Carlos Castañeda Quotes

Everything is energy. The whole universe is energy. The social base of our perception should be the physical certainty that energy is all there is. A mighty effort should be made to guide us to perceive energy as energy.

The shaman seers of ancient times, through their "seeing," first noticed that any unusual behavior produced a tremor in the assemblage point. They soon discovered that if unusual behavior is practiced systematically and directed wisely, it eventually forces the assemblage point to move.

For an 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 marvelous world, in this marvelous time.

A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use.

A warrior must know first that his acts are useless, and yet, he must proceed as if he didn't know it. That's a shaman's "controlled folly."

"You take yourself too seriously, " he said slowly. "You are too damn important in your own mind. That must be changed! You are so goddamn important that you feel justified to be annoyed with everything. You're so damn important that you can afford to leave if things don't go your way. I suppose you think that shows you have character. That's nonsense! You're weak, and conceited!" - Dom Juan

For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor.

A warrior takes responsibility for his acts, for the most trivial of acts. An average man acts out his thoughts, and never takes responsibility for what he does.

"Our way of perceiving is a predator's way," he said to me on one occasion.

"A very
efficient manner of appraising and classifying food and danger. But this is not the only
way we are able to perceive. There is another mode, the one I am familiarizing you with:
the act of perceiving the essence of everything, energy itself, directly.

"To perceive the essence of everything will make us understand, classify and describe
the world in entirely new, more exciting, more sophisticated terms." This was don Juan's claim. And the more sophisticated terms to which he was alluding were those he had been taught by his predecessors, terms that correspond to sorcery truths, which have no rational foundation and no relation whatsoever to the facts of our daily world but which are self-evident truths for the sorcerers who perceive energy directly and see the essence of everything.

For such sorcerers, the most significant act of sorcery is to see the essence of the
universe."

Δεν έχει σημασία ποιο μονοπάτι θα διαλέξεις. Υπάρχουν ένα εκατομμύριο μονοπάτια και όλα είναι ίδια γιατί δεν οδηγούν πουθενά. Αρκεί το μονοπάτι να το ακολουθήσεις χωρίς φόβο και χωρίς φιλοδοξία. Και αρκεί το μονοπάτι να έχει καρδιά.

We either make ourselves miserable, or make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

Научившись видеть, человек обнаруживает, что одинок в мире. Больше нет никого и ничего, кроме той глупости, о которой мы говорим,

My benefactor told me that my father and mother had lived and died just to have me, and that their own parents had done the same for them. He said that warriors were different in that they shift their assemblage points enough to realize the tremendous price that has been paid for their lives. This shift gives them the respect and awe that their parents never felt for life in general, or for being alive in particular.

A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing 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.

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.