Letter from Bruce W. Du Ve to Luis

January 2005

Hi Luis,

Thanks for taking the time to answer my e-mail. Hope you are settling in to your new home and that it is indeed a true place of heart suitable for a man of heart.

Deserving

Thanks for pointing out the perspective of deserving. All the reasons for not deserving are really in the realm of the judge/victim game. If I look at an object of preference and ask myself if I deserve it, any reason why not is just evidence of the parasite. Put that aside, and the infinite realm of the Nagual opens. I suspect that all the repeating patterns of self destructive and self sabotaging behaviours have their root in a sense of non deserving. Deserving allows life to flow forward and expand. Attention moves off one’s limited self and into the realm of infinite possibility. Non deserving just cripples one and reaches for the addictive response as a distraction from the frustration and pain. Attention turns inward, pushing away possibility and attempting to hide out, in oblivion.

There are a few words of great power that you have given me, and while I am getting a hint of where they can take me, I still have a long way to go to realise them. Surrender, containment, balance, love and deserving are among them. Thank you for planting them in my heart.

Familiarity vs Respect

Luis, one of the most serious obstacles to discipleship and the transmission of important teaching, that I observe in myself and others, is to do with familiarly. The higher nature in the disciple recognises the Nagual in the nagual, and humbly and earnestly seeks to follow it. But then, as the mind becomes familiar with the personality, and the history of (gossip about) the teacher, it subtly devalues the humanity of the master. This is a self protective strategy so that the mind can escape from having to change. It can justify breaking the agreements it has made, even if just by getting relaxed and easy going about moving ahead. I have seen myself doing this in the past with great mentors I have had in the fields of music, medicine etc, and the outcome is that one eventually stops learning and drifts away, first into easy socialising, then into some new field of interest. After the infatuation wears off, there must be something more to sustain the relationship between student and teacher long enough for the transmission of the teaching to be completed. There must be a clear, deliberate strategy to sustain and deepen respect, in order to successfully counter this unfortunate characteristic of humanity. And as every one of us is a teacher and mentor for each other, this virtue of respect must be a vital component of all relationships.

I prefer to address you formally as Luis, if only to remind myself of this tendency, but it takes more that that. When I manage to put aside all of the chaos, and return to that utterly empty/full place of heart that you introduced me to, and view you from there, I recover something of an understanding of the real nature of our relationship. No psychological techniques, tricks or clever rationale can get around this destructive force of familiarity (disrespect). The only thing that I have found that works is a return to heart and a deliberate review of the situation from there. That can take place when I deliberately choose it, which is not often enough, or in formal sessions with you, when you bring me back to my senses by cutting through all the rubbish.

I am starting to realise just how important repeated association is, within the structured framework of the actual work. But it must be over significant enough time to allow real change to take place. Often enough repeated phone sessions, participation in courses etc, hopefully can counterbalance the inevitable informality deriving from social interaction. And that socialising is not just between student and master, but also that which goes on between the students. The recalcitrant can’t seem to hold back the seeds of negativity, which find fertile ground in idle minds. The slightest hint of doubt becomes a wonderful excuse for mental creativity and subsequent avoidance of commitment. I suspect that one must have reached a place of great power to become immune from this stuff, if one ever does.

I hope that I can conquer this issue. Just knowing about it and expressing it is very helpful, but still not the realisation of power. I feel that it is of critical importance that the older students and apprentices are aware of this, are able to express it clearly and demonstrate it by example to the newer people. Realisation = application over time. Familiarity and disrespect kill the drive to application so that it fails to be sustained over sufficient time to finish the job of transformation. Thus, if familiarity is the knife the parasite uses to slay the nagual, Respect is the key to power.

Bruce W. Du Ve is an apprentice of Luis in Dublin, Ireland.