Journey To Ixtlan Quotes

In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There is only time for decisions.

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

Nobody knows who I am or what I do. Not even I. Don Juan Matus

You say you need help. Help for what? You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life.

Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.

Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete.

For an instant I think I saw. I saw the loneliness of man as a gigantic wave which had been frozen in front of me, held back by the invisible wall of a metaphor.

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I want 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.

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.

We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same

The dying sun will glow on you without burning, as it has done today. The wind will be soft and mellow and your hilltop will tremble. As you reach the end of your dance you will look at the sun, for you will never see it again in waking or in dreaming, and then your death will point to the south. To the vastness.

To seek the perfection of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our temporariness, our manhood.

A warrior must focus his attention on the link between himself and his death . . .. He must let each of his acts be his last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts have their rightful power.

I have no routines or personal history. One day I found out that they were no longer necessary for me and, like drinking, I dropped them. One must have the desire to drop them and then one must proceed harmoniously to chop them off, little by little. If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts. It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people. I have, little by little, created a fog around me and my life. And now nobody knows for sure who I am or what I do. Not even I. How can I know who I am, when I am all this?

You take yourself too seriously, " he said slowly. "You are too damn important in your own mind. That must be changed! You are so goddamn important that you feel justified to be annoyed with everything. You're so damn important that you can afford to leave if things don't go your way. I suppose you think that shows you have character. That's nonsense! You're weak, and conceited!" - Dom Juan

The thing to do when you’re impatient,” he proceeded, “is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you.

A man is defeated only when he no longer tries, and abandons himself.

A hunter knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn't worry. 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.

You take yourself too seriously, " he said slowly. "You are too damn important in your own mind. That must be changed! You are so goddamn important that you feel justified to be annoyed with everything. You're so damn important that you can afford to leave if things don't go your way. I suppose you think that shows you have character. That's nonsense! You're weak, and conceited!" - Dom Juan

When a man decides to do something he must go all the way,” he said, “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.

The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior,” he said. “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. “You are here, with me, because you want to be here. You should have assumed full responsibility by now, so the idea that you are at the mercy of the wind would be inadmissible.

Охотник знает, что он заманит дичь в свои ловушки еще и еще, поэтому он не тревожится. Тревожиться, значит становиться доступным, безрассудно доступным. И как только ты начинаешь тревожиться, ты в отчаянии цепляешься за что-нибудь. А как только ты за что-нибудь уцепился, то ты уже обязан устать или утопить того или то, за что ты цепляешься.

He said that I was a man. And like any man I deserved everything that was a man’s lot—joy, pain, sadness and struggle—and that the nature of one’s acts was unimportant as long as one acted as a warrior. Lowering his voice to almost a whisper, he said that if I really felt that my spirit was distorted I should simply fix it—purge it, make it perfect—because there was no other task in our entire lives which was more worthwhile. Not to fix the spirit was to seek death, and that was the same as to seek nothing, since death was going to overtake us regardless of anything. He paused for a long time and then he said with a tone of profound conviction, “To seek the perfection of the warrior’s spirit is the only task worthy of our manhood.

..there was no need to injure the shrubs, since we had already injured the quail.

For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. 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.” —Don Juan

It’s funny the way you sometimes remind me of myself,” he went on. “I too did not want to take the path of a warrior. I believed that all that work was for nothing, and since we are all going to die what difference would it make to be a warrior? I was wrong. But I had to find that out for myself. Whenever you do realize that you are wrong, and that it certainly makes a world of difference, you can say that you are convinced. And then you can proceed by yourself. And by yourself you may even become a man of knowledge.

Are you angry at me, don Juan?" I asked when he returned. He seemed surprised at my question. "No! I'm never angry at anybody! No human being can do anything important enough for that. You get angry at people when you feel that their acts are important. I don't feel that way any longer.

You feel like a leaf at the mercy of the wind, don’t you?” he finally said, staring at me. That was exactly the way I felt. He seemed to empathize with me. He said that my mood reminded him of a song and began to sing in a low tone; his singing voice was very pleasing and the lyrics carried me away: “I’m so far away from the sky where I was born. Immense nostalgia invades my thoughts. Now that I am so alone and sad like a leaf in the wind, sometimes I want to weep, sometimes I want to laugh with longing.” (Que lejos estoy del cielo donde he nacido. Immensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento. Ahora que estoy tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento, quisiera llorar, quisiera reir de sentimiento.) We did not speak for a long while. He finally broke the silence. “Since the day you were born, one way or another, someone has been doing something to you,” he said. “That’s correct,” I said. “And they have been doing something to you against your will.” “True.” “And by now you’re helpless, like a leaf in the wind.” “That’s correct. That’s the way it is.” I said that the circumstances of my life had sometimes been devastating. He listened attentively but I could not figure out whether he was just being agreeable or genuinely concerned until I noticed that he was trying to hide a smile. “No matter how much you like to feel sorry for yourself, you have to change that,” he said in a soft tone. “It doesn’t jibe with the life of a warrior.

