Carlos Castañeda Quotes

Путь без сердца никогда не бывает радостным. Уже для того, чтобы на него выйти, приходится тяжело работать. Напротив, путь, у которого есть сердце, всегда легкий; чтобы его полюбить, не нужно особых усилий.

Death is everywhere. It may be the headlights of a car on a hilltop in the distance behind. They may remain visible for a while, and disappear into the darkness as if they had been scooped away; only to appear on another hilltop, and then disappear again.

«Страх ничего не значит по сравнению с любовью. Страх заставляет двигаться как попало, любовь заставляет двигаться разумно.»

The seer "sees" that every man is in touch with everything else, not through his hands, but through a bunch of long fibers that shoot out in all directions from the center of his abdomen. Those fibers join a man to his surroundings; they keep his balance; they give him stability.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.

Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush,
or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My
benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is
of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as
long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the
other weakens you.

We are not merely whatever our common sense requires us to believe we are. We are in actuality luminous beings, capable of becoming aware of our luminosity. As luminous beings aware of our luminosity, we are capable of unravelling different facets of our awareness, or our attention. That unravelling could be brought about by a deliberate effort, as we are doing ourselves, or accidentally, through a bodily trauma.

To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.

Our total being consists of two perceivable segments. The first is the familiar physical body, which all of us can perceive; the second is the luminous body, which is a cocoon that only seers can perceive, a cocoon that gives us the appearance of giant luminous eggs. One of the most important goals of sorcery is to reach the luminous cocoon; a goal which is fulfilled through the sophisticated use of dreaming and through a rigorous, systematic exertion called not-doing. I've defined not-doing as an unfamiliar act which engages our total being by forcing it to become conscious of its luminous segment.

There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: Does this path have a heart?

The aim of sorcerers is to reach a state of total awareness in order to experience all the possibilities of perception available to man. This state of awareness even implies an alternative way of dying.

The art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.

But we must know first that our acts are useless and yet we must proceed as if we didn’t know it. That’s a sorcerer’s controlled folly.

Сначала мы учимся обо всем думать, — сказал он. — А потом приучаем глаза смотреть на то, о чем думаем. Человек смотрит на себя и думает, что он очень важен. И начинает чувствовать себя важным. Но потом, научившись видеть, он осознает, что не может больше думать о том, на что смотрит. А когда он перестает думать о том, на что смотрит, все становится не важным.

La ricerca della libertà è l'unica forza stimolante che conosca. Libertà di volare in quell'infinito là in alto; libertà di dissolversi; libertà di distaccarsi da tutto; di essere come la fiamma di una candela che, nonostante il paragone con la luce di miliardi di stelle, rimane intatta perché non ha mai finto di essere più di quanto non fosse: solo una candela.

Don Juan