Читать книгу The Toltec Art of Life and Death - Barbara Emrys, Don Miguel Ruiz, don Miguel Ruiz Jr. - Страница 12

It gives me comfort to watch Sarita now . . . with her esteemed father again, and so present within my memory. When I was a small child, my mother was the only woman I really knew. I had older sisters, but they were already married and remote from my everyday life. I adored my mother, and respected her above all other beings. She was beautiful, wise, and pure. She was the Virgin, as every woman was in my young imagination; and as I matured, I would hold all girls to the same standard.

Growing up, I saw how my older brothers acted with their girlfriends, and I envied their cool, their gift with the opposite sex. I was amazed by their apparent confidence—it seemed they had special talents and rare insights into the minds of women, and I hardly hoped to achieve their success in romance. Well, hope is a trickster. It feeds illusions to hungry hearts, much as my great-grandfather Eziquio did. It seduces the mind with promises it cannot keep. As it happened, though, it wasn’t hope that made me a success with women; it was action.

My romantic life began at six years old, when I spontaneously asked a pretty classmate to be my girlfriend. Her immediate response was to laugh in my face. A few days later, when she reconsidered the offer, it was my turn to laugh. I rejected her. Yes, already I had learned to reciprocate the pain, a typical stratagem for emotional survival.

It seemed like a lifetime before I had the courage to try my luck with the opposite sex again. Before I turned twelve, however, my brothers had experienced enough pain of their own to sympathize with me. Jaime, the one closest to me in age, insisted that I try again. He gave me a motivational talk one morning, explaining how I was sure to get one girl if I was brave enough to ask ten or twelve. Whoever accepted me wouldn’t be the most desirable, of course, but my confidence would be restored. So, with borrowed courage, I asked a shy little friend at school to be my girlfriend. She said yes immediately. I was stunned. On my way home from school, still delirious with excitement, I asked another girl. She also said yes. By the end of the week, I had eight girlfriends and no idea what to do with any of them. They all seemed happy with the arrangement, as was I. My confidence, only just discovered, soon turned to expertise. Even Jaime was amazed, though the rest of my brothers were merely amused. They still teased me, but for the first time, their jokes carried some male pride and approval.

I was a little guy, but slowly I became a rock star in the arena of scared boys and giggling girls—all eager for romantic stories to tell. It wasn’t long before I became a favorite among the older girls. Sweet words ran like guava juice off my lips, making them all laugh and blush and warm to my little boy kisses. I was cute and funny, and they told themselves I was too young to be dangerous. Sex is a simple enough thing when fear doesn’t intrude on the moment, and with one blissful moment of success, innocence was happily lost for me. I would never again be hungry for love. After a short lifetime of poverty, it seemed that I was on my way to becoming a sexual billionaire.

I say all this to make a point about seduction. Seduction is a skill conspicuous to all living things, and one that is vital to life. Just as it works in the natural world, so does it work in the universe of thought. An idea spoken fearlessly causes a contagion of agreement. An invitation spoken sweetly erases any sense of danger. Suggestion provokes imagination, and imagination builds reality. When we can see these things clearly, we can also see beyond words and suggestions, to the messenger. Any messenger uses knowledge to gain access to a dream. “What do you know? I know it, too,” is one way to start. Or “What do you like? I like it, too.” Once invited in, the messenger can begin to change the shape of that dream. It is an unusual messenger who uses seductions of the mind to benefit another human being. It is an iconic messenger who applies this skill to benefit humanity as a whole.

