Luis Molinar Meeting

By Bruce De Vé
September 2003

I write this as a personal regrouping of ideas, in order to begin to obtain the perspective I will need, in order to be able to write a letter of intent to Luis. I do not know if it will be read by anyone else, or whether it might actually do harm, by conditioning another to expectation of what might be experienced in a personal meeting with the angel of death, the nagual. I will leave that to Luis.

After my first recognition of and meeting with don Lois one week ago, with its many associated omens, I had had some days to reflect and experience some of my resistances to change. I was about to enter the unknown, and face the probability of potentially uncomfortable and frightening sacrifice. Sacrifice of my assumptions, my prejudices, my clingings to ideas of security, all of the "needed" props in my life, which have created and sustained my identity. I faced the prospect of hearkening to the unreasonable demands of omen and intuition, over the familiar security of the known.

I came to the meeting without fear, an unusual thing for me. He welcomed me politely, and interviewed me more with regard to my intent, rather than my history. For a while, we discussed a few points and possibilities. He spoke about the role of the spiritual insect, that stops here and there to taste a bit of the honey, and then moves on in its random quest for spiritual soup. That was one possibility regarding our future relationship.

He discussed the role of the student, who adheres more closely to the tradition, learns much about structure and method, but still sits at the edge of the firelight, unwilling to surrender and commit.

He spoke about apprenticeship, where both apprentice and master commit to realising the intent of the student to its fullness. He spoke of his apprenticeship to don Miguel, and the unrelenting firmness with which his master had held him to his intent during that time. He spoke of his own method of mentoring, individualised to meet the specific needs of each apprentice, bringing the individual to a full realisation of that which was the heartfelt meaning for and purpose of that life. And at some point, after rapport had been established, he suddenly began to reflect the fullness of the Divine, flooding me with power and light.

Everything in me began to resonate. My awareness expanded. I became aware of my heart. I began to feel a sensation there. Love and power surrounded it, but it seemed as though there was a barrier between my heart and the light. It would not let go.

The room filled with a golden aura, something I have sometimes experienced before as a result of deep inquiry with honest intention and no expectation. His face changed again and again, to older faces, many of them with darker skin, different hair, different degrees of weathering. They were nearly all faces of the older American races, though one or two had the order and dignity of the earlier Spanish. My mind attempted to explain and order the new information. I observed the mental processes, but noticed also that I did not react to or become distracted by them. I observed the idea that it was "wrong" to think during an important transformational experience, but did not respond to it. My thought processes were allowed to occur, and were observed, as one would watch a child at play from a distance, without lessening the experience of being the observer.

The pressure of the power emanating from Luis continued to produce a resonance in me, filling the room with light. At times the room almost disappeared. The pressure remained in my heart. Luis asked me what I was experiencing. It was difficult to give an answer. I was reluctant to interrupt the process. I described it clumsily, as best I could, and observed that it was as though a wall were in place, a solid creation of fear at the front of my heart, erected to protect it from perceived outer attack. A wall between the Divine outside and the Divine within.

An involuntary struggle ensued. Moments of grief, profound sadness, physical struggle, facial movements, tears, familiar signs of the unwinding of old judgements, and after a while, my body began to relax. Luis acknowledged the change. The heart began to surrender its reluctance, began to unfold and open. It was as though the ruthless knife of love was severing the thongs so tightly bound around it, by past defensiveness against suffering.

Luis pointed out things about me, my abilities, my challenges, my destiny, which were clear to both of us. He discussed the details of formalising an apprenticeship agreement. The creation and refining of a letter of intent. The discovery of and commitment to the agendas of the heart, rather than the "shoulds" and "have to's" of the domesticated mind.

He outlined the process of the ritual killing of the mind, and cutting out of the heart. I acknowledged the "serious" nature of the undertaking, but was not afraid. The mind recognised the resonance with the methods of the alchemists, the putting off of the old man, and the putting on of the new. Recollections passed by, of the Egyptian Hermetists, of Zoroaster, of Saint Paul, of the Essenes, of the techniques taught by Christ to Saint Mathew and passed on to the Egyptian Copts.

He spoke of the final preparation for death, the return to Teotihuacán, to finally walk the avenue of the dead. Out of survival, through the portal of death, and into Life, leaving the affairs of the past behind, officially and formally concluded. I recalled the ancient Egyptian saying, that "The wise man dies every day of his life". But none of these thoughts had any charge, they just passed by, noted, but not responded to.

He told me much detail of the road to Teotihuacán and the path of death. He asked me was I ready to die. It was so. All I have done is done. The four years of preparation with Mouni Sadhu. The thirteen years of under the gracious influence of Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. The Tibetan practice of Chod. The humiliation experienced under the discipline two years of Tai Chi and Qi Gong, and the eight years of discipline under Stars Edge Inc. All the preliminary work is complete. Even the formal dispensing of duty to atone and amend for past sins has been resisted long enough and is now doable. The path of the apprentice forks off from the broad way of the victim, that "leadeth unto destruction". The cost of the journey is the willingness to do whatever is necessary, rather than what is comfortable and convenient.

