The Toltec Art of Life and Death. Barbara Emrys

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СКАЧАТЬ new ideas. He was in his nineties then, the leading elder in our family. He was respected by everyone who knew him, and I felt tremendous pride in having him as a grandfather. I also felt great pride in being able to go to him, to talk to him, and to share my knowledge. I wanted him to think me wise for my age. I wanted him to be impressed by my penetrating intellect.

      I have learned since then not to show gratitude to a great master by offering him knowledge. Offer anything else, but not that. If you have even a little sense, you will offer him your silence. He is a master for the simple reason that knowledge is not a distraction to him. You are the student because it is, to you! In my life as a shaman, I couldn’t count how many times, and in how many ways, my students tried to impress me, just as I tried to impress don Leonardo that autumn day. So many apprentices with a potential for deep wisdom would fall short, choosing instead to serenade me with facts, opinions, and philosophical references. “How can I amaze you?” they might as well have said. “What do I know that you haven’t thought of? Look at me! Listen to me! Let me teach you something!” Do we sit at the feet of a master to celebrate our own importance, or do we sit with a master to listen and to learn?

      Well, I didn’t visit don Leonardo to listen that day. I started talking from the moment we sat down in the yard together, and it seemed I couldn’t stop. I told him about all the political activities at my school, about everything I had learned of governments and politics, of injustice and human suffering. I spoke with righteous anger and moral indignation. I spoke against humanity for all its many evils . . . and it was just about then that my grandfather’s smile turned to quiet laughter. There was nothing funny about what I was saying, so it seemed clear he was mocking me. Mocking me! Had he grown so old that he could no longer see the brilliance of my logic? Couldn’t he see how insightful I’d become? I stopped talking, feeling the shame build in me.

      “Miguel,” he said gently, with a sweet smile on his face, “all the things you’ve learned in school, and everything you think you understand about life, comes from knowledge. It isn’t truth.”

      Didn’t he realize that I was a man now? He was speaking to me as if I were a child. I felt heat in my face as his words began to anger me.

      “Don’t take offense, my child,” he went on. “This is the mistake everyone makes. People put their faith in opinions and rumors—and out of this, they construct a world, believing that their constructed world is the real world. They don’t know whether what they believe is true. They don’t even know whether what they believe about themselves is true. Do you know what is true, or what you are?”

      “Yes, I know what I am!” I insisted. “How could I not know myself? I’ve been with myself since birth!”

      “M’ijo, you don’t know what you are,” he said calmly, “but you know what you’re not. You’ve been practicing what you’re not for so long, you believe it. You believe in an image of you, an image based on many things that aren’t true.”

      I didn’t know what to say next. I had expected praise, or at least an argument against my point of view. I would have been happy to participate in an intellectual boxing match with my grandfather. In my opinion, I had enough information to debate the master, and to win. Instead, what he gave me was a knockout punch to the self. Everything I thought about Miguel, my grandfather disqualified in a few hard sentences. Everything I knew about the world was now in doubt. Doubt!

      It’s hard to overstate the importance of doubt when we’re bringing down the intellectual house we’ve built. We learn words, we believe in their meaning, and we practice those beliefs until our little house is solid and strong. Doubt is the tremor that brings it down, when it’s time. Doubt can cause a citadel of beliefs to crumble; and that kind of tremor is necessary if we want to see beyond our private illusions. An earthquake is necessary. I looked at my grandfather, and he smiled back at me, as if we had just shared a happy secret. Did he even notice that my self-esteem had been shattered?

      “I know what I am, and I know about . . . things,” I stumbled. I was feeling defiant, as if defiance would save me from my embarrassment. “I know about the world I live in, and I know that good must always fight against evil.”

      “Ah!” he said, with a flush of excitement. “Good versus evil, yes! The age-old human conflict! Do you see this conflict in the rest of the universe? Do you see good and evil wrestling within the forests and the orchards? Are trees anxious about the evils of the world? Are animals? Fish? Birds? Are any of Earth’s creatures consumed with worry over matters of good and evil?”

      “Of course not.”

      “Of course not? Then where does this conflict exist?”

      Was this a trick? Was he determined to make a fool of me? “In the human species,” I said warily.

      “In the human mind!”

      “Well, yes . . . and there’s nothing more noble than the minds of men,” I added pretentiously. “If animals—”

      “If animals could think, they’d be as worried about evil as we are? I hope not, for their sakes!”

      We both laughed, and for moments after we were silent. “Miguel,” he said, when he felt my defenses weakening, “the conflict you speak of exists in the human mind, and it is not actually a conflict between good and evil; it is a conflict between truth and lies. When we believe in truth, we feel good and our life is good. When we believe in things that are not true, things that encourage fear and hatred in us, the result is fanaticism. The result is what people recognize as evil—evil words, evil intentions, evil actions. All the violence and suffering in the world is a direct result of the many lies we tell ourselves.”

      I suddenly remembered the words of a great philosopher: Men are tormented by their opinions of things, not by the things themselves. I couldn’t remember where I had read that quote, or who had said it. A German, perhaps. No, a Frenchman.

      “Miguel, stop,” don Leonardo said sternly, bringing me back from my fixation. “Stop, please,” he said, patiently this time. “Great thoughts should be applied, not catalogued. The privilege of knowledge is to serve the message of life. Knowledge itself is no message at all. Left in charge, it will drive us mad.”

      I could sense that he was right. After a moment, I told him so, and he leaned back in his lawn chair and looked at me for a long time, considering. I thought the conversation was over, and that by agreeing with him I would be released. I could grab an empanada from the kitchen, say goodbye, and ride back to the city, where people appreciated me for my intelligence and wit.

      “Miguel,” he said, his expression so serious that I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. “I see you’re trying hard to impress me, to prove you’re good enough for me, and I understand. You need to do that because you’re not yet good enough for yourself.”

      Tears rushed to my eyes. I saw right away that my determined efforts to appear confident were a waste of time. All my opinions and assertions were hiding the fear that I wasn’t wise enough or smart enough. Don Leonardo could see more than I could see, and knew more about myself than I was willing to discover. I looked away from him, unable to handle the truth in his penetrating gaze. I looked away, yes—but I stayed where I was. I stayed with him to listen.

      He told me much that afternoon, and it has taken me a lifetime to digest our conversation. What each of us wants above all is the truth, and it cannot be told in words. Like everyone, like everything, truth is a mystery posing as an answer. The letters I learned in school point to revelations that point back to mystery again. Truth existed before words, before humanity, and before this known universe. Truth will always exist, and language СКАЧАТЬ