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psysaucer
India
44 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 11 2015 : 10:46:07 PM
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Has anyone here enjoyed the books of Castaneda? Ive just finished the first two books, Teachings of Don Juan and A Separate Reality, and I am absolutely sure that when Don Juan talks about "seeing" or going beyond understanding or being a "warrior", he is essentially talking about non-dual awareness. His teachings are almost Zen that I am sure if Castaneda had read Don Juan out some eastern mystical works, he would have sure acknowledged that what he was talking about was a path to enlightenment itself.
"The basic premise of sorcery as don Juan presented it to me. He said that for sorcerer, the world of everyday life is not real, or out there, as we believe it is. For a sorcerer, reality, or the world we all know, is only a description. ...a description that had been pounded into me from the moment I was born.
He pointed out that everyone who comes into contact with a child is a teacher who incessantly describes the world to him, until the moment when the child is capable of perceiving the world as it is described. According to don Juan, we have no memory of that portentous moment, simply because none of us could possibly have had any point of reference to compare it to anything else. From that moment on, however, the child is a member. He knows the description of the world; and his membership becomes full-fledged, I suppose, when he is capable of making all the proper perceptual interpretations which, by conforming to that description, validate it.
For don Juan, then, the reality of our day-to-day life consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations which we, the individuals who share a specific membership , have learned to make it common.
The idea that the perceptual interpretations that make up the world have a flow is congruous with the fact that they run uninterruptedly and are rarely, if ever, open to question. In fact, the reality of the world we know is so taken for granted that the basic premise of sorcery, that our reality is merely one of many descriptions, could hardly be taken as a serious proposition.
His contention was that he was teaching me how to "see" as opposed to merely "looking", and that "stopping the world" was the first step to "seeing"." ~ from the Introduction to 'Journey to Ixtan' |
Edited by - psysaucer on Oct 12 2015 12:45:47 AM |
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Purohit
India
43 Posts |
Posted - Oct 12 2015 : 01:48:51 AM
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I too have discovered Castaneda in the last couple of months. Actually started with Tales of Power and am now going backswards..
I do enjoy it and what i read is also usually something i am experiencing in my daily life...
i love the term " Warrior ". |
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parvati9
USA
587 Posts |
Posted - Nov 02 2015 : 12:53:26 PM
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Castaneda is great, especially the books he wrote after Tales of Power, where he goes into great detail about dreaming and stalking. As I recall, the first three cover Carlos' experiences with psychedelics, possibly Tales of Power too, which is the 4th one. I often reread his books and learn something valuable every time.
love
parvati |
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Anibaru
Chile
72 Posts |
Posted - Nov 16 2015 : 8:57:08 PM
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After reading Castaneda's books i really got afraid of mescaline!!  |
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SwamiX
USA
35 Posts |
Posted - Dec 29 2015 : 01:13:35 AM
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"I am absolutely sure that when Don Juan talks about "seeing" or going beyond understanding or being a "warrior", he is essentially talking about non-dual awareness. His teachings are almost Zen that I am sure if Castaneda had read Don Juan out some eastern mystical works, he would have sure acknowledged that what he was talking about was a path to enlightenment itself."
I did not get that from the books, though it's been many years. "Seeing" seemed to be about perceiving the world "as it really is", but I don't recall any reference to unity or non-duality. He mentions, for example, that when you "see" people appear as "luminous eggs" - this is a common idea in esoteric writings, but he does not suggest that dualism is, somehow, mistaken. In one of the books CC reads to him from the Tibetan book of the Dead, and he is pretty dismissive. Why, he says. "do they talk about death as if death was like life".
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psysaucer
India
44 Posts |
Posted - Dec 31 2015 : 06:51:09 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by SwamiX
"I am absolutely sure that when Don Juan talks about "seeing" or going beyond understanding or being a "warrior", he is essentially talking about non-dual awareness. His teachings are almost Zen that I am sure if Castaneda had read Don Juan out some eastern mystical works, he would have sure acknowledged that what he was talking about was a path to enlightenment itself."
I did not get that from the books, though it's been many years. "Seeing" seemed to be about perceiving the world "as it really is", but I don't recall any reference to unity or non-duality. He mentions, for example, that when you "see" people appear as "luminous eggs" - this is a common idea in esoteric writings, but he does not suggest that dualism is, somehow, mistaken. In one of the books CC reads to him from the Tibetan book of the Dead, and he is pretty dismissive. Why, he says. "do they talk about death as if death was like life".
The entire conversation between don juan and castenada goes like this:
"I don't understand why those people talk about death as if death were like life," he said softly.
"Maybe that's the way they understand it. Do you think the Tibetans see?"
"Hardly. When a man learns to see, not a single thing he knows prevails. Not a single one. If the Tibetans could see they could tell right away that not a single thing is any longer the same.
Once we see, nothing is known; nothing remains as we used to know it when we didn't see."
"Perhaps, don Juan, seeing is not the same for everyone."
"True. It's not the same. Still, that does not mean that the meanings of life prevail. When one learns to see, not a single thing is the same."
"Tibetans obviously think that death is like life. What do you think death is like, yourself?" I asked.
"I don't think death is like anything and I think the Tibetans must be talking about something else. At any rate, what they're talking about is not death."
"What do you think they're talking about?"
"Maybe you can tell me that. You're the one who reads."
I tried to say something else but he began to laugh.
"Perhaps the Tibetans really see," don Juan went on, "in which case they must have realized that what they see makes no sense at all and they wrote that bunch of crap because it doesn't make any difference to them; in which case what they wrote is not crap at all."
Perceiving reality as it is non-duality IMO. For when one observes with absolute clarity, the observer is surely not.
And I think don juan is saying pretty much the same thing when he says, "When a man learns to see, not a single thing he knows prevails. Not a single one." |
Edited by - psysaucer on Dec 31 2015 07:46:49 AM |
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Carlos Castaneda
