Carlos Castañeda Quotes

A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.

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

Don Juan had said that any habit was, in essence, a “doing,” and that a doing needed all its parts in order to function. If some parts were missing, a doing was disassembled. By doing, he meant any coherent and meaningful series of actions. In other words, a habit needed all its component actions in order to be a live activity. La Gorda then described how she had stalked her own weakness of eating excessively. She said that the Nagual had suggested she first tackle the biggest part of that habit, which was connected with her laundry work; she ate whatever her customers fed her as she went from house to house delivering her wash. She expected the Nagual to tell her what to do, but he only laughed and made fun of her, saying that as soon as he would mention something for her to do, she would fight not to do it. He said that that was the way human beings are; they love to be told what to do, but they love even more to fight and not do what they are told, and thus they get entangled in hating the one who told them in the first place. For many years she could not think of anything to do to stalk her weakness. One day, however, she got so sick and tired of being fat that she refused to eat for twenty-three days. That was the initial action that broke her fixation. She then had the idea of stuffing her mouth with a sponge to make her customers believe that she had an infected tooth and could not eat. The subterfuge worked not only with her customers, who stopped giving her food, but with her as well, as she had the feeling of eating as she chewed on the sponge. La Gorda laughed when she told me how she had walked around with a sponge stuffed in her mouth for years until her habit of eating excessively had been broken. “Was that all you needed to stop your habit?” I asked. “No. I also had to learn how to eat like a warrior.” “And how does a warrior eat?” “A warrior eats quietly, and slowly, and very little at a time. I used to talk while I ate, and I ate very fast, and I at

For such sorcerers, the most significant act of sorcery is to see the essence of the universe. The essence of the universe resembles incandescent threads stretched into infinity in every conceivable direction, luminous filaments that are conscious of themselves in ways impossible for the human mind to comprehend.

«Путешествие было реальностью. Ты видел город. Я видел энергию. Ни ты, ни я не были правы. И ни ты, ни я не ошибались.»

Маги говорят, что мы находимся внутри пузыря. Это тот пузырь, в который мы были помещены в момент своего рождения. Сначала пузырь открыт, но затем он начинает закрываться, пока не запаяет нас внутри себя. Этот пузырь является нашим восприятием. Мы живем внутри этого пузыря всю свою жизнь. А то, что мы видим на его круглых стенах, является нашим собственным отражением.

"No!" he said emphatically. "Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing
things that are useless?"

A warrior doesn't know remorse for anything he has done, because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same!

تو همیشه باید به یاد داشته باشی که مسیر فقط مسیر است اگر حس کنی که نباید آن را بپیمایی تحت هیچ شرایطی نباید با آن بمانی.

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.

«Я потерял дар речи. Я ясно ощутил, как во мне шевельнулся страх. — Страх — это нечто, несвойственное этому миру, — сказал эмиссар.
Из всего, что он сказал, только это было не совсем точным.»

"Nestor said to me. "A
row of Hussars on horseback will come to take me. What will it be for you?"
I remembered don Juan telling me once that death might be behind anything imaginable, even
behind a dot on my writing pad. He gave me then the definitive metaphor of my death.
I had told him that once while walking on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles I had heard
the sound of a trumpet playing an old, idiotic popular tune. The music was coming from a
record shop across the street.
Never had I heard a more beautiful sound. I became enraptured by it. I had to sit down on the
curb. The limpid brass sound of that trumpet was going directly to my brain. I felt it just
above my right temple. It soothed me until I was drunk with it.
When it concluded, I knew that there would be no way of ever repeating that experience, and I
had enough detachment not to rush into the store and buy the record and a stereo set to play it
on.
Don Juan said that it had been a sign given to me by the powers that rule the destiny of men.
When the time comes for me to leave the world, in whatever form, I will hear the same sound
of that trumpet, the same idiotic tune, the same peerless trumpeter."

There's no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim. Everything is filled to the brim, and everything is equal.

«Дон Хуан выразил сожаление в связи с тем, что из всех великолепных вещей, которым научились старые маги, перемещая точку сборки в тысячи разных мест, остались только искусство сновидения и искусство сталкинга.
Он повторил снова, что искусство сновидения означает умение управлять смещением точки сборки. Затем он определил искусство сталкинга как умение фиксировать точку сборки в том месте, куда ее необходимо сместить. — Фиксировать точку сборки на ново»