foreman
to pieces. And when I got the servants to pray at night he nearly had
a heart attack. I think he decided then to kill me. He couldn't afford
to let me go on.
"As
a countermeasure I organized a rosary among all the servants of the
house. The lady thought I had the makings of a most pious man.
"I
didn't sleep soundly after that, nor did I sleep in my bed. I climbed
to the roof every night. From there I saw the man twice looking for
me in the middle of the night with murder in his eyes.
"Daily
he shoved me into the stallions' stalls hoping that I would be crushed
to death, but I had a plank of heavy boards that I braced against one
of the corners and protected myself behind it. The man never knew because
he was nauseated by the horses-another of his weaknesses, the deadliest
of all, as things turned out."
Don Juan
said that timing is the quality that governs the release of all that
is held back. Control, discipline, and forbearance are like a dam behind
which everything is pooled. Timing is the gate in the dam.
The man
knew only violence, with which he terrorized. If his violence was neutralized
he was rendered nearly helpless. Don Juan knew that the man would not
dare to kill him in view of the house, so one day, in the presence of
the other workers but in sight of his lady as well, don Juan insulted
the man. He called him a coward, who was mortally afraid of the boss's
wife.
His benefactor's
strategy had called for being on the alert for a moment like that and
using it to turn the tables on the petty tyrant. Unexpected things always
happen that way. The lowest of the slaves suddenly makes fun of the
tyrant, taunts him, makes him feel ridiculous in front of significant
witnesses, and then rushes away without giving the tyrant time to retaliate.
"A
moment later, the man went crazy with rage, but I was already solicitously
kneeling in front of the lady," he continued.
Don Juan
said that when the lady went inside the house, the man and his friends
called him to the back, allegedly to do some work. The man was very
pale, white with anger. From the sound of his voice don Juan knew what
the man was really planning to do. Don Juan pretended to acquiesce,
but instead of heading for the back, he ran for the stables. He trusted
that the horses would make such a racket the owners would come out to
see what was wrong. He knew that the man would not dare shoot him. That
would have been too noisy and the man's fear of endangering his job
was too overpowering. Don Juan also knew that the man would not go where
the horses were-that is, unless he had been pushed beyond his endurance.
"I
jumped inside the stall of the wildest stallion," don Juan said,
"and the petty tyrant, blinded by rage, took out his knife and
jumped in after me. I went instantly behind my planks. The horse kicked
him once and it was all over.
"I
had spent six months in that house and in that period of time I had
exercised the four attributes of warriorship. Thanks to them, I had
succeeded. Not once had I felt sorry for myself or wept in impotence.
I had been joyful and serene. My control and discipline were as keen
as they'd ever been, and I had had a firsthand view of what forbearance
and timing did for impeccable warriors. And I had not once wished the
man to die.
"My
benefactor explained something very interesting. Forbearance means holding
back with the spirit something that the warrior knows is rightfully
due. It doesn't mean that a warrior goes around plotting to do anybody
mischief, or planning to settle past scores. Forbearance is something
independent. As long as the warrior has control, discipline, and timing,
forbearance assures giving whatever is due to whoever deserves it."
"Do
petty tyrants sometimes win, and destroy the warrior facing them?"
I asked.
"Of
course. There was a time when warriors died like flies at the beginning
of the Conquest. Their ranks were decimated. The petty tyrants could
put anyone to death, simply acting on a whim. Under that kind of pressure
seers reached sublime states."
Don Juan
said that that was the time when the surviving seers had to exert themselves
to the limit to find new ways.
"The
new seers used petty tyrants," don Juan said, staring at me fixedly,
"not only to get rid of their self-importance, but to accomplish
the very sophisticated maneuver of moving themselves out of this world.
You'll understand that maneuver as we keep on discussing the mastery
of awareness."
I explained
to don Juan that what I had wanted to know was whether, in the present,
in our times, the petty tyrants he had called small fry could ever defeat
a warrior.
"All
the time," he replied. "The consequences aren't as dire as
those in the remote past. Today it goes without saying that warriors
always have a chance to recuperate or to retrieve and come back later.
But there is another side to this problem. To be defeated by a small-fry
petty tyrant is not deadly, but devastating. The degree of mortality,
in a figurative sense, is almost as high. By that I mean that warriors
who succumb to a small-fry petty tyrant are obliterated by their own
sense of failure and unworthiness. That spells high mortality to me."
"How
do you measure defeat?"
"Anyone
who joins the petty tyrant is defeated. To act in anger, without control
and discipline, to have no forbearance, is to be defeated."
"What
happens after warriors are defeated?"
"They
either regroup themselves or they abandon the quest for knowledge and
join the ranks of the petty tyrants for life."
