“To attain freedom
you must submit voluntarily
to discipline and organization”

It was almost a decade ago when I first heard this old adage.  I was waiting for them, in a nice café, those designed for college students, poets and artists.  I was sitting there, sipping a foamy cup of something I had just discovered.  I was trying my best to look alert.  I feared they would just walk past me if they found me distracted.   Sitting there, looking at everyone coming in—“Is that them?” 

“No, not them”. 

I don’t know what I was expecting.  Certainly not undescprit characters in black hooded robes.  The kind of beings you’re sure you’ve seen before but can’t really remember when.  I suppose I was expecting people who looked like everyone else, but who would alert something within.  Something in me would stir, sit up, and take notice.  I would recognize them, I was sure of that.

Sure enough, they were suddenly there.  Mike and Bob.  Yes, like in Twin Peaks, but this happened before the series.  Otherwise I would have sworn it was a bad joke they were playing (like this guy in a Carlos Castaneda newsgroup who took up the name “Juan Carlos” right after Castaneda’s death, pretending to be an expert and to be in contact with the real teachings of Don Juan).  No, they were really Mike and really Bob.  They looked like typical Americans, looking a bit weird like all Americans.  It was during our conversation that an ineffable quality begun to be evident for me.  Right then, a Chamber begun to be formed, and I knew we had been here before.  Right when it was sealed, they announced, “let’s take a ride”.

Encapuchado. 

My body wanted to react with violence.  It wanted to flee.  It wanted to panic.   They asked, very politely.  “Would you agree to wear this hoodwink before we get to the abbey?”  It looked exactly like I had imagined it many times.  Black.   Heavy.  Taking away freedom, clarity, security, freedom.  Images of my childhood wanted to surface in my consciousness—memories and fears of seeing people taken away—forever.

“Sure, no problem”.

Let’s talk about engines.  Perhaps it will become clearer.  A modern combustion engine can be said to work by securely enclosing a series of chambers, within which many intense explosions take place.  Sealing the chamber is as important as allowing the explosion to take place.   The engine would not work if one of these conditions is not present.  In other words, work is accomplished when a series of explosions of energy is contained by strongly secured chambers.  Work and change come as a function of bounded chaotic releases of energy. 

That kept going through my mind, as I sat in the back seat of the car unable to see where I was, blindfolded.  My body felt like an engine in its own right, responding to the sound of the car and the feel of the dirt road under it by releasing mini-bursts of light and heat.  I could feel the bursts racing through my back and in my solar plexus.  My eyes were seeing flashes of color, as if coming from inside my skull.  “Where is this coming from?” I asked myself.

About half an hour later, the car stopped.  I was brought to a room inside what seem to be a big house.  I was lead to a small room, empty but for a glass of water, a candle, and a sitting mat in the corner.  I was asked to wait in meditation.  The symphony of color and sensation increased.  It increased to the point where I was no longer surprised by it, as if those sensations occurred every day. My hearing was very acute, and the lighting and space of the room were playing tricks on me. (No, I had not drunk the water.  I am brave, not stupid).

My situation reminded me of a Zen parable.  A seeker was contacted by an agent of the Sacred Chao, affiliate of the C.C.C.  He was given exact directions to the place where he could receive initiation, become enlightened, received the ancient teachings, and learn the Lambada.  He was told to go to a specific address, to enter through the back door at exactly the right time (no sooner and no later, he had to time it to the minute).  He was carefully instructed to sneak in, and to avoid being discovered.  To do this, he had to be quiet, and alert to sounds of footsteps and conversations.  He was given a partial but detailed map of the house, clearly laying down the route he was supposed to take.  Once he got to the room, the instructions said, he should take a seat on the sitting mat in front of the candle and the glass of water.  He was commanded to sit in meditation.  The instructions promised enlightenment in exactly twenty minutes—as long as he had followed instructions to the letter and not broken his concentration. 

He followed his instructions to the letter.  He did not break his concentration, nor his attention—which he had cultivated for years now by bargain hunting in Latin American countries.  All the details of what he was seeing and experiencing did not detract him from what he was doing, nor from why he was doing it.  He sat down, not drinking the water, and waited in deep but alert meditation.  He did not succumb to the impulse of looking at his watch to see how many minutes had passed, that would break his concentration.  He waited.  He didn’t let the creaks and grunts coming from the ceiling distract him either.  In fact, not even the tiny drop of water falling on his head was enough to make him break and move.  After roughly twenty minutes, a series of sounds coming from the second floor let the seeker know that someone was using the toilet facilities exactly above his head.  A minute or two later, the same someone flushed the toilet.  Suddenly, the ceiling gave way, and instead of an annoying drop of water, a whole load of excrement and urine fell on his head.  At exactly that moment, without giving him enough time to react, a group of people came into a room, they looked like a typical tourist group led by a local guide.  “…and this is one of the abandoned rooms of the old abbey.   The exact purpose of this room is still under debate.  Oh, and if you see in that corner of the room you’ll see a controversial figure of the abbey.  He’s always sitting there and no one seems to ever interact with him, or know anything about him.  Some say he is one of the enlightened masters, a true teacher of the ancient world.  Others say he is just a shit-head”.  At that moment, the seeker was enlightened.  He never learnt to dance, though.

