The Tonal and the Nagual

The universe is dual. It is formed by two forces which the old seers symbolized by means of two snakes that are intertwined. But those forces have nothing to do with the dualities we call good and bad, God and Devil, positive and negative, or any other kind of opposing pairs we can think of coherently. Rather, they constitute an inexplicable wave of energy which the Toltecs called the tonal and the nagual.

In an axiomatic way, they established that everything we can interpret or imagine in any way is the tonal, and the rest, which we cannot categorize, is the nagual.

To emphasize that they are not two antagonistic realities, but rather two complementary aspects of one unique force, which they nicknamed 'the Eagle', the seers compared the tonal and the nagual with the two sides of our physical body, the right side and the left side. And they saw that, just as the basic configuration of organisms is almost totally structured from a bilateral symmetry, these are also the forms in which energy manifests itself in the Cosmos, and with it, the way we perceive.

Life is formed when a portion of the free energy of infinity - which the old seers called 'the emanations of the Eagle' – is encapsulated by an external force, becoming a new individual being, aware of himself. And they saw that the perception of the world happens when something they called 'the assemblage point of perception' comes into play. Although that center of selection is in operation in every living being in the universe, the deliberate awareness of oneself, on this Earth, can only be achieved by human beings and a group of species lacking physical organization, whom the seers of antiquity called 'allies'.

Interaction between man and these beings is not only feasible, it is something that frequently happens in our dreams. Sorcerers cultivate it, since the consciousness of inorganic beings, which are much older than us, is filled with something that we all covet: Knowledge.

Having taken on the work of investigating the modes of energy, the sages from old Mexico were urged to describe to their contemporaries what they had discovered. In their effort to find the most appropriate terms, they said that all that exists is divided into light and dark, like day and night. And from there they derived every thinkable binary description. It is a command which reflects the great cosmic duality.

Through their seeing, they discovered that the world of energy is made up of extensive areas of darkness, sprinkled with tiny points of light, and they perceived that the dark areas correspond to the feminine part of the energy, while bright areas correspond to the masculine. They arrived at the inevitable conclusion that the universe is almost in its entirety feminine, and that the bright energy, the masculine, is rare.

By definition, they associated darkness with the left side, the nagual, the unknown, and the feminine; and luminosity with the right side, the tonal, the known, and the masculine. Continuing their observations, they saw that the act of galactic creation happens when the cosmic darkness contracts itself, and from it arises an explosion of light, a spark that expands, giving origin to the order of time and space. The law of this order is that things always have an end, which again implies that the unique and perennial principle of the universe is the dark energy; feminine, creative, and eternal.

Likewise, man is divided into the tonal, represented by his daytime vigil, and the nagual, by his dreams at night. From these observations, the rest of the wisdom of the naguals is derived. They teach that dreams are a doorway to power because, ultimately, what sustains us is the dark energy, to which we go periodically to be renewed. Consequently, they directed all their power towards perfecting the art of becoming conscious while in the state of dreaming. They called that special kind of attention 'dreaming', and they used it to deliberately explore the dark energy and come into contact with the source of the universe. In that way, the initial observation of the wise Toltecs became a practical knowledge.

"The sorcerer's objective is to break the fixation of social interpretations, and to see energy directly. To see is a total perceptual experience." "Seeing energy as it flows is an imperious need on the path of knowledge. Ultimately, all the effort of sorcerers is guided to that end. It is not enough for a warrior to know that the universe is energy; he has to verify it for himself."

"Seeing is a practical matter which has immediate consequences and far-reaching effects on our lives. The most dramatic of them is that sorcerers learn to see time, as an objective dimension."

"Sorcerers maintain that talking about ourselves makes us accessible and weak, while learning how to be quiet fills us with power. A principle of the path of knowledge is to turn your own life into something so unpredictable that not even you yourself knows what's going to happen.

"The only way of leaving the collective inventory is moving away from those who know us well. After a time, mental walls that trap us become a little softer and they start to give in. That's when genuine opportunities for change appear and we can take control of our lives.