The creature my mother met on her visit to the Tree of Knowledge is and always has been a skilled messenger. She has been moving and shifting the human story for as long as that story has been told. I refer to her as a woman, not for the reason the world does, with its peculiar distrust of feminine insight, but because I recognized early on that, like most men, I was born to love and cherish women. Once I tasted love, I never stopped wanting it. As a young man, I had a similar infatuation with knowledge. Just like a clever woman, a woman of remarkable power, knowledge captivated me. I suppose I was spellbound and obsessed for many years, but once I saw knowledge for what she was, I used all my talent to break the spell. I felt a desire to redeem knowledge, to guide her into awareness and to live with her in peace. I used the talent that came naturally to me—my talent for romance. By seeing knowledge as a woman who wanted above all to be known and to be heard, I could begin to listen, and to take the fury from her. By recognizing her need to be loved, touched, and tasted, I could transform her.

After I became a shaman, I finally saw that this was the revelation that my grandfather, don Leonardo, most wanted me to have. I finally understood his words, always understated and free of pretense. They weren’t like other wise words, laced with charming guile. Such guile is the character of knowledge, making it a clever messenger, but not a messenger for truth. My grandfather was a man who had heard the voice of knowledge in his own head, and then silenced it. In that silence, life finally made itself known to him. In that silence, he met his own authenticity. The wisdom he was able to share with me was wisdom he had achieved by seducing the temptress. Knowledge is the thing that moves men and women to think and behave as they do. Its authority begins with our initial attempts to speak; then, as we master language, it evolves into thought. It becomes the voice we listen to most, our most trusted informant. Knowledge gains power with every belief we embrace, regardless of that belief’s impact on the human being.

We master death when we finally know ourselves as life; when we can see from the perspective of life, not just knowledge. Each of us is the main character our story, and the main character is afraid of not knowing and not being known. Death represents the greatest threat to knowing and has therefore assumed a terrifying significance in the human dream. Death to an individual means the end to the physical body and the conclusion of thought. Death doesn’t mean the end of life as a whole, however, nor does it mean the end of humanity.

When knowledge serves our fears, it can make the sensible seem satanic, the satanic sensible. And yet knowledge, the single greatest devilry for humanity, can also be its savior. It’s up to each of us to recognize knowledge as the voice in our own head—the voice we have come to trust and obey. It’s up to each of us to modify that voice and to reform the tyrant. For, in the process of mastering knowledge, we have become knowledge. We have become the tyrant, the tempter, prompting fear with every opportunity. By redeeming knowledge, we redeem ourselves.

I have the feeling I should be elsewhere,” said don Leonardo as he paced the little schoolroom. He was walking between rows of desks, absently glancing at first graders as they scribbled symbols on paper.

“I need you here with me,” Sarita reminded him quietly. She was sitting at one of the desks, her body jammed between bench and tabletop as she watched the teacher in action.

“Shush. Listen to the teacher,” chided Lala, her red hair swept high on her head in the fashion of the day. “What she says is important.”

All the same, Lala was looking at the young teacher with disapproval. “Why is her appearance so shabby?” she asked her fellow itinerants. “Teaching is the single most important job there is, yet she brings no style to it! She wears no heels, no rouge. Learning should arouse us, should it not?”

“Not the kind of arousal I’m familiar with,” said the old man, straightening his tie as he checked out the teacher, who was wearing a cardigan and simple skirt. “If I may imagine her without the clothes—well, then . . .”

“Papá, the children!”

“Hardly more than a beast,” the other woman murmured, her voice silky and contemptuous.

“That’s enough!” snapped Sarita. “Because we are among first graders, that does not mean we should act like children!” She scanned the room. “Where is Miguel, the six-year-old?”

“There, by the window, daydreaming,” replied Lala. “But he is not the point. Listen to the music of knowledge, strumming a song of power and possibility.”

“Welcome to your first day of school,” sang the teacher, her face alight. “My name is Señorita Trujillo, and I know you are nervous. Some of you may be afraid, and others excited, but you are all here—like your parents and brothers and sisters before you—to learn how to be people in this great society.”

“To be people . . . ?” whispered Leonardo.

“Because they are hardly more than beasts,” repeated the redhead.

“And I am expecting each of you to work hard,” Señorita Trujillo continued. “If you work very hard, you will reach perfection, and perfection is what we all desire.”

