I have read every single book written by and about Carlos Castaneda (including one by Martin Goodman called “I was Carlos Castaneda”). The story is not easily proven as so much of it takes place in an altered state of being, but the narrative that comes through Castaneda’s writing shows a depth of knowledge and understanding that is very persuasive, at least as far as I am concerned.

Meet Carlos Castaneda

From Wikipedia

“Carlos Castaneda (December 25, 1925–April 27, 1998) was an American author with a Ph.D. in anthropology.

“Starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, Castaneda wrote a series of books that describe his training in shamanism, particularly with a group whose lineage descended from the Toltecs. The books, narrated in the first person, relate his experiences under the tutelage of a Yaqui “Man of Knowledge” named don Juan Matus. His 12 books have sold more than 28 million copies in 17 languages. Critics have suggested that they are works of fiction; supporters claim the books are either true or at least valuable works of philosophy and descriptions of practices which enable an increased awareness.” (Wikipedia)

The Teachings of Don Juan

“Power rests on the kind of knowledge that one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless? They will not prepare us for our unavoidable encounter with the unknown.”

“To be angry at people means that one considers their acts to be important. It is imperative to cease to feel that way. The acts of men cannot be important enough to offset our only viable alternative: our unchangeable encounter with infinity.”

“A man has four natural enemies: fear, clarity, power, and old age. Fear, clarity, and power can be overcome, but not old age. Its effect can be postponed, but it can never be overcome.”

A Separate Reality

“Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.”

“Only a crackpot would undertake the task of becoming a man of knowledge of his own accord. A sober-headed man has to be tricked into doing it. There are scores of people who would gladly undertake the task, but those don’t count. They are usually cracked. They are like gourds that look fine from the outside and yet they would leak the minute you put pressure on them, the minute you filled them with water.”

“A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.”

“An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.”

Journey to Ixtlan

“When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we knew everything.”

“For the average man, the world is weird because if he’s not bored with it, he’s at odds with it. For a warrior, the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable. A warrior must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvellous world, in this marvellous time.”

“Acts have power. Especially when the warrior acting knows that those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever he is doing may very well be his last act on earth.”

“The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.”

“A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.”

Tales of Power

“The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.”

“A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing for him to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he’s clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything.”

“Whenever the internal dialogue stops, the world collapses, and extraordinary facets of ourselves surface, as though they had been kept heavily guarded by our words.”

“Human beings are perceivers, but the world that they perceive is an illusion: an illusion created by the description that was told to them from the moment they were born. So in essence, the world that their reason wants to sustain is the world created by a description and its dogmatic and inviolable rules, which their reason learns to accept and defend.”

“A warrior acknowledges his pain but he doesn’t indulge in it. The mood of the warrior who enters into the unknown is not one of sadness; on the contrary, he’s joyful because he feels humbled by his great fortune, confident that his spirit is impeccable, and above all, fully aware of his efficiency. A warrior’s joyfulness comes from having accepted his fate, and from having truthfully assessed what lies ahead of him.”

The Second Ring of Power

“When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when there is something we can still cling to.”

“The core of our being is the act of perceiving, and the magic of our being is the act of awareness. Perception and awareness are a single, functional, inextricable unit.”

“Everyone can see, and yet we choose not to remember what we see.”

The Eagle’s Gift

“The art of dreaming is the capacity to utilize one’s ordinary dreams and transform them into controlled awareness by virtue of a specialized form of attention called the dreaming attention.”

“A warrior knows that he is waiting and he knows what he is waiting for, and while he waits, he feasts his eyes upon the world. A warrior’s ultimate accomplishment is to enjoy the joy of infinity.”

“The power that governs the destiny of all living beings is called the Eagle, not because it is an eagle or has anything to do with an eagle, but because it appears to the eye of the seer as an immeasurable jet-black eagle, standing erect as an eagle stands, its height reaching to infinity.”

“Applying these principles brings about three results. The first is that stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously; they learn to laugh at themselves. If they are not afraid of being a fool, they can fool anyone. The second is that stalkers learn to have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never fret. And the third is that stalkers learn to have an endless capacity to improvise.”

The Fire from Within

“There is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without kindness and knowledge without sobriety are useless.”

“The greatest flaw of human being is to remain glued to the inventory of reason. Reason doesn’t deal with man as energy. Reason deals with instruments that create energy, but it has never seriously occurred to reason that we are better than instruments: we are organisms that create energy. We are bubbles of energy.”

“Warriors who deliberately attain total awareness are a sight to behold. That is the moment when they burn from within. The fire from within consumes them. And in full awareness they fuse themselves to the emanations of the Eagle at large, and glide into eternity.”

The Power of Silence

“In the universe there is an immeasurable, indescribable force which shamans call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link. Warriors are concerned with discussing, understanding, and employing that connecting link. They are especially concerned with cleaning it of the numbing effects brought about by the ordinary concerns of their everyday lives. Shamanism at this level can be defined as the procedure of cleaning one’s connecting link to intent.”

“The spirit manifests itself to a warrior at every turn. However, this is not the entire truth. The entire truth is that the spirit reveals itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only warriors are consistently attuned to such revelations.”

“Warriors have an ulterior purpose for their acts, which have nothing to do with personal gain. The average man acts only if there is the chance for profit. Warriors act not for profit, but for the spirit.”

Conclusion

To be a warrior in the sense that Castaneda is using the word, one needs to be, and stay, aware. In this life, it is what we must all do. “Be careful out there.”

Picture Credits

All Carlos Castaneda book covers are courtesy of Google.