What are the Toltec Teachings?

You may have heard the word Toltec and vaguely associated it with Aztec and Mayan cultures, or, you may be able to connect it to the work of Carlos Castaneda, who is rightly considered the father of all new age movements, being the first to get wide recognition for bringing up self-development and self-empowerment issues. In actual fact, the word Toltec, as it is used by Theun Mares, the Nagal, and creator of the Toltec Teachings, (see www.toltec-foundation.org.com) refers to a covert tradition stretching back across millennia, whereby through methods and techniques known to members, and initiates, knowledge, true knowledge, could be gained that would lead to freedom. This knowledge and the tradition it stems from have been now made public by Theun Mares, by virtue of fact that since June 1995, mankind has come of age, and now must take responsibility for himself, and his world.

Now the first emergence of this knowledge was through Carlos Castaneda, specifically through the man he named Don Juan, who was indeed a fine Toltec warrior. Confusion has arisen though, because many see Castaneda as a Toltec teacher, when in truth, he was simply a very gifted messenger, of the existence of the teachings, and not a teacher as such. It’s also true that he did not always report the teachings exactly as Don Juan gave them to him. He was, economical with the truth. A product perhaps of him being a best-selling author? Whatever. He was one of the great writers of the twentieth century, who does present us with profound, awe inspiring, sublime, truths. Also, it is important to understand that before Castaneda, all esoteric writing had only a small coterie audience. Castaneda brought it into the mainstream, creating an interface between the academic and the shamanic world. In doing this he did us all a profound service. Don Carlos was my first teacher. Not personally, but through his work, and I, along with many others, owe him an immense debt of gratitude.

Since 1995 the true Toltec teachings have existed in book form. A complete set of Toltec manuals for self-transformation and empowerment, and a very brilliant, well presented and well conceived set they are! Perfectly structured to the lead the would-be apprentice from right side awareness, through to left side awareness, with apposite axioms and guidance, at every step of the way. If I may cite my own case. I had made good progress working with Castaneda, but was still far from any true understanding, or real self-awareness. The true teachings solved this problem for me, and I was eventually able to see the interrelationship of life, something which has empowered me enormously.

Now the point of this article is to show the teachings in relation to other systems, or things available at this point in time. The list would include Neil David Walsch, Osho, Eckhart Tolle, Suzuki, Watts, De Mello, A course in Miracles, and many more writers, teachers etc. Now, I want to make it clear that I think all this work is extremely useful, and it does, for the most part, contain absolute truth, and that this is a wonderful and comforting thing. So. How do the Toltec-Teachings differ? The answer is that if, if, you were really committed about self-transformation; were you one of those few dedicated beings who will settle for nothing less, than being a warrior on the path of freedom, then the above, is simply not enough. Why? Because it is not enough simply to be told ‘the truth’. We may know it, but we still do not own it. Like it or not, it is a verifiable fact of ‘depth psychology’, that due to our inner split, we can hold knowledge, without really acknowledging it. Or, put another way, being enlightened isn’t just having the right answers. Nowadays we can memorize the right answers from any number of published works, but will that guarantee that when we walk out the front door we will act in an enlightened manner? The answer must be a resounding NO!!!!!! Another analogy would be the math’s test. If we were to take one and simply write down the right answers would we pass? No. Without the relevant working out we will not get full marks. Similarly it is not enough to talk glibly about ‘process’ work. How people love to talk, but is this ‘process’ really going in the right direction. It it an effective ‘process’? Whichever way you turn the same fact confronts us.

INFORMATION IS NOT KNOWLEDGE

And just because we talk intelligently about things does not mean we have gained experience or true knowledge. And this is how the Toltec-Teachings differ, in that they do not just impart truths, but also provide us with tools whereby these truths can be corroborated for oneself. They provide practical techniques whereby truth, can be owned through experience, and then put to a meaningful use within your life. In short they don’t just tell you things. They give you guidance on how you can find things out for yourself. I make this point strongly for so often I see headstrong people, who have all the answers on anything you care to mention, and yet these people are still desperately unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives. They will sit there advising you on self-development, or inner work, whilst at the same time being incapable of being happy, or having a relationship, or knowing any kind of purpose themselves. Madness.

