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MIND EXPANSION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICES
10/04/15 prepared by Natasha M
THE ESSENCE OF A WARRIOR NEW
quotes from Carlos Castaneda books

We have been trained to live and die meekly, following unnatural codes of behavior which soften us and make us lose that initial impulse, until our spirit is hardly noticeable. We are born as a result of a fight. By denying our basic tendencies, the society we live in eradicates the warring heritage that transforms us into magical beings.

Don Juan was always moving, coming or going, supporting this or rejecting that, provoking tensions or discharging them in a burst, shouting his intent or remaining silent; doing something. He was alive, and his life reflected the ebb and flow of the universe.

Don Juan told me that, from the moment when the explosion which gave us origin occurred, until the moment of our death, we live within a flow. And what aligns us with that flow? An incessant battle, which only a warrior will attempt. Because of that, he lives in profound harmony with everything.

For a warrior, to be harmonious is to flow, not to stop in the middle of the current and try to make a space of artificial and impossible peace. He knows that he can only give the very best of himself under conditions of maximum tension.

Ask yourselves these questions: What am I doing with my life? Does it have a purpose? Is it tight enough? A warrior accepts his destiny, whatever it may be.

A warrior knows that what gives sense to his life is the challenge of death, and death is a personal matter. It is a challenge for each one of us, and one which only sincere warriors accept.

We are beings who are going to die. We were programmed to live like beasts, carrying loads of customs and other people’s beliefs until the very end; but we can change all that! The freedom which the warrior’s way offers us is within the reach of your hand; take advantage of it!

The tragedy of today’s man is not his social condition, but the lack of will to change himself.

Sorcerers say that true rebellion, and humanity’s only way out as a species, is to stage a revolution against their own stupidity. As you can understand, this is solitary work.

The goal of sorcerers is this sorcerers’ revolution: The unrestricted unfolding of all our perceptual possibilities. Don Juan demonstrated that it is possible!

I cannot guide you, but I can put you in front of an abyss which will test all your abilities. It depends on you, whether you hurl yourself off it to fly, or run to hide in the security of your routines.

After experimenting for millennia with situations that alter our ways of perceiving the world, the sorcerers from ancient Mexico discovered a portentous fact: We are not forced to live in a single reality, because the universe is constructed according to very fluid principles which can accommodate almost infinite forms, producing countless ranges of perception.

Don Juan claimed that what limits human perception is timidity. To be able to manage the world which surrounds us, we have had to give up our perceptual gift; that is, the possibility of witnessing everything. We sacrifice the flight of awareness in exchange for the security of the known. We can live strong, audacious, healthy lives; we can be impeccable warriors; but we don’t dare!

Of all the gifts we have received, self-importance is the cruelest. It converts a magical, vivid creature into a poor, arrogant, graceless devil.

When a warrior learns how to toss self-importance aside, his spirit unfolds, jubilant, like a wild animal liberated from its cage and set free.

On the cosmic scale, the strength of a being is not measured by its physical capability, but by its capacity to manipulate awareness. It follows that if we are to take the next evolutionary step, it must be done by means of discipline, determination, and strategy.

A warrior considers the world we live in to be a great mystery, and he knows that the mystery is there to be revealed to those who deliberately look for it.

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.

A warrior accepts with humility what he is, and he doesn’t squander his power on lamenting because things are not otherwise.

If we learn how to curb our self-pity, and at the same time make room for the authentic ‘me’, we will become drivers of cosmic intent, and conduits for torrents of energy.

Impeccability is born of a delicate balance between our internal being and the forces of the external world. It is an achievement that requires effort, time, dedication, and being permanently attentive to the objective, so that the final purpose is never lost from sight.

The warrior’s final challenge is to balance all the attributes of his path. Once he does that, his purpose becomes inflexible. He is no longer moved by a desperate desire for gain.

Take a risk! Get out of the trap of self-reflection and dare to perceive all that is humanly possible! A warrior of knowledge makes an effort to be authentic, and he won’t accept any compromises, because the object of his fight is total freedom.

