This substack has evolved into an album of my life, in the sense meant by the shaman Don Juan Matus when he advised his apprentice Carlos Castaneda to create an album of the defining events of his life. Carlos’ album became the basis for his final book and masterpiece The Active Side of Infinity:
I happened to be present when Carlos talked about his book not long before it was published, at a week-long workshop on the UCLA campus in the summer of 1996.1 In the book, Don Juan explained what he meant by an “album” and how to go about compiling it:
Don Juan paused for a long moment. He seemed to be in search of words; or perhaps it was only a dramatic, well-placed hesitation. He looked at me with a deep, penetrating stare. "Every warrior, as a matter of duty, collects a special album," don Juan went on, "an album that reveals the warrior's personality, an album that attests to the circumstances of his life."
"Why do you call this a collection, don Juan?" I asked in an argumentative tone. "Or an album, for that matter?"
"Because it is both," he retorted. "But above all, it is like an album of pictures made out of memories, pictures made out of the recollection of memorable events.”
"Are those memorable events memorable in some specific way?" I asked.
"They are memorable because they have a special significance in one's life," he said. "My proposal is that you assemble this album by putting in it the complete account of various events that have had profound significance for you."
"Every event in my life has had profound significance for me, don Juan!" I said forcefully, and felt instantly the impact of my own pomposity.
"Not really," he replied, smiling, apparently enjoying my reactions immensely. "Not every event in your life has had profound significance for you. There are a few, however, that I would consider likely to have changed things for you, to have illuminated your path. Ordinarily, events that change our path are impersonal affairs, and yet are extremely personal."
"I'm not trying to be difficult, don Juan, but believe me, everything that has happened to me meets those qualifications," I said, knowing that I was lying.
Immediately after voicing this statement, I wanted to apologize, but don Juan didn't pay attention to me. It was as if I hadn't said a thing.
"Don't think about this album in terms of banalities, or in terms of a trivial rehashing of your life experiences," he said.
“…I should add that such an album is an exercise in discipline and impartiality. Consider this album to be an act of war."
"The idea that this is a collection of events is already hard to understand," I said in a tone of protest. "But that on top of all this, you call it an album and say that such an album is an act of war is too much for me. It's too obscure. Being obscure makes the metaphor lose its meaning."
"How strange! It's the opposite for me," don Juan replied calmly. "Such an album being an act of war has all the meaning in the world for me. I wouldn't like my album of memorable events to be anything but an act of war."
"My own album, being an act of war, demanded a super-careful selection," he said. "It is now a precise collection of the unforgettable moments of my life, and everything that led me to them. I have concentrated in it what has been and will be meaningful to me. In my opinion, a warrior's album is something most concrete, something so to the point that it is shattering."
“I should tell you that the selection of what to put in your album is not an easy matter. This is the reason I say that making this album is an act of war. You have to remake yourself ten times over in order to know what to select."
“The memorable events of a shaman's album are affairs that will stand the test of time because they have nothing to do with him, and yet he is in the thick of them. He'll always be in the thick of them, for the duration of his life, and perhaps beyond, but not quite personally."
What Don Juan meant by the last paragraph above is that events that qualify for inclusion in the album are distinguished by the involvement of Intent, which is the Active Side of Infinity. This is what makes them non-personal while still involving one’s person.
The task of reviewing (recapitulating) your life in detail and carefully selecting events to include in your album is in itself enlightening; in part because your life review will reveal significances and meanings that completely bypassed you at the time and in part because it is an act of appreciation and gratitude for your life and your experience. This process lessens the need to repeat your lessons in other lifetimes; it gets you closer to transitioning to higher realms. If you are still young, I encourage you to start collecting your stories as they happen rather than waiting until later in life (or after dying) to recapitulate them. This will bring you wisdom and humility uncommon in the young.
I will not here repeat any of the stories of Carlos’s life contained in his book because they are presented in a certain way and in a certain order so as to jolt your awareness, or in Don Juan’s terminology, to move your assemblage point, the location in your energetic field where you assemble perception. Instead, I will extract one of the most important teachings intertwined into the stories, about the nature of Intent, which I think of as the doing of Love.
Don Juan saw everything in energetic terms. He could see humans clairvoyantly as an energy field. Carlos’ earlier books included many of Don Juan’s teachings about about that field: its features, how it interfaces with the Infinite, how the ingestion of certain plants could affect it, how conscious intent, specifically the warrior’s path, could heal and enhance it, what happens to it upon death both for the average man and the warrior, and so on. But the most important teaching, it seems to me, was left for the final book, which stands on its own apart from the earlier books. I think of it as the physics of Love:
He asserted that when a human being was seen [clairvoyantly], he was perceived as a conglomerate of energy fields2 held together by the most mysterious force in the universe: a binding, agglutinating, vibratory force that holds energy fields together in a cohesive unit.
And again:
He had emphasized no end that the force that binds that group of energy fields together was … the most mysterious force in the universe. His personal estimation was that it was the pure essence of the entire cosmos, the sum total of everything there is.
Don Juan explained to Carlos that he must grab on to the vibrating force that holds us together as a conglomerate of energy fields and maintain that pressure. The eventual result is individual sovereignty, which is the precondition for conscious union with the Infinite. We are not compelled to align our sovereign intent with Intent, but it is our best option. If we do, then the force that sustains the Universe, which otherwise cannot be used, commanded or moved in any way, can then be used, commanded or moved as one desires.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. — Matthew 7:7
I have a vivid memory of Carlos giving one of his talks in Pauley Pavilion. At one moment he pointed out that there was a tennis tournament taking place in the facility next door, and it was named Infiniti Open. He grinned, as if to say: see how Intent works?
This description of the true nature of an individual human as a conglomeration of energy fields seems at odds with the one given by John, that individuals are a collection of particles of consciousness. But modern physics has shown us that underlying reality can be described both as energy fields and as interacting particles.