The main reason your instrument, your carriage, your human biological machine does not get into the waking state is because it is deathly afraid of it. When everything is working properly, the Master expresses his wishes, the driver knows the direction and controls the horses, the horses have the strength to go wherever the Master indicates, and the carriage simply follows. When everything is working in harmony, the Master gets to where he wills to go. If something goes wrong, then he might not get to where he wants to go. If the wheels are not attached correctly, the carriage will go nowhere. If the horses are not well trained, the carriage could go anywhere. If the horses are going crazy, berserk, they will not go anywhere. If the driver is drunk or asleep, it can’t get anywhere either. The nature of our sleep refers a lot to the driver falling asleep. The driver falls asleep and the horses go to where they want to go according to their preferences, their instincts.
Who are the horses, the driver, the cart? The horses represent your desires and your fears; or more properly said, your seductions and your aversions. When the driver is asleep, you are on autopilot and you move in accordance to your instincts. You are driven by the winds of karma. Some of the words I use here, you might be familiar with, but I will be using them in different ways. Here, I’m not using karma to mean “you do something good, you get something good.” That’s the soap-opera version of karma. Think of karma as a wind that moves the leaves of the tree sometimes here, sometimes there. We are like those leaves, and we’re moved by our desires and the circumstances around us.
Rarely do we have a driver that can direct our vehicle wherever we want to go. The driver is our conscious self, the thinking part of us that can plan, strategize, and make thoughtful decisions. A driver that is pulled and repelled by sensual or emotional attractions, is a driver that has given control of the vehicle to the horses. The driver is asleep, or otherwise merely witnessing the car being pulled by the horses of emotional identification. The driver might know where the master wishes to go, but he is incapable of directing the carriage.
The influence of the Master is very subtle. He has no direct influence over the cart. All he can do is talk and send a voice to the driver. But if the driver is drunk and asleep, he won’t listen. If there is a racket going on outside, he might get a distorted notion. All he has is that voice coming from somewhere behind him: “Take me to the park.” But the driver has to interpret, apply the command, and go. You have to listen to the voice while awake. If you are asleep, who knows what you’re listening to.
From The Teachings of a Toltec Survivor
