At the end of his journey of learning, and almost without warning he will come upon the last of his enemies: old age! This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one he won’t be able to defeat completely, but only fight away. This is the time when a man has no more fears, no more impatient clarity of mind – a time when all his power is in check, but also the time when he has an unyielding desire to rest. If he gives in totally to his desire to lie down and forget, if he soothes himself in tiredness, he will have lost his last round, and his enemy will cut him down into a feeble old creature. His desire to retreat will overrule all his clarity, his power, and his knowledge. – Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan
In 2015 I wrote a blog entitled warriors and the four natural enemies. Today I want to talk about the natural enemy of old age because this is the era that many who have aligned themselves with the Toltec path of knowledge and awareness are entering into. I bring this up at this time because I am witness to a group of warriors – who I have done work with for decades – succumb to old age, and some of them are still in their 40s. As a result, I felt myself slipping into a state of perma-rest until recently when faced with the choice of acquiescing to the predator or continuing the battle against it. Wake up call! The battle for knowledge and freedom continues.