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A man of knowledge was a warrior
The existence of a man of knowledge was an unceasing struggle, and the idea that he was a
warrior, leading a warrior's life, provided one with the means for achieving emotional stability.
The idea of a man at war encompassed four concepts: (1) a man of knowledge had to have
respect; (2) he had to have fear; (3) he had to be wide-awake; (4) he had to be self-
confident. Hence, to be a warrior was a form of self-discipline which emphasized individual
accomplishment; yet it was a stand in which personal interests were reduced to a minimum,
as in most instances personal interest was incompatible with the rigour needed to perform any
predetermined, obligatory act.
A man of knowledge in his role of warrior was obligated to have an attitude of deferential
regard for the items with which he dealt; he had to imbue everything related to his knowledge
with profound respect in order to place everything in a meaningful perspective. Having respect
was equivalent to having assessed one's insignificant resources when facing the Unknown.
If one remained in that frame of thought, the idea of respect was logically extended to include
oneself, for one was as unknown as the Unknown itself. The exercise of so sobering a feeling
of respect transformed the apprenticeship of this specific knowledge, which may otherwise
have appeared to be absurd, into a very rational alternative.
Another necessity of a warrior's life was the need to experience and carefully to evaluate the
sensation of fear. The ideal was that, in spite of fear, one had to proceed with the course of
one's acts. Fear was supposed to be conquered and there was an alleged time in the life of a
man of knowledge when it was vanquished, but first one had to be conscious of being afraid
and duly to evaluate that sensation. Don Juan asserted that one was capable of conquering
fear only by facing it.
As a warrior, a man of knowledge also needed to be wide-awake. A man at war had to be on
the alert in order to be cognizant of most of the factors pertinent to the two mandatory
aspects of awareness: (1) awareness of intent and (2) awareness of the expected flux.
Awareness of intent was the act of being cognizant of the factors involved in the relationship
between the specific purpose of any obligatory act and one's own specific purpose for acting.
Since all the obligatory acts had a definite purpose, a man of knowledge had to be wide-
awake; that is, he needed to be capable at all times of matching the definite purpose of every
obligatory act with the definite reason that he had in mind for desiring to act.
A man of knowledge, by being aware of that relationship, was also capable of being cognizant
of what was believed to be the expected flux. What I have called here the 'awareness of the
expected flux' referred to the certainty that one was capable of detecting at all times the
important variables involved in the relationship between the specific purpose of every act and
one's specific reason for acting. By being aware of the expected flux one was supposed to detect the most subtle changes. That deliberate awareness of changes accounted for the
recognition and interpretation of omens and of other un-ordinary events.
The last aspect of the idea of a warrior's behaviour was the need for self-confidence, that is,
the assurance that the specific purpose of an act one may have chosen to perform was the
only plausible alternative for one's own specific reasons for acting. Without self-confidence,
one would have been incapable of fulfilling one of the most important aspects of the
teachings: the capacity to claim knowledge as power.
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