Topic: Don Juan's quotes

[nichi]

"...  A warrior has no compassion for anyone. To have compassion means that you wish the other person to be like you, to be in your shoes, and you lend a hand just for that purpose. The hardest thing in the world is for a warrior to let others be. The impeccability of a warrior is to let them be and to support them in what they are. That means, of course, that you trust them to be impeccable warriors themselves. If they are not then it's your duty to be impeccable yourself and not say a word. Only a sorcerer who sees and is formless can afford to help anyone. Every effort to help on our part is an arbitrary act guided by our own self-interest alone..."

The Second Ring of Power
Carlos Castaneda

"It's not the people around you who are at fault," he said.  "They cannot help themselves.  The fault is with you, because you can help yourself, but you are bent on judging them, at a deep level of silence.  Any idiot can judge.  If you judge them, you will only get the worst out of them.  All of us human beings are prisoners, and it is that prison that makes us act in such a miserable way.  Your challenge is to take people as they are!  Leave people alone."

The Clear View
THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY
Carlos Castaneda

[somnium]

 "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.”

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

[Jennifer-]

"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.”

 

One of my favorites... 

[SoulFire]

~Sorcerers say that in every explanation there is a hidden apology. So, when you are explaining why you cannot do this or that, you’re really apologizing for your shortcomings, hoping that whoever is listening to you will have the kindness to understand them.

Don Juan Matus, The Active Side of Infinity

One of my Faves!

[somnium]

"The Eagle's gift of freedom is not a bestowal, but a chance to have a chance."

[somnium]

"The world of people goes up and down and the people go up and down with their world; warriors have no business following the ups and downs of their fellow men"

"People's actions no longer affect a warrior when he has no expectations of any kind. A strange peace becomes the ruling force in his life. He has adopted one of the concepts of a warrior's life- detachment."

[SoulFire]

warriors have no business following the ups and downs of their fellow men"

 
Nice
Thanks Derek

[somnium]

 

[nichi]

An unconquerable pessimism overtakes a warrior at a certain point on his path. A sense of defeat, or perhaps more accurately, a sense of unworthiness, comes upon him almost unawares. A warrior's resolution to live impeccably in spite of everything cannot be approached as a strategy to ensure success. The warrior enters into a state of unsurpassed humility; when the true poverty of his human resources becomes undeniable, the warrior has no recourse but to step back and lower his head.  It is monstrous to think that the world is understandable or that we ourselves are understandable. What we are perceiving is an enigma, a mystery that one can only accept in humbleness and awe. The two sides of a human being are totally separate and it takes great discipline and determination to break that seal and go from one side to the other. We have been put together by forces incomprehensible to our reason. The only thing we do not have is time. Every minute might be our last; therefore, it has to be lived with the spirit...

The Eagle's Gift
Carlos Castaneda

[Michael]

The only thing we do not have is time.

yes. drive it into the brain with a jackhammer!

[Jennifer-]

“"Please tell me, don Juan, what exactly is controlled folly?”

Don Juan laughed loudly and made a smacking sound by slapping his thigh with the hollow of his hand.

“This is controlled folly!” he said, and laughed and slapped his thigh again.

“What do you mean…?”

“I am happy that you have finally asked me about my controlled folly after so many years, and yet it wouldn’t have mattered to me in the least if you never asked. Yet I have chosen to feel happy, as if I cared, that you asked, as if it would matter that I care. That is controlled folly!"”

Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality

 

[Jennifer-]

“"With whom do you exercise controlled folly, don Juan?” I asked after a long silence.

He chuckled.

“With everybody!” he exclaimed, smiling.

“When do you choose to exercise it, then?”

“Every single time I act.”

I felt the need to recapitulate at that point and I asked him if controlled folly meant his never sincere but were only the acts of an actor.

“My acts are sincere,” he said, “but they are only the acts of an actor.”

“Then everything you do must be controlled folly!” I said truly surprised.

“Yes, everything,” he said.

“But it can’t be true,” I protested, “that every one of your acts is only controlled folly.”

“Why not?” he replied with a mysterious look.

“That would mean that nothing matters to you and you really don’t care about anything or anybody. Take me, for example. Do you meant that you don’t care whether or not I become a man of knowledge, or whether I live, or die, or do anything?”

“True! I don’t.”"

Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality

 

[Jennifer-]

"I experienced a peculiar feeling of emptiness. Obviously there was no reason in the world why don Juan had to care about me, but on the other hand I had almost the certainty that he cared about me personally; I thought it could not be otherwise.

“I have the feeling we are not talking about the same thing,” I said. “I shouldn’t have used myself as an example. What I meant to say was that there must be something in the world you care about in a way that is not controlled folly. I don’t think it is possible to go on living if nothing really matters to us.”

“That applies to you,” he said. “Things matter to you. You asked me about my controlled folly and I told you that everything I do in regard to myself and my fellow men is folly, because nothing matters.”

“My point is, don Juan, that if nothing matters to you, how can you go on living?”

He laughed and after a moments pause, in which he seemed to deliberate whether or not to answer, he got up and went to the back of his house. I followed him.

“Wait, wait, don Juan.” I said. “I really want to know, you must explain to me what you mean.”

“Perhaps it is not possible to explain,” he said. “Certain things in your life matter to you because they’re important to you, but for me, not a single thing is important any longer, neither my acts nor the acts of my fellow men. I go on living, though, because I have my will. Because I have tempered my will throughout my life until it is neat and wholesome, and now it doesn’t matter to me that nothing matters. My will controls the folly of my life.”"

Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality

 

[Jennifer-]

"I was bewildered. Never would I have anticipated the direction that my query had taken. After a long pause I thought of a good point. I told him that in my opinion some of the acts of my fellow men were of supreme importance. I pointed that a nuclear war was definitely the most dramatic example of such an act. I said that for me destroying life on the face of the earth was an act of staggering enormity.

“You believe that because you are thinking. You’re thinking about life,” don Juan said with a glint in his eyes. You’re not seeing.”

“Would I feel differently if I could see?” I asked.

“Once a man learns to see he finds himself alone in the world with nothing but folly,” don Juan said cryptically.

“your acts, as well as the acts of your fellow men in general, appear important to you because you have learned to think they are important.”

He used the word “learned” with such a peculiar inflection that it forced me to ask what he meant by it.

“We learn to think about everything,” he said, “and then we train our eyes to look as we think about the things we look at. We look at ourselves already thinking that we are important. And therefore we’ve got to feel important!”"

Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality

[erik]

For a while I've been playing with a thought that if one looks at the quotes of DJ long enough, it becomes pretty much like Bible. Using mental, it becomes possible to find a quote for every occasion in life, to justify and explain almost everything, every desire, attachment, attitude, every deed. How easy it is to get lost, lose the way at the mental level!

It is the feeling behind these words that wouldn't let them to be misinterpreted.