Castaneda Quotes

The fate of all of us here has been to know that we are prisoners of power. No one knows why us in particular, but what a great fortune! ~ Carlos Castaneda

Do you know at this very moment you are surrounded by eternity? And do you know that you can use that eternity if you so desire? ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

It is best to erase all personal history because that would make us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people ~ Carlos Castaneda

Fright is something one can never get over. When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens up his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times ~ Carlos Castaneda

There are two sides to a person's being - the superconscious and the conscious. These have reverberations in the popular works of Carlos Castaneda, in the don Juan terminology of the tonal and the nagual. ~ Frederick Lenz

"Dreaming is the vehicle that brings dreamers to this world," the emissary said, "and everything sorcerers know about dreaming was taught to them by us. Our world is connected to yours by a door called dreams. We know how to go through that door, but men don't. They have to learn it." ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Nobody is born a warrior in exactly the same way that no one is born an average man ~ Carlos Castaneda

The secret is not in what you do to yourself but rather in what you don't do. ~ Carlos Castaneda

To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a revolution. To regard the lion and the water rats and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act of a warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Well being is a condition one has to groom, a condition one has to become aquainted with in order to seek it ~ Carlos Castaneda

Everything is filled to the brim," he repeated, "and everything is equal. I'm not like your friend who just grew old. When I tell you that nothing matters I don't mean it the way he does. For him, his struggle was not worth his while, because he was defeated; for me there is no victory, or defeat, or emptiness. Everything is filled to the brim and everything is equal and my struggle was worth my while. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Will is what can make you succeed when your thoughts tell you that you're defeated. ~ Carlos Castaneda

All paths are the same: they lead nowhere ... 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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

There is nothing more lonely than eternity. And nothing is more cozy for us than to be a human being. This indeed is another contradiction-how can we keep the bonds of our humanness and still venture gladly and purposefully into the absolute loneliness of eternity? ~ Carlos Castaneda

It takes all the time and all the energy we have to conquer the idiocy in us ~ Carlos Castaneda

A guardian is broad-minded and understanding. A guard, on the other hand, is a vigilante, narrow-minded and most of the time despotic. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Can we perceive those inorganic beings, don Juan?" I asked. "We certainly can," he replied. "Sorcerers do it at will. Average people do it, but they don't realize that they're doing it because they are not conscious of the existence of a twin world. When they think of a twin world, they enter into all kinds of mental masturbation, but it has never occurred to them that their fantasies have their origin in a subliminal knowledge that all of us have: that we are not alone. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Eventually I saw that the path of the heart requires a full gesture, a degree of abandon that can be terrifying. Only then is it possible to achieve a sparkling metamorphosis. ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The reason you keep on coming back to see me is very simple; every time you have seen me your body has learned certain things, even against your desire. And finally your body now needs to come back to me to learn more. Let's say that your body knows that it is going to die, even though you never think about it. So I've been telling your body that I too am going to die and before I do I would like to show our body certain things, things which you cannot give to your body yourself ... So let's say then that your body returns to me because I am its friend ~ Carlos Castaneda

Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level or awareness you find yourself to be. ~ Carlos Castaneda

In the universe there is an un-measurable, indescribable force which sorcerers call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link. Sorcerers, or warriors, were concerned with discussing, understanding, and employing that connecting link...Sorcerers, therefore, divide their instruction into two categories; one is for everyday-life state of awareness, the other is for the states of heightened awareness, in which sorcerers obtained knowledge directly from intent, without the distracting intervention of spoken language. ~ Carlos Castaneda

You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life. ~ Carlos Castaneda

I have chosen to parody the writing styles of Carlos Castaneda, James Redfield, Richard Bach, Lynn Andrews, and several other best-selling new age authors. ~ Frederick Lenz

Hunting power is a very strange affair. There is no way to plan it ahead of time. That's what's exciting about it. A warrior proceeds as if he had a plan though, because he trusts his personal power. He knows for a fact that it will make him act in th emost appropriate fashion. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The world doesn't yield to us directly, the description of the world stands in between. So, properly speaking, we are always one step removed and our experiences of the world is always a recollection of the experience. We are perennially recollecting the instant that has just happened, just passed. Re recollect, recollect, recollect. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Learn to see, and then you'll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision. ~ Carlos Castaneda

