Seeing is the capacity of human beings to enlarge their
perceptual field until they are capable of assessing not only
outer appearances, but also the essence of everything. Seers
see man and all other things as fields of energy and light.
positive and negative.
It seems that one of the effects of enlargement of the
perceptual field is a combination of sheer joy combined with
a frightening feeling of sadness and longing. This is
apparently because a full field of awareness includes all the
opposites in perfect balance.
"...there have certainly been
attempts to imbue the [ineffable unknown] with attributes
[it] does not have. But that always happens when
impressionable people learn to perform acts that require
great sobriety. Seers come in all sizes and shapes.
...there are scores of imbeciles who become seers. Seers are
human beings full of foibles, or rather, human beings full of
foibles are capable of becoming seers. Just as in the case
of miserable people who become superb scientists. 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 is 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."
One of the hardest things for anyone to acknowledge is their
own susceptibility to suggestion, manipulation and external
control. No one wants to admit that their awareness can be
manipulated. Yet, without exception, all of the Mystery
Teachings tell us that the first order of business in
expanding awareness is to overcome the hypnosis, or "sleep
state" in which man exists. And, without exception, all of
the Mystery Teachings tell us that this is so formidable a
task that only one in ten thousand can achieve it! Think
about this for a moment. Nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-
nine people will react to this statement by thinking: "I am
the one in ten thousand!" The Great Masters will tell you
that if you think this, then you are NOT! It is the one who
thinks and realizes that all of his perceptions must be
minutely scrutinized, doubted, tested, examined and
challenged who has the smallest hope of escaping the
hypnosis!! And, to realize this is but the first in a long
series of steps to awakening. And, remember, awakening is
not the same thing as seeing! Many can see in expanded
awareness, but immediately go back to sleep and what they saw
is interpreted by the standards of the "hypnotic sleep state"
of ordinary awareness. Seers must be paragons of virtue by
their will and intent in order to override the nearly
invincible laxness of the human condition and programming.
Don Juan says that SEEING is to lay bare the core of
everything, to witness the unknown and to glimpse the
unknowable. The unknown is veiled from man but, is within
man's reach. The unknowable is the indescribable, the
unthinkable, and the unrealizable. It is something that may
never be known to us in our human estate. He further tells
us, and this is corroborated in other teachings, that to
interact with the unknown, but that which is ultimately
within the reach of knowing through great work, is
energizing, exhilarating and fulfilling even when it is also
full of apprehension and fear. It is like being on safari in
an unknown and dangerous land with a varied assortment of
equipment for survival and protection.
But, to interact with the unknowable is to try to scale Mount
Everest with equipment designed for the African Veldt. Seers
without knowledge who interact with the unknowable are
drained, confused. They become open to oppression and
possession. Their bodies lose tone, their reasoning becomes
flawed, and their sobriety wanders aimlessly. It is not
within human reach and therefore should not be intruded upon
foolishly or even prudently. And, the fact is, most of what
is out there is unknowable.
But, even on the level of the unknown that is ultimately
accessible to human perception, Seers who truly See often go
to pieces on finding out that existence is incomprehensibly
complex and that our normal awareness distorts all and
perverts with its limitations.
And, what is there to be seen? "The first truth is that the
world is as it looks and yet it isn't. It's not as solid and
real as our perception has been led to believe, but it isn't
a mirage either. The world is not an illusion [created by
our minds] as it has been said to be; it's real on the one
hand, and unreal on the other. ...We perceive. This is a
hard fact. But what we perceive is not a fact of the same
kind, because we learn what to perceive.
"Something out there is affecting our senses. This is the
part that is real. The unreal part is what our senses tell
us is there. Our senses perceive the way they do because a
specific feature of our awareness forces them to do so.
"What's really out there are the Eagle's emanations, fluid,
forever in motion, and yet unchanged, eternal.
"One of the most dramatic legacies of the ancient seers is
their discovery that the reason for the existence of all
sentient beings is to enhance awareness. ...The old seers
were not just talking about faith. ...Rationality alone
cannot come up with a reason for our existence. Every time
it tries, the answer turns into a matter of belief. The old
seers took another road, and they did find an answer which
doesn't involve faith alone.
"The old seers, risking untold dangers, actually saw the
indescribable force which is the source of all sentient
beings. They called it the Eagle, because in the few
glimpses that they could sustain, they saw it as something
that resembled a black and white eagle of infinite size.
They saw that it is the Eagle who bestows awareness. The
Eagle creates sentient beings so that they will live and
enrich the awareness it gives them with life. They also saw
that it is the Eagle who devours that same enriched awareness
after making sentient beings relinquish it at the moment of
death."
"[The Old Seers] saw that the awareness of sentient beings
flies away at the moment of death and floats like a luminous
cotton puff right into the Eagle's beak to be consumed. For
[them] this was evidence that sentient beings live only to
enrich the awareness that is the Eagle's food."
Don Juan says: "It is not just an idea. It is a fact. And
a damn scary one if you ask me. ... One of the greatest
forces in the lives of warriors is fear. It spurs them to
learn. ...To understand one needs sobriety, not
emotionality. Beware of those who weep with realization, for
they have realized nothing. There are untold dangers in the
path of knowledge for those without sober understanding.
Seers have to be methodical, rational beings; paragons of
sobriety and yet free and open to the wonders and mysteries
of existence.
"It is natural to be scared and to control fear is wrong and
senseless." Fear is the opposite of Love and to be truly
balanced one must experience, on a continual basis, equal
manifestations of both. True contact with expanded awareness
can bring on unspeakable melancholy. It is a mixture of pure
longing for the depths of perception plus an absolute fear of
their chilling solitude. "Don Juan remarked that in the life
of warriors it was extremely natural to be sad for no overt
reason. ...Whenever the boundaries of the known are broken,
a mere glimpse of the eternity outside is enough to disrupt
the coziness of our controlled awareness. The resulting
melancholy is sometimes so intense that it can bring about
death. ...The best way to get rid of melancholy is to make
fun of it."
There is nothing more lonely than eternity. And this is the
human dilemma. There is nothing more cozy than to be a human
being. We can live forever behind veils of illusion,
suffering our blindness, and dying in our ignorance. And,
until some aspect of that human has had its fill of suffering
and death, there will be no desire to venture into the
absolute loneliness of eternity. It is only the soul that is
ready for this definitive journey that becomes a Warrior or a
Sorcerer willing to risk the soul chilling fear and the
unspeakable joy of traveling into the unknown. If you can't
handle fear, you cannot know the love at the "Higher" levels.