"If we were able to transcend interpretation and face pure perception without prejudice, the impression of a world of objects would vanish. In its place, we would witness energy as it flows in the universe. Under such conditions, the chain

of other people's thoughts would no longer have the smallest effect on us and we would not feel obliged to be or do anything. Then our senses would have no limits. That's seeing."

by Armando Torres in Encounters with the Nagual: Conversations with Carlos Castaneda, pp. 59-62, 65-66

"A nagual is empty. That emptiness doesn’t reflect the world, it reflects infinity. A nagual has no boisterousness on his part, or assertions about the self. There is not a speck of a need to have either grievances or remorse. His is the emptiness of a warrior-traveler, seasoned to the point where he doesn’t take anything for granted. A warrior-traveler who doesn’t underestimate or overestimate anything. A quite, disciplined fighter whose elegance is so extreme that no one, no matter how hard they try to look, will ever find the seam where all that complexity has come together.”

The word nagual (nahual) is derived from the ‘Nahuatl language. The common Mesoamerican definition was one who had the ability to transform themselves into an animal. They also had the power to harm or heal depending on their disposition. The nagual is a personal guardian spirit believed by some Mesoamerican Indians to reside in an animal, such as a deer, jaguar, or bird. In some areas the nagual is the animal. Nagualism was linked to the Mesoamerican calendar system and used for divination. The Nahuatl word ‘tonalli’ meaning ‘day’ or ‘day sign’ from which the word Tonal is derived was used to refer both to a day and to the animal associated with that day. Much like the system of the Totem, all humans were thought to have an animal counterpart to which their life force was linked. The nagual would be distinguished by virtue of his birth; powerful sorcerers would be born on a specific day. And just as the Tonal was thought to be the spirit of the day, the Nagual was said to be that of the night. So the Nagual or sorcerer would possess an animal spirit that would be linked to his ‘tonal’, and this relationship would last as long as both existed.

The person who is to receive his nagual traditionally goes to an isolated spot and sleeps. The animal that appears in his dreams or that confronts him when he awakens will thereafter be his particular nagual. Among many modern Mesoamerican Indians, it is believed that the first creature to cross over the ashes spread before a newborn baby becomes that child’s nagual. The belief in nagualism varies from region to region. In some areas it is believed that only the most powerful leaders (usually men) can transform themselves into this animal form to do evil; thus, the word derives from the Nahuatl word nahualli or (“disguise”), applied to the animal forms magically assumed by sorcerers.

The word nagual also has the connotation of “knowledge”. In the Nahuatl language, a number of derivatives from the same root exist, all of them pertaining to “knowledge.” The early missionaries to the New World often spoke of the nagual, as a ‘master of mystic knowledge’.

This is precisely the way in which Don Juan describes himself to Castaneda, as a ‘man of Knowledge’ or as ‘One who knows’.

Don Juan’s Benefactor the ‘Nagual’ Julian Osorio is cited as a being a diablero. He defines this as one who is capable of transforming themselves into an animal or bird. He describes the world of the diableros or that of the sorcerer as opposed to the world of the average man. This is a place where unfathomable mysteries are glimpsed and all things become possible.

Don Juan is also quoted as saying about his benefactor: “Do you know that to this day it’s hard for me to visualize him? I know that sounds absurd, but depending on his needs or the circumstances, he could be either, young or old, handsome or homely, effete and weak or strong and virile, fat or slender, of medium height or extremely short.”

Over the course of his apprenticeship Don Juan described the nagual to Castaneda in detail. The nagual is a double being to whom the “rule” has been revealed. The nagual comes in a male and female pair – the pair becomes the nagual only when the “rule” has been given to each and it has been fully understood by both. A nagual is a teacher, a leader and a guide.

The nagual is said to have extraordinary energy, sobriety, endurance and stability.

The nagual acts a conduit between the spirit and the world – channeling peace, harmony, laughter and knowledge to his/her companions.

The maneuvers of the nagual are based on artifice and subterfuge, but they cannot plan their course of action but instead follow the dictates of the spirit.

A nagual is also capable of moving his own assemblage point and the assemblage point of others. With the nagual there is no assertion of self.

Throughout the works of Castaneda the nagual is also considered to be the world of the second attention – the unknown, the other, the darkside, the left side of awareness, the world of dreaming; this is the battlefield of the warrior, and the training ground for the third attention, the world in which they make their stand. It is both the individual and the world he occupies.

from toltecwarrior.net on May 26, 2012

… and from an interview on October 10, 2008 with Ken Eagle Feather at The Castaneda Forum at tapatalk.com

LR: Can you explain the term Nagualism? How is this different from Shamanism?

