Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality: Further Conversations With Don Juan (New York: Pocket Books, 1971, 1972) ("'Once you decided to come to Mexico you should have put all your petty fears away,' he said very sternly. 'Your decision to come should have vanquished them. You came because you wanted to come. That's the warrior's way. I have told you time and time again, the most effective way to live is as a warrior. Worry and think before you make any decision, but once you make it, be on your way free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decision still awaiting you. That's the warrior's way.' 'I believe I do that, don Juan, at least some of the time. It's very hard to keep on reminding myself, though.' 'A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear.' That's even harder don Juan. For most people death is very vague and remote. We never think if it.' 'Why not?' 'Why should we?' "Very simple,' he said. 'Because the idea of death is the only thing that tempers our spirit.'" Id. at 47. "'I told you once that our lot as men is to learn, for good or bad,' he said. 'I have learned to see and I tell you that nothing really matters; now it is your turn; perhaps some day you will see and you will know then whether things matter or not. For me nothing matters, but perhaps for you everything will. You should know by now that a man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting. A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well a everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses to act, and act it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn't; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern.' 'A man of knowledge may choose, on the other hand to remain totally impassive and never act; and behave as if to be really impassive really matters to him; he will be rightly true at that too, because that would also be his controlled folly.'" Id. at 85.).
Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power (New York: Pocket Books/Washington Square Press, 1974, 1992).
Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, with a new commentary by the author (New York: Pocket Books/Washington Square Press, 1968, 1998) ("At a very early stage of my apprenticeship, don Juan made the statement that the goal of his teachings was 'to show how to become a man of knowledge.'" Id. at 151. "'What do I have to do to arrive at that point, don Juan?' 'You have to be a strong man, and your life has to be truthful.' 'What is a truthful life?' 'A life lived with deliberateness, a good, strong life.'" Id. at 73. "'I have told you that to choose a path you must be free from fear and ambition. But the smoke blinds you with fear, and the devil's weed blinds you with ambition.' I argued that one needs ambition even to embark on any path, and that his statement that one had to be free from ambition did not make sense. A person has to have ambition in order to learn. 'The desire to learn is not ambition,' he said. 'It is our lot as men to want to know, but to seek the devil's weed is to bid for power, and that is ambition, because you are not bidding to know. Don't let the devil's weed blind you. She has hooked you already. She entices men and gives them a sense of power; she makes them feel they can do things that no ordinary man can. But that is her trap. And, the next thing the path without a heart will turn against men and destroy them. It does not take much to die, and to seek death is to seek nothing.'" Id. at 124.).
Donald Lee Williams, Border Crossings: A Psychological Perspective on Carlos Castaneda's Path of Knowledge (Studies on Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts (Toronto: (Inner City Books, 1981) ("Don Juan defines a man or woman or knowledge as anyone who has had the patience and the impeccability to follow the warrior's way, attempting to live in harmony with the unconscious and to follow the turns of his or her personal fate. [] In The Teachings of Don Juan, don Juan describes the four enemies of knowledge: fear, clarity, power and old age. The second and third are sought by the warrior and become enemies only after they have been acquired.." Id. at 19.).
