The mind is a tool. We don’t ask a hammer what the meaning of life is – yet we ask that of our mind expecting an intelligent answer.
~Adyashanti
Story of the Petty Tyrant
Petty Tyrants – From “A Fire Within”
Don Juan did not discuss the mastery of awareness with me until months later. We were at that time in the house where the nagual’s party lived.
“Let’s go for a walk,” don Juan said to me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Or better yet, let’s go to the town’s square, where there are a lot of people, and sit down and talk.”
I was surprised when he spoke to me, as I had been in the house for a couple of days then and he had not said so much as hello.
As don Juan and I were leaving the house, la Gorda intercepted us and demanded that we take her along. She seemed determined not to take no for an answer. Don Juan in a very stern voice told her that he had to discuss something in private with me.
“You’re going to talk about me,” la Gorda said, her tone and gestures betraying both suspicion and annoyance.
“You’re right,” don Juan replied dryly. He moved past her without turning to look at her.
I followed him, and we walked in silence to the town’s square. When we sat down I asked him what on earth we would find to discuss about la Gorda. I was still smarting from her look of menace when we left the house.
“We have nothing to discuss about la Gorda or anybody else,” he said. “I told her that just to provoke her enormous self-importance. And it worked. She is furious with us. If I know her, by now she will have talked to herself long enough to have built up her confidence and her righteous indignation at having been refused and made to look like a fool. I wouldn’t be surprised if she barges in on us here, at the park bench.”
“If we’re not going to talk about la Gorda, what are we going to discuss?” I asked.
“We’re going to continue the discussion we started in Oaxaca,” he replied. “To understand the explanation of awareness will require your utmost effort and your willingness to shift back and forth between levels of awareness. While we are involved in our discussion I will demand your total concentration and patience.”
Half-complaining, I told him that he had made me feel very uncomfortable by refusing to talk to me for the past two days. He looked at me and arched his brows. A smile played on his lips and vanished. I realized that he was letting me know I was no better than la Gorda.
“I was provoking your self-importance,” he said with a frown. “Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it?what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.
“The new seers recommended that every effort should be made to eradicate self-importance from the lives of warriors. I have followed that recommendation, and much of my endeavors with you has been geared to show you that without self-importance we are invulnerable.”
As I listened his eyes suddenly became very shiny. I was thinking to myself that he seemed to be on the verge of laughter and there was no reason for it when I was startled by an abrupt, painful slap on the right side of my face.
I jumped up from the bench. La Gorda was standing behind me, her hand still raised. Her face was flushed with anger.
“Now you can say what you like about me and with more justification,” she shouted. “If you have anything to say, however, say it to my face!”
Her outburst appeared to have exhausted her, because she sat down on the cement and began to weep. Don Juan was transfixed with inexpressible glee. I was frozen with sheer fury. La Gorda glared at me and then turned to don Juan and meekly told him that we had no right to criticize her.
Don Juan laughed so hard he doubled over almost to the ground. He couldn’t even speak. He tried two or three times to say something to me, then finally got up and walked away, his body still shaking with spasms of laughter.
I was about to run after him, still glowering at la Gorda?at that moment I found her despicable ? when something extraordinary happened to me. I realized what don Juan had found so hilarious. La Gorda and I were horrendously alike. Our self-importance was monumental. My surprise and fury at being slapped were just like la Gorda’s feelings of anger and suspicion. Don Juan was right. The burden of selfimportance is a terrible encumbrance.
I ran after him then, elated, the tears flowing down my cheeks. I caught up with him and told him what I had realized. His eyes were shining with mischievousness and delight.
“What should I do about la Gorda?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he replied. “Realizations are always personal.”
He changed the subject and said that the omens were telling us to continue our discussion back at his house, either in a large room with comfortable chairs or in the back patio, which had a roofed corridor around it. He said that whenever he conducted his explanation inside the house those two areas would be off limits to everyone else.
We went back to the house. Don Juan told everyone what la Gorda had done. The delight all the seers showed in taunting her made la Gorda’s position extremely uncomfortable.
“Self-importance can’t be fought with niceties,” don Juan commented when I expressed my concern about la Gorda.
He then asked everyone to leave the room. We sat down and don Juan began his explanations.
Google Apps vs Exchange
It seems that while everyone is getting into the Google Apps hype of freely hosted email, documents, chat, and collaboration tools for either free or very low cost for organizations, no one hears much about what Microsoft is doing to react. Well, it appears they are offering their own version of online email with less features and for more money ($10 per user, per month). While it’s possible that this could save money for very large organizations that would no longer have to host their own exchange systems, I doubt it could do much for small to medium sized organizations in terms of cost savings.