That afternoon, he was limping when he came to the meeting. We asked him what had happened, and he told us that while he was at the hotel, for one fraction of second a toe on his left foot lit up and was scorched with an internal fire.
"I had to move quickly, because my assemblage point had begun the process of alignment!"
Moved by his strange experience, he talked for a long time about the final exercise of sorcerers, by means of which they catch fire from inside and enter pure awareness in their totality, shoes and all.
One of the people in the room asked him why, if the passing into awareness is the final objective of sorcerers, he had fought to retain his individual self today, instead of taking advantage of the opportunity.
With a roguish smile, Carlos told us that the question made him remember one of his ancestors, a Portuguese, who devoted himself to the business of transporting people to Brazil, with the story of the promised land. The man made a small fortune that way, and he did a great job creating propaganda about the advantages of Brazil, but he had never been there.
"And here I am, transporting you!"
After we had laughed at his anecdote, Carlos changed the expression on his face. In a very formal tone, he explained that warriors don't act for reasons of self-importance, and therefore, their decisions are not theirs.
"Don Juan told me how some men of knowledge, after a life of impeccable fight, decide to remain, while others dissolve like a puff of wind into infinity.
"The thing that makes some warriors fight to retain their self, is something unrelated to personal concerns. To belong to a lineage of power implies bonds of such a deep nature that our personality is annulled. It becomes just a minuscule detail in an energy structure that the new seers call 'the Rule'.
"In that situation, individual choice no longer exists for the warrior, properly speaking. All he can do is accept his destiny and fulfill the commands of the Rule; anything else would just lead to his extinction."