Topic: Don Juan's quotes

[Jennifer-]

DJ: “You’re afraid of me?” he asked.

CC: “Not of you, but of what you represent.”

DJ: “I represent the warrior’s freedom. Are you afraid of that?”

CC: “No. But I’m afraid of the awesomeness of your knowledge. There is no solace for me, no haven to go to.”

DJ: “You’re confusing issues. Solace, haven, fear all of them are moods that you have learned without ever questioning their value. As one can see, the black magicians have already engaged all your allegiance.”

CC: “Who are the black magicians, don Juan?”

DJ: “Our fellow men are black magicians. And since you are with them, you too are a black magician. Think for a moment. Can you deviate from the path that they’ve lined up for you? No. 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 time and your power fearing me.”

CC: I knew that he was right, and yet in spite of my genuine agreement with him I also knew that my lifelong habits would unavoidably make me stick to my old path. I did indeed feel like a slave.
--=Carlos Castaneda

[Jennifer-]

He came to my side and poked my chest with his fingers; it was a very light tap. “These are the boundaries I’m talking about,” he said. “One can get out of them. We are a feeling, an awareness encased here.”
--=Carlos Castaneda

[Jennifer-]

"Self-importance is our greatest enemy. 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, The Fire From Within

"The only worthwhile course of action, whether for sorcerers or average men, is to restrict our involvement with our self-image."
--=Carlos Castaneda, The Power Of Silence

"The world around us is very mysterious. It doesn't yield its secrets easily. As long as you feel that you are the most important thing in the world you cannot really appreciate the world around you. You are like a horse with blinders, all you see is yourself apart from everything else."
--=Carlos Castaneda, Journey To Ixtlan

[Jennifer-]

Stopping Internal Dialog

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

"Whenever we finish talking to ourselves the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we kindle 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."
--=Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

DJ: “I’ve told you that internal dialog is what grounds us,” don Juan said. “The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such or so and so.”

Don Juan explained that the passage into the world of sorcerers opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off the internal dialog.

“To change our idea of the world is the crux of sorcery,” he said. “And stopping the internal dialog is the only way to accomplish it. The rest is just padding.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

CC: It was as if I were not the person I knew myself to be.
DJ: “I don’t see why you make such a fuss out of this,” don Juan said. “Whenever the dialog stops, the world collapses and extraordinary facets of ourself surface, as though they had been kept heavily guarded by our words. You are like you are, because you tell yourself that you are that way.”

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

DJ: “Your knowledge of the world told you that in the bushes one can only find animals prowling or men hiding behind foliage. You held that thought, and naturally you had to find ways to make the world conform to that thought.”
CC: “But I wasn’t thinking at all, don Juan.”
DJ: “Let’s not call it thinking then. It is rather the habit of having the world always conform to our thoughts. When it doesn’t, we simply make it conform.”
--=Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power

[Jennifer-]

Personal Power

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

DJ: “It doesn’t matter what one reveals or what one keeps to oneself,” he said. “Everything we do, everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we have enough of it, one word uttered to us might be sufficient to change the course of our lives. But if we don’t have enough personal power, the most magnificent piece of wisdom can be revealed to us and that revelation won’t make a damn bit of difference.”

“I’m going to utter perhaps the greatest piece of knowledge anyone can voice,” he said. “Let me see what you can do with it.

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

[having pointed at the horizon] “Do you know that you can extend yourself forever in any of the directions I have pointed to?” he went on. “Do you know that one moment can be eternity? This is not a riddle; it is a fact, but only if you can mount that moment and use it to take the totality of yourself forever in any direction.”

“You didn’t have this knowledge before,” he said, smiling. “Now you do. I have revealed it to you, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference, because you don’t have enough personal power to utilize my revelation. Yet if you did have enough personal power, my words alone would serve as the means for you to round up the totality of yourself and get the crucial part of it out of the boundaries in which it is contained.”
--=Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

CC: “What happens if one doesn’t have enough power?”
DJ: “Death is always waiting, and when the warrior’s power wanes death simply taps him. Thus, to venture into the unknown without power is stupid. One will only find death.”
--=Carlos Castaneda, Journey To Ixtlan

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

DJ: “We are luminous beings,” he said. “And for a luminous being only personal power matters. But if you ask me what personal power is, I have to tell you that my explanation will not explain it.”
--=Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power

[Jennifer-]

"When a man embarks on the paths of sorcery he becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been forever left behind; that knowledge is indeed a frightening affair; that the means of the ordinary world are no longer a buffer for him; and that he must adopt a new way of life if he is going to survive."
--=Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality

[nichi]

"Do you mean that I won't see you anymore, don Juan?"

