What shields?

From A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, pgs. 216-220. 

“What shields? What are you talking about?”

“I said that a warrior selects the items that make his world.  He selects deliberately, for every item he chooses is
a shield that protects him from the onslaughts of the forces he is striving to use.  A warrior would use his shields to protect himself from his ally, for instance.

“An average man who is equally surrounded by those inexplicable forces is oblivious to them because he has
other kinds of special shields to protect himself.”

He paused and looked at me with a question in his eyes. I had not understood what he meant.

                “What are those shields?” I insisted.

                “What people do,” he repeated.

                “What do they do?”

“Well, look around. People are busy doing that which people do. Those are their shields. Whenever a sorcerer
has an encounter with any of those inexplicable and un-
bending forces we have talked about, his gap opens,
making him more susceptible to his death than he ordi-
narily is; I’ve told you that we die through that gap, there-
fore if it is open one should have his will ready to fill it;
that is, if one is a warrior. If one is not a warrior, like
yourself, then one has no other recourse but to use the activities of daily life to take one’s mind away from the
fright of the encounter and thus allow one’s gap to
close. You got angry with me that day when you met the
ally. I made you angry when I stopped your car and I
made you cold when I dumped you into the water. Having your clothes on made you even colder. Being angry and
cold helped you close your gap and you were protected.
At this time in your life, however, you can no longer use those shields as effectively as an average man.  You know
too much about those forces and now you are finally at
the brink of feeling and acting like a warrior.  Your old
shields are no longer safe.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Act like a warrior and select the items of your world. You cannot surround yourself with things helter-skelter any longer. I tell you this in a most serious vein. Now for the
first time you are not safe in your old way of life.”

        “What do you mean by selecting the items of my world?”

“A warrior encounters those inexplicable and unbending forces because he is deliberately seeking them, thus he is always prepared for the encounter. You, on the other
hand, are never prepared for it. In fact if those forces
come to you they will take you by surprise; the fright will
open your gap and your life will irresistibly escape through
it. The first thing you must do, then, is be prepared. Think that the ally is going to pop in front of your eyes any
minute and you must be ready for him. To meet an ally
is no party or Sunday picnic and a warrior takes the re-sponsibility of protecting his life. Then if any of those
forces tap you and open your gap, you must deliberately strive to close it by yourself. For that purpose you must
have a selected number of things that give you great peace and pleasure, things which you can deliberately use to take your thoughts from your fright and close your gap and
make you solid.”

“What kind of things?”

“Years ago I told you that in his day-to-day life a war-
rior chooses to follow the path with heart. It is the con-sistent choice of the path with heart which makes a warrior different from the average man. He knows that a path has heart when he is one with it, when he experiences a great peace and pleasure traversing its length. The things a war-rior selects to make his shields are the items of a path
with heart.”

“But you said I’m not a warrior, so how can I choose a path with heart?”

“This is your turning point. Let’s say that before you
did not really need to live like a warrior. Now it is differ-
ent, now you must surround yourself with the items of a path with heart and you must refuse the rest, or you will perish in the next encounter. I may add that you don’t
need to ask for the encounter any longer. An ally can now come to you in your sleep; while you are talking to your friends; while you are writing.”

“For years I have truly tried to live in accordance with your teachings,” I said. “Obviously I have not done well.
How can I do better now?”

“You think and talk too much. You must stop talking to yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“You talk to yourself too much. You’re not unique
at that. Every one of us does that. We carry on an in-
ternal talk. Think about it. Whenever you are alone, what
do you do?”

“I talk to myself.”

“What do you talk to yourself about?”

“I don’t know; anything, I suppose.”

“I’ll tell you what we talk to ourselves about. We talk about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk.”

“How do we do that?”

“Whenever we finish talking to ourselves the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we kindle it with life,
we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we
also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we
die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die.

“A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his talk-
ing. This is the last point you have to know if you want to
live like a warrior.”

“How can I stop talking to myself?”

“First of all you must use your ears to take some of the burden from your eyes. We have been using our eyes to judge the world since the time we were born. We talk to others and to ourselves mainly about what we see. A war-rior is aware of that and listens to the world; he listens to
the sounds of the world.”

I put my notes away. Don Juan laughed and said that
he did not mean I should force the issue, that listening to
the sounds of the world had to be done harmoniously and with great patience.

“A warrior is aware that the world will change as soon
as he stops talking to himself,” he said, “and he must be prepared for that monumental jolt.”

“What do you mean, don Juan?”

“The world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it is. If we stop telling ourselves that the world is so-and-so, the world will stop being so-and-so. At this moment I don’t think you’re ready for such a momentous blow, therefore you must start slow-
ly to undo the world.”

“I really do not understand you!”

“Your problem is that you confuse the world with what people do. Again you’re not unique at that. Every one of
us does that. The things people do are the shields against
the forces that surround us; what we do as people gives us comfort and makes us feel safe; what people do is right-
fully very important, but only as a shield. We never learn
that the things we do as people are only shields and we let them dominate and topple our lives. In fact I could say
that for mankind, what people do is greater and more im-portant than the world itself.”

“What do you call the world?”

“The world is all that is encased here,” he said, and stomped the ground. “Life, death, people, the allies, and everything else that surrounds us. The world is incompre-hensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever un-ravel its secrets. Thus we must treat it as it is, a sheer mystery!

“An average man doesn’t do this, though. The world is never a mystery for him, and when he arrives at old age he
is convinced he has nothing more to live for. An old man
has not exhausted the world. He has exhausted only what people do. But in his stupid confusion he believes that the world has no more mysteries for him. What a wretched
price to pay for our shields!

“A warrior is aware of this confusion and learns to treat things properly. The things that people do cannot under
any conditions be more important than the world. And
thus a warrior treats the world as an endless mystery and what people do as an endless folly.”