Why do you think Carlos went nuts with power?

[Gonzo]

Diamond Unicorn wrote:Gonzo wroteerhaps you could define "absolute goodness" for me.

Perhaps something along these lines:
Plato(B.C.427-347) said that there were absolute justice, absolute beauty
and absolute goodness, and there were absolute greatness(as the essence or
nature of everything), health and power. The above-mentioned absolute
justice, absolute beauty and absolute goodness can be considered absolute
values, but at the present time truth in logic, goodness in morality,
beauty in art and holiness in religion are generally considered absolute
values. Thus it can be said that absolute truth, absolute goodness,
absolute beauty and absolute holiness constitute the system of absolute
values as the highest values.
On the highest goodness or absolute goodness, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
said that the highest goodness as the inevitable highest goal of the will
as morally prescribed was the genuine object of practical reason. He also
said that the highest absolute goodness could be found in the will of the
rational being. It would be difficult to realize absolute goodness, which
could be found only in the will of the rational being. Absolute truth,
absolute beauty and absolute holiness could be found in the will or the
mind of the wise, artistic or noble being.
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Valu/ValuMin.htm
---



Maybe absolute goodness can be defined or thought of as that which is
before or beyond the duality of good and evil, ie. the eternal
'goodness' that exists before the potential of evil manifests (thereby creating the relative duality of good and evil).

The whole Platonic teaching is based upon the concept of Absolute
Goodness. Plato was vividly conscious of the immense profundity of the
subject. "To discover the Creator and Father of this universe, as well
as his operation, is indeed difficult; and when discovered it is
impossible to reveal him." In him Truth, Justice and the Beautiful are
eternally one. Hence the idea of the Good is the highest branch of
study.
http://www.theosociety.or...8_teachings-of-plato.htm


Thanks for the definitions.
Far be it from me to disagree with the
likes of Plato (and others), but I shall, to an extent.
Your original question was, “Absolute
goodness does not exist? If so how do you know that for sure?” In
my opinion, Absolute Goodness equates to what Jung called
“archtypes”. That is, it is something apparently inherently
known by all human beings, something that therefore will appear in
each culture's myths, something at the basis of most culture's
moralities. I don't say it doesn't exist, I say it does not conflict
with the quote I provided, namely “There is no good and there is no
evil, outside of what makes us happy and what makes us unhappy.”
The universe is a matter of a series of
events, and that includes all human activities, of course. I say it
is not possible to label any event as good or evil...it is merely an
event. What makes it good or evil is purely in the eye of the
beholder. The events truly have no value until we apply one,
archtypes or no.
Further, there are times when an act is
considered good by the one acting, and perhaps by others involved,
however, that evaluation is limited to the ones acting and
witnessing. It is conceivable the act may have dire consequences to
some other life form. That sort of thing is occurring world wide.

[AVGEMAN]

As far as evil and goodness go I once intended to journey to the Ultraviolet Spectrum (in dreaming) to see if Neanderthals were there and instead I found substances that radiated or were imbued with evil and another filled with goodness.



Here's a snippet from my blog entry:http://theavantgardeexist...ltraviolet-spectrum.html

this takes place half way through the dream journey with the Double:



It was deserted and it was nighttime. Shops lined the street up and down. Nothing was unusual except for an incredible glow coming from the streetlight. As I got closer to the incredible glow, I noticed that the glow wasn't a light it was some kind of object, some kind of metallic gold orbish glob. I looked down the street and every seven to eight feet a light pole shone with one of these golden amorphous orbs. The most apparent thing about the orb was that it radiated everything that was good. I knew instantly that the people whose house I woke up in fought to keep their city or town the way it was. They loved it here. They fought for everything that was good. The goodness that radiated from the streetlamp was astounding. I'd never seen any kind of substance in my life that provoked such an intense feelings for God and all that was good. It was odd because the glow of the orb really had a strong influence on me but I knew intellectually that it was coming from the substance the object was made of and not so much the object itself. I looked at the orb again and was filled with the knowledge that it was everything that was good and Godly. I was filled with mirth at its appearance and sight and I found myself walking along the street amused at how these powerful objects just hung out in the open for anyone to steal or take or borrow and yet no one disturbed them. They were engrained unnoticed features of their everyday life.