This is how the teachings differ. I hope this article might help to clear up some of the confusion which surrounds the word Toltec. I am not an official spokesperson for the teachings, just someone who has used them successfully. Obviously in the final analysis there is no substitute for the teachings themselves, and I urge everyone to familiarize themselves with them, for no matter what your motive, they are mankind’s most invaluable asset, at this moment in time.

www.toltec-foundation.org

the authentic you and theatre improvisation

Problems often stem from having internalised or introjected (clever depth psychology word), a very literal model of life, the universe, and everything! So that what always happens is this. Example. You feel stimulated and alive, say as a teenager. Then you get a bit older and through habit or whatever, you lose that feeling. To regain it you start drinking more stimulating drinks, like tea and coffee. Problem solved! Or is it? Well, in truth, as we all discover, stimulating yourself is fine, but there does come a point where the toxic nature of this forces you to stop. So there is big drawback with this method and, there is also the fact that stimulating yourself leaves you feeling empty and hollow. It like Chinese water torture. This is a stimulant which over time turns into a nightmare of pain. Problem being that it doesn’t spring from within you. It just a delusion, or what we could term delusional behavior. Somehow or other we have become conditioned into accepting it as the real deal. It is a dogma. Creed. Belief. We say, I will create or make the way I feel. I will not simply accept the way I feel. But to accept a feeling state you forced on yourself! as being real, the ’authentic’ you, is a delusion! We go on doing it though, for we have invested so much faith and trust in it, we really can’t imagine a world without it. It is our comfort, our balm, our pint of bitter and a packet of crisps! Try and remove it and the weeping and wailing begins. Or rather, THE ANXIETY! And people, even big strong men, do not want to feel their fear. Now I said at beginning, rather dogmatically, that all problems stem from being too literal. How does this apply here? Well stop. Think, Horatio!

1. We don’t feel stimulated.

2. Stimulating drinks stimulate us so we drink one.

3. We feel stimulated!

In other words, our way of solving the problem IS QUITE LITERAL! It is simple cause and effect. A + B = C! But as I have demonstrated, this literal model is not helping you. You’ll end up feeling hollow and empty and toxic, and is that what you want really want, really want?

Here is another way to look at it. Suppose you have a problem with John. You get an angry unfocussed feeling when you near to him. So literal model states you must go straight to the problem. So you must confront John about this. But fact is, John is gay. You are a straight bloke. This is real problem area. So you confront John and say, “I’ve got a problem with you. You must do something.” So john says, “Yes. I’ll stop being gay.” Problem solved! But truth is, he just humoring you, and even if he isn’t, what about when you meet other gay men?

Now. Here is yet another example. Suppose you don’t understand yourself. Your subjective world. So, Literal Model states, you go straight there. You take a drug. A mind altering substance. This forces the hidden part to emerge. It unlocks the door. Hey presto! Problem solved! But is it? And this the hard part to understand. There is big difference between experiencing something and working with it. It therapy terms it the difference between what is ‘acting out’ and what is ‘resolving’. This difference is not one though that the rational mind can easily grasp. Only thru experience can you begin to grasp the difference here. Bear in mind, experiencing is not experience. Experiencing is what is constantly happening, whereas experience is something looked back on which we have learnt from. I can corroborate this from my own experience. As a teenager I experimented with LSD. I remember vividly, on one trip, looking in a mirror and seeing a monster starring back at me, and at the time thinking, I will not deal with that now. Now is not the moment to try and deal with this monster inside me. And it wasn’t. I was experiencing. Years later, when I started therapy, I began to work with this monster. Which was not a monster at all, but simply my latent potential.

Moving on to Theatre Impro. You can see this same thing quite clearly. Scenes always tend to go in an unproductive, in the sense of not developing in a more psychological or interesting direction, i.e. not just comedy, because people approach things head on, or in too literal a manner. If scene starts with ‘A’ in a room. ‘B’ will enter and direct his focus and attention onto ‘A’.

(A in room painting a wall. B enters.)

B. What are you doing?

A. I’m painting the wall.

Now this is really a block, it impedes development, as we can see what A is doing and speech told us nothing about B. If on contrary, B enters and does not direct his focus onto A, i.e., is not literal or head on, and instead sits on a chair with his head drooped, we have..

(A in room painting a wall. B enters. Sits with head drooped.)

A. (Painting.) You’re not still depressed are you?

B. Yes I am.

Now this not a block. It tells us stuff about the characters and points the way forward; we must now learn why B is depressed, and what the relationship is, and all because it arose from a non-literal model. Think! Literally speaking a scene which begins with a man painting a wall is about wall painting, and the man’s relationship to it. Just as a play about injustice, has a man wrongly accused of crime and being sent to prison. THIS IS THE LITERAL MODEL!

HOWEVER. None of the above is a hard and fast rule. These are rather guidelines or areas to think in. Generally speaking, when entering a scene, it is more about feeling around something, rather than looking straight at it. It is like crossing your eyes. Shifting the focus. Ask yourself, how do I feel here? Literally, you may be in a shop buying trousers but non-literally you are feeling impatient because…????? You’re late? You’re tired of wearing trousers???? The shop assistant loves you but won’t admit it?????

