Carlos Castañeda Quotes

You don't have any time, and yet you're surrounded by eternity. What a paradox for your reason!

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."

Wait before revealing a finding. Wait for the most appropriate time to let go of something that you hold.

Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions....

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.

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.

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance.

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.

Our will operates in spite of our indulgence. For example, your will is already opening your gap, little by little.” “What gap are you talking about?” “There is a gap in us; like the soft spot on the head of a child which closes with age, this gap opens as one develops one’s will.

The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.

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.

It isn't that a warrior learns shamanism as time goes by; rather, what he learns as time goes by is to save energy. This energy will enable him to handle some of the energy fields which are ordinarily inaccessible to him. Shamanism is a state of awareness, the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the everyday-life world that we know.

I have no routines or personal history. One day I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them. One must have the desire to drop them and then one must proceed harmoniously to chop them off, little by little. If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts. It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do. Not even I. How can I know who I am, when I am all this?

In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.

A man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country...

"I really felt I had lost my body, don Juan."
"You did."
"You mean, I really didn't have a body?"
"What do you think yourself?"
"well, I don't know. All I can tell you is what I felt."
That is all there is in reality - what you felt.