Quotes

Quotes from Don Juan and Carlos Castaneda

We have been trained to live and die meekly, following unnatural codes of behavior which soften us and make us lose that initial impulse, until our spirit is hardly noticeable. We are born as a result of a fight. By denying our basic tendencies, the society we live in eradicates the warring heritage that transforms us into magical beings.

Don Juan was always moving, coming or going, supporting this or rejecting that, provoking tensions or discharging them in a burst, shouting his intent or remaining silent; doing something. He was alive, and his life reflected the ebb and flow of the universe.

Don Juan told me that, from the moment when the explosion which gave us origin occurred, until the moment of our death, we live within a flow. And what aligns us with that flow? An incessant battle, which only a warrior will attempt. Because of that, he lives in profound harmony with everything.

For a warrior, to be harmonious is to flow, not to stop in the middle of the current and try to make a space of artificial and impossible peace. He knows that he can only give the very best of himself under conditions of maximum tension.

Ask yourselves these questions: What am I doing with my life? Does it have a purpose? Is it tight enough? A warrior accepts his destiny, whatever it may be.

A warrior knows that what gives sense to his life is the challenge of death, and death is a personal matter. It is a challenge for each one of us, and one which only sincere warriors accept.

We are beings who are going to die. We were programmed to live like beasts, carrying loads of customs and other people’s beliefs until the very end; but we can change all that! The freedom which the warrior’s way offers us is within the reach of your hand; take advantage of it!

The tragedy of today’s man is not his social condition, but the lack of will to change himself.

Sorcerers say that true rebellion, and humanity’s only way out as a species, is to stage a revolution against their own stupidity. As you can understand, this is solitary work.

The goal of sorcerers is this sorcerers’ revolution: The unrestricted unfolding of all our perceptual possibilities. Don Juan demonstrated that it is possible!

I cannot guide you, but I can put you in front of an abyss which will test all your abilities. It depends on you, whether you hurl yourself off it to fly, or run to hide in the security of your routines.

After experimenting for millennia with situations that alter our ways of perceiving the world, the sorcerers from ancient Mexico discovered a portentous fact: We are not forced to live in a single reality, because the universe is constructed according to very fluid principles which can accommodate almost infinite forms, producing countless ranges of perception.

Don Juan claimed that what limits human perception is timidity. To be able to manage the world which surrounds us, we have had to give up our perceptual gift; that is, the possibility of witnessing everything. We sacrifice the flight of awareness in exchange for the security of the known. We can live strong, audacious, healthy lives; we can be impeccable warriors; but we don’t dare!

Of all the gifts we have received, self-importance is the cruelest. It converts a magical, vivid creature into a poor, arrogant, graceless devil.

When a warrior learns how to toss self-importance aside, his spirit unfolds, jubilant, like a wild animal liberated from its cage and set free.

On the cosmic scale, the strength of a being is not measured by its physical capability, but by its capacity to manipulate awareness. It follows that if we are to take the next evolutionary step, it must be done by means of discipline, determination, and strategy.

A warrior considers the world we live in to be a great mystery, and he knows that the mystery is there to be revealed to those who deliberately look for it.

Discipline, as understood by a warrior, is creative, open, and produces freedom. It is the ability to face the unknown, transforming the feeling of knowing into reverent astonishment; of considering things that exceed the scope of our habits, and daring to face the only war that is worthwhile: The battle for awareness.

A warrior accepts with humility what he is, and he doesn’t squander his power on lamenting because things are not otherwise.

If we learn how to curb our self-pity, and at the same time make room for the authentic ‘me’, we will become drivers of cosmic intent, and conduits for torrents of energy.

Impeccability is born of a delicate balance between our internal being and the forces of the external world. It is an achievement that requires effort, time, dedication, and being permanently attentive to the objective, so that the final purpose is never lost from sight.

The warrior’s final challenge is to balance all the attributes of his path. Once he does that, his purpose becomes inflexible. He is no longer moved by a desperate desire for gain.

Take a risk! Get out of the trap of self-reflection and dare to perceive all that is humanly possible! A warrior of knowledge makes an effort to be authentic, and he won’t accept any compromises, because the object of his fight is total freedom.

When a warrior has put an end to his routines, when he doesn’t care anymore whether he has company or is alone, because he has heard the silent whisper of the spirit; then you can say that, truly, he has died. From that point on, even the simplest things in life become extraordinary for him.

For modern man absolutely everything that exists is put into definite categories. We are labeling machines. We classify the world, and the world classifies us.

We have become perceptual jailers of each other. The chain of human thought is powerful.

The reality of our condition is that we are energetically blocked, due to what sorcerers call the collective fixation of the assemblage point.

Sorcerers maintain that talking about ourselves makes us accessible and weak, while learning how to be quiet fills us with power. A principle of the path of knowledge is to turn your own life into something so unpredictable that not even you yourself knows what’s going to happen.

The sorcerer’s objective is to break the fixation of social interpretations, and to see energy directly. To see is a total perceptual experience.

Seeing energy as it flows is an imperious need on the path of knowledge. Ultimately, all the effort of sorcerers is guided to that end. It is not enough for a warrior to know that the universe is energy; he has to verify it for himself.

Sorcerers have discovered the most refined form of love, because they love themselves. They know that all we give out is a reflection of what we have inside.

Warriors recapitulate when they are walking down the road, in the bathroom, when working or when eating; whenever it is possible. The important thing is to do it.

Recapitulation starts from inside and sustains itself. It is matter of silencing the mind, and our energy body will take control, doing what is a delight for it to do. You feel well, comforted; far from draining you, it gives you rest. Your body perceives it as an inexplicable energy bath.

Sorcerers abide by their experience. They have changed ‘believing’ for seeing.

Silence is a passageway between worlds. When our mind stays silent, incredible aspects of our being emerge. Starting from that moment, a person becomes a vehicle of intent, and all his acts begin to ooze power.

When his path no longer corresponds to human expectations, when it takes him to situations that challenge his reason, then we can say that a warrior has begun an intimate relationship with knowledge.

Sorcerers love the purity of the abstract. For them, the value of the path with heart is not so much where it takes us but how intensely we enjoy it.

To move the fixation of the planet is the only way out from the dramatic state of slavery to which we have been reduced. The course of our civilization has no exit, because we are isolated in a remote location of the cosmos. If we don’t learn how to travel along the avenues of awareness, we will come to such a state of frustration and despair that humanity will end up destroying itself. Our options are the way of the warrior, or extinction.