"The power that governs the destiny of all living beings is called the
Eagle or the
Indescribable Force. Providing the luminous shell that comprises one's humanness has been broken, it is possible to find in the Indescribable Force the faint reflection of man. The Indescribable Force's irrevocable dictums can then be apprehended by seers, properly interpreted by them, and accumulated in the form of a governing body. Thus the rule was formed.
The rule is not a tale. The rule states that every living thing has been granted the power, if it so desires, to seek an opening to freedom and to go through it. To cross over to freedom does not mean eternal life as eternity is commonly understood--that is, as living forever. What the rule states is that one can keep the awareness which is ordinarily relinquished at the moment of dying. I cannot explain what it means to keep that awareness. My benefactor told me that at the moment of crossing, one enters into the third attention, and the body in its entirety is kindled with knowledge. Every cell at once becomes aware of itself, and also aware of the totality of the body.
This kind of awareness is meaningless to our compartmentalized minds. Therefore the crux of the warrior's struggle is not so much to realize that the crossing over, stated in the rule means crossing to the third attention,
but rather to conceive that there exists such an awareness at all.
There is a common error, that of overestimating the left-side awareness, of becoming dazzled by its clarity and power. To be in the left-side awareness does not mean that one is immediately liberated from one's folly--it only means an extended capacity for perceiving, and above all, a greater ability to forget.
One has to be utterly humble and carry nothing to defend, not even one's person. One's person should be protected, but not defended. It takes a very long time to clean out the garbage that a luminous being picks up in the world. We are so stiff and feel so self-important." - don Juan, The Eagles Gift
