VOICES
In his last book, "the Active Side of Infinity",
Carlos Castenada recounts an incident with his teacher, Don Juan, a Yaqui brujo-shaman.
Don Juan explains that the conflict Carlos is experiencing at a certain moment
is the result of the battle between his "2 minds";
here is Carlos telling the story:"...I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to quiet my mind.
I was talking to myself frantically about my insoluble problem:
I most certainly didn't like visiting Don Juan at all.
In his presence, I felt threatened. He verbally accosted me and didn't leave me any room whatsoever to show my worth.
I detested losing face every time I opened my mouth; I detested being the fool.
But there was another voice inside me, a voice that came from a greater depth, more distant, almost faint...
But it wasn't really my voice or my thoughts that I was experiencing; it was rather, like an unknown voice ...
'Say whatever you wish' the voice seemed to say to me,
'but if you were not the egomaniac that you are, you wouldn't be so chagrined.'
'That's the voice of your other mind' don Juan said, just as if he'd been listening to or reading my thoughts..."
Don Juan goes on to explain that we all have two minds."..One is our true mind, a faint voice bringing order, clarity and purpose...
It rarely speaks because it's been defeated and relegated to obscurity.
The other mind, that we use daily for everything we do, is a foreign installation...
It brings us conflict, self-assertion, doubts, hopelessness..."Carlos neither grasps nor wants to accept what don Juan is telling him, and the discussion continues.
At one point don Juan tells Carlos not to worry about "stupid details",
that we're all like this, that our pettiness and contradictions are the result of this conflict between our 2 minds.
"...to resolve the conflict of the two minds is a matter of intending it..." he said,
and goes on to explain how shamans accomplish this....
We may not all be able to access shamanic levels of awareness,
but Gemini marks the phase of the cycle where it is vital to
keep in touch with intuition
and not get lost in the strictly rational mind.Here we start to recognize & distinguish
different modes of thought & awareness,
know which is which,
how, when, where they are useful.A master of Gemini
will resolve the conflict and
hear the voice of the true mind,
thus short-circuiting ordinary Monkey Mind.