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.

For modern man absolutely everything that exists is put into definite categories. We are labeling machines. We classify the world, and the world classifies us.

We have become perceptual jailers of each other. The chain of human thought is powerful.

The reality of our condition is that we are energetically blocked, due to what sorcerers call the collective fixation of the assemblage point.

Sorcerers maintain that talking about ourselves makes us accessible and weak, while learning how to be quiet fills us with power. A principle of the path of knowledge is to turn your own life into something so unpredictable that not even you yourself knows what’s going to happen.

The sorcerer’s objective is to break the fixation of social interpretations, and to see energy directly. To see is a total perceptual experience.

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.

Sorcerers have discovered the most refined form of love, because they love themselves. They know that all we give out is a reflection of what we have inside.

Warriors recapitulate when they are walking down the road, in the bathroom, when working or when eating; whenever it is possible. The important thing is to do it.

Recapitulation starts from inside and sustains itself. It is matter of silencing the mind, and our energy body will take control, doing what is a delight for it to do. You feel well, comforted; far from draining you, it gives you rest. Your body perceives it as an inexplicable energy bath.

Sorcerers abide by their experience. They have changed ‘believing’ for seeing.

Silence is a passageway between worlds. When our mind stays silent, incredible aspects of our being emerge. Starting from that moment, a person becomes a vehicle of intent, and all his acts begin to ooze power.

When his path no longer corresponds to human expectations, when it takes him to situations that challenge his reason, then we can say that a warrior has begun an intimate relationship with knowledge.

Sorcerers love the purity of the abstract. For them, the value of the path with heart is not so much where it takes us but how intensely we enjoy it.

To move the fixation of the planet is the only way out from the dramatic state of slavery to which we have been reduced. The course of our civilization has no exit, because we are isolated in a remote location of the cosmos. If we don’t learn how to travel along the avenues of awareness, we will come to such a state of frustration and despair that humanity will end up destroying itself. Our options are the way of the warrior, or extinction.

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There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn’t do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.

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.

Knowledge is a most peculiar affair, especially for a warrior. Knowledge for a warrior is something that comes at once, engulfs him, and passes on.

Human beings are not objects; they have no solidity. They are round, luminous beings; they are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is only a description that was created to help them, to make their passage on earth convenient.

The warrior’s way offers a man a new life and that life has to be completely new. He can’t bring to that new life his ugly old ways.

Everybody has enough personal power for something. The trick for the warrior is to pull his personal power away from his weaknesses to his warrior’s purpose.

There is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without kindness and knowledge without sobriety are useless.

Once inner silence is attained, everything is possible. The way to stop talking to ourselves is to use exactly the same method used to teach us to talk to ourselves; we were taught compulsively and unwaveringly, and this is the way we must stop it; compulsively and unwaveringly.

Impeccability begins with a single act that has to be deliberate, precise and sustained. If that act is repeated long enough, one acquires a sense of unbending intent, which can be applied to anything else. If that is accomplished the road is clear. One thing will lead to another until the warrior realizes his full potential.

The mystery of awareness is darkness. Human beings reek of that mystery, of things which are inexplicable. To regard ourselves in any other terms is madness. So a warrior doesn’t demean the mystery of man by trying to rationalize it.

It isn’t that a warrior learns shamanism as time goes by; rather, what he learns as time goes by is to save energy. This energy will enable him to handle some of the energy fields which are ordinarily inaccessible to him. Shamanism is a state of awareness, the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the everyday-life world that we know.

Man has a dark side. It’s called stupidity. In the same measure that ritual forced the average man to construct huge churches that were monuments to self-importance, ritual also forced sorcerers to construct edifices of morbidity and obsession. As a result, it is the duty of every nagual to guide awareness so it will fly toward the abstract, free of liens and mortgages.

On the Path of Knowledge there are four natural enemies: fear, clarity, power and old age.