To recap. You enter a scene in which it is not decided yet what scene is about, but in which some action is happening. Say a man reading the paper. So, Literal Model states, you go straight there. You approach man and say, “ Why are you reading the paper?” This version A. But in version B. The non-literal model. You enter scene where man reading paper and it not decided what scene about and you ignore the man, go over to window, draw curtain, look out, and say, “They’ll be here in ten minutes. Don’t you think we should get ready?”

Now. Which version will lead to a more interesting outcome. A or B?

Another impro issue is naturalness. How can I act natural in a scene? How is it done? Again, taking a literal model we say to ourselves, what is my memory of naturalness or other people’s behavior? I’ll imitate that! This means every shop assistant you play will be modeled on some behavioral model you’ve witnessed and remembered. This is natural. Real. You remember how shop assistants are so if you imitate that and it will, WILL, be natural. It stands to reason.

But think Horatio. This is yet another LITERAL model. It’s literal because there is a literal connection between observed behavior and your performance because it is an imitation. It is the same. However, the audience will not see it as natural for they know shop assistants are also people, regardless of behavior and people are all different. They all have agendas based on their own quirky and idiosyncratic feelings and ideas. So again, the literal approach will convince you, you ARE being ‘natural’, when in reality, you’re not, Horatio! NO YOU AINT!

If through lack of experience of doing impro you find all this hard to understand, don’t worry. Important thing to understand is that it is possible to work with issues of authenticity in a theatre or impro context. And this not psycho-drama. In psycho-drama, negative feeling states are enacted to identify with them. In our work we use the non-literal model in order to detach from these feelings states and see beyond them. So we can, see ourselves ‘acting out’. ‘Identifying.’

It is only normal though, that people have trouble accepting this. We do live in a very ‘literal,’ ‘more is more,’ ‘things go in straight lines,’ world. To move beyond that is a real leap of faith. Imagination. It is worth leaping though, for in impro terms, or theatre terms, or just in living your life terms, contacting the authentic you will put you in touch with where all the really juicy scenes are, HORATIO!

Backwards Theatre Workshops August!!!

The Third Point of Reference
A theatre/improvisation/music workshop. (Come and have fun improvising, acting, singing, or even just observe, no pressure.)
Monday nights during August at 7:00 (3-09, 10-09,17-09,24-09.)
@
The Chisenhale Dance Space
64-84 Chisenhale road
Contact: Ian 0207 987 9678
Stella 0208 694 0197
backwards theatre

Delbert's Glasses illustration

Delbert's Glasses (Children's Story)

