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About Carlos Castaneda - Nagual LoneWolf - 10-26-2005
Carlos Castaneda (previously Castaeda) was born in Peru on December 25, 1925 and died in Los Angeles on April 27, 1998. In the US, he wrote a controversial series of books that claimed to describe his training in traditional Native American shamanism(Ancient Toltec Sorcery).
Castaneda claimed to have met a Yaqui shaman named Don Juan Matus in 1960. Castaneda's experiences with don Juan allegedly inspired the works for which he is known. He claimed to have inherited from don Juan the position of nagual, or leader of a party of seers. He also used the term "nagual" to signify that which is unknown, neither known nor knowable; implying that, for his party of seers, don Juan was a connection in some way to that unknown. The term has been used by anthropologists to mean a shaman or sorcerer who is capable of shapeshifting, or changing to an animal form, and also to mean the form to which such a person might shift.
Castaneda's works contain descriptions of paranormal or magical experiences, several psychological techniques, Toltec magic rituals, shamanism and experiences with psychoactive drugs (e.g. peyote). Carlos Castaneda's works have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 language.
He wrote that he was born in So Paulo, Brazil on Christmas Day in 1931, but immigration records show that he was born 6 years earlier in Cajamarca, Peru. He anglicized his name by changing the "" (in Castaeda) into "n". He moved to the United States in the early 1950s and became a naturalized citizen in 1957. He was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) (B.A. 1962; Ph.D. 1970).
His first three books, The Teachings of don Juan: a Yaqui way of knowledge, A Separate Reality and Journey to Ixtlan were written while Castaneda was an anthropology student at UCLA. Castaneda wrote these books as if they were his research log describing his studies under a traditional shaman he identified as don Juan(used the name Juan Matus, but not the man's 'real' name). Castaneda was granted his masters and doctoral degrees for the work described in these books.
In Castaneda's first two books he describes that the Yaqui way of knowledge also required the heavy use of powerful psychoactive or entheogenic plants, such as peyote and datura. Many young people used the apparent authoritative endorsement of psychoactive drug use to justify their own use of psychoactive drugs.
In his third book, Journey to Ixtlan, he essentially reverses his emphasis on 'power plants'. In this book he describes don Juan telling him he only needed to use drugs with Carlos because Carlos was so dumb. In this book the way of knowledge that don Juan describes was perceived by some as resembling the newly popular New Age movement. Castaneda, however, emphatically denied any real similarity between them in several lectures.
Castaneda was a popular enough phenomenon for Time magazine to do a cover article on Castaneda on March 5, 1973 (Vol. 101 No. 10) that was five or six pages long.
His fourth book, Tales of Power, ended with Castaneda preparing to leap off a cliff that would mark his graduation from disciple to man of knowledge (actually a leap from the tonal into the unknown). Some writers thought this must necessarily mark the end of his series. They were very surprised to see he continued to produce more books. Despite an increasingly critical reception Castaneda continued to be very popular with the reading public. Castaneda went on to write fourteen books in all, and release 3 videos.
In 1997 Castaneda launched a law suit against his ex-wife, Margaret Runyon Castaneda, over her book, A Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda; but this was dropped when Castaneda died.
The official story is that Castaneda died on April 27, 1998 from liver cancer. Little is known about his death. There was no public service, Castaneda was apparently cremated and the ashes were sent to Mexico.
Castaneda's account of Toltec knowledge
There are three main elements to Casteneda's description of Toltec beliefs:
a. mastery of awareness - nagual (2nd attention) and tonal (1st attention), art of dreaming, description of the seers perception of luminous energy and bubbles of energy around living things (luminous cocoon) and ultimately the source of these energetic lines which are consciousness itself.
b. art of self-stalking - dealing with the world and actions in it.
c. mastery of intent - dealing with the primary force of the universe or the spirit or the means to move the assemblage point.
Castaneda's books can be read as a philosophical/pragmatical text that express a world view by which a person can live one's life. There is a movement world-wide of practitioners of this philosophy, applying Castaneda's published ideas either independently or through consultation with Castaneda's associates.
