Best Castaneda Quotes & Sayings

The path to knowledge is a forced one. In order to learn, we must be pushed. On the path of knowledge we are always fighting something, avoiding something, preparing for something; and that something is always inexplicable, greater and more powerful than us. — 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

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

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

Once a man worries, he clings to anything out of desperation; and once he clings he is bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whomever or whatever he is clinging to. A warrior-hunter, on the other hand, knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn't worry. — Carlos Castaneda

In the Art of Dreaming Don Juan tells Carlos, " ... most of our energy goes into upholding our importance ... if we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two we would provide ourselves with enough energy to ... catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe." — Carlos Castaneda

Sorcerers are convinced that all of us are a bunch of nincompoops. We can never relinquish our crummy control voluntarily, thus we have to be tricked — Carlos Castaneda

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. — Carlos Castaneda

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

A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you ... Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question ... Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is of no use. — Carlos Castaneda

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

We have to balance the lineality of the known universe with the nonlineality of the unknown universe. — Carlos Castaneda

You see all of us go through the same doubts. We are afraid of being mad; unfortunately for us, of course, all of us are already mad. — 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

You're chained to you reason ... Understanding is only a very small affair, so very small — Carlos Castaneda

Once you decide something put all your petty fears away. Your decision should vanquish them. I will tell you time and time again, the most effective way to live is as a warrior. Worry and think before you make any decision, but once you make it, be on your way free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting you. That's the warrior's way.
A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit. — 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

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

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

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

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? — Carlos Castaneda

The shadows in the early morning don't tell much. The shadows rest at that time. So it's useless to gaze very early in the day. Around six in the morning the shadows wake up, and they are best around five in the afternoon. Then they are fully awake. — 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

My worrying, for instance, was a scene in which I looked at myself while I had the sensation of being boxed in. I call that worrying, It has happened to me a number of times after that first time. — Carlos Castaneda

Malicious acts are performed by people for personal gain ... Sorcerers, though, have an ulterior purpose for their acts, which has nothing to do with personal gain. The fact that they enjoy their acts does not count as gain. Rather, it is a condition of their character. The average man acts only if there is a chance for profit. Warriors say they act not for profit but for the spirit. — 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

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

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

He went on to say that conclusions arrived at through reasoning had very little or no influence in altering the course of our lives. Hence, the countless examples of people who have the clearest convictions and yet act diametrically against them time and time again, and have as the only explanation for their behavior the idea that to err is human. — 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

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

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 was stupidity that forced us to discard anything that did not conform with ourself - reflective expectations. — Carlos Castaneda

Victor Wooten is the Carlos Castaneda of music — Tony Levin

Any path is only a path, and there is no affront to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. — Carlos Castaneda

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

Don Juan, in the teacings of Carlos Castaneda, makes the same point. You have to fool people into seeking knowlege. People will not do it of their own volition. — Frederick Lenz

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

Many of us today owe the few attractive and redeeming features of our existence to the sixties, and Che Guevara personifies that era ... better than anyone" (Castaneda 1997:410). — Richard L. Harris

For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor. — Carlos Castaneda