Seeing must be direct, for a warrior can't use his time to unravel what he himself is seeing. Seeing is seeing because it cuts through all that nonsense. In the beginning seeing is confusing and it's easy to get lost in it. As the warrior gets tighter, however, his seeing becomes what it should be, a direct knowing. A warrior asks a question, and through his seeing he gets an answer, but the answer is simple.

A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.

To be a warrior means to be humble and alert. When you come to see me you should come prepared to die. If you come here ready to die, there shouldn't be any pitfalls, or any unwelcome surprises, or any unnecessary acts. Everything should gently fall into place because you're expecting nothing.

It's not that you have to live with all this. You are all this. A warrior doesn't ever leave the island of the tonal. He uses it. This is your world. You can't renounce it. It is useless to get angry and feel disappointed with oneself. All that that proves is that one's tonal is involved in an internal battle; a battle within one's tonal is one of the most inane contests I can think of. The tight life of a warrior is designed to end that struggle. From the beginning I have taught you to avoid wear and tear.

The warrior's way is harmony--the harmony between actions and decisions, at first, and then the harmony between tonal and nagual.

It is the tonal that has to relinquish control. The tonal is made to give up unnecessary things like self-importance and indulging, which only plunge it into boredom. The whole trouble is that the tonal clings to those things when it should be glad to rid itself of that crap. The task then is to convince the tonal to become free and fluid. That's what a sorcerer needs before anything else, a strong, free tonal. The stronger it gets the less it clings to its doings, and the easier it is to shrink it.

The tonal shrinks at given times, especially when it is embarrassed. Once the tonal has shrunk, the nagual, if it is already in motion, no matter how small that motion is, will take over and achieve extraordinary deeds.

The affairs of the nagual can be witnessed only with the body, not the reason.

We are fluid, luminous beings made out of fibers. The agreement that we are solid objects is the tonal's doings. When the tonal shrinks, extraordinary things are possible. But they are only extraordinary for the tonal.

The nagual, once it learns to surface, may cause great damage to the tonal by coming out without any control. Your tonal has to be convinced about all of this with reasons, your nagual with actions, until one props the other. As I have told you, the tonal rules, and yet it is very vulnerable. The nagual, on the other hand, never, or almost never, acts out; but when it does, it terrifies the tonal.

The tonal must be protected at any cost. The crown has to be taken away from it, but it must remain as the protected overseer. Any threat to the tonal always results in its death. And if the tonal dies, so does the whole man. Because of its inherent weakness the tonal is easily destroyed, and thus one of the balancing arts of the warrior is to make the nagual emerge in order to prop up the tonal. I say it is an art, because sorcerers know that only by boosting the tonal can the nagual emerge. That boosting is called personal power.

My advantage over you at this moment is that I know how to get to the nagual, and you don't. But once I have gotten there I have no more advantage and no more knowledge than you.