KEF: Nagualism is probably a select class of Shamanism; a certain variety of it. It has academic roots going way back to when anthropologists were working with indigenous tribes in Mexico. Don Juan, Castaneda's teacher, uses it to mean a specific class of teaching. So even his definition is different than the academic's. And so one way to relate to it is to consider that there is a lot of shamanic flavour in it, but then there are a lot of things that are different. For instance, you don't necessarily build medicine wheels; you don't necessarily have the trappings of a pipe and feathers. it's very pristine, very streamlined. And also very rough and ready. it's not heavy on the spirituality as most people might define it. It is very individualistic, but yet you work in small teams. it's very, very rigorous and it's aimed not so much to build a world view, such as [is] found in Shamanism, at least in mainstream versions of it, but to actually work on developing perception. There will come a time when you will leave the teachings behind, because to hold on to them would pin down perception. And so there are different stages of growth along the path: from apprentice to practitioner to what don Juan calls a person of knowledge, someone who has grown beyond the teachings. These people are in an entirely different relation with the world. They have found freedom, and are in a state of complete being.

LR: Is Nagualism a religion?

KEF: Only in the sense that it contains a philosophical structure. This means it is a way to accumulate knowledge. But the way you learn, and what you learn, are biased by the type of structure. So, in a sense, structure is a set of beliefs. A person of knowledge is someone who has used different structures, different sets of beliefs to learn the costs and benefits of structures. By evolving beyond the need for structure, the person has figuratively and literally grown beyond belief. One of the tools to help along this evolution is the petty tyrant. This is a person in your life who pushes every button you have. So if you are working with somebody, especially if they are in authority over you, and if they are a little harsh, that's a good thing. Because it makes you work on your own shortcomings. It makes you pull your dirty laundry out of the hamper. Keep in mind that every time you rail and scream at a person you are just projecting onto them a trait within yourself. In order to discharge that energy within you accurately and ruthlessly, so that you may grow into new connections with the world and Spirit, you need to assess your complete circumstances with absolutely no pity, either for others or for yourself. that's when you are on the mark, when you engage energy on that level. The petty tyrant helps to get you there, forces you to work on your own stuff to bring yourself further to light.

LR: So basically what you are saying is that petty tyrants and other kinds of challenges help transform things like fear into power, or confusion into a spiritual clarity?

KEF: Right, definitely in terms of Fear and Clarity. It is interesting that you bring those up because those are two steps along the path that require working directly with energy. Fear is a lack of suppleness in the energy body. This lack of movement translates through the physical body as fear, when it really is just being stuck. One way to fight fear is this: any time you come upon something and the only thing that keeps you from doing it is fear, then your decision is automatically made. You look it straight in the eye and proceed in that direction. From that struggle what you find is that fear is a lack of momentum in your energy body, a lack of fluidity. The energy body is stagnant; it has barnacles and is calcified. The more you jolt your energy body with the new experiences you gain by fighting fear, the more you awaken it. Fighting what was a lack of momentum then delivers you to clarity. The problem with this is you now think you know what's really going on, when all you have [done] is developed a new set of thoughts about what is going on, an enhanced set of beliefs. You then set the stage for becoming a metaphysical (or New Age) fundamentalist. Instead of talking about the material world, you get to talk about the spiritual world, complete with reincarnation, psychic phenomena, and alternative healing. But while you've expanded your world, a grand accomplishment, you haven't grown beyond belief. So the discipline for managing clarity is to not use it, and to pretend that you are still fighting fear.

LR: In Tracking Freedom you write about non patterning, which seems to be at the heart of the Toltec Way. To me this is reminiscent of a Buddhist-like non-attachment. It effects physical, emotional, and mentally based reality as we know it, almost as if you are getting back to a Platonic ideal about things, scrutinizing that Platonic ideal and then releasing even that conceptual hold. Would you say this is true?