I kept walking down the street. Slowly the buildings on my right began to look darker and they took on a more malevolent shape and quite surprisingly hanging from their streetlights was a color or hue that I have never witnessed before in my life. The hue could only be described as Ultraviolet. And whatever it was made of was nothing like anything I've ever seen. But there was one damn thing that I knew for sure when I looked at it. That substance radiated pure evil. It wasn't God Evil or Satan Evil it was as if the substance itself emitted some kind of radiation that affected the viewer's emotional state. The object's color was the most peculiar thing I'd ever seen. The material of the object wasn’t plastic, it wasn’t paper, and it wasn’t even remotely close to the golden orbish Godly substance I’d just found. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the kind of substance the object was made of. But I knew the object itself made me feel the way I did. It dawned on me that whatever material the objects were made of didn't exist in our periodic table. They weren't made of plastic, metal, or any kind of organic material but were obviously fashioned by hand or machine. Peculiarly, I paused and thought for moment realizing that this situation had never happened to me before. I tried to place the substance; it’s color and hue into something I could identify. But for the life of me, I couldn't place the material into any kind of category that is known.





A huge sadness washed over me as I realized by the wear and tear on the buildings, the age of the street and the fact that such precious materials hung out in the open for anyone to take down, hide or throwaway that this world, this culture, had been locked in a war that had easily lasted a thousand years. Both sides had collected a precious material that they must have fiercely believed was a deeply factual representation of who they were. But now as the war had consumed both sides and engaged them into bizarre culture rituals that had survived by being passed down for generations they seemed to have lost track of the fact that the need to possess these objects started their wars.





My mood suddenly changed and I began to find it deeply humorous that each side had forgotten the source and the influence of the powerful substances that were now merely decorations that hung on street poles. Then I was furious and wanted to begin to end the war.





I demanded an investigation. I decided to stroll through the "evil" streets to find the "evil" castle and see if there were huge amounts of this material horded by some fellowship of "evil." But before I could take two steps in that direction, I was caught unaware. I found myself jumping out of the back of a jeep like vehicle still laughing from the absurd notion of two cultures allowing their entire world view to be controlled by two very opposite substances.



the rest of the journey here: http://theavantgardeexist...ltraviolet-spectrum.html

[Senear]

Enjoyed your narrative AVGEMAN. I even clicked the link to read more. Bookmarked your page for future perusing. Interesting blog. A friend mentioned your post to me earlier. I chuckled a bit, mostly because I posted a medium form narrative about the lamps. I did not, it being medium form, explain how this brought on its opposite. In this worlds near future? Lamps better left unhung. From the bit i was able to browse of your blog, ...your conversations with Einstein figure are also very "illuminating". I cast a similar character, or rather he cast himself, in my own dream Continuim, As Dr who.   A question if i may. Your stories, in the pattern of the skalds, attempt to merge your goal with your intent, in a way that illustrates both your goal (?) and your intent (Lucid Dreaming). So is it your desire we take them more as a "telling", attributed to your Taliesin, an artistic narrative and the artists manifestation of perception, OR as the vista he stretches to sketch with his globs of paint and vision?

[Nagual LoneWolf]

Welcome Averageman to these forums.I believe you had a vision of after death and had a seeing of what I call the eagle vision.I also had such a dream when I was a young child.

[Littlepaw]

I have this experience of evil and it is something that exists inside me. That sounds really strange to say. It is not that I think just evil is inside me. Hell no. At the moment there are, it seems, places that are inside me. One of them is like a valley which has all kinds of knowledge in it and I can access that knowledge.



The brook and the meadow with the sheep and the mill under the light blue sky and the lady and the loom la de da da da.



If I look at the knowledge inside me with mind to use it for my own gain I suddenly cross some kind of boundary and am suddenly evil. I maintain that evil is a way of experiencing knowledge (power!) while having ones back turned to the greater whole.

[scout1]

Feeling the evil, the darkness is crossing such an area in your unconscious, thats your soul or energy body manifesting itself in dark areas, dark only relatively, as there are only dark areas around here - but feeling it, feeling it the means your energy body belongs there and if you die as it is, you will also reapper there. Your energy body got that darkness, you belong there energetically according that darkness and you feel it. But its not late, you are still alive, but you JUST GRAVITATE THERE



Everybody will die and cross over to his/her energy body(soul). And become shade.

