Quotes from Carlos Castaneda

Añadió que nada en este mundo era un regalo: todo cuanto hubiera que aprender debía aprenderse por el camino difícil.

The indulgence of denying is by far the worst; it forces us to believe we are doing great things, when in effect we are only fixed within ourselves. To

that a warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds him and aware of his duty to try to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one. Consequently, for a warrior there is no end to the mystery of being, whether being means being a pebble, or an ant, or oneself. That is a warrior's humbleness. One is equal to everything.

Nothing is pending in the world…nothing is finished, yet nothing is unresolved…Everything is filled to the brim.

For instance, we need to look with our eyes to laugh," he said, "because only when we look at things can we catch the funny edge of the world. On the other hand, when our eyes see, everything is so equal that nothing is funny.

No tienes que hacer nada para caer bien o mal. O te acepta o te tira de lado.

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.

Discipline Makes the Glowing Coat of Awareness Unpalatable to the Predator.

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.

The art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.

It isn't that as time goes by you're learning sorcery; rather, what you're learning is to save energy. And this energy will enable you to handle some of the energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the ordinary world we know. Sorcery is a state of awareness.

Every warrior on the path of knowledge thinks, at one time or another, that he's learning sorcery, but all he's doing is allowing himself to be convinced of the power hidden in his being, and that he can reach it.

I had been reared, perhaps like everyone else, to have a readiness to accept man as an essentially weak and fallible creature.

The aim of sorcerers is to reach a state of total awareness in order to experience all the possibilities of perception available to man. This state of awareness even implies an alternative way of dying.

Warriors are incapable of feeling compassion because they no longer feel sorry for themselves. Without the driving force of self-pity, compassion is meaningless.

What makes us unhappy is to want. Yet if we would learn to cut our wants to nothing, the smallest thing we'd get would be a true gift.

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

A hunter knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn't worry. 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.

There is no beginning, the beginning is only in your thought.

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.

perceiving the world" entails a process of apprehending whatever presents itself to us. This particular "perceiving" is done with our senses and with our will.

Remember what I've told you," he said. "Don't count on emotional realizations. Let your assemblage point move first, then years later have the realization.

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

But we must know first that our acts are useless and yet we must proceed as if we didn't know it. That's a sorcerer's controlled folly.