The characteristic of miserable seers is that they are willing to forget the wonder of the world. They become overwhelmed by the fact that they see and believe that it’s their genius that counts. A seer must be a paragon in order to override the nearly invincible laxness of our human condition. More important than seeing itself is what seers do with what they see. ~ Don Juan, The Fire from Within

Warriors marvel at the wonder of the world. They marvel at the beauty and they marvel at the insanity. They do what they do for the love of doing it. They cry, they laugh, they know compassion, forgiveness, love, wonder, awe, fear, and sadness. They sense with every ounce of their being every single sensation or feeling that arises. It is all of these wonders and feelings that bring total awareness to a warrior. To deny yourself of that which arises is avoidance; to become attached to it is foolishness.

Power is as power moves. How we react to what arises makes all the difference for a warrior. We love without expectations. We cry without pity. We experience pain, grief, sadness, and fear without allowing it to consume us. We forgive with compassion. And sometimes, just like everyone else, we walk away. Doing these things is not a sign of weakness for a warrior, it’s a sign of strength. In that strength is sobriety and in that sobriety is freedom. Sobriety used through Castaneda’s books refers to restraint; to be free from the pitfalls of overdramatizing an event or energizing another through excessive emotion.

The warriors that I know are fully human, not some kind of automatons who are sitting around waiting for their opportunity to dart past the eagle in order to be free. The point is to be free here and now and in that knowing comes the carefree abandon of living life to its fullest without regret while recapitulating the attachment to the concepts and the mold of man that hold many people prisoner.

In the above quote don Juan says, A seer must be a paragon in order to override the nearly invincible laxness of our human condition. Essentially he is saying that a seer must be the example of what it means to be a warrior in order to succeed in helping to restore humanity to a state of awareness free from the social order; to afford them the opportunity to awaken from their slumber.

I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself. Detached and at ease, I will dart past the eagle to be free. ~ The Eagle’s Gift

To have no points to defend is a defining moment for a warrior; to be able to sit in complete silence in the face of extraneous circumstance no matter how big or small is what it means to be impeccable with your energy. To observe the indescribable force blowing through and around you and the decisions that people choose to make within it is art in motion – constant acts of creation. And more and more often there is nothing to do but laugh.

To defend is to act from a point of self-importance which can cause imbalance and create anger and ill-will. Many people, basically fundamentalists of any belief, will defend the fixated position of their assemblage point in order to preserve and maintain the patterns and stories as they perceive them and even attempt to impose those patterns upon others no matter how superfluous their stored data has become. For a warrior, it is a waste of energy to defend the position of an assemblage point when the point is to keep the assemblage point fluid.

Don Juan went on to say, when challenged by Carlos about the description of the Eagle, Those truths are not something to defend passionately. If you think that I’m trying to defend them, you are mistaken. Those truths were put together for the delight and enlightenment of warriors, not to engage any proprietary sentiments. When I told you that a nagual has no points to defend, I meant, among other things, that a nagual has no obsessions.

There is no truth, there is only perception.

Nearly all of the nuggets of information within the volumes of Castaneda’s work were put together for the delight and enlightenment of warriors. When the Buddha was asked to declare a truth, the Buddha remained silent because he knew that everyone had to arrive at their own truth based on one’s perceptions gained through their own experience. The gift of being a warrior of freedom is to be able to stand fully in the creation of your own truth with integrity, detachment, and no points to defend.