When the Knock of the Spirit sounds we follow or perish.

A path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy— it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.

A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.

A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he sees that his life will be over altogether too soon. He sees that nothing is more important than anything else.

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.

Be fluid, at ease in whatever situation you find yourself. Your challenge is to deal with people with ease regardless of what they do to you. Remember what I have said, that 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.

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 things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions.

A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.

A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.

A warrior is never concerned about his fear.

A warrior takes responsibility for his acts; for the most trivial of his acts. He waits patiently, knowing that he is waiting, and knowing what he is waiting for. That is the warrior’s way.

A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.

A warrior-hunter knows that his death is waiting, and the very act he is performing now may well be his last battle on earth. He calls it a battle because it is a struggle. Most people move from act to act without any struggle or thought. A warrior-hunter, on the contrary, assesses every act; and since he has intimate knowledge of his death, he proceeds judiciously, as if every act were his last battle. Only a fool would fail to notice the advantage a warrior-hunter has over his fellow men. A warrior-hunter gives his last battle its due respect. It’s only natural that his last act on earth should be the best of himself. It’s pleasurable that way. It dulls the edge of his fright.

An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.

A warrior seeks to act rather than talk.

Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask: ‘Does this path have a heart?’

Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, ‘I haven’t touched you yet.’

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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?

Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid.

For a warrior, to be inaccessible means that he touches the world around him sparingly. And above all, he deliberately avoids exhausting himself and others. He doesn’t use and squeeze people until they have shriveled to nothing, especially the people he loves.

If his spirit is distorted he should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect—because there is no other task in our entire lives which is more worthwhile…To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our humanity.

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. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of silence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of silence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude, before they reach the desired result. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called “stopping the world”, the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it’s always been. This is the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers always called it “total freedom”.

Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.

It doesn’t matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.

Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn’t, it is of no use.

No person is important enough to make me angry.

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

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.

Only the idea of death makes a warrior sufficiently detached so that he is capable of abandoning himself to anything. 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.

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.

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.

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.

The humbleness of a warrior is not the humbleness of the beggar. The warrior lowers his head to no one, but at the same time, he doesn’t permit anyone to lower his head to him. The beggar, on the other hand, falls to his knees at the drop of a hat and scrapes the floor for anyone he deems to be higher; but at the same time, he demands that someone lower than him scrape the floor for him.

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.

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.

The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.

The spirit of a warrior is not geared to indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior’s last battle on earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing that his intent is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs.

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

The warrior: silent in his struggle, undetainable because he has nothing to lose, functional and efficacious because he has everything to gain.

There is a flaw with words, they always force us to feel enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without enlightenment.

There’s no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim.

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.

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.

To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.

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.

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

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.

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

An immortal being has all the time in the world for doubts and bewilderment and fears. A warrior, on the other hand, cannot…because he knows for a fact that the totality of himself has but a little time on this earth.

The things that people do cannot under any conditions be more important than the world.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.

Within these premises, the only thing one can be is an impeccable mediator. One is not the player in this cosmic match of chess, one is simply a pawn on the chessboard. What decides everything is a conscious impersonal energy that sorcerers call intent or the Spirit.

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We are a feeling, an awareness encased here.

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.

It’s better to get something worthwhile done using deception than to fail to get something worthwhile done using truth.

Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy.

Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.

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.

There’s no way to put a limit on what one may accomplish individually if the intent is an impeccable intent. Don Juan’s teachings are not spiritual. I repeat this because the question has come to the surface over and over. The idea of spirituality doesn’t fit with the iron discipline of a warrior. The most important thing for a shaman like don Juan is the idea of pragmatism.

A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive.

A warrior lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.

A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.

A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise him, much less drain his power.

We choose only once. We choose either to be warriors or to be ordinary men. A second choice does not exist. Not on this earth.

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war: wide-awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. Going to knowledge or going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it might never live to regret it.

