Carlos Castaneda Quotes

Heightened awareness is a mystery only for a reason.

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

Burn your bridges every 2 years.

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

… 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.

To worry is to become accessible, unwittingly accessible. And once you worry you cling to anything out of desperation; and once you cling you are bound to get exhausted or to exhaust whoever or whatever you are clinging to.

To die with elation is a crappy way of dying… A warrior dies the hard way. His death must struggle to take him. A warrior does not give himself to it.

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

My benefactor used to say the seeds are the ‘sober head’ — the only part that could fortify the heart of man.

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.

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

What is wrong with us human beings, and has been wrong since time immemorial, is that without ever stating it in so many words, we believe that we have entered the realm of immortality. We behave as if we are never going to die – an infantile arrogance. But even more injurious than this sense of immortality is what comes with it : the sense that we can engulf this inconcievable universe with our minds.