KEF: Yes, that's true, and it delivers you to fully understanding that which you will never fully understand. . . . So, non patterning is not putting the world into form. This includes yourself. Pure non patterning means you are not interpreting anything. And when you do interpret something it's on a practical level, to communicate something, for instance. The problem is that by interpreting the world you then hold on to your definitions, your interpretations. Optimally, however, you begin to realize that your world is just a set of mental and emotional constructs about reality. The further you go into reality, the clearer this becomes. Just remember that your enhanced clarity is also your prison. We really don't know anything about what this magnificence called creation is. It cannot be encapsulated. And so non patterning is very much a core Toltec teaching that is designed to constantly keep you open, keep awareness open, and keep perception open.

LR: Some traditions might approach this by divorcing themselves from the world. How does a Toltec live in the world and still stay so deeply within in order to do this work?

KEF: that's interesting, because Don Juan says you really have never learned your lessons if you can't do it in the world. This brings in the discipline of a Path with Heart. This is a path intended to bring you to life. A Path with Heart is formed by deliberately selecting a number of things that you want to involve yourself with: relationships, vocations, hobbies, arts, anything that really connects your heart with the world. The criteria for selection is peace, joy, and strength. You don't worry about money; you don't worry about if you are going to be socially acceptable. If an activity gives you peace, of your Path with Heart. When you have a number of these, you are on your Path with Heart. I have never seen a situation where a person who has a well-developed Path with Heart doesn't have their livelihood taken care of. They get their money; it's just that the emphasis isn't on money. That doesn't mean that money is a bad thing. It is an interesting form of power that can accomplish grand things. Just keep it very balanced, and within its place. Your income should be supportive of your path, not the defining element of it. So if you think it is part of your path, you may have the wrong relationship with your heart. If you think you must have money to accomplish some grand goal, say, to help humanity, it may just be your self-importance. So, like non patterning, the Path of Heart is also an essential feature of Toltec structures. It is something that awakens you and gives you joy as you walk over the earth. Then petty tyrants, no pity, and fighting fear are all exercises, skills to quicken the process so that you can achieve a radical transformation in the life you are living now. They give you a fighting chance to claim your freedom.

LR: What about personal power? It seems that the Toltecs actively and openly engage in acquiring and cultivating their personal power. This is really in contrast to many religions, and yet its use in Nagualism seems to reflect the reasons that other paths avoid it.

KEF: In the modern Toltec world, personal power means having enough energy to continually be more and more aware. In the ancient structures, several thousand years ago, it meant having more power than the next guy, competition, greed, manipulation, these kinds of things. When the Toltec empire got laid to waste by Indian wars and the Inquisition, the remnant went underground and revamped the system. They introduced ethics and from that ethical standpoint a new meaning of personal power evolved. So it relates to being more aware. For that you need more energy, which means you have awakened more of your energy body. That gives you your energy, and your Path with Heart generates energy. And from that energy you become more aware. . . .

LR: While most systems talk about their past masters in terms of highest respect and devotion, not that this is untrue of Nagualism, Nagualism openly talks about the mistakes of past Toltecs. Do you see this as a sign of an evolving path?

KEF: This is definitely an evolving path, and I think one of the distinctions of the Toltec path of knowledge. In some systems, you have a teacher for life, someone to give you a gentle, or sometimes not-so-gentle, reminder of what you're really supposed to be up to. Toltecs, like Don Juan, grab you by the scruff of the neck, work you over up and down, in and out, then set you on your way to fend for yourself. Personally, I appreciate this style of teaching. it's very individualistic, very responsible, very empowering. It lets you assess what your teacher says and does, then figure out if you want to continue exactly that way. Or perhaps you'll even want to get off the path entirely. The effect is similar: the system evolves, as it's not static to a given set of practices. There is nothing to adhere to except the unrelenting drive to develop perception. In this way, you can grow beyond belief.

LR: How do you see your work, and in particular Tracking Freedom, contributing to this evolution?

KEF: Tracking Freedom is the culmination of a learning task don Juan gave me over twenty years ago. He directed me to write books about his teachings. In doing so, I earnestly tried to present views that would crystallize don Juan's teachings, and make them applicable to a variety of situations. For instance, I aimed to make his teachings realizable in the daily world for anyone who was bold enough, or nuts enough, to travel this path. I also wanted to demonstrate how a philosophy works: how it expands perception, how it hems in perception. By understanding what we're working with, we stand a better chance of not getting bogged down in our amazing concoctions about reality. We stand a better chance of tracking freedom.