Excerpts from
"Journey to Ixtlan The Lessons of Don Juan" by Carlos Casteneda (Simon and Schuster,1972):
Reaffirmations From The World Around Us (pp. 25-26)
“When will you be home?” I asked. He scrutinized me. “”Whenever you come,” he replied.” “I don’t know exactly when I can come.” “Just come then and don’t worry.” “What if you’re not in?” “I’ll be there,” he said smiling, and walked away.
I ran after him and asked if he would mind my bringing a camera with me to take pictures of him and his house...I staged a weak final complaint. I said that pictures and recordings were indispensable to my work. He said that there was only one thing which was indispensable for anything we did. He called it, “the spirit.”
“One can’t do without the spirit,” he said. “And you don’t have it. Worry about that and not your pictures.”
“What do you. . . .”
He interrupted me with a movement of his hands and walked backwards a few steps.
“Be sure to come back,” he said softly and waved goodbye.
Losing Self-Importance (pp. 44-45)
Upon arriving at the hillside I found a whole cluster of the same plants. I wanted to laugh but he did not give me time. He wanted me to thank the batch of plants. I felt excruciatingly self-conscious and could not bring myself to do it.
He smiled benevolently and made another of his cryptic statements. He repeated it three or four times as is to give me time to figure out its meaning.
“The world around us is a mystery,” he said. “And men are no better than anything else. If a little plant is generous with us with must thank her, or perhaps she will not let us go.”
Assuming Responsibility (pp. 65-66)
“You are complaining,” he said softly. “You have been complaining all your life because you don’t assume responsibility for your decisions. If you would have assumed responsibility for your father’s idea of swimming at six in the morning, you would have swum, by yourself if necessary, or you would have told him to go to hell the first time he opened his mouth after you knew his devices. But you didn’t say anything. Therefore you were as weak as your father.
“To assume the responsibility of one’s decisions means that one is ready to die for them.
“It doesn’t matter what the decision is,” he said. “Nothing could be more or less serious than anything else. Don’t you see. In a world where death is the hunter there are no small or big decisions. There are only decisions that we make in the face of inevitable death."
The Gait Of Power (pp. 192-193)
“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’re 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. “
“A man of knowledge is one who has followed truthfully the hardships of learning,” he said. “A man who has, without rushing or faltering, gone as far as he can in unraveling the secrets of personal power.”
Stopping The World (pp. 292-293)
“We both are beings who are going to die,” he said softly. “There is no more time for what we used to do. Now you must employ all the not-doing I have taught you and stop the world.”
He clasped my hand again. His touch was firm and friendly; it was like a reassurance that he was concerned and had affection for me, and at the same time it gave me the impression of an unwavering purpose.
“This is my gesture for you,” he said, holding the grip he had on my hand for an instant. “Now you must go by yourself in those friendly mountains.” He pointed his chin to the distant range of mountains toward the southeast.
“What am I suppose to do there?” I asked.
He did not answer but looked at me, shaking his head.
“No more of that,” he finally said.
Then he pointed his finger to the southeast.
“Go there,” he said cuttingly.
