Our Four Natural Enemies

Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian shaman from Mexico, endeavored to make available to Carlos Castenada the cognitive world of the shamans who lived in Mexico in ancient times. As time went on, Don Juan revealed that those shamans considered a collection of all the memorable events in one's life as a bona fide device to stir caches of energy that exist within the self. He explained these caches as being composed of energy that originates within the body itself and becomes displaced, pushed out of reach by the circumstances of our daily lives. In this sense, the collection of these memorable events was the means for redeploying their unused energy. According to Don Juan, this collection of memorable events was the vehicle for the emotional and energetic adjustment necessary for venturing, in terms of perception, into the unknown.

Don Juan describes the overarching goal of the shamanistic knowledge he shared as the preparation for facing the definitive journey: the journey every human has to take at the end of his or her life.

Carl Rogers wrote, "If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self- initiated learning." I have found such a guide in the Castenada books about the ancient Yaqui culture.

Castenada uses the term "person of knowledge" to describe the individual who has successfully overcome the obstacles to - in modern jargon - "living life to the fullest" or "realizing one's potential." A "person of knowledge" is not necessarily one upon whom degrees have been conferred, or even one who has the ability to build on on education and venture forth into uncharted realms.

When I speak of a "person of knowledge," I will be referring to an individual who has explored, to the best of his or her ability, his or her psyche, its spiritual, emotional, motivational aspects. Such exploration is neither easy nor comfortable. To a great degree, it involves struggling with the ineffable, those parts of ourselves which are difficult to either define or describe. And, hopefully, as Eleanor Marx said, "By the time your life is finished, you will have earned just enough to begin it well." But we will have accomplished more; we will have prepared ourselves for the major transition of our lives. We will be prepared for death.

Becoming a "person of knowledge" means confronting truthfully the hardships of learning. It means being totally honest with ourselves about our weaknesses and our strengths. It means that slowly and deliberately, without faltering, we explore the depths of our beings.

Can anyone be a "person of knowledge?" No, not just anyone! Then what must a person do to become a "person of knowledge?" He or she must challenge and defeat our four natural enemies. Is that enough to make one a "person of knowledge?" It is if one is capable of actually defeating all four of these enemies. Anyone may try to become a person of knowledge; very few actually succeed. The four natural enemies encountered on the path to knowledge are truly formidable; most people will succumb to at least one of them.

When we start to learn, we usually are not clear about our objectives. Our purpose may be faulty, our intent may be vague. We usually hope for rewards that will never materialize for we know next to nothing about the hardships of learning. We begin to learn slowly, bit by bit at first, and then in big chunks. And soon our thoughts clash. What we learn is never what we pictured, or imagined, and so we begin to be afraid. Learning is never what we expect. Each step in the process involves a new task, and the fear we begin to experience starts mounting mercilessly, unyieldingly. Our purpose becomes a battlefield.

Thus we will have stumbled upon the first of our natural enemies: fear! A terrible enemy - treacherous, and difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting. And if, terrified in its presence, we run away, this first enemy will have put an end to our quest. What will happen if we run away in fear? Exactly nothing! However, we will never learn what the results of confronting our fear might be. So we will never become persons of knowledge. Instead, we may become arrogant, or exploitative, or bullies, or just ineffectual individuals; at any rate we will have been defeated. The first natural enemy will have put an end to the cravings for knowledge and growth.

What must we do to overcome fear? The answer is very simple, although not easy. We must not run away. We must defy our fear, and in spite of it we must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. Even though fully afraid, we must not stop defying fear. That is the rule! And a moment will come when our first enemy retreats. Then we'll begin to feel sure of ourselves. Our intent becomes stronger. Learning is no longer a terrifying task. When this happens - a joyful moment - we can say without hesitation that we have defeated our first natural enemy. It will happen little by little, and yet the fear will be vanquished suddenly and quickly.

Considerable judgment must be used in evaluating the fears which arise in our lives. As Calvin Coolidge said, "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity." Some fears are rational and some are irrational. We must exercise that experience and maturity of which Coolidge speaks and choose carefully what it means to "defy" each fear we encounter. It would be unwise to defy a fear of being run over by automobile traffic by lying down on a lane of a busy freeway, so the means of defying this fear needs to also protect our safety. Even irrational fears might need careful scrutiny to discern what tactics to use. Fear of falling off a cliff becomes more rational the closer one gets to the edge. The act(s) of defiance, external or internal, must be uniquely suited to the fear.

Once we have defeated fear as an enemy we won't, for the rest of our lives, be afraid of some new danger because we will have acquired clarity - a clarity of mind which erases fear. By then we will know our desires and know how to satisfy those desires. We'll be able to anticipate the new steps of learning and a sharp clarity will surround everything. We will feel that nothing is concealed.

