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The human form is a conglomerate of energy fields which exists in the universe, and which is related exclusively to human beings. Shamans call it the human form because those energy fields have been bent and contorted by a lifetime of habits and misuse.

A warrior knows that he cannot change, and yet he makes it his business to try to change, nevertheless. The warrior is never disappointed when he fails to change. That's the only advantage a warrior has over the average man.

Warriors must be impeccable in their effort to change, in order to scare the human form and shake it away. After years of impeccability, a moment will come when the human form cannot stand it any longer and leaves. That is to say, a moment will come when the energy fields contorted by a lifetime of habit are straightened out. A warrior gets deeply affected, and can even die as a result of this straightening out of energy fields, but an impeccable warrior always survives.

The only freedom warriors have is to behave impeccably. Not only is impeccability freedom; it is the only way to straighten out the human form.

Any habit needs all its parts in order to function. If some parts are missing, the habit is disassembled.

The fight is right here on this earth. We are human creatures. Who knows what's waiting for us, or what kind of power we may have?

The world of people goes up and down and people go up and down with their world; warriors have no business following the ups and downs of their fellow men.

The core of our being is the act of perceiving, and the magic of our being is the act of awareness. Perception and awareness are a single, functional, inextricable unit.

We choose only once. We choose either to be warriors or to be ordinary men. A second choice does not exist. Not on this earth.

The warriors' way offers a man a new life and that life has to be completely new. He can't bring to that new life his ugly old ways.

Warriors always take a first event of any series as the blueprint or the map of what is going to develop for them subsequently.

Human beings love to be told what to do, but they love even more to fight and not do what they are told, and thus they get entangled in hating the one who told them in the first place.

Everybody has enough personal power for something. The trick for the warrior is to pull his personal power away from his weaknesses to his warrior's purpose.

Everyone can see, and yet we choose not to remember what we see.

Commentary

Years went by before I wrote The Second Ring of Power. Don Juan was long gone, and the quotations from that book are memories of what he had said, memories triggered by a new situation, a new development. Another player had appeared in my life. It was don Juan's cohort, Florinda Matus. All of don Juan's apprentices understood that when don Juan left, Florinda was left behind to somehow round up the last part of our training.