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

For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have a heart, on any path that may have a heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to traverse its full length. And there I travel–looking, looking, breathlessly.

You must understand that knowledge cannot be turned into words. That knowledge is there for everyone. It is there to be felt, to be used, but not to be explained. One can come into it by changing levels of awareness, therefore, heightened awareness is an entrance. But even the entrance cannot be explained. One can only make use of it.

Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge, because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man.

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.

I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it.

When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites—to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance—there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.

If we don’t learn how to travel along the avenues of awareness, we will come to such a state of frustration and despair that humanity will end up destroying itself. Our options are the way of the warrior, or extinction.

When a man embarks on the paths of knowledge, 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. The first thing he ought to do, at that point, is to want to become a warrior. The frightening nature of knowledge leaves one no alternative but to become a warrior.

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

In his day-to-day life a warrior chooses to follow the path with heart. It is the consistent choice of the path with heart which makes a warrior different from the average man. He knows that a path has heart when he is one with it, when he experiences a great peace and pleasure traversing its length. The things a warrior selects to make his shields are the items of a path with heart. You must surround yourself with the items of a path with heart and you must refuse the rest.

The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat it as it is, a sheer mystery!

Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge, because the art of a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man
with the wonder of being a man.


To be a warrior you have to be crystal clear.

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.

The countless paths one traverses in one’s life are all equal. Oppressors and oppressed meet at the end, and the only thing that prevails is that life was altogether too short for both.

Everything is meaningful for a warrior. The sounds have holes in them and so does everything around you. Ordinarily a man does not have the speed to catch the holes, and thus he goes through life without protection. The worms, the birds, the trees, all of them can tell us unimaginable things if only one could have the speed to grasp their message.

People hardly ever realize that we can cut anything from our lives, any time, just like that. For example, smoking and drinking are nothing. Nothing at all if we want to drop them. Only one thing is indispensable for anything we do; the spirit. One can’t do without the spirit.

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Think of your death now. It is at arm’s length. It may tap you any moment, so really you have no time for crappy thoughts and moods. None of us have time for that. The only thing that counts is action, acting instead of talking.

When a man decides to do something he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.

Acts have power. Especially when the person acting knows that those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever one is doing may very well be one’s last act on earth.

The world is a mystery. This, what you’re looking at, is not all there is to it. There is much more to the world, so much more, in fact, that it is endless.

A warrior should not have 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.

There are infinite numbers of lines that join us to things. They are real lines. You can feel them. The most difficult part about the warrior’s way is to realize that the world is a feeling. When one is not-doing, one is feeling the world, and one feels the world through its lines.

The instant one begins to live like a warrior, one is no longer ordinary. It is meaningless to complain. What’s important from this point on is the strategy of your life.

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

A nagual man or woman is someone flexible enough to be anything. To be a nagual, among other things, means to have no points to defend.

The internal dialogue is what grounds us. 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. The passageway into the world of the warrior opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off the internal dialogue.

A warrior is always ready for anything. 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 a reasonable being. We make ourselves into one or the other.

A man of knowledge cannot possibly act towards his fellow men in injurious terms.

There is no flaw it the warrior’s way. Question without fear, without suspicion and without draining yourself. Assemble what you learn, without presumptuousness and without piousness.

Never dwell on past events except in reference. To emphasize them would mean to take away from the importance of what’s taking place now. A warrior cannot possibly afford to do that.

It is not so difficult to let the spirit of man flow and take over; to sustain it, however, is something that only a warrior can do.

You are aware of everything only when you think you should be; the condition of a warrior, however, is to be aware of everything at all times.

One of the acts of a warrior is never to let anything affect him. Thus, a warrior may be seeing the devil himself, but he won’t let anyone know that. The control of a warrior has to be impeccable.

There’s no future. The future is only a way of talking. For a warrior there is only the here and now.