We then will have encountered our second enemy: clarity! That clarity of mind, which is so hard to obtain, dispels fear, but also blinds. As Henri Bergson said, "The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." Clarity obscures the path of learning because it forces us to never doubt ourselves. It gives us the assurance we can do anything we please, for we see clearly into everything. We become courageous because we see clearly, and we stop at nothing because we have clarity. But if we stop here we will have made a mistake; our travels on the path to knowledge will be incomplete. We will have succumbed to our second natural enemy. We will be patient when we should rush. W will fumble with learning until we wind up unable to learn anything more. One might turn into a buoyant warrior, or a clown. Yet the clarity which was paid for so dearly will never turn to darkness and fear again. We will have clarity for as long as we live, but we will no longer learn, or yearn for, anything.

To avoid being defeated by clarity we must do what we did with fear: we must defy our clarity, and use it only to see, and wait patiently and measure carefully before taking new steps. We must think, above all, that our clarity is almost a mistake. And a moment will come when we can understand that our clarity was only a point on the horizon and not the whole horizon. Once we have gained this understanding, we will have overcome our second natural enemy. Carl Jung told us, "Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." We will have arrived at a state of self-knowledge where our inner being is safe from harm. This will not be a mistake. Knowing the limits of our clarity will give us true power.

We will know, at this juncture, that the power we have been pursuing for so long is finally claimed. We can do whatever we please. Our connections to the "infinite" will be intimate and interactive. Our wish will be the rule. We will see all that is around us. But we will also have come across the third natural enemy: power! Power is the strongest of all enemies. And naturally the easiest thing to do is to give in; after all, with all that power and clarity and lack of fear comes essential invincibility. One can take command. In the beginning this means taking calculated risks, but we can end up making the rules because we have attained mastery over our first three enemies.

The accrual of personal power is also dependent upon the extent to which we nourish the expectations of others about who we are and what we'll do and where we'll be. The more assiduously we strive to meet the expectations others have of us, the more effectively we yield our power to them. Correspondingly, we can work towards accruing personal power by allowing fewer people to know and understand us and, concurrently, work to undermine the expectations we previously have encouraged others to have of us. This situation is tantamount to moving toward living in a cloud where we are not seen clearly and are not well known by those around us. This, however, constitutes a withdrawal from the "community of humans," the community of family, of friends, of the Fellowship.

As yet, I'm unwilling to become surrounded by a cloud of uncertainty, and thus be unknown by my family, my friends, my Fellowship community. This seems to be the place on my path where I'm stuck. My third natural enemy, power, has come into direct conflict with a value I hold high - maximizing my authentic participation with family, friends, religious community.

At this place on the path of the "person of knowledge," we may hardly notice this third enemy closing in on us. And so we are vulnerable, here, to suddenly, without realizing it is happening, losing the battle to power. If we lose this battle, our enemy can turn us into cruel, capricious persons. Even if we are defeated by power, we will not lose our clarity or our power. A person who is defeated by power dies without really knowing how to handle it. But power is only a burden on that person's fate. That person will have no command over himself or herself, and will not know when or how to use power. Even someone blinded by power can learn to defy it. A person is only defeated when he or she no longer tries to defy this enemy but abandons himself or herself to the belief in his or her superiority.

To defeat our third natural enemy, power, we must do what we did with the first and the second: we must defy it, deliberately. To proceed we must come to know that the power we have apparently conquered is, in reality, never really ours. We must keep ourselves in line at all times, handling carefully and faithfully all that we have learned. If we understand that clarity and power, without exercising control over our behavior, are worse than mistakes, we can reach a point where everything is held in check. Then we will know when and how to use power. And thus we will have defeated our third natural enemy.

We will be, by then, nearing the end of our journey of learning, and almost without warning we will come upon the last of our natural enemies: old age! This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one we won't be able to defeat completely but only fight to postpone its inevitable victory, our death.

This will be a point in time when we will have no more fears, no more impatient clarity of mind, a time when power is in check, but it is also the time when we have an unyielding desire to rest. If we give in totally to our desire to lie down and forget, if we soothe ourselves in tiredness, we will have lost the last round and our enemy will cut us down into feeble, old, impotent creatures. The desire to retreat will overrule all the lack of fear, all the clarity, all the power we fought so hard to gain.

But if we slough off our tiredness, and live our fate through, we can then be called a "person of knowledge," if only for the brief moment when we succeed in fighting off the last invincible enemy. That moment of clarity, power and knowledge is enough!

I began this talk with a quote from Carl Rogers. I conclude with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Great are they who see that the spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world." I interpret these words as a call to action. Let us make good use of the time between now and when we must face our fourth and final enemy.

As we journey through life, we must again and again choose the path we will travel. How do we choose which path to take? In order to choose a path with heart, you must be free from the influences of fear and greed. Even if only for the duration of the inner inquiry! Anyone will know whether a path they're considering has heart. The trouble is that usually the question doesn't get asked. A path without heart is never enjoyable. You would have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

Don Juan said, "For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking breathlessly."

[Rev. Bill Greer and Aynslie Frederickson are members of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County.]

This is a Guest Sermon from our collection. Our Minister's Sermons are in a separate section.