This school of applied shamanism, sometimes called "nagualismo", purports to be unlike either traditional Western or Eastern culture (what about Northern or Southern(shamanism, Australia,African?)). Castaneda's ideas, insofar as they can be called a "system", share some similarities with Eastern mysticism ,Zen, Taoism, or Tibetan Buddhism in terms of the inherent order (or chaos) of the universe, disciplines taught and techniques used, but the underlying structure is fundamentally different.
According to Castaneda, the most significant facts in a person's life are his possession of awareness and its impending termination at death. The primary goal of a Toltec "Warrior" is the continuation of his awareness after bodily death: to "dart past the Eagle and be free", in the words of the tradition, where the Eagle is the force which consumes the awareness of all living beings.
To cheat death in this way requires all of the discipline and procedures that constitute the Warrior's way of life. These practices are devised to maximise the Warrior's personal power, or energy. The condition of not wasting this energy is known as "impeccability".
Sufficient personal power leads to the mastery of awareness, chiefly the controlled movement of what is known as the "assemblage point". This is an artifact of the tradition's description of another world underlying what we perceive as ordinary reality. In this description men are glowing cocoons of awareness inhabiting a universe consisting of the Eagle's "emanations", described euphemistically as all-pervading filaments of light.
Humans' cocoons are intersected throughout by these filaments, producing perception, but they filter our perceptions by concentrating on only a small bundle. The assemblage point is the focusing lens which selects from the emanations. In its accustomed position, the assemblage point produces what humans perceive as everyday, 'normal' reality. Movement of the assemblage point permits perception of the world in different ways; small movements lead to small changes in perception and large movements to radical changes. For example, dreaming is presented as the result of a movement of the assemblage point; "power plants" such as Peyote, used in the early stages of Castaneda's apprenticeship, produce powerfully altered states of mind through such movement.
Castaneda describes complex and bizarre worlds experienced through the controlled movement of the assemblage point in dreaming; his premise is that the world of the dreams of a warrior is no less real than the world of daily life. This follows logically from the description of both worlds as being simply the result of positions of the assemblage point. He depicts complex interactions with unearthly beings in dream worlds and describes his fear of being physically trapped by these malicious but charismatic beings.
Amongst the various practices of a warrior, Tensegrity, a series of meditative stretching and posing techniques, is introduced in Castaneda's final works. The term is borrowed from architecture"tensional integrity". Tensegrity is promoted by Cleargreen, Inc., a company founded in the 1990s, closely affiliated with Castaneda, which runs workshops and sells various materials relating to Castaneda's work. There are many individual and group practitioners around the world. Tensegrity and much of Castaneda's other work are the subject of a variety of recurring disputes.
Brief Description of Books
1. Yaqui way of knowledge - discription of plant allies and way towards knowledge: mescalito (peyote cactus)- the protector of man, seeing beings as liquid colors; mushrooms- learning to handle, fly, and percieve as animal form; datura (weed)- female spirit, hard to handle, gives strength, lengthy procedure
2. Further conversations - idea of will
3. Journey to Ixtlan - lessons about the warriors way, or stalking the world, routines, personal history, self-importance, not-doing, dreaming
4. Tales of power - description of points of perception in body or luminous cocoon, tonal or toal (1st attention, known, right side awareness, left-brain) and nagual (2nd attention, unknown, left side awareness, right-brain), dreaming double
5. Second Ring of Power - experiences with the women warriors of the original nagual's party, 2nd attention (second ring of power), losing human form, human mold, dreaming, gazing
6. Eagle's gift - description of the force that creates, destroys, and rules the universe (or at least the 48 bands of earth), also source of emanations themselves, description of the eagle's command to man, the rule of the nagual, various levels of petty tyrants, and way towards freedom, self-stalking and dreaming, power spots. Note that don Juan described the energy-structure/entity called eagle a thing that is not what we call an eagle, but rather a thing so vast as to be incomprehensible.