Once upon a time there was an elephant named Delbert Trunk who liked to look at everything. He liked to look at a tree. He liked to look at a lion. He liked to look at a river. He liked to look at a cloud. He liked to look at a flower. He liked to look at a mountain. Everything! That was all he did. The other elephants in the herd did important stuff. Banking. Book keeping. Stamping about. Inventing things. But all Delbert did was look.
But then he got ill.
He went to the herd Doctor, Dr. Tusk, who said, you have eye disease from too much looking! You must stop. So Delbert did as he was told, for he respected the medical profession, and he closed his eyes.
Forever.
The other elephants led him about by the trunk, so he was okay, but he didn’t look anymore. Not at a tree. A flower. A lion. A river. A mountain. Not at anything.
Nothing! And the Doctor was pleased. You’re cured! Yes, said Delbert. Cured. And everything seemed fine.
But then at the weekly stamp in the big clearing Delbert did a strange thing. He was supposed to stamp to the right, but he stamped, to the left! The herd was shocked. Delbert was called before the elephant council. Why did you stamp to the left? I just forgot. Forgot?! Forgot?! But an elephant never forgets! Sorry. There was much shock and outrage throughout the herd. But it didn’t stop there. Delbert now continually forgot stuff. He forgot to trumpet on hearing a lion roar. He forgot to take some flowers to the elephants’ graveyard. One time he even forgot he was an elephant! In the end it was too much. He was called again before the elephant council. Delbert! You’re banished! What?! Yes. Banished! With a capital ‘b’! but…but… but… no buts!!! Pack your trunk. So Delbert the elephant packed his trunk and said goodbye to the herd.
He wandered in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights until at last he fell in a heap on the floor, next to a cave. Oh why was I so obsessed with looking? Why? Look where it’s got me! But then he heard a noise in the cave. It was the sound of a drum going bum, bum, bum.
Oh no! Now I’m going mad and hearing drums that go bum, bum, bum! But out of the cave appeared a tiger. A tiger? In Africa? Yes. A tiger. And he was banging a drum, and there was a funny look in his eye as if he were flying high in the sky. But then he saw Delbert and he said, in tiger-ish, which luckily Delbert spoke, he said, I am the shaman tiger of the wilderness.
On my magic drum I fly to dimensions unknown, to find answers to tricky questions and stuff. Really? You bet! In Africa? Yes! What’s your tricky question? And Delbert explained.
The shaman tiger thought long and hard and then he began to bang his drum, bum, bum, bum, and that faraway look came into his eye, and it was obvious he was… and eventually he said. I have travelled to the dimension of elephant conundrums and I have it. What? The answer stupid. And he thrust out his paw. And in his right paw were a pair of glasses. These, he said, are elephant conundrum glasses! They aren’t. They are you know. And these glasses will answer your question. And then he disappeared back in his cave. So Del-boy stood there holding the glasses. What a strange tiger. He should be in a circus, or something. Then, without opening his eyes he put on the glasses, and even though his eyes were closed, HE COULD SEE! SEE! They really were magic glasses!! And in a flash he knew what to do!
40 days later he arrived back at the big clearing and there was the herd stamping around as usual. Delbert put on his magic glasses. He looked at the herd, with his magic glasses, and what did he see?
?
He saw a bunch of idiots stamping around from right to left and from left to right, trumpeting at lions, and so on, and doing stuff, simply because they had always done that. Just a bunch of socially conditioned pachyderms! engaged in a lot of absurd ritualistic behaviour patterns, thinking they were important, when in truth they were just being a bit silly. And Delbert took off the glasses and opened his eyes, for now he could see. He didn’t need to look anymore. He could see!
Yes. Delbert had seen beyond the herd mentality which, as ‘Long Trunk’ said, the famous elephant philosopher, is the beginning of wisdom and stuff! And Delbert didn’t identify with the herd anymore, and he went and to live near the waterfall, and he set up a business as an independent trunk examiner, and soon the elephants were flocking, well, not flocking, herding to him, with trunk related issues, the like of which, well, you never, no not like, ever. And he met a nice lady elephant and lived happily ever after.
　
OH! The glasses? Yes. They are in a special glass case above his desk just waiting for the day when a young elephants get tired of just looking and come to him to ask him, if they can try them on.

The Third Point of Reference!

As a performer have you ever felt that you were not getting across the footlights? That you failed to communicate in some way? Or that the production you in which seemed a good idea to begin with, now feels flat and uninspiring? Now it would be only human to deny this has ever happened. To put on a brave face. The show must go on darling! Put in another context anyone who has ever tried stand-up comedy will know just how hard it is to make people laugh. Virtually impossible. These ‘professional’ comedians really do earn their money. So. Is the situation hopeless? Are we doomed to strut and fret our hour upon the stage and all to no avail? Well. My experience does confute this. I’ve learnt, through various means, that we can, how shall I say? Communicate better. Get more personal fulfilment from performance if. big IF, we know where to begin, or how to shift the focus on this issue. And this is crucial. So often we fight the wrong battles in life and get no result as a result! Think! If you have chosen wrong battle to fight, it does not matter how much effort you put in fighting it! It still won’t yield a result you can use. So where to begin is crucial. Another thing to realise before we chose or begin, is that most problems stem from accepting the conventional thinking on a given subject. We don’t think outside the box. We don’t recognise that if we are failing, and we following what we were taught at respectable institutes of learning, then we must have been taught wrong. Or maybe no entirely wrong, but still there was some lack, or a wrong emphasis, or something. We must acknowledge we have missed something.
Having said all that I’ll explain conclusions I have come to. In performance generally speaking, despite all the theory that now exists, still, no value is put on subjective states. The performer’s own inner experience is not valued. What we have is this.
Self Projection
Self Awareness
The outer, the technique, the projected part is valued over the inner; the performer’s awareness or subjective experience. So then the new starting point, the way to shift the focus on this issue is to start with self awareness.
SELF AWARENESS
If the performer has self awareness, and by this I mean in the ’depth psychology’ sense of himself, and not just as an actor in a play, this creates two distinct poles in performance. The doer, and the awareness of doing. When the audience supplies the third point of reference, this creates a dynamic which is essentially triangular. (See my diagram!) What do we get without self awareness in performer? Answer is a straight line, as it goes straight from performer to audience. No triangle! What this means scientifically is that with two poles you have stasis. The best example is earth and moon. A predictable relationship. If a third body could be added all three bodies would start to behave erratically. Chaos would be introduced! This real science! What it means though is that with the third point of reference you get a dynamic, which does possess change. It does get across the footlights. Now how does that fit with theatre as we know it? Now think. This situation already exists. The self awareness element in theatre is the writer. Think! Shakespeare! Pinter! Wilde! Moliere! Schiller! These are very self aware individuals. So the scripts they produce provide this dynamic. The third point of reference. Hoopla! The performer, without self awareness, really is just the will-less puppet of the writer. He cannot take from a performance anything for himself. It can only ever serve the writer’s purpose. Looking at the current theatre world I think actor’s beginning to realise this. Right now, the writer is out of vogue. I should know. I am one. Now the trend is for self devised stuff. Installation type stuff. Solo stuff. Writers if they are used, must cater to current trends by being relevant, or writing about specific issues.
This means of course, if your play is about the plight of the Scandinavian sausage-makers, it will have no sub text. It will be doing the literal job of informing people about something, so there won’t be room. Put another way writer’s cannot just create from their own imagination as Pinter of Beckett would have done. People would say, but it’s not relevant! Think of the Scandinavian sausage makers!
　
　
As regards the actors, what this means for them, is that they have realised, semi-consciously, what a poor deal they have been getting. But. BUT! just to dispense with the writer, is still not a solution! unless some new way to introduce self awareness into the equation is found!
Well. It bad for me to pick on actor’s. People in general do not possess self awareness. Not just actors. But still, the fact that there has been a change of sorts is progress. Now all that’s needed is for courageous people to go a bit further in dropping the outmoded agendas which still do largely run the performance universe. How?
Do not begin with how the audience will perceive a production or performance, begin with how you as a performer experience being in something. This may sound crazy and alienate audiences to certain extent but still. That is the way forward. With this shift of focus now it doesn’t matter if the work scripted, unscripted, devised, whatever, as now self awareness is definitely part of the equation.
　