I told him of my alignment with the Aztecs from my early childhood. My intuitive leanings towards South American culture. My trip to Argentina. I told him of my understanding of how the Aztecs had misread the Heart/Sun ritual, and made it into a bloody misrepresentation of what is in truth, an alchemic, spiritual transformation. He asked me if I understood the ritual. I explained the process of union of the divine within, with the Divine without. He concurred. Christ's statements in the Gospel of Thomas came to mind. He speaks of making the male and female one, the outer and the inner one, as prerequisites to Truth and Life.

Luis developed the historical theme of the Aztec warrior cult, where the internal battle of the Toltec, mistakenly became an outer battle, marked by fierceness and the conquest of the outer dream, rather than the inner one. This is the history of all the great religions. Mental attempts at a bureaucratic formalising of Divine truths have inevitably ended in mass bloodshed, jihads, inquisitions, civil war, confusion and misery.

He absolved me. He declared the past forgiven and complete. The future likewise. He took away my history, past and future, and left me nothing but the moment. He skilfully trapped me in the now.

He reflected the Divine again, powerfully, ruthlessly, triumphantly. An inner sun revealed itself, shining, golden and bright, just as Sri Ramana Maharshi told us it would. The reluctance was still there, but it didn't matter. The Power of the Creator is greater than all the effort of resistance that can be mustered up by a mere creature. I recalled Paul Brunton's description in "A Search in Secret India", of his meeting with Maharshi. Later, Luis explained that behind the sun lies the place where the Toltec goes to and comes from. The place of intent. That while we believe the creator to be the primordial reality, that it is in fact intent which precedes the Word. The mystical defies the mind, challenging it to quiescence. Saint John's introduction to his gospel is such a koan.

Luis told me that my history of book learning regarding spirituality would be an obstacle to my surrendering to truth, and that it is easier to work with the uncluttered mind of the untutored student. I recognise and experience this, but I know that this too will pass. Knowledge is just composed of thoughts and judgements, cemented in place by agreement. Spiritual training is just another form of domestication, and it too shall be transcended and abandoned. "If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him". Timing is of the essence. I was unready before. I am ready now.

Any struggle I face now, is with the circumstances of my obligations to others. My patients, my partners in business and in life. My students and my children. In the past, my game plan has to been to try and do what is best for others. It has always ended up not being what was best for anyone. It does not work. The heart of the Toltec message is, that what is best for oneself, will inevitably be what is best for all. It is a hard reversal to make, but it is time to do it. It is the harsh path of maturity and responsibility, the straight and narrow way.

He told me that part of the commitment is to continue to practise and teach the principles of the Toltec, in whatever path I take or communication I may make in the future. There is no right or wrong path, only mistaken perception.

As I perceive it, the path is neither long nor short, but has its origin and ending in intent, is pursued through integrity to that intent, and completes itself in a personal reintegration, with the realisation of that intent. It starts, is followed, and ends in the present, now. The Alpha and the Omega lie outside of time, in the Eternal.

My spiritual domestication tells me that Self Realisation is hard, is reserved for the prepared few, and that the best I can hope for is to "see through a glass darkly, but not face to face". And this only after much hardship and sacrifice. My archetypes of perfection are out of reach, and my failure to meet my own standards locks me in shame and hopelessness. My intention must encompass a relinquishing of these limitations. These are simply limiting beliefs, invested with great importance. They are core aspects of the "old man", the limited, helpless, victim, ego, impaled on the cross of the "body am I" belief. To truly die to self, even my wonderful education and "spirituality", must be sacrificed in the fire of the real sun, the Divine. My intent is to utterly destroy myself in that fire, so that whatever phoenix arises from its ashes, may have no old feathers sticking to it. My mind baulks at this. It really seems too great an undertaking. It is certainly beyond the capability of the victim I create myself as being, and perhaps that is as it should be.

One realisation I have had is that is has been my mental attempts to recall spiritual experiences, which have locked me out of their light. The mind wants to be the reference point for experience, by referring to the past. But only God can be the eternal reference for truth, and remains hidden from the mind, in the eternity of now.

The spiritual can only be recalled by actual re-experience. And each new experience is new, bringing with it new gifts of insight and peace. The mind can never embrace the transcendental, as it is that very mind that is transcended in Spirit. The ego's frantic, victim efforts to be seated at the feast table of the Divine, only meet with apparent denial. The bars that seem to lock me outside the doorway of Paradise are made of that feeling of rejection. The mind knows that the feast is going on, and yearning to be invited, feels only the pangs of rejection and victimisation. It seems so cruel and ruthless to kill the poor creature, and leave it bleeding at the gate.

Compassion would have it otherwise. But that is the warrior's task.