impeccability

Impeccability is the expression of human perfection within the world. It is also about Enlightenment and enlightenment is found on the path of knowledge. To be enlightened requires awareness, control, and clearing your karma.

The attainment of impeccibility happens after mastering perception and tackling several obstacles of the self: fear, clarity (ego), and lust of power. Conquering your fear develops your discipline. Conquering your ego, develops your control. And lastly, after conquering the lust of power, you acquire perfect timing. The possession of all three is called elegance.

Control and discipline are like a dam behind which you pool your baser desires during your path of enlightenment. Timing is the gate in the dam allowing you to act. Providence sets up the context for the event.

The chances of perfecting these things in a single lifetime are minuscule -- few people ever get to the level of the President, for example. So there is a fourth element that can be drawn upon: the petty tyrant. The other three are internal obstacles. The petty tyrant is the outside element -- the one we cannot control and the element that is perhaps the most important of all for facing this world and mastering the self. The warrior who stumbles upon a petty tyrant is a lucky one. In this world, there are many, but for the best result, you have to go out and look for one. Some call it "saving the world".

Usually, only the three attributes mentioned are played, because most interactions just aren't that significant to the Spirit. However, there is a fourth, special one that don Juan called "will". It is always saved for the ultimate confrontation, when warriors are facing the firing squad, so to speak. One can't force it because that puts one back in the sphere of the Known. Hence one of the items on the path of the Enlightened Warrior is patience.

Will or Providence belongs to another sphere, the Unknown. The other three belong to the Known, exactly where the petty tyrants are lodged. In fact, what turns human beings into petty tyrants is precisely the obsessive manipulation of the Known. A perfect petty tyrant has no redeeming feature.

If people can hold their own in facing petty tyrants, then they can face the Unknown with impunity, and then they can even stand the presence of the unknowable. But ultimately, what you want is mastery over your self and your world.