Castaneda Carlos 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

Burn your bridges every 2 years. — Carlos Castaneda

Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way. — 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

Warriors do not win victories by beating their heads against walls, but by overtaking the walls. Warriors jump over walls; they don't demolish them. — Carlos Castaneda

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

Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final dramatic, end result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. — 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

Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet. — Carlos Castaneda

A man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus — Carlos Castaneda

We don't need more to be thankful for, we just need to be more thankful. — 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

A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as a grounds for regret but as a living challenge. — Carlos Castaneda

To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other. — Carlos Castaneda

The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so,believing that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior. — 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

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

We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk. — Carlos Castaneda

It takes all the time and all the energy we have to conquer the idiocy in us — 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

A warrior considers himself already dead, so there is nothing to lose. The worst has already happened to him, therefore he's clear and calm; judging him by his acts or by his words, one would never suspect that he has witnessed everything. — 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

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

Man has a dark side, yes, and it is called stupidity. — 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

I am already given to the power that rules my fate. And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend. I have no thoughts, so I will see. I fear nothing, so I will remember myself. Detached and at ease, I will dart past the Eagle to be free. — 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 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. — 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

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

Everything in the world is a force, a pull or a push. In order for us to be pushed or pulled we need to be like a sail, like a kite in the wind. But if we have a hole in the middle of our luminosity, the force goes through it and never acts upon us. — Carlos Castaneda

The fact of the matter is that many children see ... Most of those who see are considered to be oddballs and every effort is made to correct them. — Carlos Castaneda

You're in a terrible spot. It's too late for you to retreat but too soon to act. All you can do is witness. You're in the miserable position of an infant who cannot return to the mother's womb, but neither can he run around and act. All an infant can do is witness and listen to the stupendous tales of action being told to him. You are at that precise point now. You cannot go back to the womb of your old world, but you cannot act with power either. For you there is only witnessing acts of power and listening to tales of power. — 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

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

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

Modern man has left the realm of the unknown and the mysterious, and has settled down in the realm of the functional. He is turned is back to the world of the foreboding and the exulting and has welcomed the world of boredom. — Carlos Castaneda

We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye. — Carlos Castaneda

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. — Carlos Castaneda

Milla Jovovich introduced me to [anthropologist and author of the Don Juan series of books involving shamanic peyote rituals] Carlos Castaneda because I was all into the hallucinogens for a minute. — Michelle Rodriguez

Whenever you are in the world of the tonal, you should be an impeccable tonal; no time for irrational crap. But whenever you are in the world of the nagual, you should also be impeccable; no time for rational crap. For the warrior intent is the gate in between. It closes completely behind him when he goes either way — 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

Dwelling upon the self too much produces terrible fatigue. A man in that position is deaf and blind to everything else. The fatigue itself makes him cease to see the marvels all around. — Carlos Castaneda

The third point of reference is freedom of perception; it is intent; it is spirit; the somersault of thought into the miraculous; the act of reaching beyond our boundaries and touching the inconceivable. — Carlos Castaneda

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

If a warrior needs solace he simply chooses anyone and expresses to that person every detail of his turmoil. After all, the warrior is not seeking to be understood or helped; by talking he's merely relieving himself of his pressure. — 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

Whenever the internal dialogue stops, the world collapses, and extraordinary facets of ourselves surface, as though they had been kept heavily guarded by our words. — Carlos Castaneda

One ,must have something to die for in order to have something to live for — 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

The only thing we all have in common is that we play tricks in order to force ourselves to abandon the quest. The counter-measure is to persist in spite of all the barriers and disappointments. — 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

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

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

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

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

Victor Wooten is the Carlos Castaneda of music — Tony Levin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crows are not always available to give warning. — Carlos Castaneda

When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become. — 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

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

I'm never angry at anybody! No human being can do anything important enough for that. You get angry at people when you feel that their acts are important. I don't feel that way any longer. — 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

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

The things shamans deal with are extremely practical. They break down parameters of normal historical reality. Magical passes are just one aspect of that. — Carlos Castaneda

For a sorcerer, reality, or the world as we all know it, is only a description. — Carlos Castaneda

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

Think about it: what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone. — 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

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

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

The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive. — Carlos Castaneda

Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because it is the nature of his lot, for good or bad. — Carlos Castaneda

One cannot enter don Juan's world intellectually, like a dilettante seeking fast and fleeting knowledge. Nor, in don Juan's world, can anything be verified absolutely. The only thing we can do is arrive at a state of increased awareness that allows us to perceive the world around us in a more inclusive manner. — 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

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