[AVGEMAN]

Senear wrote: "A question if i may. Your stories, in the pattern of the skalds, attempt to merge your goal with your intent, in a way that illustrates both your goal (?) and your intent (Lucid Dreaming). So is it your desire we take them more as a "telling", attributed to your Taliesin, an artistic narrative and the artists manifestation of perception, OR as the vista he stretches to sketch with his globs of paint and vision? "



Yes, the narrative is between me ten years ago going to art school and me now playing Einstein as professor of physics who ends up teaching the old me how to lucid dream or more precisely he teaches me how to engineer a lucid dream upon the canvas of consciousness. I chose this narrative for expediency of detailing the methods i used to lucid dream rather than leading the reader through what would be a rather boring dialogue with myself. As in - I did this and then I tried that and that didn't work, then I had an insight on such and such and so I did so and so.



The narrative takes place over perhaps two years of college whereas in real life the lucid dreams I had occurred between 1994 -2003. All the lucid dreams in my blog and my reactions to them are as they happened to me.



______



And WoW! Big big time breakthrough in dreaming last night (talk about super powers!). Squeezing calf muscles as i fell asleep last night. N squeezing them with the intention that - a warrior has a strategy for everything they do.



No lucidity. I had what I call an 'encounter with the spirit' in dreaming. Another thing I should add to the technique of squeezing calf muscles was that a couple of hours before bed, as I was doing regular things, I intended to keep my awareness of my hands. In my meditation earlier that evening I noticed that I have tons of awareness about my head and face. This is probably because it is main part of my body used for orientating myself towards the world.



And I noticed how I didn't have the same awareness for my hands. For instance I will be walking and won't know where my hands are. I know they are there but I'm not actively aware of them. So I simply placed the same awareness I have for my head on my hands with the simple reminder- hey I made a life or death decision to something - what was it ? Oh yes, where are my hands?



I can tell ya the first part of the dream which demonstrates direct results from my intentions and active awareness of my hands.



I was hitching a ride on train, a regular freight train, but I was on the outside of the train. I'm holding onto the train with my hands and all around me are fields and fields of corn. The train keeps going and winding through these corn fields. I think to myself that I must be 40 miles from my home already. And I wonder for a second why I am on the train. I'm not homeless I said to myself. Then I see some farmers and harvesting and think that they will call the cops of they see me clinging to the side of this train. So I grapple the steel protuberances that ya see on the outside of any cargo freight train and work my way one after the other toward the front end of this particular cargo freight. I realize that I won't make it in time. The farmers will see me. So I go under the train, grabbing step by step. Grabbing firmly onto structures under the train and moving and grabbing again until I'm climbing up the side and still tons of corn fields.



Then I woke up wide awake at 4am. So i recapped an ex-girfriend for 45 minutes (and some day to day stuff) jumped on the computer and a little while later bam! Got super tired and went back to bed.



Then an encounter with the spirit happened. And it was a doozy! I'll be riding this wave of awe for weeks !



Whoahhh! Wow!



nuff for now maybe share the encounter with the spirit part of the dream experience later after it's all settled in my body



Thanks for the welcome Nagual LoneWolf!



http://theavantgardeexist.../2007_06_01_archive.html

[WicaWicapii]

I do not think anything. the secret is in fact: save enegia librandote of the foreign facilities, not getting energy out left and right of others; for that to go to the 3rd attention, we cannot conduct us nothing other than ours.no me creo nada. de hecho el secreto esta en: ahorrar enegia librandote de la instalacion extranjera, no cogiendo energia a diestro y siniestro de otros; puesto que para pasar a la 3ª atencion, no podemos llevarnos nada que no sea nuestro.

[diamond]

AVGEMAN wrote:What do you see when you gaze into this collage of paintings?    My perception on this piece is shifting,  but ill do my best to describe in a tangable manner.  I see a various assortment of beings,  throughout the picture, along with a house with a cactus in the front, Letters will make them selfs prevolent,  but i cant seem to make out any words. and various oddities that apply to my life.  I was looking around on here, and found some valuable insight.  It appears as if its my broken mirror.

[CRI]

CC:"I'm sure there must be scores of people who would gladly undertake the task," I said.

DJ:"Yes, but those don't count. They are usually cracked. They are like gourds that look fine from the outside

and yet they would leak the minute you put pressure on them, the minute you filled them with water."



This is from the book "Separate Reallity" first chapter.

What exactly is Don Juan saying about other people who are interested in this kind of knowledge?Does he mean that those who are "cracked" have no fear of losing anything because they already lost everything?Does he mean they are only interesting in trying Peyote?Or does he mean their just crazy?

[delawaredan]

I feel that he means that most who seek this knowledge cannot handle the pressure that it brings.  They do not have unbending intent to be a warrior, thus their intent is cracked and any substance will leak out.

