Carlos Castañeda Quotes

In the life of a warrior there is only one thing, one issue alone which is really undecided: how far one can go on the path of knowledge and power. That is an issue which is open and no one can predict its outcome. I once told you that the freedom a warrior has is either to act impeccably or to act like a nincompoop. Impeccability is indeed the only act which is free and thus the true measure of a warrior’s spirit.

In your case, beckoning intent to resolve the conflict of your two minds, or to hear the voice of your true mind is not a petty or arbitrary matter- quite the contrary. It is ethereal and abstract,

The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes on his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That's the warriors' way.

The only possible course that a warrior has is to act consistently and without reservations. At a certain moment, he knows enough of the warriors' way to act accordingly, but his old habits and routines may stand in his way.

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

Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless?

« — У третьих врат мы склонны терять себя в деталях, — ответил он. — Рассматривать вещи с большой тщательностью и интересом означает противостоять почти непреодолимому стремлению углубиться в детали.»

To be a warrior a man has to be, first of all, and rightfully so, keenly aware of his own death. But to be concerned with death would force any one of us to focus on the self and that would be debilitating. So the next thing one needs to be a warrior is detachment. The idea of imminent death, instead of becoming an obsession, becomes an indifference.
Now you must detach yourself; detach yourself from everything. Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he is incapable of abandoning himself to anything. Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he can't deny himself anything. A man of that sort, however, does not crave, for he has acquired a silent lust for life and for all things of life. He knows his death is stalking him and won't give him time to cling to anything, so he tries, without craving, all of everything.

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.

"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with
absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it will live to regret his steps."
I asked him why was it so and he said that when a man has fulfilled those four requisites
there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his acts lose the blundering quality of a fool’s acts. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.

«Проблема для всех нас заключается в том, чтобы взять от этого мира только то, что действительно необходимо, — и ничего более. Знать, что же является необходимым — это искусность магов, но взять только то, что необходимо — это их высочайшее достижение. Непонимание этого простого правила и есть самый неизбежный путь попадания в ловушку.»

He further said that to be a peerless nagual, one has to love freedom, and one has to have supreme detachment. He explained that what makes the warrior’s path so very dangerous is that it is the opposite of the life situation of modern man. He said that modern man has left the realm of the unknown and the mysterious, and has settled down in the realm of the functional. He has turned his back to the world of the foreboding and the exulting and has welcomed the world of boredom.

"Perhaps you're right," I said. "But how can one avoid the desire the genuine desire to help our fellow men?"
"How do you think one can help them?"
"By alleviating their burden. The lease one can do for our fellow men is to try to change them. You yourself are involved in doing that. Aren't you?"
"No. I'm not. I don't know what to change or why to change anything in my fellow men."
"What about me, don Juan? Weren't you teaching me so I could change?"
"No. I'm not trying to change you. It may happen that one day you may become a man of knowledge — there's no way to know that — but that will not change you. Some day perhaps you'll be able to 'see' me in another mode and then you'll realize that there's no way to change anything about them."

"Are you angry at me, don Juan?" I asked when he returned. He seemed surprised at my question.
"No! I'm never angry at anybody! No human being can do anything important enough for that. You get
angry at people when you feel that their acts are important. I don't feel that way any longer."

We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.