7. The Fire from Within - step by step (actually chapter by chapter) elucidation of the mastery of awareness or the new seers knowledge:
everything is energy (eagles emanations or luminous emanations)
the luminous cocoon and assemblage point(glow of awareness)
the known (1st attention or tonal),unknown (2nd attention or nagual), unknowable (outside luminous cocoon)
petty tyrants as a way to move assemblage point and foster warriors way
twin worlds of organic and inorganic ( more correctly matter-beings and non-matter-bound beings -- carbon-based/not-carbon-based wasn't what was meant )
shifting the assemblage point and other bands of awareness
bundles of emanations that are the basis for the different species source of awareness and forms/molds
the human mold
the rolling force or tumbler (that hits luminous cocoon)
the death defier
self-stalking, intent, and dreaming
8. Power of silence - stories about essentially the mastery of intent, set into what were called sorcery cores.
9. Art of dreaming - steps to mastering control and consciousness of dreams, called gates.
10. Magical passes - tensegrity, sets of magical passes with pictures
11. Active side of infinity - recapitulation, making a log of significant life events (as seen by the spirit)
Interpretation and criticism (the Castaneda controversy)
Many critics doubt the existence of don Juan, citing inconsistencies in don Juan's personality across the books and in the sequence of events in the books. Many Castaneda supporters claim in turn that the very fact of handling awareness and perception accounts for this; and that the actual existence per se of don Juan is irrelevant, since the important matter is the theme that don Juan presents.
What is easily understood is the fact that the writing style changes greatly from the first to the last of the "don Juan" books. The Teachings of Don Juan is an anthropologist's journal containing a lot of seemingly irrelevant, non-fiction information. The quasi-journalistic or academic tone of the earliest books disappears definitively in Castaneda's fifth book, The Second Ring of Power. This book marks a significant change in the character of the series. In addition to introducing a large cast of new characters, the later Castaneda books present don Juan's shamanism in far greater complexity than in the earlier books. The Eagle's Gift (eighth book) is a novel-like work with specific characters on a journey towards what they call "Total Freedom", and where the words of don Juan seem more like those of a scientist. This could be the result of changes in the mind of Carlos Castaneda.
As Castaneda was very elusive, and because his works were taken up by young people at a time when mystical and shamanic traditions were in fashion, many professionals cast doubt on the authenticity of contents of his works. When he followed up The Teachings of Don Juan with a series of equally popular books, including A Separate Reality (1971), Journey to Ixtlan (1972), and Tales of Power (1975), even more questions were raised as to how much of his work was true anthropology and how much was his own creation.
Another way to read the books is as a sort of game, almost like a detective novel. Depending upon one's approach, they could be either accepted at face-value in their entirety, or discarded. Some of the material could be considered true, some fictional; and some of the events described probably appeared to be real at the time, but could be interpreted as hallucinations. It is up to the reader to decide.
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Significant characters In Castaneda's works
This is a list of characters, claimed to be real persons, mentioned in Castaneda's works. Castaneda makes it clear that these are not the persons' real names (ostensibly to protect their identity). In denoting their function within each generation of practitioners, terms are used which can only be understood by reading Castaneda's writings:
Generation of practitioners peer to Castaneda (Compact group for "three-pronged Nagual")
* Florinda Donner-Grau -- "Northerly" "dreamer" in Castaneda's generation of practitioners
* Taisha Abelar -- "Westerly" "self-stalker" in Castaneda's generation of practitioners
* Carol Tiggs -- "nagual woman" in Castaneda's generation of practitioners
Generation of practitioners peer to Castaneda (Original group for "four-pronged Nagual")
* Nestor -- the "scholarly man" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Benigno -- the "master of intent" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Eligio -- a "courier" who ultimately joined previous generation due to Carlos' lack of ability to follow his explorations of awareness, apparently a manifestation of Carlos not being a four-pronged nagual
* La Gorda -- "Northerly" "dreamer" who was originally thought to be the "Southerly" "dreamer", this was apparently a manifestation of Carlos not being a four-pronged nagual
* Rosa -- "Northerly" "dreamer" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Lidia -- "Easterly" "dreamer" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Josephina -- "Westerly" "dreamer" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
* Doa Soledad -- "Northerly" "self-stalker" in Carlos' generation of practitioners
Generation of practitioners preceding Castaneda
* Don Juan Matus -- leader or nagual man to a generation of practitioners, teacher to Castaneda
* Genaro Flores -- the "man of action" and "master of awareness" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners, benefactor to Castaneda
* Vicente Medrano -- "scholarly man" and herbalist in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Silvio Manuel -- "master of intent" and purported to be permanently in a state of "heightened awareness" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Juan Tuma -- "scout" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Florinda Grau -- "Northerly" "dreamer" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Nelida Abelar -- "Northerly" "self-stalker" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Marta -- "Southerly" "dreamer"? in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Zoila Abelar -- "Westerly" "self-stalker" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Zuleica Grau -- "Westerly" "dreamer" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Delia Abelar -- "Easterly" "self-stalker" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
* Celia Grau -- "Easterly" "dreamer" in Don Juan's generation of practitioners
Generation of practitioners preceding Juan Matus
* Julin Osorio -- leader or nagual man to a generation of practitioners, teacher to Juan Matus
Generation of practitioners preceding Julin Osorio
* Elias Ulloa -- leader or nagual man to a generation of practitioners, teacher to Julin Osorio, and to Juan Matus as well.