Don Juan said that everybody that knew me had an idea about me, and that I kept feeding the idea with everything I did. “Don’t you see?” he asked dramatically. “You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.

So when you’re trying to figure it out, all you’re really doing is trying to make the world familiar. You and I are right here, in the world that you call real, simply because we both know it.

I wanted to examine the surroundings because I had no idea where I was.

Somehow, words seemed to be inaccurate and their meanings difficult to pinpoint.

They are not rocks.” he said. “They are strings. They will hold your spot suspended.

Precise acts and feelings and decisions were infinitely more effective than the blundering idiocy I called my life. —Carlos Castaneda Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan

Cuando estés impaciente, lo que debes hacer es voltear a la izquierda y pedir consejo a tu muerte. Una inmensa cantidad de mezquindad se pierde con solo que tu muerte te haga un gesto, o alcances a echarle un vistazo, o nada más con que tengas la sensación de que tu compañera está ahí vigilándote. Cada vez que sientas, como siempre lo haces, que todo te está saliendo mal y que estás a punto de ser aniquilado, vuélvete hacia tu muerte y pregúntale si es cierto. Tu muerte te dirá que te equivocas; que nada importa más que su toque. Tu muerte te dirá: todavía no te he tocado.

Por eso debes tener siempre presente que un camino es sólo un camino y, si sientes que no debes seguirlo, no debes seguir en él bajo ningún concepto. Para tener esa claridad, debes llevar una vida disciplinada, sólo entonces sabrás que un camino es nada más que un camino y no hay afrenta, ni para ti ni para otros, en dejarlo, si eso es lo que tu corazón te dice. Todos los caminos son lo mismo: no llevan a ninguna parte […]Puedo decir que en mi vida he recorrido caminos largos, largos pero no estoy en ninguna parte. […] ¿Tiene corazón ese camino? Si tiene, el camino es bueno, si no, de nada sirve. Ningún camino lleva a ninguna parte, pero uno tiene corazón y el otro no. Uno hace gozoso el viaje; mientras lo sigas, eres uno con él. El otro hará maldeir tu vida. Uno te hace fuerte. El otro te debilita. Pero, ¿Cómo puedo estar seguro de si un camino tiene corazón? Cualquiera puede saber esto. El problema es que nadie se hace la pregunta y cuando uno por sin se da cuenta de que ha tomado un camino sin corazón, el camino está ya a punto de matarlo. En esas circunstancias muy pocos hombres pueden pararse a considerar, y más pocos aún pueden dejar el camino.

Smrt je jediný moudrý rádce, kterého máme. Kdykoliv máš pocit, že je něco špatně a že budeš sprovozen ze světa, a ty máš tenhle pocit pořád, obrať se ke své smrti a zeptej se jí , jestli je to tak. Smrt ti řekne, že se mýlíš. Protože doopravdy vlastně záleží jen a jen na jejím dotyku a na ničem jiném už ne. Smrt ti řekne: Ještě jsem si na tebe nesáhla.

When a man starts to learn, he is never clear about his objectives. His purpose is faulty. His intent is vague. He hopes for rewards that will never materialize, for he knows nothing of the hardships of learning. "He slowly begins to learn- bit by bit at first, then in big chunks. And his thoughts soon clash. What he learns is never what he pictured, or imagined, and so he begins to be afraid. Learning is never what one expects. Every step of learning is a new task, and the fear the man is experiencing begins to mount mercilessly, unyieldingly. His purpose becomes a battlefield. "And thus he has tumbled upon the first of his natural enemies: Fear! A terrible enemy- treacherous, and difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting. And if the man, terrified in its presence, runs away, his enemy will have put an end to his quest.

Don't get me wrong, don Juan," I protested. "I want to have an ally, but I also want to know everything I can. You yourself have said that knowledge is power." "No!" he said emphatically. "Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless?

-Cruzaste los ojos -repitió con énfasis-. Ésa es la técnica; eso debes haber hecho, aunque no te acuerdes. Don Juan me describió la técnica, cuyo perfeccionamiento llevaba años; consistía en forzar gradualmente a los ojos a ver por separado la misma imagen. La carencia de conversión en la imagen involucraba una percepción doble del mundo; esta doble percepción, según don Juan, daba a uno oportunidad de evaluar cambios en el entorno, que los ojos eran por lo común incapaces de percibir.

We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same. —Carlos Castaneda Don Juan, Journey to Ixtlan

death,

Not to fix the spirit was to seek death, and that was the same as to seek nothing, since death was going to overtake us regardless of anything.

Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.

Que cada uno de tus actos sea tu última batalla sobre la tierra

A hunter knows he will lure game into his traps over and over again, so he doesn’t worry. 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.