The sorcerers of ancient Mexico, who discovered and developed the magical passes on which Tensegrity is based, maintained, according to what don Juan explained, that the performance of those passes prepares and leads the body to a transcendental realization : the realization that as conglomerates of energy fields, human beings are held together by a vibratory, agglutinating force that joins those individual energy fields into one concise, cohesive unit.
Don Juan Matus, in acquainting me with the propositions of those sorcerers of ancient times, emphasized to no end the fact that the performance of the magical passes was, to the best of his knowledge, the only means to lay the foundation for becoming fully conscious of that vibratory binding force ; something that happens when all the premises of the warriors' way are internalized and put into practice.
It was his ability as a teacher to make those premises a subject for embodiment ; in other words, he handled the premises of the warriors' way in such a fashion that it was feasible for me and his other disciples to transform them into units of our daily lives.
His contention was that this vibratory, agglutinating force that holds together the conglomerate of energy fields that we are is apparently similar to what modern-day astronomers believe must happen at the core of all the galaxies that exist in the cosmos. They believe that there, at their cores, a force of incalculable strength holds the [.…rs or …rs] of galaxies in place. This force, called a black hole, is a theoretical construct which seems to be the most reasonable explanation as to why stars do not fly away, driven by their own rotational speeds.
Modern man has found out, through the research of scientists, that there is a binding force that holds together the component elements of an atom. By the same token, the component elements of cells are held together by a similar force that seems to compel them to combine into concrete and particular tissues and organs. Don Juan said that those sorcerers who lived in Mexico in ancient times knew that human beings, taken as conglomerates of energy fields, are held together not by energetic wrappings or energetic ligaments, but by some sort of vibration that renders everything at once alive and in place ; some energy, some vibratory force, some power that cements those energy fields into one single energetic unit.
Don Juan explained that those sorcerers, by means of their practices and their discipline, became capable of handling that vibratory force, once they were fully conscious of it. Their expertise in dealing with it became so extraordinary that their actions were transformed into legends, mythological events that exist only as fables. For instance, one of the stories that don Juan told about the ancient sorcerers was that they were capable of dissolving their physical mass by merely placing their full consciousness and intent on that force.
Don Juan stated that, although they were capable of actually going through a pinhole if they deemed it necessary, they were never quite satisfied with the result of this maneuver of dissolving their mass. The reason for their discontent was that once their mass was dissolved, so was their capacity to act. They were left with the alternative of only witnessing events in which they were incapable of participating. Their ensuing frustration, the result of being incapacitated to act, turned, according to don Juan, into their damning flaw : their obsession with uncovering the nature of that vibratory force, an obsession driven by their concreteness, which made them want to hold and control that force. Their fervent desire was to strike from the ghostlike condition of masslessness, something which don Juan said cannot ever be accomplished.
Modern-day practitioners, cultural heirs of those sorcerers of antiquity, having found out that it is not possible to be concrete and utilitarian about that vibratory force, have opted for the only rational alternative : to become conscious of that force with no other purpose in sight except the elegance and well-being brought about by knowledge.
The only permissible instance which don Juan gave for the utilization of the power of this vibratory agglutinating force, was its capacity to make sorcerers burn from within, when the time comes for them to leave this world. Don Juan said that it is simplicity itself for sorcerers to place their absolutely total consciousness on the binding force with the intent to burn, and off they go, like a puff of air.
To walk the full length of a path that one truly loves, don Juan said, one needs the passion, courage, imagination, vigilance, discipline, self-awareness, grace, strength, resourcefulness, efficiency, patience, adaptability, and humbleness of a navigator.
The spirit of the navigator, the being who makes the continuous commitment to travel the path of awareness every moment. The struggle of the navigator is not with one’s fellow men, don Juan said. Nor is it with oneself. And it’s ultimately not a struggle. Rather, it’s an acquiescence—to the energetic currents of the sea of awareness in the universe.
Don Juan said that the seers of his line maintained that the universe is a sea of energy—energy that is in constant change. And that the most functional thing one can do, rather than attempt to fight or resist that continuous change, is to join forces with it—an endeavor that takes a navigator’s discipline.
Carlos Castaneda saw Tensegrity® as a very apt name for the navigator’s path in our times: a practice of interconnecting with oneself and the world. The word “tensegrity” (tension + integrity) was coined by visionary architect, innovator, engineer and navigator R. Buckminster Fuller. Fuller was inspired in his work by what he saw as nature’s way of doing the most with the least. He observed structures in nature (from atoms to cells, to trees, to solar systems, to galaxies) in which the solid parts are held together in a continuous web of more flexible parts, such as, for example, the way a cell is held together by its flexible cytoskeleton, or the way the planets and sun are held in a field of gravity. In such systems, any outside pressure is distributed evenly across the whole structure, giving it a resilient tone that helps it adapt and yet maintain its integrity, and ultimately, its interconnectivity.
Fuller pointed to that essential supporter of life on earth, the tree, as a wonderful example of a tensegrity structure in nature. Arising from a seed, earth, water, air and sunlight, a tree grows into a tensegrity structure with water and gases moving through interior channels, allowing it to be both flexible and resilient, as it sways and adapts to shifting winds and earth, and lifts minerals – bits of stardust – and water from earth to sky.
And modern ecologists are now aware of the interconnectivity of each tree with the others, adjusting and adapting to the needs of the forest community.
It is this resilient integrity, interconnectivity and resourcefulness that the navigator seeks to embody, physically, emotionally, mentally, and energetically, Carlos Castaneda said. It is what one needs to make the continuous effort, regardless of its inconvenience, to stay on one’s chosen path—a path that is ever-evolving, and whose map is found through one’s heart.
Don Juan called the embodiment of this recognition the art of freedom—the freedom to perceive the energetic basis, and interconnected nature of everything—and to act from that perception. Our interactions in the daily world (at the office, the dinner table, the metro station, walking in the forest, etc.) then become the extraordinary arena for our awakening attention, an opportunity to respond to what is present, rather than react based on unexamined personal history
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