The world doesn't yield to us directly, the description of the world stands in between. So, properly speaking, we are always one step removed and our experiences of the world is always a recollection of the experience. We are perennially recollecting the instant that has just happened, just passed. Re recollect, recollect, recollect.
Carlos CastanedaThe shadows in the early morning don't tell much. The shadows rest at that time. So it's useless to gaze very early in the day. Around six in the morning the shadows wake up, and they are best around five in the afternoon. Then they are fully awake.
Carlos CastanedaFright never injures anyone. What injures the spirit is having someone always on your back, beating you, telling you what to do and what not to do
Carlos CastanedaWe have to balance the lineality of the known universe with the nonlineality of the unknown universe.
Carlos CastanedaWhen a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites-to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance-there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.
Carlos CastanedaNever take a path that has no heart in it. You can't lose if your heart is in your work, but you can't win if your heart is not in it.
Carlos CastanedaIt isn't that a warrior learns shamanism as time goes by; rather, what he learns as time goes by is to save energy. This energy will enable him to handle some of the energy fields which are ordinarily inaccessible to him. Shamanism is a state of awareness, the ability to use energy fields that are not employed in perceiving the everyday-life world that we know.
Carlos Castaneda