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From: JamesJTraitz
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  • Its a work of fiction but its certainly food for thought

  • a very grim way of life....... not worth living.

  • Idiot.

  • Was casteneda not very good at reading/seeing his energy body then,wouldnt he have been able to prevent the cancer from manifesting in his liver before reaching the point of death.Even though death of the body is ineviatable for us all,it makes his work seem less worthy even though he brought to attention some valuable teachings.Would have been so much more believable his life had a different ending.

  • They want you to believe that they committed suicide, sheesh, you are so gullible.

  • @bamboosa Unless they were talking metaphorically (many teachers speak of killing the ego or the false self

  • Castaneda made it all up! Read Amy Wallace's book, The Sorcerer's Apprentice. She was one of his so-called witches for over 20 years.

  • @Boris82much Remember,inspired and 'higher' knowledge is multi-dimensional - but no less real- Castenada's work is brilliant amd valid

  • @JamesJTraitz This is what you call Double Speak, right? LOL! Carlos was brilliant and valid in the world of fairytales. I fell for his books over 50 years ago but just one problem: When I along the way learned to project my own consciousness it was glaringly obvious Carlos was not being honest. Like T. Leary he ate shrums and god knows what else and messed with his brain and lost objectivity. If there never was a Don Juan or a Genero Flores, then there never was anything valid from Carlos.

  • Read up on Castaneda, he was NOT AN ANTHROPOLOGIST, I read the books I enjoyed them but Castaneda or anyone else crosses the line when they take the storys to be actual events....ENTERTAINMENT but no really new philosophical ideas, LOVED the storys but thats all they were STORIES.... and now get back to real life....

  • Don Juan was very real. If you have read the books, there is absolutely no way that these books, stories could have been made up. I have read the books and they have changed my life forever. If you mock any of the books info, then that is your loss. If you take this book for real, and apply it to your life, your life will be better.

  • @beefree1 Why didn't Carlos die a warrior's death? Of all human beings on this earth who were destined to burn their awareness into another reality, why did he instead die of liver cancer? Why can no one achieve what Carlos wrote about? I have learned to project my consciousness into alternative realities and believe me, Carlos never came close to being able to do that. All he did was spin yarns, create a cult with naive women and make millions. And he died a very very unhappy man.

  • @Boris82much Sometimes the 'messanger' falls short of the message; this in no way diminishes the message

  • @JamesJTraitz Mr. Traitz, you know as well as I do that Castaneda got all of his info for his books from the counter drug culture, which started in the late 50's and was at its peak around the early 70's. There was never a real Don Juan...everything Castaneda wrote about was fiction.

  • @JamesJTraitz True exploration into altered states of consciousness took a bad blow because of his ridiculous, fear-based fairytales. So absolutely the message is not only diminished but rendered nil "if the messenger falls short". Castaneda conned us all and laughed himself silly going to the bank.

  • @Boris82much Sorry to disagree. The don Juan teaching has been a great contribution to those seeking the warrior"s way. His teaching regarding "losing self-importance " "non-doing" the "will" "impeccability" "patience" etc. are extraordinary and invaluable

  • Self importance.....Ego.....Don Juan tells us this is the mind of the "FOREIGN INSTALLATION"

  • Such case always happens in this world where the flyers prevail. They , the flyers, either edit the works of ancient wise men (editting the keywords) or employing somebody to deceitfully "debunk" them.

    It has been prevalent in China where the works of Zhuang Tze have been modified over and over again since Dynasty Ching.

    Good luck everyone, I'm not in anyway going to convince you to read Carlos's book because it all depends on your personal power.

  • The book written by Amy Wallace is simply fraudulent. Carlos has never mentioned her in any of his books and what is funny is that this fellar came out with a book in 2003 to 'prosecute' Carlos.

    She is perhaps one of the flyer who would do anything to keep people ignorant from the truth and the teaching value of Carlos's work.

  • I need an opinion.

    In the books by Carlos the book is written in the context of a document, and in other books Carlas narrates that he releases this as a book.

    More or less, was Don Juan real? Does it matter?

    My point is that don juan may have been simply an imagination coming from the context of Castenada. Does it matter whether he actually met a Yaqui indian, or is it better to see the undertandings and ideas behind Carlos work- aka...Learning to value nothing- having nothing important.

  • Ultimatley it doesn't matter

  • james was right ultimately it dosent matter:)but if you take on inward silence you sooner or later feel that don juan was real person and not imagination of carlos:)

  • Ohhh you're so deep!!!

  • carlos is suicide cult leader u moron

  • You may have confused the moron's identity

  • carlos castaneda was a cult leader. he had female followers who were commanded to change their names, cut and dye their hair blonde, reject their families and "disappear" after his death in '98.

    he was a "false personality"--a con man.

    every religion or personality cult is a dead-end that keeps one locked into another's way of thinking or perceiving.

