Tonal and Nagual; Toltec Understanding of Reality.

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In the book "Tales of Power" we encounter a new breakdown of what the yin and the yang of Don Juan's reality may actually mean. They are a little bit more than the pairs of the opposites and what makes the concepts complicated is that the two are actually complimentary terms. It is not that everything is black and white at once, but more like everything is intertwined and can be that as well as all the shades that result from the mixture of the two. However, the tonal and the nagual are actually drastically different.

In the book the tonal is likened to the table and everything on it, while the nagual is everything outside of the table. Don Juan patiently explained to his apprentice that no matter what he picks off the table, even the concepts of God and death - it is still the table, thus the known. Outside of the table lay the dark confines of the unknown, which despite the fact that they are "unknown" can be mapped out, which is what the warriors actually do as a full time job. But about that later....

Further lies the unknowable, a region (if it even may be called that) that is impossible to map out, and as it is explained - rather than charging the warrior and giving her hope, it drains her, she feels ill at ease, depressed and without hope of renewal. Only warriors with extraordinary discipline and vision can venture there.

Warrior spends his lifetime at an inexplicable task - "cleaning up the tonal". It is not like a house cleaning, activity that may or may not be performed; with different amount of attention to detail, perhaps different mood. A warrior is always in the mood to clean up her tonal, which is what ultimately makes her so impeccable and unapproachable to the flyers, or any other forces that prevent her from retrieving, saving, and cultivating energy crucial for survival and for travelling in the Great Out-There, the nagual.

Cleaning up starts from the simple acts of observation, "taking notes" so to speak, i.e. noticing the patterns of behavior and their results in our daily life. That and some recapitulation allow the warrior to change those routines, enhance them, and start changing their life into a masterpiece of strategy. Routines seize to exist, and instead we encounter energy and its flow, unstoppable and wondrous to behold.

Tonal is essentially fragile, and needs to be cared for with all the care possible. Like a little child tonal is capricious and constantly threatens to self-destruct, all we have to do to check that, is to consider how we react if someone doesn't agree with our opinion about something, or crosses our way. That and many other things and we are faced with some very important beings, who truly don't believe in their ultimate and final seization of activities which we in colloquial call "death" although that would be something else. Death to the warrior is actually an advisor, the best one according to Don Juan. Such is the power of death, that a warrior has no choice but to start restructuring his or her life upon the mere shiver in that unknown universe out there. Although death is described as residing by the left side, we can be assured that she could be anywhere, from the simple trip on the bus, to the rest in the park. But don't let that scare you. We are talking about being advised, not being spooked by something that we don't understand. Only the lifetime of impeccability allows the warrior to tippy-toe by the left side of the Big Bad Bird. Without cleaning up of the tonal and striving for the impeccability that is pretty much not possible.

Please note that this peculiar approach is typical of the new seers, and not of the older brand of warriors. What makes it peculiar is that only the new seers believe in discipline and sobriety as the inevitable characteristics that come hand in hand with venturing into the unknown. Without them a new seer is not. And the reason for that is the indulgence and it is a big no-no for the new seers, and they strive really hard to eradicate it with all their strategies, stalking and such. But this doesn't guarantee success. If anything it actually increases the probability of "straying off". That is because with the increased amount of energy, the sensuality and love for things material also increase. The indescribable beauty that the warrior witnesses  is sometimes hard to explain or to share. Thus it is natural for the warrior to tighten up his behavioral patterns, may be even appear a little shrewd and puritanical.

Nagual is not a part of reality per se and begins as a mere idea, a spark which is hard to conceive. But the spark keeps growing keeps burning, and one day it turns into a bonfire which will simply consume the warrior if she doesn't have her tonal cleaned up and thoroughly functioning.
There is no point in talking about It, since that is something that absolutely must be experienced. But to encounter the concept is a good start, and coupled with the gradual understanding and increase of intensity a warrior enters the door. From then on she is inevitably and forever changed. Concepts are not concepts anymore, but truths hidden in the positions of the assemblage point.

For Don Juan truth was a position of the assemblage point, and that in itself produced irrevocable facts. Nagual can be said, in a more epistemological sense to be a source of truth for the warrior, of a sort that cannot be found under any other conditions other than the warrior lifestyle. They go through untold hardships, doing and pondering obscure things to arrive at that experience, at that truth.

Benefactor is the one who shows the nagual and how to keep on going after one brings it into her life. That is different from a teacher, who teaches behavioral patterns, discipline and how to get it together. Although the two may unite under one individual, they do not necessarily, and one should consider it auspicious to find a teacher and a benefactor, or a teacher who is at the same time a benefactor. Reason for that being is that the nagual cannot be taught, only shown.

I have long tried to embody the knowledge that Don Juan and his Apprentice carried to us, and this what I am speaking about in this blog post is not really obscure, as much as it is alien to the mind that is used to delineations, and only immersing yourself into this knowledge completely can one understand it. By the way Don Juan wasn't really interested in "understanding", neither did he require it from his apprentice. Linear thinking as such, with all its out-coming logistics can, and many times is an obstruction to the understanding of the simple fact that the world is not black and white - it is more like the known and the unknown, and even known is basically unknowable. When one closes in on this sort of understanding it seems pretty plausible that there is a great darkness outside of what we think we know. Let us burn the sacred incense and proceed with awe and caution as the powers we may encounter are indeed indescribable.