Significant event in the lineage
* The nagual Sebastian's encounter in the 1700s with an ancient seer, the "death defier", also referred to as the "tenant". That encounter dramatically altered their lineage and was what separates the "new""new""new" seers from the "new""new"(after the fall of old seers and after the spanish invasion) seers. Castaneda stated that the death defier met with every nagual since Sebastien, including with Carlos. Also met and taught (and made love) with Carol Tiggs. Capable of taking male or female form, existing or not existing corporeally in this world.
Related authors
Two other authors, Taisha Abelar and Florinda Donner-Grau, have also written books in which they claim to be from Don Juan Matus' party of Toltec warriors. Both Abelar and Donner-Grau were endorsed by Castaneda as being legitimate students of Don Juan Matus, whereas he has dismissed many other pretenders. Another author of note is Victor Sanchez; Sanchez claims to have had similar teachings, and met Castaneda, but emphasizes in his books that Castaneda does not endorse his work.
Notable works
* The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968)
* A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan (1971)
* Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan (1972)
* Sorcery: A Description of the World (1973)
* Tales of Power (1975)
* The Second Ring of Power (1977)
* The Eagle's Gift (1981)
* The Fire from Within (1984)
* The Power of Silence: Further Lessons of Don Juan (1987)
* The Art of Dreaming (1993) ISBN 0-06092554X
* Readers of Infinity: A Journal of Applied Hermeneutics (1996)
* Magical Passes: The Practical Wisdom of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico (1998)
* The Active Side of Infinity (1999)
* The Wheel Of Time : The Shamans Of Mexico (2000)
About Carlos Castaneda - Lillian2 - 10-27-2005
Hi Nagual LoneWolf,
Thank you very much for this information on Carlos Castaneda.
Much appreciated.
Su
About Carlos Castaneda - Nagual LoneWolf - 10-28-2005
Your welcome Lily as there are times we forget.
About Carlos Castaneda - Aranno Way - 10-04-2006
The list of books mentionened above i read exept the on called "readers of infinity".
What is that book about?
Aranno.
About Carlos Castaneda - seeitall - 10-05-2006
Readers Of Infinity:
cleargreen.com/english/pu...m?TypeID=4
About Carlos Castaneda - Eilias123 - 10-07-2006
you left out the Nagual Rosendo in the lineage. he was Elias's teacher. *credit Art of Dreaming.
thanks for this post. it sums up what i already know.
Back to Elias. my name Eilias is a typo LOL. the reason i picked this name is because i seem to have a knack for dreaming like Elias. He was a Nagual who would pull things, or carve things he seen from dreaming. In my dreams i've been shown Countless things i would like to reproduce in the daily world. such as music, acts of sorcery, and a Not doing device which actually may have been used to mummify the ancient Egyptians. I will descrice this device another time.
thanks again for the post.
About Carlos Castaneda - bluedreamer - 03-20-2010
Was poking around in the back room and found this, thought it'd be handy to keep up front.
About Carlos Castaneda - scout1 - 02-18-2011
The Art of Reality
Bruce Wagner remembers Carlos Castaneda
October 1, 2007
http://www.oldnagualnet.c...20Art%20of%20Reality.htm
About Carlos Castaneda - scout1 - 04-25-2011
Isnt it all dream ?