  • carlos was man above your understanding:)anything you do is cult:)you are cult leader:)as most of man:)you propagate materialism which means that you have closed yourself into that:)so basically you are slave:)slave of your ideas:)

  • @earinsound - Did you ever think that maybe the con was for a good reason? I'm speculating here, but I would imagine that there are some teachers who will purposefully try to see just how far he can lead a group to do his bidding, partially to see who is awake and who is asleep, and partially to get the sleepy followers to--at some point--wake up, leave their guru, and actualize.

  • @FoodOrFail

    Well...a few of his female followers ("the witches" he called them) have disappeared...one of them was found dead in Death Valley...her, and the others are thought to have committed suicide. I guess they'll never "wake up."

    We can speculate all we want, but facts are facts: gurus con their followers (as does the priesthood) and these people fall prey to demagoguery. It's a pity people are so spiritually empty that they look for answers from dubious sources.

  • Thank you.

  • Great talk and i have enjoyed your presentations. thank you for sharing.

    Peace to you.

  • Thankyou for your interest

  • Very informative. The topic of self-importance is probably the first one that should be tackled when discussing Castaneda. Don Juan said that it was more difficult to deal with impossible people in positions of power than it was to handle the unknown. Indeed, many in the New Age would do themselves good not to knock the gospel of Jesus, for to love one's enemies and pray for them is probably harder than meditating on your third eye!

  • Good comment!

  • If you like gurdjieff. Take a look at ""Boris mouravieff"" More complete than gurdjieff in my opinion..

  • If you like this check out"Jimmy weiskopf's "The new purgatory encounters with ayahuasca" Simply the greatest book on ayayhuasca shamanism ever written. Deeply insightful..

  • Hi James,

    Have you ever noticed that when you have a run of sucsess with quieting the internal dialogue,maybe for days, one slip up and it comes back to assail you with a vengence ? It seems a sentient creature seperate from yourself, that you have starved or hurt by ignoring it. and it is going to make you pay for this .

    Learning a foreign language can confuse the internal dialogue as you begin to think in that new language. It cant organise itself as well.A good form of not doing !

  • The closer a teacher comes to the truth the more will he be defamed. An army of vultures who serve the gate keepers of this paradigm shall always rally against such a one. Humans are so ready to shoot the messenger. Castaneda was merely a channel for the Toltec teaching. A lot of the teaching was done in a parallel reality and he did a good job of synthesizing it.

  • I would really recommend everyone to read this excellent book:

    The Teachings of Don Carlos: Practical Applications of the Works of Carlos Castaneda (1995) by Victor Sanchez

    This book presents all practical works of Carlos Castaneda and some of the techniques used by the author. A very lucid work.

  • I can see people simply banishing Carlos's work because of their denial of the reality. What is worst is that , most people that criticise his work never even read his work. They just know a little bit of it. But do you think it matters?

    We are really indepted of Carlos Castaneda. His writing is a treasure to all of us, we should never miss it. Unless you are a denial yourself, then should you follow your own path that lead of ultimate ignorance.

  • The reason I'm so fond of Carlos's writing is because his work is very similar to various teachings such as taoism. From this point of view, I conclude that ultimately , all teachings that lead to heightened awareness is the same, be it taoism or the Yaqui's way of knowledge.

  • they differ :)but they have great main point and that is inward silence:)in all other aspect they differ:)but as main point is same that dosent even matter much:)

  • A warrior acts without believing.

    What is important is his work, not him for he is just another man who is equal with to all of us in the eyes of the unknownable.

  • Read Amy Wallace's book, The Socerer's Apprentice: she was one of his 'witches' for over 20 years. There never was a Don Juan Matus, but there was a short, brown, homely man from Peru by the name of Carlos Castaneda who created a fairy tale like no other. He was the leader of a cult, a suicide cult, and Amy was able to save herself from it in the end.

    If anyone should have been able to leave this world the way the alledged Don Juan taught, it should have been Castaneda, but he didn't.

  • its very possible there wasnt a 'don juan' but thats not the point. people, for some strange reason dismiss the teachings as nonsense but have yet to actually read the books or even attempt to think about the path of a warrior. its still evident that the internal false mind digs deeper to hide itself and create fear in those who dont see it yet.

  • With all due respect, Multibuddhaneo, some of todays' global religions originated from oral and/or written fear-based fabrications and the human need to control others. All Castaneda did was borrow heavily from his Catholic upbringing beliefs and fears, put a twist on it and spiced it with New Agey stuff and created a nice fairy tale,or I should say a not-so-nice tale which used FEAR to gain converts, readers and mucho dinero..."follow the warrior path or perish at death"...that kinda thing.

  • In other words, none of us need the Castanedas to discover we are already born with innate abilities to experience altered states of consciousness. Being in two places at once, having out of body experiences, 'seeing' and reading energies, telepathy w/ people, animals, nonhuman life forms--these abilities we already possess.

    About 90% of Castaneda's methods are impossible for anyone to accomplish. They are literally undo-able. If they were legit, he would have died a 'warrior's death'.