So, roughly twenty minutes later, they came for me.

This time, I was blindfolded and bound on my wrist and ankles.  Someone led me through an underground labyrinth, which we took a long time to navigate because I was forced to take very small steps; limited as I was by my binds.

The physical binding and the emotional and psychological strangeness of the whole situation combined to create an inner direction to the explosions produced within my nervous system.  Once inside the chamber, I knew there were others there—others who had gone through the same experience.   At some point in the ritual, they finally took off my bounds and my blindfold.  The room had the feel of been a secret chamber in the middle of the dessert.  That’s when the sheik of the group said to me:

“For centuries is been taught in our ancient order, that in order to attain freedom you must submit voluntarily to discipline and organization”

That certainly resonated with the whole ritual.  “Submit voluntarily to discipline and organization”.  That was a formula that lead to the attainment of the feeling of freedom.  It was clearly not about obeying a teacher, nor was it about following the commandments of another being (supreme or not).  The will was involved, so was the surrendering of control.

For some, this formula might seem self-contradictory.  That is ok.  To actually live and understand it, to experience it, a different state of awareness is required.   Not the usual state where we are under the involuntary control of society, people’s opinions, our desires, the unconscious plotting of the shadows, and fear.

How is freedom attained through a purgatory of discipline?  It is not by killing the sensibility of the body and the mind through misconceived “discipline”.  Discipline is not punishment and fear.  It is not bribery, either. 

Discipline is the proper alignment of the Will with the Intent.

The difference between Will and Intent is subtle, but very real.  Understanding this difference, experiencing it, brings a new understanding to what discipline is.  Discipline, as used in this book, is like a slow blue fire created by the Will’s constant friction against the resistance of the false personality.  False personalities within ourselves keep plotting against the manifestation of the Will.  By invoking Will properly and frequently, we generate this energy, this blue fire which slowly but surely transforms and solidifies something inside of us.  That something is what allows us to act with freedom—not under the whims of vanity, ego, rage, competition, status, avarice, hunger, etc.

In the next section, we explore this issue further.  How do we attain this so-called discipline?  How is it different from what society now calls discipline?

Experiment 1: What I Really Want To Do!

1. Start by setting aside about a half hour of time in a place where you won't be interrupted by anyone.

2. Sit in the space calmly for a few minutes, doing any Experiment or practice that you are familiar with (including any in this book/site) to clear your mind of thoughts.

3. Take out a piece of paper and a pencil or pen.

4. Look around the room at all the possible small actions that you can take in the room.

5. Now write down on the paper: "I should ________ " and fill the blank with a small   action that you "should" do in the room.

6. Look around the room at all the possible small actions that you can take in the room.

7. Now write down on the paper "I could ______ " and fill the blank with a small action that you "could" do in the room.

8. Look around the room at all the possible small actions that you can take in the room.

9. Now write down "What I really want to do is _____ " and fill in the blank with "what you really want to do".

10. Now perform the action that "you really want to do".

11. When you are finished come back to the sitting position (if you left it) and clear your mind once again.

12. Repeat the process from step 4 several times until the half hour is over.

Experiment: What I Really Want to Do! Part 2

1. Write down something that you need to complete, either for work or for yourself.

2. Next to this, write down something you would rather be doing. (Both of this should be activities that you can perform on your own at your house or wherever you are performing the experiment.)

3. Now set a timer to 15 minutes and start to do what you "have to do". When the 15 minutes are over, STOP! Take a few breaths.

4. Now set the timer to 15 minutes again and start to do what you would "rather be doing". When the 15 minutes are over, STOP! Take a few breaths.

5. Repeat this cycle until a couple of hours have passed or until both activities are finished (if they have a definite ending point.)

6. Write down any "results" or "perceptions" that you have while you are doing this.

Experiment: Nothing to Do!

1. Set aside a whole day for this experiment in a place where there is noone else besides you. If you live alone, this will simply mean unhooking the phone and computer and not answering the door. If you live with many people, this may involve renting a place away from home and leaving for a weekend.

2. The night before the exercise begins, write down your decision to go through with the following experiment. The aim is simple: I will DO NOTHING for one whole day. Prepare three cold meals for the next day that you can store.

3. In the morning, either  sit or lie somewhere comfortable. DO NOTHING. That includes: don't read, don't watch TV, don't fix things around the place, etc. No matter how small the task may seem, DON'T DO IT!

4. When you feel hungry, eat one of the meals that you prepared the previous day.

5. If you feel intense anxiety, breathe through it. If you feel desperate, breathe through it. If you feel intense emotions, breathe through them.

6. When night comes, keep on doing nothing until you fall asleep.

7. When you wake up the next day, write down some of the thoughts, feelings, visions and perceptions that appear to you.

[ Freedom Intro ] [ How Freedom Collapses ] [ The Mood of Freedom ] [ Freedom - Purgatory - Shamanmusic ] [ Discipline without Carrot and Stick ] [ Breakdown of Personality and its Bonds ] [ What does movement mean? ] [ The Corridors ] [ The Rooms ] [ Resistance - It's not a bad thing! ] [ How The Personality Hides ] [ Personality Hiding Tricks ]