Our vision of a world of objects. That vision has been very useful, but at the same time the worst among our calamities. Modern man’s concerns are the same as those of an animal: Use, possess, annihilate. But this animal has been domesticated, and is condemned to live inside a material inventory. Since every one of the objects he uses has a long history, modern man lives his life lost inside his own creation. ~ Carlos Castaneda, Encounters with the Nagual

Encounters with the Nagual is a wonderful paper published by Armando Torres in 2004 and compiled from his personal conversations with Carlos Castaneda. Carlos spoke of many things with Armando but to me the most compelling is Carlos’ desire to ensure that the path of sorcery and nagualism continues to evolve. Carlos said that the goal of modern seers is, more than ever, total freedom and in order to attain it, it becomes necessary that the strategies are continually refined. Evolving, evolution, conscious evolution.

On one website I read, Conscious Evolution is defined as a new worldview that is now emerging rapidly and garnering worldwide interest and support. It acknowledges that humankind has attained unprecedented powers to affect, control and change the evolution of life on Earth and that humankind cannot solve our problems from the same place of consciousness in which we created them.

To me this is in alignment with much of Castaneda’s knowledge and the belief that he has always maintained. He was ahead of his time in holding the knowledge of things that have become compulsory components in order to initiate the kind of change that is imminent. He speaks of the necessity of adapting traditional knowledge to the modality of the current time in order for the warrior’s way to be truly and finally understood by people. A Lakota medicine man told me the same thing years ago saying, “you can’t bring the traditions forward unless you look into the future in order to create a balanced now”.

Our evolution as humans requires us to return home. Home to our communities on our home continent. The advancement of transportation and the freedom to travel and explore and relocate has resulted in an amazing and beautiful opportunity to “discover and know” but this is resulting in dislocation and chaotic disorder. Planetary imbalance, globalization, disease, war, economic collapse, global warming, and terrorism are forefront issues that we have to contend with. Part of the conscious evolution that is critical now supports and encourages all to eat local, support the local economy, sustainable gardening, strengthening communities (not remote intentional communities but making all communities intentional). We have to return to self-sufficiency and reclaim our ability to live in synchronization and harmony with our environment and planet. We have to remove invasive species from all of the countries that have them whether they are plants or animals or bugs. The planet is dying from these imbalances as a result of excessive transport/import/export. And when viewed in this light, humans are invasive species as well.

Castaneda was able to anticipate the catastrophic position that we would wind up in and said during his final interviews that the Rule for the seers of a new era is preparation. That we should not only prepare in terms of the arts of sorcery, but also cultivate our minds in order to know and understand everything. The intellect is the comfort of today’s Toltec, just as in the past, it was the affection for rituals. He also said that we must be able to take advantage of the defenses against disinformation which modern science has created.

With that said, I will leave you now to determine how you will be a part of this critical conscious evolution. It begins with inner silence. I urge you to make some time to sit in stillness and connect with intent to determine the course of action you will take in order to connect to the intricate web of which we are all a part. This is our only choice, to take personal responsibility and connect with intent. We have to get out of our minds and rely on our will and our hearts to coalesce and together create the solution. This is who the Toltecs are; creators, creating, co-creating and recreating.

Thank you Carlos Castaneda for the gifts you gave to us in freedom, for freedom. It’s time for a new beginning…