About Carlos Castaneda - Nagual LoneWolf - 05-07-2011
Much of the story occurs in the second attention Scout1.
About Carlos Castaneda - scout1 - 05-14-2011
"second attention" is only the sorceric dreaming, nothing else
About Carlos Castaneda - scout1 - 05-14-2011
i mean you have functional soul (energy body), so you have not a dead soul (dead energy body) - mentally healthy person capable of lucid dreaming
About Carlos Castaneda - Nagual LoneWolf - 05-15-2011
yes, capable is the key word there.
About Carlos Castaneda - scout1 - 05-26-2011
Most people do only what they feel like doing,
failing to take into account the value of their human birth and the
consequences of their actions. This makes it difficult for them to fully
realize their human potential. There’s an old saying that someone is ‘not
all there’.
It refers to a basic lack of human potential arising from callous
insensitivity to the fact that human beings possess intrinsic qualities that
are superior to those of animals. This attitude promotes such degrading
behavior that some people end up damaged almost beyond repair – an
empty human shell lacking all intrinsic goodness. Even then, they are
unaware of what has happened to them, or why.
- Ajaahn Mun
About Carlos Castaneda - Mornings Son - 11-26-2011
From : http://further.yuku.com/t...-Don-Carlos#.TtFMqGCNp04
Written a couple of months after his departing…
A sorcerer died two or three months ago. Liver cancer, they said, but the details are vague.
Also vague is why it took so long for word to get out. There are strange rumors. No matter. All this is as it should be for a sorcerer. Strangest of all, in a way, were the obituaries of the media heavies, a blurry photo in The New York Times, tributes that were respectful in a distant and baffled sort of way. It's doubtful The New York Times ever before felt compelled to pay homage to a sorcerer.
But that was Carlos Castaneda's juju. Many who professed not to take him seriously nevertheless read him, remembered, and were haunted. Let them wonder whether he was born in 1931, as he said, or in 1925, as some immigration records said. Let them wonder whether he was Peruvian or Mexican. Wonder, even in such minor matters, will be good for them.
Carlos Castaneda has died. There aren't many to bear witness to or for him, because he didn't allow many witnesses. One met him by invitation, usually, and even that was more fluke than not. Those invited were of all sorts. I happened to be one, for reasons that weren't clear (to me) and probably aren't important. Perhaps I was called to be a witness?
About 12 years ago a friend who worked in a bookstore in **** called: Carlos Castaneda was giving a talk in the cellar of the store (it would be in the cellar!), by invitation only, would I like to come? Who knew it was really him, I said? My caller, whom I had reason to trust, said, "It's Carlos, alright."
He was a small man. Impossible to tell his age. Didn't look much over 40, but his eyes were older, smiling eyes but deepened by a vague sense of grief. He laughed readily, didn't insist that we take him seriously, stood before us in an attitude of welcome. He wanted us to ask him questions. He said there was something he'd forgotten, and that sometimes he came out of his seclusion and talked to strangers hoping that a question would spark the memory of this forgotten thing. He didn't say this sadly. He was frank and matter-of-fact.
That night nobody asked the question he was seeking, but every question brought forth a story of Don Juan, and every story had laughter in it. As in his books, when Castaneda spoke of Don Juan the old Yaqui wizard was near and dangerous, inviting us to adventure.
It was Castaneda's laughter, more than his skills as a storyteller, that convinced me of his sincerity and authenticity. He talked for free, had nothing to gain from us, spoke without artifice. People rarely laugh when they lie. At least, in my experience, they don't laugh sweetly. And there was an irresistible sweetness to this man.
He described the most fantastic experiences as though they were almost jokes, but the joke was on him. I had the impression of a desperate man, but a man who knew how to live with desperation in ways that made it something else. He'd transformed his desperation, as a sorcerer must, into a search. (Was I seeing in him the man I would like to be, who, though fated to desperation, could be desperate in a wise and engaging and gentle way? Perhaps.)