My benefactor told me that my father and mother had lived and died just to have me, and that their own parents had done the same for them. He said that warriors were different in that they shift their assemblage points enough to realize the tremendous price that has been paid for their lives. This shift gives them the respect and awe that their parents never felt for life in general, or for being alive in particular. ~ Carlos Castaneda

When you need an answer, look over your left shoulder and ask your death. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The daily world exists because we know how to hold its images; consequently, if one drops the attention needed to maintain those images, the world collapses ~ Carlos Castaneda

Your thoughts and your actions are fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. I, on the other hand, brought you freedom. Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible. So, fear your captors, your masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing me. ~ Carlos Castaneda

A warrior could not avoid pain and grief but only the indulging in them ~ Carlos Castaneda

A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The ego is like a tired old dog. We can never kill it, so put it out on the back porch, let it rest there, and step around it. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Our senses perceive the way they do because a specific feature of our awareness forces them to do so ... because we learn what to perceive. ~ Carlos Castaneda

It doesn't matter what one reveals or what one keeps to oneself. Everything we do, everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we don't have enough personal power the most magnificent piece of wisdom can be revealed to us and it won't make a damn bit of difference. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. ~ Carlos Castaneda

It is important to do what you don't know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The great issue with us males is our frailty," he went on. "When our awareness begins to
grow, it grows like a column, right on the midpoint of our luminous being, from the ground up. That column has to reach a considerable height before we can rely on it. At this time in your life, as a sorcerer, you easily lose your grip on your new awareness. When you do that, you forget everything you have done and seen on the warrior-travelers' path because your consciousness shifts back to the awareness of your everyday life. I have explained to you that the task of every male sorcerer is to reclaim everything he has done and seen on the warrior-travelers' path while he was on new levels of awareness. The problem of every male sorcerer is that he easily forgets because his awareness loses its new level and falls to the ground at the drop of a hat. ~ Carlos Castaneda

A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue ~ Carlos Castaneda

Discipline Makes the Glowing Coat of Awareness Unpalatable to the Predator. ~ Carlos Castaneda

As long as a man feels that he is the most important thing in the world he cannot really appreciate the world around him. ~ Carlos Castaneda

This very rock where we're sitting is a rock because we have been forced to give out attention to it ~ Carlos Castaneda

The spirit reveals itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only warriors are consistently attuned to such revelations. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't then it is of no use to us. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The awakening to serious, sober consciousness, was genuinely shocking. I had forgotten I was a man! The sadness of such an irreconcilable situation was so intense that I wept. ~ Carlos Castaneda

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I want to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Personal history must be constantly renewed by telling parents, relatives, and friends everything one does. On the other hand, for the warrior who has no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with his acts. And above all, no one pins him down with their thoughts and their expectations. ~ Carlos Castaneda

"Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can one relieve one's sadness," don Juan said. "Warriors are always joyful because their love is unalterable and their beloved, the earth, embraces them and bestows upon them inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to those who hate the very thing that gives shelter to their beings." Don Juan again caressed the ground with tenderness. "This lovely being, which is alive to its last recesses and understands every feeling, soothed me, it cured me of my pains, and finally when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom." ~ Carlos Castaneda

To tune the spirit when someone is trampling on you is called control ~ Carlos Castaneda

...only if they remain totally detached can they have the energy to be free. Theirs is a particular type of detachment which is born not out of fear or indolence, but out of conviction. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The average man is either victorious or defeated and, depending on that, he becomes a persecutor or a victim. These two conditions are prevalent as long as one does not see. Seeing dispels the illusion of victory, or defeat, or suffering. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Most people tell themselves these excuses - I've always been this way, this is my nature, I can't help it - that are just memes. They're belief systems that keep you from being able to become all that you are intended to become. They're impediments to reaching God-realization, or Tao-centeredness. People lose track of their purpose, because they are so back there - living in their past. Byron Katie speaks about this: Who would you be without your story? Carlos Castaneda used to say if you don't have a story, you don't have to live up to it. So get rid of your story. ~ Wayne Dyer