A warrior acknowledges his pain but he doesn’t indulge in it. Thus the mood of a warrior who enters into the unknown is not one of sadness; on the contrary, he’s joyful because he feels humbled by his great fortune, confident that his spirit is impeccable, and above all, fully aware of his efficiency. A warrior’s joyfulness comes from having accepted his fate, and from having truthfully assessed what lies ahead of him.

A warrior’s love is the world. He embraces this enormous earth. The earth knows that he loves it and it bestows on him its care. That’s why his life is filled to the brim and his state, wherever he’ll be, will be plentiful. He roams on the paths of his love and, wherever he is, he is complete.

Everything in a warrior’s world depends on personal power and personal power depends on impeccability. Part of being impeccable for a warrior is never to hinder others with his thoughts.

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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.

A warrior knows that he is waiting and knows also what he is waiting for, and while he waits he feasts his eyes on the world. The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy.

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.

Every one of us human beings has two minds. One is totally ours, and it is like a faint voice that always brings us order, directness, purpose, the other mind is a foreign installation. It brings us conflict, self-assertion, doubts, hopelessness: it’s ourselves as the me-me center of the world.

A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge. A nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes him a nagual.

Stalkers face the oncoming time. Normally we face time as it recedes from us. Only stalkers can change that and face time as it advances on them.

 

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ON CARLOS CASTANEDA TEACHINGS 

"The grand task of seers is to bring forth the idea that, in order to evolve, man must first free his awareness from its bindings to the social order. Once awareness is free, intent will redirect it onto a new evolutionary path." Don Juan Matus, as quoted by Carlos Castaneda in The Art of Dreaming

According to the seers of ancient Mexico, the speed with which we do, think, react and interact, acts as a measure of cognition.

In many instances, the faster we go, the briefer the intake from our environment, the more mono-dimensional and tunneled become our thoughts, and the more fragmented becomes our cognition, leaving us in the end with energy that looks like fine, scattered particles of dust.

At another extreme, our habitual speed limits us in another way - we respond to our environment far too slowly; we 'miss the boat,' or hold things up; our energy becomes inert and stagnant, and we approach the events of our lives with a trepidation and tentativeness that impedes a decision of which direction to go.

According to seers, if we can learn to move with awareness - issues with 'fast' and 'slow' slip away, and we enter into the cognition of the seers of ancient Mexico as it applies to now, energetically experiencing a cohesion of being, which the students of don Juan refer to as Tensegrity.

In this one-day workshop, participants will practice Tensegrity - magical passes, or movements and breaths, that move us through differing speeds and rhythms, and self-inquiry exercises that help us identify who in our past gave us the 'green light' to speed up, or the 'red light' to slow down - all as an aid to breaking our current speed, whatever it is, that binds our cognition.


Intending...requires imagination, discipline, purpose, and affection. In this case, to intend means that you get an unquestionable bodily knowledge that you are a dreamer. You feel you are a dreamer with all the cells of your body. -- The Art of Dreaming

"What do you want?" the nagual Carlos Castaneda asked a group of students gathered in a movement studio in Santa Monica.
"You've been recapitulating, reviewing your lives, for some time. You now have energy…energy to dream…So I'm asking you the same question don Juan asked me, the same question I asked each of you when I first met you: 'What is your heart's desire?'"
The students paused for a moment."I want to dream!" excitedly exclaimed one student"Dream what?" asked the nagual."I want to be part of a collaborative team that builds a community," she said. "Where people can live well and they can… Well, I don't really know,” she suddenly hesitated, interrupting herself.. “It's a really big dream...I'd like it to be able to generate its own power, and have fruit trees and vegetable gardens, and lots of community space, a place where everyone can participate in decisions.”"And?" questioned the nagual.
"And?" questioned the apprentice back. "Do I dare dream that?""Yes!" said the nagual laughing. "We get caught in our fear – fear that we are not enough; fear that others will say 'No'! And we keep our dreams small...We are far more accustomed to nightmaring than to dreaming!...Let’s brush this habit aside and practice a magical pass - The Singing Earth Serpent - a form designed to help us practice the art of specific dreaming…here and now, on this earth!"
The students spread themselves out in the room and began to move, following the movements of the nagual.
"What do you feel?" the nagual whispered after a lulling moment."That my insides are vibrating in tune with my outsides!" said one student
"I feel tingling in my cells," said another.
"...That we are all connected," said a third"You are feeling your essence," the nagual said, "which is intent itself, vibrating, alive, delicious! Intent is affectionate, the organizing web of the universe. From here you can track the trail of intent in your life, your moments of YES! and share them and follow others like them with purpose.
"I want to feel this way, all the time," one student said."A part of you, a part of everyone here, HAS been feeling this way your entire life!" the nagual said. "You just didn't know how to access it consistently – that flame of infinity inside, reaching out to touch and intermingle with the dreams of others – those that are like yours and those that are different – interacting with all that infinite diversity. Yes!"