He was, at the same time, vulnerable and invulnerable: Vulnerable in that he seemed a little lost; invulnerable in that he was on his path, a path of heart. If he was lost it was because that path had led him to unknown and unexpected territory. It would have been easier for him to face physical danger than to face that there was something important about Don Juan he'd forgotten. But he was facing it, and in public. More than magic tricks and the Sorcerer's Way, Don Juan had taught him to be brave.
When he finished speaking, and the 20 or so people in that cellar milled around, he greeted a couple of old friends. I didn't want to intrude, didn't introduce myself, and wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. So, in effect, I met him but he didn't meet me.
Then, about three years ago, another friend called. Would I like to go to lunch with Carlos Castaneda? Why I received this invitation I was never told. It turned out that there were four of us and Carlos. We met at the *****, one of the best (and most expensive) steakhouses on the West Coast. (Carlos picked up the check.)
He had changed, and so had I. We had both lived a lot further into our very different desperations, and carried them with more assurance. He was much thinner, older - obviously ill. Whereas in the bookstore's cellar he had dressed casually, this day he was decked out in an elegant suit. But for all his fragility he seemed much livelier, happier, and even funnier. The food was very fine, but really we lunched on laughter. Even his saddest stories of Don Juan were, again, like jokes; but this time the joke wasn't on Carlos, wasn't on us - the joke was between the wizard and God, and a splendid joke it was.
I won't repeat those stories. I wasn't there to record them. They were his to tell or not. Best that anything he chose not to write should die with him.
But two moments caused not laughter but silence. A woman at the table said she loved her job, her husband, and her child, but still she felt a lack - it was that she had no spiritual life. How could she achieve a spiritual life?
Answering this woman, Carlos didn't change the lightness or generosity of his manner; yet a steely thing came into his voice, a tone that made his words pierce all of us. He said that when she got home at night she should sit in her chair and remember that her child, her husband, everyone she loved, and she herself, were going to die - and they would die in no particular order, unpredictably. "Remember this every night, and you'll soon have a spiritual life."
Notice that he didn't tell her what sort of spiritual life to have, much less whether it should agree with his. He didn't suggest she read his books more carefully, or attend the movement classes he'd begun to teach. He gave her a practical instruction, something she could accomplish within the parameters of her life as it was, and then assured her that this would set her on her own spiritual path, whatever that might turn out to be. This is the mark of a true Teacher.
Later in the conversation this woman asked how she could discipline herself to follow his advice, deeply follow it, so that it wouldn't be just an exercise. Carlos said: "You give yourself a command."
On this page there's no duplicating how he said it. He spoke quietly, but it was as though he'd suddenly jammed a knife into the tabletop.
"What's that mean?" one of us asked.
"It means you give yourself a command." And that was that.
A command is not a promise. A command is not "trying." A command is something that must be obeyed. His tone invoked something deeper than the idea of mere will. His was a call to action. He wasn't talking about mulling or meditating or analyzing or wishing. To step on the path you step on the path. There is no substitute for that.
After a nine-months-pregnant pause, the conversation took flight again. He told of a party at which a very tall and handsome Native American was saying, with great solemnity, that he was Carlos Castaneda, and revealing all sorts of Don Juan's "secrets." Did Carlos disabuse him of that fantasy? "No!" he laughed. "He looked the way people expect Carlos Castaneda to look! Not some little round-faced brown man. And he was having such a good time! Why ruin it? Let him be Carlos for an evening!"
About a year later the woman who'd asked those questions at our lunch sent me a pamphlet that Carlos had printed privately. He'd requested she send it on to me. One passage goes:
"Sorcerers understand discipline as the capacity to face with serenity odds that are not included in our expectations. For them, discipline is a volitional act that enables them to intake anything that comes their way without regrets or expectations. For sorcerers, discipline is an art: The art of facing infinity without flinching, not because they are filled with toughness, but because they are filled with awe. Discipline is the art of feeling awe."
Any manifestation of the universe, any way in which it behaves toward us, isn't merely about us, isn't merely psychological, but is a movement of the universe, and as such what happens to us, no matter what it is, connects us to everything, and in that connection what can be felt but awe? "A live world," he wrote, "is in constant flux. It moves; it changes; it reverses itself." We try to defend ourselves against that, but we cannot. The only freeing response is awe.
