Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Spiritual Journey of Alejandro Jodorowsky - The Creator of El Topo

The answer:

Lamentable, desirable, odious, enchanting. .

Though my golden ring has grown by an inch,

I will tell others I am not in love.

Being cannot be divided into parts. It is everything at once.

Maitreya, the true Maitreya,

divides his body into thousands, a hundred hundred thousand fragments.

From time to time, he appears to people subjected to time.

Those subjected to time do not perceive him.

The model of reality is not reality. The growing ring symbolizes growing love, but it is not real love. The word that describes the world is not the world. Existence can be spirit and body united or it can be neither spirit nor body. It is what it is and not what our intellect analyzes and perceives it to be. This cold body lying on the floor is not separate from its spirit and the spirit is not wandering in another dimension. They are one and the same. Tomorrow, when Reyna wakes up, will she really believe she has been traveling in another world in which she arrived at the center where a mythic God reigns? And what if she does not come back to life? Perhaps this old man is really crazy and has poisoned her!

Don Prudencio interrupted his prayers, went to the kitchen, and returned with a little jug full of milk.

“It is from my goats. Drink it and you will fall asleep quickly. Your thoughts are making a lot of noise.”

As soon as I drank the delicious milk, I fell into a profound sleep.

I didn’t wake up until midday. Reyna was dressed and waiting for me, ready to depart. The curandero had disappeared.

“Don Prudencio has left to put his goats out to pasture. It’s time for us to go now.”

We walked for three hours without her saying a word. I respected her silence. She seemed changed — even her face was not the same. Before, it had been mobile and ready to grimace. Now it was like a smooth, polished surface from which a mask had been torn away. Her body movements were different too. She walked so softly that her steps, though very energetic, made almost no noise. Her spine was very straight, her chin slightly lifted. She gave the impression that she was wearing a crown.

When we caught sight of Monte Alban and its pyramids, she spoke at last.

“As you have no doubt noticed, I am the same yet not the same. Do not suppose that I believe I have died and been resurrected. I have traveled to myself, entered into the underworld of my reason, and tried to arrive at the center of the unconscious. The process unfolded as the sorcerer said it would: At first, the mushrooms made me lose all sensation of my flesh and bones. I realized then that I had always lived in my body as if it were a prison. As I began to lose it, I felt an intense love and compassion for it.

“Then my memory was gradually erased. As my emotional bonds disappeared, I understood how attached I had been to people, places, actions. Every being, every thing, every act had been grafted onto me to become confused with my essence, thereby covering it. In forgetting all this, I was able to be myself. But even this “ I am ” was annihilated. I lost all form, all content, all definition. I possessed nothing. I was no more than an impersonal point of view.

“And even that did not last long. The perceiving eye was no longer separate from the world. There was no more perceiving self or other, only being. . I regained original innocence and purity. I was both the naive creature about to be born and the wise creature after death. Light and darkness were one, all opposites were harmonious. In love with myself, I became a sun. Then, with frightening clarity, I saw that the Other, my body, was waiting for me. The moment of return had arrived.

“It was easy. I simply opened my eyes. I found myself lying on the floor, naked. My legs were spread and don Prudencio had inserted his penis into my vagina. I pushed him away. The old man took it very calmly. Zipping up his fly, he extinguished the thirteen candles. Then he held his open hand toward me. I gave him a wad of dollars. He simply put them in his sack and then left to go take care of his goats.”

“That old rascal! He gave me some milk laced with a sleeping potion. Let’s go find him! I’ll teach him a lesson!”

“No. Hold on there! I don’t know what to think about it. It is strange that he was ejaculating just as I came back to life. He may have been doing it in order to revive me. Let us leave him in peace. Everything happened because it had to be that way. I regret nothing. This experience has freed me. I will never be the same.

“The teachings of my blessed father were the boat that helped me cross the river. Now that I am on the other side, it would be stupid to try to continue to live in that boat. The past is dead, and you are part of that past. Let us agree that our adventure has come to an end. I will disappear for a time. One day, I will write you. . From now on, let us not speak to each other.”

Thus we continued, like mutes. We mingled with a group of tourists and took a bus to Mexico City. We sat far apart on the bus. When we arrived in the city, we did not even say good-bye.

I never saw her again. A few years later, an envelope arrived with a Bali postmark. It contained a short note and a photograph: “Me with Ivanna, my daughter. I don’t know whether her father is you or don Prudencio.”

Suddenly, this man sensed that the plain had turned in a complete circle. The sky and its clouds seemed to lie at his feet.

SILVER KANE, UN COLLAR DE PIEL DE SERPIENTE

(A SNAKESKIN COLLAR)

“Above the place where his head had been, a small cloud of blood floated. . The blood seemed to have a life of its own.”

SILVER KANE, CON PERMISO DEL MUERTO

(WITH THE DEAD MAN'S PERMISSION)

Ten years later, disguised as a film and theater director, I returned to Mexico. I had been invited to give a lecture in a theater of the University of Mexico. On its facade, nineteen huge letters proclaimed it as the TEATRO JULIO CASTILLO. I realized that this talk represented the closure of a cycle of my life.

Julio Castillo, the same young man who had asked me years ago to teach him about lighting (not spiritual light), had gone on to become the director of many successful plays but had died at the peak of his fame. His legacy to the world of theater was so important that the autonomous University of Mexico had named its largest theater after him. In my own homage to Julio Castillo, I tore up the notes I had prepared and decided to repeat the same mistake I had made with him years ago — but this time deliberately. They wanted me to talk about cinematography, but I was going to talk to them about spiritual enlightenment and my experiences with koans.

In front of the thousand young people who filled the hall, I proposed this: “I am going to give you some riddles to solve. When you’ve finished offering all your solutions and exhausted your inspiration, I’ll offer you mine.”

With great perplexity they listened to me clap my hands and ask: “That is the sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

After considerable laughter, the responses came: snapping your fingers, slapping your forehead, holding out one hand and making the sound of a fart, and so forth. When they had finished and declared their inspiration exhausted, I had them each lift their right hand, as if about to swear an oath. Then I lifted my own and said what I had learned many years before from Ejo Takata.

“The sound of my one hand is the same as the sound of your one hand.”