– Write, write,” insisted Don Juan in a friendly tone. – Let’s say your notebook is the only sorcery you have. Tearing it up is one more way of exposing yourself to your fate. It will be one more of your tricks, a scandalous one at most, and not a change. A warrior never leaves the island of tonal. He uses it.
He pointed around me with a quick wave of his hand and then touched my pad.
– This is your world. You can’t give it up. There’s no point in getting angry and disappointed with yourself. This only proves that our tonal is engaged in an internal struggle; a struggle within our tonal and one of the most pointless contests I can imagine. From the beginning I taught him how to avoid wear and tear. Now, there is no longer a war inside you, not like before, because the way of the warrior is harmony, harmony between actions and decisions, first, and then harmony between the tonal and the nagual. For as long as I’ve known you, I’ve spoken to both your tonal and your nagual. This is how instruction should be conducted. At first, you have to talk to the tonal. It’s the tonal who has to let go of control. But this must be done willingly. For example, your tonal let go of certain controls without much struggle because it became clear to him that, if he remained as he was, the whole of you would be dead by now. In other words, the tonal is forced to give in to unnecessary things, such as self-importance and surrender, which only lead to boredom. The whole problem is that the tonal person clings to such things, when they should be happy to be rid of nonsense. The job then is to convince the tonal person to become fluid and free. That’s what the sorcerer needs above all, a strong and free tonal. The stronger he gets, the less he clings to his deeds, and the easier it becomes to reduce him. So what happened this morning was that I saw the opportunity to reduce your tone. For a moment, you were distracted, without thinking, and I seized that moment to push you. The tonal shrinks, at certain moments, especially when it is embarrassed. In fact, one of the characteristics of the tonal person is shyness. Their shyness isn’t really a problem. But there are certain cases when the tonal person is taken by surprise, and their shyness inevitably makes them cringe. This morning, I reaped my cubic centimeter of luck. I noticed the open door of that office and pushed it open. A push, therefore, is the technique for reducing the tonal. You have to push at just the right moment; for that, of course, you have to be able to see. Once the man has been pushed and his tonal has shrunk, his nagual, if it’s already at work, no matter how small the movement, will take over and achieve extraordinary feats. Your nagual took over today and you ended up in a market.
He was silent for a moment. He seemed to be waiting for questions.
We looked at each other.
– I really don’t know how,” he said, as if reading my mind. – What I do know is that the nagual is capable of inconceivable feats. Today I asked you to observe. That scene in front of you, whatever it was, was invaluable to you. But instead of taking my advice, you gave in to your self-pity and confusion and didn’t observe. For a while, you were all nagual and couldn’t speak. This was the time to observe. Then, little by little, your tonal took over again; and instead of throwing you into a deadly struggle between your tonal and your nagual, I brought you here.
(Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power)