“And what can he [a warrior] do to overcome fear?” 
“The answer is very simple. He must not run away. He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. He must be fully afraid, and yet he must not stop. That is the rule! And a moment will come when his first enemy retreats. The man begins to feel sure of himself. His intent becomes stronger. Learning is no longer a terrifying task. 
— Don Juan Matus (The Teachings of don Juan) 

Men and women seers who lived in Mexico in ancient times discovered and developed a system of movements and breaths that enabled those who practiced them to attain extraodinary states of well-being and awareness. This system became known as the magical passes, or by its more modern term -- Tensegrity. 
Carlos Castaneda, an anthropologist by training, along with three female cohorts, became the beneficiaries of this knowledge. In a series of books, Carlos Castaneda described his encounter with don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian and leader of a party of seers, and the subsequent training and initiation into this unique body of knowledge which has been carefully preserved and handed down from generation to generation through a long line of seers. 
In this workshop, the emphasis will be on dreaming, the awakening of perception outside of what we already know. Participants will practice magical passes and stalking exercises to identify what fears in everyday life hold our perception in place, stimulating us then to perceive beyond. This workshop will be taught by the direct apprentices of Carlos Castaneda .

COLLECTION ON MAGICAL PASSES
  • magical Passes shown on youTube and elsewhere on the web
  • Unbending Intent Series on youTube
    Unbending Intent Part 1 - Shaking: The Vibration of Intent
    Unbending Intent Part 2 - Mashing Energy for Intent
    Unbending Intent Part 3 - Stirring Up Energy
    Unbending Intent part 4 - Gathering Energy
    Unbending Intent part 5 - Breathing In the Energy of Intent

    Opening Oneself to Intent on youTube
    Opening Oneself to Intent

    The Long Form of Unbending Intent on youTube
    Long Form of Unbending Intent

    Tensegrity Volume One Video on youTube
    Movements to Gather Energy and Promote Well-Being :

    1 Helping the flow of Immunity
    2 Lobster's strike
    3 The Ball of Energy
    4 Teasing the Web
    5 Rolling Energy
    6 Massaging the Glands Around the Shoulder Blades
    7 The Axis Breath
    8 Forging the Central Power of the Body
    9 Two Prongs on the Face
    10 Reaching the Energy Hole Above the Head
    11 Infinity Breath
    12 The Antenna

    Volume Two Video on youTube
    Redistributing Dispersed Energy :

    1 A Structure Made Out of Energy
    2 The Seer's Window
    3 Rallying Dispersed Energy
    4 Piercing the Columns of Energy
    5 Awakening the Centre of Feeling
    6 Transferring Energy to the Assemblage Point
    7 Bringing Energy from Above the Head to Three Different Areas on the Front of the Body
    8 Puling and Wrapping the Internal Fibres of Energy

    9 The Stellar Hatch
    All 9 passes

    Volume Three Video on youTube
    Energetically Crossing From One Phylum To Another :

