Carlos Castaneda (1925–98) was a controversial American New Age icon. His 12 books sold 8 million copies in 17 languages before his death, and even more since.
Castaneda gained rapid celebrity during graduate school after his Teachings of Don Juan (1968) became a best-seller in the late sixties. This and his other books describe the mystical drug-stimulated escapades he claimed he had with his mentor Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian sorcerer whom Castaneda supposedly met in 1960 while studying medicinal plants used by American Indians.
Castaneda’s writings are as mysterious as the details of his life and death. Though records proved that he was born in Peru, he claimed he was born in Brazil. Despite his fame and notoriety, he refused to be photographed, tape-recorded, or interviewed. His death was disclosed only after two months.
Citing contradictions, factual discrepancies, and the fact that Don Juan could never be traced, critics argue that Castaneda’s books are works of fiction and not based on anthropological fieldwork.
Although Castaneda’s writings were not intended to be self-help books, his followers enthusiastically interpreted them as offering a practical philosophy of living and a set of life-improvement practices.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Carlos Castaneda
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 manhood.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Growth, Warrior, Courage
A warrior never worries about his fear.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Warrior, Fear, Worry, Attitude
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Love, People, Friendship, 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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Win, Wisdom, Warrior
A warrior thinks of death when things become unclear. The idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Wisdom, Warrior, Death
It is important to do what you don’t know how to do. It is important to see your skills as keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Creativity, To Be Born Everyday, Change
We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Responsibility, Attitude
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Doubt, Warrior, Attitude
There’s no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim. Everything is filled to the brim, and everything is equal.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Experience, Wisdom, Life, Warrior
It doesn’t matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Action, Power
No person is important enough to make me angry.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Anger
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 it us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Warrior, Wisdom
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Wisdom, Mystery, Warrior
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.’
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Wisdom, Death, Warrior, Wise
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Action, Warrior, Win
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Growth, Warrior, Courage
In the universe there is an immeasurable, indescribable force which shamans call intent, and absolutely everything hat exists in the entire cosmos is attached to intent by a connecting link.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Universe
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Death, Wisdom, Warrior
Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Wisdom, Learning
If a warrior is to succeed at anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obsession.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Success, Action, Warrior, Stress, Effort
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 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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Warrior, People, Earth, Death, Wisdom, Knowledge
The spirit reveals itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only warriors are consistently attuned to such revelations.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: War, Warrior, Spirit, Consistency
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Attitude, People, Warrior
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Disappointment, Regret, Knowledge, Remorse, Courage, Life, Challenges, Warrior
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Friend, Courage, Parents, History, Warrior, Individuality
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Warrior, Worry, Attitude
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Courage, Warrior, Growth
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Warrior, Action
When a warrior learns to stop the internal dialogue, everything becomes possible; the most far-fetched schemes become attainable.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Warrior, Attitude
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.
—Carlos Castaneda
Topics: Power
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