Leonardo stood in place, pivoting on his feet to inspect the twenty little boys and girls. “And how are they not perfect?” he asked. “How,” he said, his hand gesturing to encompass the perfect heads of the children, “can these angels be considered imperfect?”

“They have learned nothing yet!” argued Lala. “They barely know how to think, how to judge. They are slow to make assumptions and quick to ignore sacred beliefs.”

“Are you now an advocate for the church?”

“I have always been a friend to religion,” she said haughtily, “and I fully support God’s rigorous judgment.”

“Amen,” said Sarita, crossing herself. She considered it a good habit to agree with anything stated piously. As she kissed her own thumb, she noticed the disappearance of morning sunlight, and found herself seated on a pew within a chapel murky with smoke. “Are we now in church?” she asked, disoriented.

“Ah!” cried don Leonardo. “You go too far, señora!”

Lala glared at him, her eyes burning. Sarita looked from one to the other in surprise. “What are you doing, you two?” Her eyes wandered to the pews. “This place has nothing to do with my son, or with his memories.”

“Indeed, it does,” answered Lala, happy to draw attention away from don Leonardo. Just then, they saw a priest walking toward the front of the chapel. He walked past them, unseeing, and continued to the first pew, where Sara, the young mother and wife, was sitting quietly. Nearby, her four boys moved from bench to bench in a silent game of tag.

“Ah!” exclaimed Sarita. “There am I, with my boys!”

“Remember this?” asked Lala. “When the good priest told you your thirteenth child would make a difference in the world?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. He said Miguel would be an important messenger.”

“Was that before or after he judged him a sinner?” asked Leonardo.

The redhead ignored him, leaning closer to Sarita. “And what is a messenger, but the servant of knowledge?”

“An authentic human,” said don Leonardo flatly. “Such is a great messenger.”

The woman gave him another angry look, but Sarita was talking, apparently reminiscing, and their attention was drawn back to her.

“I remember when he grew old enough to feel his own power,” she was saying, “a power that had already become evident to me. He was a boy of ten then, older than he is here. I had been talking to him one day about greed and selfishness, and how we hurt ourselves when we disrespect others. When I was finished talking, he looked at me with all the seriousness of a worried mouse. ‘Do you think me selfish, Mamá?’ he asked. What could I do but laugh? ‘Yes, sweet one,’ I teased. ‘You are as selfish as your mother is supremely generous.’ It was a hasty joke, I admit, but he paid no attention. He was lost in thought, sorting truth from subtle lie.”

Don Leonardo sat beside her and took her hand, hoping to encourage the memories.

“He smiled at me,” Sarita went on, “and it was a gracious smile, a smile that was conscious and careful. I had the impulse to touch Miguel protectively, but this particular smile told me not to. It told me that he was now old enough to grasp the truth with his own small hands. If he was selfish, he would find the remedy. It reminded me of something I had always known, even without the counsel of the priest: that humanity would one day long for his words, for the touch of his eyes, his hands, and his irresistible smile. The smile he gave me on that particular day told me that I was becoming a stranger to him. The tender bond that held us was weakening.”

“It was strong then, my girl,” her father assured her, “as it is now.”

Lala turned away impatiently, wishing the priest would speak to the young Sara, that he would say something about the excellence of minds, not this nonsense about emotional bonds. What was the purpose of this particular memory, except to remind them of the power of words?

“The point is—” she began, addressing father and daughter again.

“She sees the point, señora,” stated Leonardo.

“My love will bring him back,” Sarita said softly. “Our bond, which cannot be undone, must now be respected. His legacy must be—”

Lala grabbed her chance. “His legacy exists in the minds of everyone he has touched! He is memory. He is thought, and his words echo through the ages.”

Don Leonardo heard Lala’s voice ascend into the high dome of the chapel, and he refrained from comment. He squeezed Sarita’s hand supportively before rising to his feet. It was Sarita’s challenge, not his, to resist the persuasions of that voice.