    1 Opening Oneself to Intent
    2 Pouring Intent into Two Pouches of the Body
    3 Breaking the Alignment of the Left and Right Bodies
    4 Realigning the Left and Right Bodies
    5 Stabbing Energy in Search of a New Position of the Assemblage Point
    6 Preparing to Cross Over
    7 The Butterfly
    8 The Female and Male Winged being
    All 8 passes

    The Sabre-Toothed Tiger of Intent on youTube
    The Sabre-Toothed Tiger of Intent


  • Running Man passes shown with moving graphics:web.archive.org/web/20031028031356/http://www.geocities.com/magicalpass/runningman.html
  • Astrodreamadvisor: Taisha Abelar's passes from Sorcerers's Crossing (page down)www.astrodreamadvisor.com/Tensegrity.html
  • Magical Passes:
    http://home.scarlet.be/wim.degent/Notes/notes.html
  • Magical Passes on Web Archive:
    archive of www.geocities.com/magicalpass/
  • Magical Passes site in German: www.goldrot.de
  • Excerpts from Magical Passes book:
    www.uazone.org/naph/ccarlos/books/cc10/tensegrity000.html 

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead 
and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here. 
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger. 
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.
I have made this place around you. 
If you leave it you may come back again. 
saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven. 
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you. 
You art surely lost. Stand still. 
The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Teaching story translated from a Northwest Native American language by the poet David Wagoner
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AGAIN ON TENSEGRITY 

The traits of the solitary bird are five:
the first, that it flies to the highest place;
the second, that it does not suffer for company, not even of its own kind;
the third, that it aims its beak to the skies;
the fourth, that it does not have a definite color;
the fifth, that it sings very softly.

San Juan de la Cruz 
Dichos de Luz y Amor

Пять условий одинокой птицы:

Первое: до высшей точки она долетает;
Второе: по компании она не страдает
даже таких птиц, как она;
Третье: клюв её направлен в небо;
Четвёртное: нет у неё окраски определённой;
Пятое: и поёт она очень тихо.


Стихотворение «Пять условий для одинокой птицы» Сан Хуана де ла Круса из сборника «Беседы о свете и любви» 
стало популярным благодаря Карлосу Кастанеде, став эпиграфом  к его книге  «Сказки о Силе». 

Появление этого текста в книге неслучайно – одно из любимых стихотворений Дона Хуана, оно кратко и образно выражает ряд ключевых энергетических фактов о пути воина.  И, разумеется, как и многие другие высказывания и афоризмы Дона Хуана, это стихотворение было интерпретировано  многими крайне буквально. Такова сила и очарование этих книг, что они словно бы подталкивают читателя к тому, чтобы примеривать все описываемое к своей личности. Метафора  «одиночества птицы» и «по компании она не страдает» не означает, что воин должен дичиться своих сородичей и жить в пещере, далеко от цивилизации.  Но означает то, что воин опирается на свои собственные ресурсы и силы, рассчитывая, в первую очередь, на себя.  Понимание этого стихотворения как метафоры, (мастером использования которой был Дон Хуан, и позднее – сам нагваль Карлос Кастанеда)  высвобождает скрытый смысл, позволяя применять ее максимально гибко и точно, в соответствии с духом традиции.

«До высшей точки она долетает» - как точно и ярко выражена идея безупречности воина, который делает все лучшее, на что способен и, может быть, даже чуть лучше!

Про второе условие мы уже написали. «Третье: клюв её направлен в небо» - намерения и устремления воина лежат вне сферы личной заинтересованности, его цель абстрактна.

«Четвёртное: нет у неё окраски определённой» - воин текуч и внутренне подвижен, что позволяет ему подходить гибко к любой ситуации, сохраняя высокий потенциал адаптивности.

«Пятое: и поёт она очень тихо», - это выражение личной скромности, самоконтроля и отсутствия чувства собственной важности. Воин может быть сколь угодно громким и шумным, но его внутренняя сущность – безмолвная, тихая.  


The Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, The battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.

“The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”



***

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 Wheel of Time

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