"Not ever again," he said. "Genaro and I will be then what we always have been, dust on the road."
I had a jolt in the pit of my stomach.

"What are you saying, don Juan?"

"I'm saying that we all are unfathomable beings, luminous and boundless. You, Genaro and I are stuck together by a purpose that is not our decision."

"What purpose are you talking about?"

"Learning the warrior's way. You can't get out of it, but neither can we. As long as our achievement is pending you will find me or Genaro, but once it is accomplished, you will fly freely and no one knows where the force of your life will take you."

"What is don Genaro doing in this?"

"That subject is not in your realm yet," he said. "Today I have to pound the nail that Genaro put in, the fact that we are luminous beings. We are perceivers. We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity. We are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our passage on earth convenient."

Carlos Castaneda
TALES OF POWER

[nichi]

Sheer Joy - Frightening Sadness

Every time I entered into heightened awareness I could not cease marveling at the difference between my two sides.  I always felt as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, as if I had been partially blind before and now I could see.  The freedom, the sheer joy that used to possess me on those occasions cannot be compared with anything else I have ever experienced.  Yet at the same time, there was a frightening feeling of sadness and longing that went hand in hand with that freedom and joy.  Don Juan had told me that there is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no sobriety, no kindness.  Wisdom without kindness, he said, and knowledge without sobriety are useless.

Introduction
The Fire From Within
Carlos Castaneda

[nichi]

That dog's barking is the nocturnal voice of a man. It comes from a house in that valley towards the south.  The man is shouting through his dog, since they are companion slaves for life, his sadness, his boredom.   He's begging his death to come and release him from the dull and dreary chains of his life. That barking, and the loneliness it creates, speaks of the feelings of men. Men for whom an entire life was like one Sunday afternoon, an afternoon which was not altogether miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal. They didn't know where to go, or what to do. That afternoon left them only with the memory of petty annoyances and tedium, and then suddenly it was over; it was already night.

The Predilection of Two Warriors
TALES OF POWER
Carlos Castaneda

[nichi]

Elegant Acquiescence

He explained to me then the intricacies of choice.  He said that choice, for warrior-travelers, was not really the act of choosing, but rather the act of acquiescing elegantly to the solicitations of infinity.

"Infinity chooses," he said.  "The art of the warrior-traveler is to have the ability to move with the slightest insinuation, the art of acquiescing to every command of infinity.  For this, a warrior-traveler needs prowess, strength, and above everything else, sobriety.  All those three put together give, as a result, elegance!"

Journeys Through the Dark Sea of Awareness
THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY
Carlos Castaneda

[Jennifer-]

Sheer Joy - Frightening Sadness

Every time I entered into heightened awareness I could not cease marveling at the difference between my two sides.  I always felt as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, as if I had been partially blind before and now I could see.  The freedom, the sheer joy that used to possess me on those occasions cannot be compared with anything else I have ever experienced.  Yet at the same time, there was a frightening feeling of sadness and longing that went hand in hand with that freedom and joy.  Don Juan had told me that there is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no sobriety, no kindness.  Wisdom without kindness, he said, and knowledge without sobriety are useless.

Introduction
The Fire From Within
Carlos Castaneda

The title given to this says it all...  Nice find!

[Jennifer-]

That dog's barking is the nocturnal voice of a man. It comes from a house in that valley towards the south.  The man is shouting through his dog, since they are companion slaves for life, his sadness, his boredom.   He's begging his death to come and release him from the dull and dreary chains of his life. That barking, and the loneliness it creates, speaks of the feelings of men. Men for whom an entire life was like one Sunday afternoon, an afternoon which was not altogether miserable, but rather hot and dull and uncomfortable. They sweated and fussed a great deal. They didn't know where to go, or what to do. That afternoon left them only with the memory of petty annoyances and tedium, and then suddenly it was over; it was already night.

The Predilection of Two Warriors
TALES OF POWER
Carlos Castaneda

  I dont remember ever reading this before, its an awsome quote. The dogs barking is the nocturnal voice of man has this sort of sad/real/yes!/longing/lost feel to it doesnt it.

[Michael]

"Genaro and I will be then what we always have been, dust on the road."

"I'm saying that we all are unfathomable beings, luminous and boundless. You, Genaro and I are stuck together by a purpose that is not our decision."

Ellen!

[Michael]

Don Juan had told me that there is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no sobriety, no kindness.  Wisdom without kindness, he said, and knowledge without sobriety are useless.

Taimi!

[Michael]

"Infinity chooses," he said.  "The art of the warrior-traveler is to have the ability to move with the slightest insinuation, the art of acquiescing to every command of infinity.

insinuation => command

this is so ... but who can see the slightest skein of insinuation from the silent whirlwind?

insinuation => command