[CRI]

Makes more sense to me now.I feel dumb for not getting the point when i first read it lol!!Thanks del

[Nagual LoneWolf]

Crazy would be a good description for all those who seek spiritual oneness with power. What some would call the Nagual, other would call it God.

[rosygyro]

as the sober man hunts or observes ordinary mans social conditioning!
so does the nagual observe the warrior!
when the nagual speaks he speaks through ordinary men...
very few human minds can stand the schizophrenia it induces.
BLACK TRIANGLE
CARLOS chose to leap to infinity as a HUNTER...
as such he is just another ghost in the machine that living men must jump accross to get infinity!
ONLY a warrior can Stalk the eagle as his own awarness is consumed..
as it is the honesty a warrior has that the eagle cannot follow!
Hunters cannot!  to ever survive "defenceless out in the open of the void! theyspend too much time hiding in bushes or poking others with their spears

[Guest]

rosygyro wrote:as the sober man hunts or observes ordinary mans social conditioning!
so does the nagual observe the warrior!
when the nagual speaks he speaks through ordinary men...
very few human minds can stand the schizophrenia it induces.
BLACK TRIANGLE
CARLOS chose to leap to infinity as a HUNTER...
as such he is just another ghost in the machine that living men must jump accross to get infinity!
ONLY a warrior can Stalk the eagle as his own awarness is consumed..
as it is the honesty a warrior has that the eagle cannot follow!
Hunters cannot!  to ever survive "defenceless out in the open of the void! theyspend too much time hiding in bushes or poking others with their spears
As usual, Rosy, you said it perfectly!

[rosygyro]

i know its a bit countertrend..
but my premis has always been to be honest!
the moderator wolf knows i have only one character on this site and have never even attempted to decieve or stalk others by faceting myself in the world wide web.
the moderators at wingmakers.com know that i have never tried to hide behind new characters despite being banned.
the same with camelot, david icke etc..
I can say with absolute clarity that my "i am waht you get" approach has left me with a distinct clarity of MOOD understanding in different websites.
This simply would not have evolved in my awarness had i been duplicitous or stalked behing many identities my fellow forum users.
I have never posted on sustained reaction..CLEAR!
within the evolving cyberworld i am a complete being.. I have totality and i have honesty.. and if any bridge to infinity is forming in the evolving technosphere i have earned my position on the fringes. I am locked and loaded and mirrored accross the abyss of the machine!
The faceted cyber presenc eof the subversive, many charactered stalkers.. is shizophrenic. and cannot hope to battle even its own REFLECTION!
that worldly **** aside..
why do people even talk of the eagle when there is not even an iota of truth in the divine machine the computer is becoming???
perhaps infinity is backwards in time.. but that is the price of worshipping the sorcerers of the old way!
and down down down down down down down down wherever there wiz there was!

[CI5]

total bullshit..



no power problem, no abuse. no nuts.





Carlos got sick. that was purely 100 % of physical/medical origin. that was not energetic, he had perfect energy. bud damaged physical body/metabolism. he could burn in 90s, but he has lost time with nincompoops.

[zakaveli]

who cares about carlos and what he did. we are only accountable for our own actions. The teachings are solid and that all that matters.

[zakaveli]

all we can do is follow the designs of the spirit and carlos claims he was doing just that, since he was a 3-pronged nagual he was a public piece and therefore subject to the public. i personally dont care about what people thinks about carlos or his teachings which was not his, but mysteries handed down by toltecs. now we all have an opportunity to recieve and hold these mysteries of awareness and for that we ought to be thankful to carlos for all he did on his journey

[Hawkeye Crow]

According to don Juan as written by CC:



Sorcery is manipulation of perception. I give credit here to a good piece of information to be found nowhere else.



This definition covers a lot of territory. Actors, stage magicians, gypsies, carnies, Con Men, politicians, and more, take your pick, all are Sorcerers by the above definition.



The purpose is knowledge, in particular, a rational, solid understanding of what we call the 'paranormal', the second attention, which modern society views from a place of superstition.



I believe power actually means talent. A musician vs the man with a tin ear; so it is with abilities in the Nagual. The purpose is to acknowledge such abilities, and strengthen them energetically.



For a lifetime, I have had the talent of 'merging'. With some people, in conversation, I would be seeing myself as in the other's body, through the other's eyes and thoughts. So odd. I did not know what it was, did not pursue it much. As a result of not putting understanding and energy into this, it is fading.



