Carlos Castañeda Quotes

..there was no need to injure the shrubs, since we had already injured the quail.

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.

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 warrior-hunter deals intimately with his world, and yet he is inaccessible to that same world. He taps it lightly, stays for as long as he needs to, and then swiftly moves away, leaving hardly a mark.

I had been experiencing brief flashes of disassociation, or shallow states of non-ordinary reality.

A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.

He was thoroughly convinced that this is indispensable for
everything sorcerers do, and for this reason he put an enormous emphasis on guiding all
his students to fulfill this requirement. He was of the opinion that self-importance is not
only the sorcerers' supreme enemy but the nemesis of mankind.
Don Juan's argument was that most of our energy goes into upholding our importance.
This is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about
whether or not we are admired or liked or acknowledged. He reasoned that if we were
capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us.
One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur;
and, two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to enter into the second
attention to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.

For a warrior, the spirit is an abstract only because he knows it without words or even thoughts. It's an abstract because he can't conceive what the spirit is. Yet, without the slightest chance or desire to understand it, a warrior handles the spirit. He recognizes it, beckons it, entices it, becomes familiar with it, and expresses it with his acts.

The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of a beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn't permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.

Nothing being more important than anything else, a warrior chooses any act, and acts it out as if it mattered to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn't; so when he fulfills his acts, he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern.

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.

Что такое «правильная жизнь»? — Жизнь, прожитая в полном сознании и с полной ответственностью, хорошая, сильная жизнь.

In the view of sorcerers,
the universe is constructed in layers, which the energy body can cross.

Πρώτα από όλα θα θελα να πω ότι όσα κάνω για σένα είναι τσάμπα. Δεν χρειάζεται να πληρώσεις. Όπως ξέρεις, υπήρξα άψογος μαζί σου και όπως ξέρεις, επίσης αυτό δεν έχει καμία σχέση με τις δικές μου επενδύσεις. Παίρνω όμως κάτι ανυπολόγιστης αξίας από τη σχέση μας, ένα είδος ανταμοιβής που φέρομαι άψογα. Και αυτό που παίρνω είναι εκείνο ακριβώς το πράγμα που δεν θα καταλάβεις ή δεν θα σ αρέσει. Αν με κρίνεις σύμφωνα με τις πράξεις μου σε σχέση με σένα, θα πρέπει να παραδεχτείς ότι υπήρξα ένα υπόδειγμα υπομονής και συνέπειας. Εκείνο όμως που δεν ξέρεις είναι ότι για να το καταφέρω αυτό πάλεψα για να μαι άψογος όπως δεν έχω παλέψει ποτέ στη ζωή μου. Για να περνώ το χρόνο μου μαζί σου, έπρεπε να μετασχηματίζω τον εαυτό μου σε καθημερινή βάση, περιοριζόμενος με συντριπτική προσπάθεια. Είσαι μικρόψυχος, σπάταλος, προκατειλημμένος, καταναγκαστικός, ανυπόμονος, ξιπασμένος. Είσαι δύστροπος, υπολογιστής και αγνώμων. Έχεις μια ανεξάντλητη ικανότητα να ευχαριστείς τον εαυτό σου και το χειρότερο απ όλα έχεις μια τρομερή ιδέα για τον εαυτό σου που δεν μαζεύεται με τίποτα. Θα μπορούσα να πω ειλικρινά ότι και η απλή σου παρουσία με κάνει να θέλω να ξεράσω. Οι λόγοι των πολεμιστών είναι πολύ απλοί, η λεπτότητά τους όμως είναι εξαιρετική. Είναι μια σπάνια ευκαιρία για έναν πολεμιστή να του δοθεί η ευκαιρία να είναι άψογος, ενάντια στα αισθήματά του. Εσύ μου έδωσες αυτή τη μοναδική ευκαιρία. Η πράξη του να προσφέρω ελεύθερα και άψογα με ανανεώνει και ανανεώνει και το ενδιαφέρον μου. Αυτά που παίρνω από τη σχέση μας έχουν πραγματικά ανυπολόγιστη αξία για μένα. Σου χρωστάω πολλά.»

A hunter knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn’t worry. To worry is to become accessible, unwittingly accessible. And once you worry you cling to anything out of desperation; and once you cling you are bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whoever or whatever you are clinging to.