Compendium of bogus mythology!

THE COMPENDIUM OF bogus legend,folktale & MTHYOLOGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1.in a cave,on an island under a fortress is imprisoned, the man/god. his skin covered in sores, he rages continually to see the sun. in the fortress lives an evil sorcerer with a bird's claw for a right hand.
2.a hero is born under a bush which afterwards bursts into flame.
3. once a year a town sacrifices a child by taking it to malevolent wood and throwing it down well.monster is invisible. child chosen by a sign. birthmark. which actually a transfer placed their by town holy man. father of chosen child goes to fight monster.makes monster materialise by making it angry.
shoots it with gun that has bullets of love he was given by town cripple who he befriended. takes proof to town of monster. rips off transfer. exposes holy man who jumps from top of tower.
4.mother given magical womb by a god.she gets pregnant just by imagining her child.child grows up very charismatic. attracts army of acolytes.they storm palace. he becomes tyrant.time of oppression. mother guilty. she begs for audience with him. has proof he her child. once in his prescence she kills him and then herself.forest grows up around palace and trees all turn to stone.
5. a male wizzard and a female wizzard meet at midnight in thunderstorm and fell in love. they have male child. name him seth. omens at his birth. a crow flies up a drainpipe. a man in china and a man in peru cough in unison. a pork pie shaped cloud pauses over sainsburys. but they discover seth has fault. defect. imperfection. HORROR! right hand only 4 fingers. he's one digit down! seth grows up normal way. house full of magic,spells and sorcery.then when he 10 yr old, discovers hand has mind of it's own.he can't control it but whatever it leads him to gives him power and makes him feel good. seth keeps this a deep secret but as power grows so his connection to world diminishes, until at last,a grown man,on thundery night he finds himself alone and afraid. he knows it's the hand. in that dark and terrible night he makes a decision, probably influenced by that movie, evil dead 2. so he buys strong pain killing drugs and a chain saw. in the morning, it is done. the hospital say he is lucky to live. story in paper .evil dead hand horror man alive!slowly he recovers.he leaves hospital. trains as a counsellor with the positive sunflower harmony counselling co-op in brockley, and does good work listening people talk about their probs. at co-op he meets fat janet. she a jellyfish fan. they hit it off. fall in love.they go greek islands for honeymoon. on campsite at santorini during a thunderstorm the goddess of love materialies, in the tent! they wish they'd brought the bigger one with an exterior frame. they saw it in blacks. only 130 euros! the goddess looks a lot like pamela anderson, and she says to seth. you have impressed the gods with your passion!and we grant you this gift! and a lightning bolt came out of her eye and hit seth's arm and a new hand grew! this one with 5,5! fingers!and so it was, seth was made whole, and janet was glad too, because now he could wash the dishes, grandma!