When I saw him years ago in that cellar, an unhappier man than the dying man at lunch, I wrote: His presence was an admission that every truth is fragile, that every knowledge must be learned over and over again, every night, that we grow not in a straight line but in ascending and descending and tilting circles, and that what gives us power one year robs us of power the next, for nothing is settled, ever, for anyone.
Now I would add: What makes this bearable is awe.
Go well, Don Carlos.
About Carlos Castaneda - Guest - 11-27-2011
Fantastic!!!
I am very grateful for such a nagual as Carlos Castaneda.
Thanks for sharing this MS! This is one I will read more than once. Any Nagual worth their salt offers one thing and one thing only...hope, that "you can do it". that cubic millimeter of chance. Nagual Wolf, Nagual Carlos, Nagual don Juan...the greats in my book. Of course there have been/will be others... anyone can do it...but it takes effort, sacrifice.
"This dream is for you,
So pay the price
Make one dream come true
You only live twice."
About Carlos Castaneda - Guest - 11-27-2011
Who wrote that? I think 'Kristopher' doesn't cite sources for his quotes...
About Carlos Castaneda - Guest - 11-27-2011
Those words carry power. When read, the beauty, kindness, grace, and yet detachment, ruthlessness to withstand the odds can all be seen there. It is a communication that bears the mark of the Nagual, stands apart from most communication, and thus be recognized for what it is...personal power, expanded awareness, the Nagual spirit.
About Carlos Castaneda - BarefootInTheSand - 11-28-2011
Its nice to read something positive. Thanks.
About Carlos Castaneda - Nagual LoneWolf - 12-01-2011
"Give yourself a command." Thanks for posting that story MS. Funny in that everyday when I come home, I silently am grateful to return home once again and am grateful for each day of my life. We are in charge of ourselves. No one else is, we are our own intent. Be happy you have breath and breathe in this world around you. May Carlos and his tales exist for future generations to come!
About Carlos Castaneda - AVGEMAN - 01-07-2012
great posting~!
I saw and heard Carlos lecture in Los Angeles many time in the mid 90's. He was FUNNNY! Good God! Had us all rolling with laughter! All at himself! Not that he was self-deprecating but it was just the way you way said! lol wow it is good to remember that.
Very well written.
I have learned a lot from Castaneda and have journeyed out there into the world beyond lucid dreaming and it's every bit he say's it.
I'd like to share my blog with anyone who's interested:
http://theavantgardeexist.../2007_06_01_archive.html
you can search the blog for 'dream' and you'll find the the 'beyond lucid dreaming' experiences i've written about.
Since my main interests are art and consciousness my blog is about learning how to do dreaming but from an art school perspective. And the characters in my blog; an art student (me from ten years ago) and Einstein (me now), meet in a University setting where they argue back and forth over the meaning of life, death, extinction, evolution and dreaming the double to get out of gitmo to experience total freedom in the universe filled with life.
if nobody minds, i'll post some of it hear for others to read n share.
About Carlos Castaneda - Guest - 01-08-2012
Wow! You've really got a lot of info there! Thanks so much for sharing! You've elaborated on something that is near and dear to me! My passion for sure. I look forward to reading more and hopefully discussing, sharing with you!
About Carlos Castaneda - Guest - 01-08-2012
Welcome to Nagual forums Avgeman! You mentioned sharing your writings here if we didnt mind...sure, feel free to do so.
About Carlos Castaneda - Cedar Waxwing - 02-08-2012
Thanks Nagual Lonewolf. "About Castenada" spoke clearly with no bias on the questions whether or not Don Juan was "real".
;It's good to just have the documentation open-ended, and decide how we want to use it.
Thanks Morning Sons for the article.
"He said that when she got home at night she should sit in her chair and remember that her child, her husband, everyone she loved, and she herself, were going to die - and they would die in no particular order, unpredictably. "Remember this every night, and you'll soon have a spiritual life."
That's universal--how could anyone lose if they affirm that?
About Carlos Castaneda - scout1 - 02-09-2012
Burn Castaneda and get to the top of the best shape of your physical condition, then do the gates of dreaming one by one