Such is the fate of Western Man, for, in indigenous culture, such abilities were taken for granted (in fact , everything in don Juan's teachings were to awaken these talents, such as body knowledge), and the traditional Shaman's work was to identify those with talents such as he had, and take on apprentices for a lifetime of instruction.



Finally, 'the path with heart' was a safety against the failures and abuses of the 'Old Toltec Sorcerers,' of whom CC was warned of being too much akin to, in "The Art of Dreaming". Here , in my opinion, was where Carlos Castaneda failed, and thereby created a lot of damage, completely missing the opportunities of true evolution.

[delawaredan]

Nice post Hawkeye Crow - I would agree with you in that CC failed in "The Art of Dreaming".   But if looked at in the bigger picture....it is CC's (and DJ's) final lesson to us....the New Seers.   We are to learn from this and learn how to keep on the path with heart.    CC's predilection was to close to that of the 'Old Toltec Sorcerer's'; therefore he fell into the same trap.   There was really never any other outcome that could have been.    But it is a lesson, and warriors like yourself see the path of true evolution. 

A tyrant can never steal a warrior's power if the warrior is aligned with spirit and has the correct intent.

[Hawkeye Crow]

'A tyrant can never steal a warrior's power if the warrior is aligned with spirit and has the correct intent.   '
Maybe.
This reminds me of the Christian 'get right with God', and some New Age ideas of so-called personal responsibility.
I think that fate , and our personal Powers, can be less predictable.
If this were not so, humanity would be  more evolved than it is.
My thought , my power , is contradicted by opposing powers.
I can't always get what I want.

[delawaredan]

I see your point.   I guess I am a bit optimistic.   The universe is hostile.....the rule of the Eagle is not rainbows and unicorns.   I think I was speaking about a tyrant with no personal power.    I can prevent this type of power loss because my intent will prevent this petty powerless person from stealing my power.   But yes of course there are opposing powers in the universe that contradict and hinder our power and thought.    I do not like being aligned with the idea "get right with God".   For me it is get right with myself and I can see how to navigate the opposing powers.

[glance left]

I like the optimistic perspective Not in terms of denial...but in terms of interpretation. I doesn't really matter, since its a matter of perspective of what is inexorable energetic circumstances anyways. "Whatever gets you through the day" kind of thing...but keeping in mind that intent is immeasurably powerful and impacts perspective in ways that we cannot fathom. Speaking from tastes of experience here. So..if you must think, I guess think good thoughts...even when **** happens, if at all possible.



Experimentation.



Who cares about philosophical arguments about rhetorical circumstances. People don't think about that **** when their running white water down snake river. No time! Practicalities become paramount. Experimentation on the fly is the order of the day...and if you're lucky, the experimentation is guided by instruction perhaps by those who have navigated those waters before.

[cabbageman]

don Juan warned Carlos time after time from the very first book, about the large importance of the warriors way in the role of modern sorcery. don Juan was very meticulous in how he taught Carlos and gave him specific instructions and warnings in specific order. In the Art of Dreaming there are good examples of how easily Carlos fell for his indulgence and acted very similar to the old sorcerers. I mention this because while I don't know the exact details of his downfall as I was not actually there, I can't say that I am not surprised of what I heard and read happened to him. This is powerful stuff, not to be underestimated. Remember, the very first time Carlos met don Juan he basically had his reality put in check. I found parts in the first few books quite funny because of how Carlos acted in fact. We could point fingers at who is right and who is wrong but it is completely irrelevant. I don't care to be right. I don't care what happened to Carlos. I don't even care about don Juan. What I do care about is my own impeccability.



If you take a close look at don Juan's teachings, he also boldly talks about compassion and how it is actually a disguised form of self-importance. The goal of sorcery, essentially, is to dart past the eagle and seek total freedom of one's awareness. Not to heal or help others but to basically fine tune one's awareness. So someone could perceive don Juan is being a dick when in fact he is not. He is brutally real. One who see's does not waste energy on words with no impact. 



The teachings remain and anybody who disagrees with his teachings, like don Juan said, do not have the energy to understand. It is very simple. You could spend hours, days, weeks, months, years debating someone with a different opinion but the outcome will always be the same. They do not have the energy to understand because their conditioning from society has basically destroyed the nagual part of them. Scholars or really anyone with what don Juan called an incorrect tonal would consider such things as selfish, evil, contradicting, etc. But that is the nature of sorcery. It is contradicting and can never fully be understood.


Remember... today's problems with society are not because people have trouble working together. It is actually because the majority have trouble working with themselves. Our journey is a very individual and personal one.