Seeing that I was exhausted and mute with pleasure, she assumed the schoolteacher role again.
“What you have just experienced is the first technique that every woman should develop to satisfy her lovers: the manual technique. The three other techniques are the oral, the vaginal, and the anal. My blessed father associated these with the intellectual, emotional, sexual, and corporeal centers. The manual technique corresponds to the body, the vaginal to the sexual, and the oral to the intellect. Therefore, it is through the anal technique that we can control the emotional center. Would you like to try it?”
When we did, I went crazy. The dam that had been holding back my emotions, created by the absence of maternal caresses, burst into pieces. Convinced to the marrow of my bones that I was totally in love with her, I begged her not to leave Mexico and stay with me forever.
She laughed. “As I told you before, you are a psychological barbarian. You are weak, because you lack a true will of your own. The result is that any strong emotion can make you change your ideas or even corrupt you. You do not dominate events; they just happen to you in such a way that you have no control over them. A few expert anal contractions and you are ready to be my slave. This is not because you are foolish, it is simply because you have made an error: you have been using your meditation practice to construct a big, fat ego disguised as the Buddha, which serves only to hide instead of reveal your impersonal essence.
“In India, they worship an elephant, Ganesh. He is always accompanied by a mouse who eats the offerings. This image reveals the hidden situation: the real god is not Ganesh; it is the mouse. The elephant, swollen and covered with gold with a great jewel upon its forehead, stretches out its four arms toward symbolic objects. It makes an impressive disguise, hiding the truth that the mouse is really the master. No one can see a true master. He is invisible, like the mouse. He has no favorite disciples, for he teaches all of humanity. He has no church, for the planet and the entire cosmos are his temple. He often hides inside a seemingly unimportant figure. He is the tiger skin upon which the Buddha meditates, the donkey that Christ rode, the black bull that gave Mithra his strength. . This truth is a difficult one for you to understand, because you have been trying to transcend the body, whereas you should be submerging yourself within it to become so small that you arrive finally at that inner offering that is our birthright — that indefinable diamond that we call ‘soul’ but which is beyond words.
“Please don’t answer me, don’t try to argue with me. I see your ego. I see how you waste your energy, believing that you are who you think you are — a jumble of learned behaviors that began at the cradle. My blessed father called this jumble the ‘elephant,’ and he divided it into two categories: the stinking elephant and the perfumed elephant.
“The first type is unbearable, living only for appearances, ready to do anything for fame, reward, and recognition. He has contempt for the wise, because he is terrified of their level of consciousness. Convinced that he is master of himself, he has no qualms about assuming or stealing the virtues of others. He is like a pathetic beggar disguised in the suit of a millionaire.
“The second type is bearable and is able to balance his needs and desires. With humility, he kneels before his own essence and recognizes that he does not belong to himself. ‘Belong to the Holy Spirit, not to yourself,’ says the Bible. The domestication of the ego consists of converting the stench into perfume. In Japan, this process is represented by a series of drawings showing a black ox that, little by little, becomes white. In China it is a horse; in India it is an elephant.
“My blessed father realized that animals were our first teachers. On a trip to Bangalore, he went to live in an elephant reserve to learn about their domestication. The first thing he learned was that the trainers, the mahouts, of these great beasts commanded them in a language of two basic words: ara and mot. To make an elephant move, they would repeat with authority: mot, mot. To stop him, they would repeat ara with the same tone of authority. This seemingly insignificant fact became the inspiration for the basis of my father’s teaching. The two pillars of his temple were called Mot and Ara.
“The stinking elephant is the situation of individuals trapped in the jumble of insane demands that they call ‘reality.’ They desire, feel, think, and act constantly inside it, forgetting their immortal essence. In order for human beings to recall this essence at any moment, even when they are totally trapped by the world, they must be able to command themselves: Ara!. . or, in other words, Stop! Then, in stillness, they can observe the torrent of useless ideas, infantile illusions, impotent desires, and purposeless plans in which they are submerged, and, like Christ driving the money changers out of the temple, they can free themselves of this absurd swarm in which their stinking elephant has been acting as though it was immortal instead of their true essence. This act of stopping is unity in the midst of multiplicity, which leads them to realize that the only permanent thing is impermanence. Thus, little by little, the elephant becomes perfumed. Only when the garbage can is empty can they perceive the jewel inlaid in its very bottom. Only then can their will command Mot! The perfumed elephant moves consciously. Then, thought can describe the world without mistaking itself for the world, feelings can form attachments with knots that can be untied, and desires are in harmony with what is possible. And finally, realizing possibility after possibility, we attain the impossible.
“It is like the legend in which the god Pan uses a sheepskin to disguise himself as a cloud in order to sneak up on the moon and possess it. Every action we perform is useful, provided it develops our consciousness. Who are we, here and now? The intellect that seeks only to know more and fill itself with abortions from the past must empty itself to attain ignorance. The heart that craves to be loved is never satisfied, for it feeds on the future. It must accept what can be given, its daily bread, cutting its illusions and vain quests at their root. This sexuality — which invades the present by confusing its animal appetites with life, its children, and its conquests with immortality — must learn by ceasing its doing and discovering how to die in peace.
“Tell me: what is your ultimate desire in life? To be happy? To be famous? Rich? Loved? To live to an advanced age?”
“Well, to be quite honest — all of the above.”
“My goodness, you desire so little! Do not content yourself with such modest hopes. Raise your thinking to the level where all living beings desire to be free! You have not transcended personal goals. Your life is that of a separate person, not the life of humanity. Give priority to seeing what is called God face to face, without dying and without fear. When you free yourself of all your afflictions, your unconscious and your subconscious become your allies. You must become your own healer and, thereby, the healer of others’ sickness. You can acquire such spiritual strength that you will not be taken by surprise; demolished; or defeated by misfortune, disasters, or enemies. You can know the whole cosmos, its past, present, and future. In the dimension of dreams, you can learn how to resurrect the dead. You can develop your consciousness to the point that it is able to pass through countless deaths without disintegrating and live as long as the universe.
“By your simple presence, you can learn to raise the consciousness of any living being. You can teach human beings to use the energy of the divine presence trapped in matter. You can cleanse the planet of industrial filth, speak words that calm dangerous animals, be immune to deadly venoms, and see at a glance into the depths of the heart and soul of a man or woman. You can foresee inevitable events, offer immediate and effective consolation and advice, prevent setbacks from becoming deviations from the path, transform problems into challenges and master them, tame love and hate, enrich yourself without harming others, and become the master of your fortune instead of its slave. You can thrive in poverty without misery or abjection, master the four elements, calm storms, make the sun appear through dense clouds, and bring rain in times of drought. You can learn telepathy, healing at a distance, and being in several places at the same time. No doubt, these and so many other things seem fantastic to you at the moment, but if you take the trouble, you will succeed in attaining them, little by little.”