“Indeed,” the old man mumbled loud enough to be heard, “there is definitely someplace I’m supposed to be. Good day to you, ladies,” he said, smiling, “until the next time.” He tipped his hat and marched up the aisle, toward the light that beckoned beyond the chapel doors.

“Papá!”

And he was gone.

Sarita looked back, confused. “Now what? I need his help.”

“You need me,” said Lala. “We already established that. We will follow the same path of esoteric knowledge your son followed. We will follow his most remarkable thoughts, and in that way—”

“Thought is knowledge, Miguel would say,” Sarita interrupted. “Memory is knowledge, he would say.” She looked at the other woman, so beautiful and so certain, illuminated by the light of a hundred prayer candles. “Religion is knowledge, my son would say.”

“And see how wonderful that is!” replied her companion, indicating the chapel, now filled with kneeling worshippers, many of whom were weeping silently.

“None of it is the truth, my son would say.”

“Your son will be back with you soon enough to speak for himself. Come, old one, and we will find the precise day his words showed him to be a leader.”

Sarita stood up, crossed herself again, and followed the beautiful woman into a soft cloud of incense.

Don Leonardo was now exactly where he was supposed to be. He was watching one of his grandsons walk up the path to his house. He was a handsome boy of twenty—not the youngest of his grandchildren, but Sara’s youngest, and that was enough to make Leonardo smile. He loved his daughter and had always seen exceptional things in her. She could have succumbed to the monotonies of human life and old habits, but she had maintained her singular authority. She would soon be recognized as a woman of power by her family and her community.

This boy, too, was not like the others. Leonardo knew this, but could not yet say why. All Sara’s sons were quick, bright, and full of ambition to succeed. He remembered the morning of Miguel’s birth and wondered if the answer to his uniqueness lay there, but too much importance was given to family stories like that—too much was made of auspicious signs and star alignments. The answer was in each present moment, like this one. At this moment, Leonardo was watching his grandson arrive and he perceived everything. He noticed the boy’s stride, the confident way he held himself, the light in his eyes. Yes, the eyes told much. And the smile. What a smile! It seemed to invite the world to play. Come into my dream, it said, and prepare to have fun!

This boy was different, certainly. It was time for Leonardo to see if that difference could be put into exceptional practice. It was time to take this boy out of the sleepy warmth of his convictions and into the icy air of awareness.

Don Leonardo stepped off the porch and opened his arms to embrace Miguel, the last of Sarita’s thirteen children.

I remember that beautiful autumn afternoon during my first year at the university, when I rushed to my grandfather’s home to pay him a visit. My heart was filled with love that day, and my head filled with 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 was created to be its servant. Words are the tools of our art, helping us to paint images of truth on a mental canvas. What kind of artists are we? What kind of artists do we want to be, and are we willing to give up the nonsensical things we believe to become those artists?

My grandfather told me that my greatest power was faith. It was up to me to direct that power wisely. The world was full of people eager to put their faith in an idea, an opinion, the opinions of other people. He urged me not to invest my faith in knowledge, but to invest it in myself. Though I didn’t realize it then, our conversation that afternoon set me on a path I would never abandon. From then on, I wanted to make sense of things. I wanted to understand myself and find out how it was that I had begun to believe in lies. It was my nature to seek answers. It is everyone’s nature to find the truth, and we will eagerly look for it anywhere, everywhere—except in us.

I wanted only the truth after that day, and all I had to guide me in the beginning were memories—memories based on random images and stories, leading to more distortions. But that was only the beginning. How quickly things would change for me! How generous truth is when we are willing to feel it, accept it, and be grateful.

Sarita, my lionhearted mother, is taking a similar path on this long, dream-fueled night, guided by the same memories . . . while the voice of knowledge whispers earnestly in her ear. For her troubles, she will bring home a pretender—the flesh-and-blood likeness of her youngest son, who has already found the truth, and has gleefully dissolved into its wonders.