Topic: Double

[tangerine dream]

While reading today, I found something I hadn't read before.  I find it fascinating the number of times I can read the same thing from CC and find something new in it each time.  I found this rather interesting. And then stumbled upon a discussion where we briefly touched upon this subject way back in the day.

A sorcerer can double up, that's all one can say. No sorcerer knows where his Other is. A sorcerer has no notion that he is in two places at once. To be aware of that would be the equivalent of facing his double, and the sorcerer that finds himself face to face with himself is a dead sorcerer. That is the rule. That is the way power has set things up. No one knows why.
      By the time a warrior has conquered dreaming and seeing and has developed a double, he must have also succeeded in erasing personal history, self-importance, and routines. So doing is the means for removing the impracticality of having a double in the ordinary world, by making the self and the world fluid, and by placing them outside the bounds of prediction.
      A fluid warrior can no longer make the world chronological, and for him, the world and himself are no longer objects. He's a luminous being existing in a luminous world. The double is a simple affair for a sorcerer because he knows what he's doing.
      A sorcerer may certainly notice afterwards that he has been in two places at once. But this is only bookkeeping and has no bearing on the fact that while he's acting he has no notion of his duality.

Juan, didn't don Juan say that the moment you come upon yourself like that is the moment for a possible death? (Did I dream that?)

[Jahn]

"A fluid warrior can no longer make the world chronological."

That is a correct statement that appeals to a large extent how everything turns out to be. Though, in the First awareness, the awareness of Tonal, the world has to be chronological perceived, therefore we have an agenda to tell us what comes next, but for the rest - it is floating.

[Firestarter]

Id seen this before this is from the don juan matus writings, a bit different. I found someone with more on this to expand it. Something has been added tho to this from the tales (trying to find it and recall)

I'm going to begin telling you about the "double" or the "Other." The double is the sorcerer himself developed thru his dreaming . The double is an act of power to a sorcerer but only a tale of power to you. The double is the self; that explanation should suffice. For a sorcerer who sees , the double is brighter.

Don't take things so seriously. I've told you time and time again that the world is unfathomable, and so are we, and so is every being that exists in this world. It is impossible, therefore, to reason out the double.

A sorcerer can double up, that's all one can say. No sorcerer knows where his Other is. A sorcerer has no notion that he is in two places at once. To be aware of that would be the equivalent of facing his double, and the sorcerer that finds himself face to face with himself is a dead sorcerer. That is the rule. That is the way power has set things up. No one knows why.
By the time a warrior has conquered dreaming and seeing and has developed a double, he must have also succeeded in erasing personal history, self-importance, and routines. So doing is the means for removing the impracticality of having a double in the ordinary world, by making the self and the world fluid, and by placing them outside the bounds of prediction.

A fluid warrior can no longer make the world chronological, and for him, the world and himself are no longer objects. He's a luminous being existing in a luminous world. The double is a simple affair for a sorcerer because he knows what he's doing.

A sorcerer may certainly notice afterwards that he has been in two places at once. But this is only bookkeeping and has no bearing on the fact that while he's acting he has no notion of his duality.

Think of this, the world doesn't yield to us directly, the description of the world stands in between. So, properly speaking, we are always one step removed and our experience of the world is always a recollection of the experience. We are perennially recollecting the instant that has just happened, just passed. We recollect, recollect, recollect.

If our entire experience of the world is recollection, then it's not so outlandish to conclude that a sorcerer can be in two places at once. This is not the case from the point of view of his own perception, because in order to experience the world, a sorcerer, like every other man, has to recollect the act he has just performed, the event he has just witnessed, the experience he has just lived. In his awareness there is only a single recollection. The sorcerer, however, recollects two separate single instants, because the glue of the description of time is no longer binding him. We're always one jump behind.

Does the double have corporealness? Certainly. Solidity, corporealness are memories. Therefore, like everything else we feel about the world, they are memories we accumulate, memories of the description.

The only way to counteract the devastating effect of the sorcerers' world is to laugh at it. It's your duty to put your mind at ease. Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over the walls; they don't demolish them.

There are three kinds of bad habits which we use over and over when confronted with unusual life situations. First, we may disregard what's happening or has happened and feel as if it had never occurred. That one is the bigot's way. Second, we may accept everything at its face value and feel as if we know what's going on. That's the pious man's way. Third, we may become obsessed with an event because either we cannot disregard it or we cannot accept it wholeheartedly. That's the fool's way. There is a fourth, the correct one, the warrior's way. A warrior acts as if nothing had ever happened, because he doesn't believe in anything, yet he accepts everything at its face value. He accepts without accepting and disregards without disregarding. He never feels as if he knows, neither does he feel as if nothing had ever happened. He acts as if he is in control, even though he might be shaking in his boots. To act in such a manner dissipates obsession.

You must cultivate the feeling that a warrior needs nothing. You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life. I have tried to teach you that the real experience is to be a man, and that what counts is being alive; life is the little detour that we are taking now. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. A warrior understands this and lives accordingly; therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being a warrior.

If a warrior needs solace, he simply chooses anyone and expresses to that person every detail of his turmoil. After all, the warrior is not seeking to be understood or helped; by talking he's merely relieving himself of his pressure. That is, providing that the warrior is given to talking; if he's not, he tells no one.

You indulge. You feel that indulging in doubts and tribulations is the sign of a sensitive man. Well, the truth of the matter is that you're the farthest thing from being sensitive. So why pretend? I've told you, a warrior accepts in humbleness what he is.

We confuse ourselves deliberately. All of us are aware of our doings. Our puny reason deliberately makes itself into the monster it fancies itself to be. It's too little for such a big mold, though.

No one develops a double. That's only a way of talking about it. All of us luminous beings have a double. All of us! A warrior learns to be aware of it, that's all. There are seemingly insurmountable barriers protecting that awareness. But that's expected; those barriers are what makes arriving at that awareness such a unique challenge. You are afraid of it because you're thinking that the double is what the word says. A double, or another you. I chose those words in order to describe it. The double is oneself and cannot be faced in any other way.

The double is not a matter of personal choice. Neither is it a matter of personal choice who is selected to learn the sorcerers' knowledge that leads to that awareness. Have you ever asked yourself, why you in particular? I don't mean that you should ask it as a question that begs an answer, but in the sense of a warrior's pondering on his great fortune, the fortune of having found a challenge.

To make it into an ordinary question is the device of a conceited ordinary man who wants to be either admired or pitied for it. I have no interest in that kind of question, because there is no way of answering it. The decision of picking you was a design of power; no one can discern the designs of power. Now that you've been selected, there is nothing that you can do to stop the fulfillment of that design.

A warrior is in the hands of power and his only freedom is to choose an impeccable life.

You're in a terrible spot. It's too late for you to retreat but too soon to act. All you can do is witness. For you there is only witnessing acts of power and listening to tales, tales of power.

The double is one of those tales. You know that, and that's why your reason is so taken by it. You are beating your head against a wall if you pretend to understand. All that I can say about it, by way of explanation, is that the double, although it is arrived at through dreaming , is as real as it can be. It is the self. It is the awareness of our state as luminous beings. It can do anything, and yet it chooses to be unobtrusive and gentle.