Essential Knowledge

Inner silence is a peculiar state of being in which thoughts are canceled out and one can function from a level other than that of daily awareness. Inner silence means the suspension of the internal dialogue - the perennial companion of thought - and is therefore a state of profound quietude.

The old sorcerers called it inner silence because it is a state in which perception doesn't depend on the senses. What is at work during inner silence is another faculty that man has, the faculty that makes him a magical being, the very faculty that has been curtailed, not by man himself but by some extraneous influence.

Inner silence is the stand from which everything stems in a sorcerer. In other words, everything we do leads to that stand, which, like everything else in the world of sorcerers, doesn't reveal itself unless something gigantic shakes us.

The sorcerers of ancient Mexico devised endless ways to shake themselves or other sorcery practitioners at their foundations in order to reach that coveted state of inner silence. They considered the most far-fetched acts, which may seem totally unrelated to the pursuit of inner silence, such as, for instance, jumping into waterfalls or spending nights hanging upside down from the top branch of a tree, to be the key points that brought it into being.

Inner silence is accrued, accumulated. I've guided you to construct a core of inner silence in yourself, and then add to it, second by second, on every occasion you practice it. The sorcerers of ancient Mexico discovered that each individual has a different threshold of inner silence in terms of time, meaning that inner silence must be kept by each one of us for the length of time of our specific threshold before it can work.

Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final, dramatic, end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of complete quietude, before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called stopping the world, the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's always been.

This is the moment when sorcerers return to the true nature of man. The old sorcerers also called it total freedom. It is the moment when man the slave becomes man the free being, capable of feats of perception that defy our linear imagination.

Inner silence is the avenue that leads to a true suspension of judgment - to a moment when sensory data emanation from the universe at large ceases to be interpreted by the senses; a moment when cognition ceases to be the force which, through usage and repetition, decides the nature of the world.

Sorcerers need a breaking point for the workings of inner silence to set in. The breaking point is like the mortar that a mason puts between bricks. It's only when the mortar hardens that the loose bricks become a structure.

From the beginning of our association I have drilled into you the value, the necessity, of inner silence. You must do your best to follow my suggestions by accumulating inner silence second by second. You have no means to measure the effect of this accumulation, nor do you have any means to judge whether or not you have reached any threshold. Simply aim doggedly at accruing it. The act of accumulating it is a challenge in itself.

Every sorcerer I know, male or female, sooner or later arrives at a breaking point in their lives. Not a mental breakdown or anything like that. Mental breakdowns are for persons who indulge in themselves. What I mean is that at a given moment the continuity of their lives has to break in order for inner silence to set in and become an active part of their structures.

It's very, very important that you yourself deliberately arrive at that breaking point, or that you create it artificially, and intelligently. Your breaking point is to discontinue your life as you know it. You have done everything I've told you, dutifully and accurately. If you are talented, you never show it. That seems to be your style. You're not slow, but you act as if you were. You're very sure of yourself, but you act as if you were insecure. You're not timid, and yet you act as if you were afraid of people. Everything you do points at one single spot: you need to break all that, ruthlessly.

I think everything boils down to one act: you must leave your friends. You must say good-bye to them, for good. It's not possible for you to continue on the warrior's path carrying your personal history with you, and unless you discontinue your way of life, I won't be able to go ahead with my instruction.

Your friends are your family, they are your points of reference. Therefore, they have to go. Sorcerers have only one point of reference: infinity. You must simply leave, leave any way you can. You have never been alone in your life. This is the time to do it. I don't want your body to die physically. I want your person to die. The two are very different affairs. In essence, your person has very little to do with your body. Your person is your mind, and believe you me, your mind is not yours.

I'll tell you about that subject someday, but not while you're cushioned by your friends. The criteria that indicates that a sorcerer is dead is when it makes no difference to him whether he has company or whether he is alone. The day you don't covet the company of your friends, whom you use as shields, that's the day that your person has died. I ran away from the sorcerers' world once, and I had to nearly die to realize my stupidity. The important issue is to arrive at a breaking point, in whatever way, so that inner silence will become real for you. You have no time to lose. For infinity, the only worthwhile enterprise of a warrior is freedom. Any other enterprise is fraudulent.

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Next: "Seeing"

Related Sections:

• The Internal Dialogue
• Recapitulation
• Losing Self-Importance
• Table of Contents
• The Façade of Self-Pity