Self-importance requires spending most of one's life offended by something or someone. ~ Carlos Castaneda

A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do thingsagainst himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions. ~ Carlos Castaneda

All paths are the same, leading nowhere. Therefore, pick a path with heart! ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

You have little time left, and none of it for crap. A fine state. I would say that the best of us always comes out when we are against the wall, when we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Burn your bridges every 2 years. ~ Carlos Castaneda

That's your doing. Now in order to affect that doing I am going to recommend that you learn another doing ... It may hook you to another doing and then you may realize that both doings are lies, unreal, and that to hinge yourself to either one is a waste of time, because the only thing that is real is the being in you that is going to die. To arrive at that being is the note-doing of the self ~ Carlos Castaneda

If you were a warrior, you would know that the worst thing one can do is confront human beings directly. ~ Carlos Castaneda

If one is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession. ~ Carlos Castaneda

We either make ourselves miserable," said the Brazilian sage Carlos Castaneda, "or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. ~ Steve Chandler

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Things don't change, only the way you look at them. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Many people who are in reality dead are walking in the streets; many who are in their graves are in reality alive. ~ Idries Shah

Heightened awareness is a mystery only for a reason. ~ Carlos Castaneda

There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn't do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way. ~ Carlos Castaneda

When confronted with unusual life situations ... A warrior acts as if nothing had ever happened, because he doesn't believe in anything, yet he accepts everything at its face value. ~ Carlos Castaneda

We chose whether to be warriors or to be ordinary. ~ Carlos Castaneda

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts
for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient,
self-explanatory and complete.
Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the
experience of experiences is being alive. ~ Carlos Castaneda

In the universe there is an immeasurable, indescribable force which shamens call intent, and absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it is. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The journey by itself was sufficient; any hope of arriving at a permanent position was outside the boundaries of his knowledge. ~ Carlos Castaneda

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

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

There is no way to escape the doing of our world, so what a warrior does is to turn his world into his hunting ground. As a hunter, a warrior knows that the world is made to be used. So he uses every bit of it. A warrior is like a pirate that has no qualms in taking and using anything he wants, except that a warrior doesn't mind or he doesn't feel insulted when he is used and taken himself ~ Carlos Castaneda

Self importance is man's greatest enemy. ~ Carlos Castaneda

We're a feeling, an awareness encased here ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Knowledge for a warrior is something that comes at once, engulfs him, and passes on ~ Carlos Castaneda

Before you embark on it you ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

If a warrior wants to pay back for all the favors he has received, and he has no one in particular to address his payment to, he can address it to the spirit of man, That's always a very small account, and whatever one puts in it is more than enough. ~ Carlos Castaneda

All paths lead nowhere, so it is important to choose a path that has heart. ~ Carlos Castaneda

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

Let's say that when every one of us is born we bring with us a little ring of power. That little ring is almost immediately put to use. So every one of us is already hooked from birth and our rings of power are joined to everyone else's. In other words, our rings of power are hooked to the doing of the world in order to make the world. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Our normal expectations about reality are created by a social consensus. We are taught how to see and understand the world. The trick of socialization is to convince us that the descriptions we agree upon define the limits of the real world. What we call reality is only one way of seeing the world, a way that is supported by social consensus. ~ Carlos Castaneda

He said he'd heard the sound of one hand clapping. He said, once his mind took in the wondrous no-sound of holy oneness, the empty echo of eternal bliss, he was never the same. He could hear it still, he said, resounding in the ether and tickling the back of his brain.
Something not normal was going on with his brain. No argument there. ~ Brenda Marie Smith

You are like you are, because you tell yourself that you are that way. ~ Carlos Castaneda

Beware of those who weep with realization, for they have realized nothing. ~ Carlos Castaneda

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. ~ Carlos Castaneda

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 his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That's the warrior's way. ~ Carlos Castaneda

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse. ~ Carlos Castaneda