Erasing Personal History

Let's begin with several quotes from Carlos Castaneda's book entitled, Journey To Ixtlan, in regards to erasing personal history. This [erasing personal history] is a core teaching in regards to the mastery of awareness.

"I don't have any personal history," he said after a long pause. "One day I found out that personal history was no longer necessary for me, and, like drinking, I dropped it."

"How can one drop one's personal history?" I asked in an argumentative mood.

"One must first have the desire to drop it," he said. "And then one must proceed harmoniously to chop it off, little by little."

"Perhaps you should tell me what you mean by dropping one's personal history," I said.

"To do away with it, that's what I mean," he replied cuttingly.

I insisted that I must not have understood the proposition.

"Take you for instance," I said. "You are a Yaqui. You can't change that."

"Am I?" he asked, smiling. "How do you know that?"

"True!" I said. "I can't know that with certainty, at this point, but you know it and that is what counts. That's what makes it personal history."

I felt I had driven a hard nail in.

"The fact that I know whether I am a Yaqui or not," he replied, "does not make it personal history. Only when someone else knows it does it become personal history; and I assure you that no one will ever know that for sure."

"You don't know what I am, do you?" he said as if he were reading my thoughts. "You will never know who or what I am, because I don't have a personal history."

He asked me if I had a father. I told him I did. He said that my father was an example of what he had in mind. He urged me to remember what my father thought of me. "Your father knows everything about you," he said. "So, he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do, and there is no power on earth that can make him change his mind about you."

"Don't you see?" he asked dramatically. "You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal history, no explanations are needed. Nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all, no one pins you down with their thoughts."

"It is best to erase all personal history," he said slowly, as if giving me time to write it down in my clumsy way, "because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people."

"Take yourself, for instance," he went on saying. "Right now, you don't know whether you are coming or going. And that is so because I have erased my personal history. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do."

"But you yourself know who you are, don't you?" I interjected.

"You bet I... don't," he exclaimed, and rolled on the floor, laughing at my surprised look.

"That is the little secret I am going to give you today," he said in a low voice. "Nobody knows my personal history. Nobody knows who I am or what I do. Not even I."

"How can I know who I am, when I am all this?" he said, sweeping the surroundings with a gesture of his head.

"Little by little you must create a fog around yourself. You must erase everything around you until nothing can be taken for granted; until nothing is any longer for sure, or real. "Your problem now is that you're too real. Your endeavors are too real. Your moods are too real. Don't take things so for granted. You must begin to erase yourself."

"Begin with simple things, such as not revealing what you really do. Then you must leave everyone who knows you well. This way you'll build up a fog around yourself."

"But that's absurd," I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me? What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair taken for granted, and from that moment on you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty- the way people know you, for instance."

"But that would be lying."

"I'm not concerned with lies or truths," he said severely. "Lies are lies only if you have personal history."

"When one does not have personal history," he explained, "nothing that one says can be taken for a lie. Your trouble is that you have to explain everything to everybody, compulsively, and at the same time you want to keep the freshness, the newness of what you do. Well, since you can't be excited after explaining everything you've done, you lie in order to keep on going."

"From now on," he said, "you must simply show people whatever you care to show them, but without ever telling exactly how you've done it."

"You see," he went on, "we only have two alternatives: We either take everything for sure and real, or we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second, and erase personal history, we create a fog around us; a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out- not even ourselves."

"When nothing is for sure we remain alert; perennially on our toes," he said. "It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we know everything."

Wow, that's a lot of quotes and almost the entire chapter! Yet, it's needed, as a core teaching.

To begin with, we are going to start simple. First, learn to shut your mouth and listen to other people. As opposed to seeing this in yourself, first, watch and listen to others to get a feel for this personal history in others. Re-read the quotes above, understand them, and then see if you can identify personal history in others as they speak. This should be quite easy to do if you are paying attention. Second, if it's a conversation and you speak, keep to the point of discussion without adding a bunch of contexts into it, especially personal history about yourself and your own opinions in regards to the issue.

Here's a tip: Stop saying "I" so much. As in, "I" assisted this client and fixed their lower back pain. Or, "I" believe that our new President is an idiot and will do a horrible job. Long lectures from 'you' about your beliefs are NOT what we are trying to do here. Let's say you are a good Christian. You have studied Christianity extensively for many years. That, in and of itself, is all well and good, but to talk to another about it, telling them about how much "I" have studied, how much "I" know, etc., is a display of personal history and very self-important. (I'll get to self-importance in the next post.)

A couple examples are: "It seems the clients back pain has subsided," as opposed to, "I fixed the clients back." Another one: "In regards to Christianity, did you know that back in the fifteen hundreds they did....," as opposed to, "I have studied Christianity for years, and after all my research and hard work I found out that back in the fifteen hundreds Christians...." See the difference?

Here's another tip: If someone else is speaking to you about some topic, ask them questions. If you need to provide conversation that's fine, but keep 'yourself' out of it. Humans love to talk, and not only that, they love to add their personal history into it; not only about a topic but about themselves. Most people's favorite topic is themselves. We want to break that habit.

Let me add one very important point here, to cover my ass as well as yours. Don Juan, above, speaks in regards to lying to people. I'm NOT suggesting you lie to people. Why? Because you may get in serious legal trouble if you claim to be a doctor and you are not. Or, stating you were a part of a U.S. Navy SEAL Team when you were not. It's illegal.

Here's another point: If you are not well versed in the next blog post in regards to self-importance, you will 'lie' in a more uplifting or positive or self-important fashion. Meaning, if someone asked you what you do for a living, and you feel the need to lie to them, you are going to say something 'bigger' than you are, as opposed to something degrading. Again, this is a post about erasing personal history, not self-importance, but this point needs to be made. What we need to learn to do is combine the arts of erasing personal history and losing self-importance, so if someone asks us what we do, we'll tell them something society finds 'not so glorious.' Such as a homeless person. A convenience store clerk. As opposed to telling them you are an attorney, doctor, etc. See the difference?

By now, you should have at least a basic understanding of erasing personal history. Yet, don Juan mentions the 'desire' to drop it. What's this mean? How do we acquire such a desire? One way to lose the hold our personal history has on us is to use critical thinking. (I'm a huge fan of critical thinking, and then allowing the mind to rest without thinking.) Begin thinking about 'you' and all you've done. Everything you are tied to. Ask yourself if you want and or enjoy freedom; freedom from being tied down by your thoughts, and the thoughts of others, in regards to how you behave, what you do for a living, your relationships, religion, etc.

That's enough for now. This post is long enough. All I can say is to re-read the quotes above and then practice what I've written about. Use YOUR OWN examples in your life. Learn to listen to others and watch their personal history in action. Watch your own need to add your own personal history to conversations. Learn how to critically think about what you know, about yourself and others, for certain. What do any of us know for certain? Become aware. Pay attention. This is a critical part in regards to the mastery of awareness.

I'm quite sure I'll come back and add much more information about this topic, it's that important. Or, I'll just create another post. Now, get going!