  • the piece missing in the puzzle is that he was offered money for the movie rights but never accepted, so they parodied the story with the movie the matrix, ,,he would had made more mony than harry potter

  • what story are you talking about that they got the matrix from?

  • Comment removed

  • Hi... the reason I deleted my message is because I misunderstood your question. You asked what story The Matrix was based on and my response was Plato's Allegory of the Cave. But after writing that I saw the original statement about Castaneda and realized this isn't what you were asking.

    I have no idea what story about Castaneda the Matrix might have been based on.

  • if you were not self important, you would simply read from the Carlos Castaneda books, so everyone could benefit from the original teaching and not be confused by your own mind chatter.........

  • I attempt to show the consistent message of the 'timless' knowledge that is revealed from many sources including Gurdjieff and Castenada. Anybody can simply read from a book

  • Self-importance and most violence result from us modelling human lives like the block like build environment (which block do you belong to) instead of like the nature in all its complexity of slight&great variations (what life feels like). If you place the nature and compassion close to your heart, instead of placing build things there, you will naturally reach for the right. (Thinking by words and putting edges to things are a part of this error of modelling the environment in wrong ways.)

  • Well put!

  • astral traveling is just an outer body experience from what I'm aware of. I've been interested in different forms of metaphysical systems for almost 5 years. If you want to read something to elaborate on Carlos Castenda I suggest read Ken Eagle Feather. He states he was trained aswell by don juan, but through visions and dreaming.

  • agreed. it activates will. and leads to enlightenment.i've read them all. but in the end the only thing to understand is that we know nothing. philosopher's stone.how do you folks tie this in with the new world order and coming "revealing" or apocolypse? if c.c was such a space cowboy, how come no mention of this. i suspect it's cuz he's part of the new age thing. the deception. that's why no warning. a ghost writer for the new world order. put that in yer pipe and smoke it! mr. little smoke!!

  • theres no mention because its not important. did you read all the books?the only thing that was really considered important was the expelling of the foreign mind/flyer/mudshadow. the entire training process is a lifelong dedicated balls-out detox session. people disregard what he wrote but still dont attempt what it takes to live like a 'warrior'. plain and simple.

  • Many people confuse the path of Carlos Castaneda with the path of freedom that Don Juan followed.

    Carlos was caught by the 3rd enemy the Power and he followed the path of the Great Adventure sexual magic and

    life in 2nd attention. He described in his books the precise time which Don Juan repelled him.

    Unfortunately, what happened with between Socrates and Plato, happened again. People read but they don't understand what they read and who is who simply they don't have enough energy to understand.

  • Thank you for putting this out there. Juan warned Carlos that he was going to do it, too! hahah!

  • Hi James, I've read all of Castaneda and lately have been researching astral projection. I know it's a relatively common practice among esoteric circles and the correlations with don Juan's teachings seem numerous, the most common being the emanation from the astral body from the navel area that don Juan referred to as "Intent" (if I remember properly). Is the higher mastery of Astral Projection the crowning achievement of our existence here? Could that be the ultimate freedom that is pointed to

  • Yes.Excellent comment!

  • any day u go to sleep u do astral projection:)so thats nothing but law:)ultimate freedom was just to gather trough inward silence the power of peace and go to the point when one is not slave to his own thoughts emotions and dreams:)

  • I read the first book Castaneda wrote when I was 13. It changed me forever and I'm not kidding. It increased my perception of the whole world, broadened my horizons so to speak. I only read this and The Art of Dreaming though. But I admire Castaneda's work even though some of it might not be true.

  • But then again what is "true"? One might perceive anything they want as true and yet it might be wrong according to someone else.

  • Read Robert M Pirsig's book:Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for an excellent treatise on 'the Good' being a higher principle than 'the truth'(re:the famous philosophical debate among the ancient Greeks)

  • 'True and false' only have relevence in a subject/object metaphysics.Beyond the 'light cone' of space-time,beyond physical reality either/or dichotomies lose applicability.True /false begins to come 'unglued' in quantum physics i.e.-Question:Is it a particle or is it a wave? Answer:yes!

  • Word. I'm 45. Started CC at 20. Finally came full circle with the notion of Astral Travel just recently. I think that's what don Juan was doing the whole time, astral travelling. Lines shooting out from the navel...it all ties in. Blessings!

  • I disagree with everything you say...

  • Thats fine

  • i understand the teachings of don juan very well and have been reading his teachings and meditating since i was 8. I have found that trying to live the life don juan describes is extremely difficult in todays world and even harder the older and more programed we become. I love my life and i choose to be in this world, but if you want to slip away to don juan's world/the pure mindset... meditation will give you the power.

  • How to become humble? Wake up. How to wake up? Become humble. Love you, James!

  • humble means silent :)wake up is you are silent inwardly:)

  • do you know what you're talking about?? have you been to el cerro quemado?? wirikuta?? ok then

  • James,another person you should check out is the late shoshone shaman rolling thunder, and a book about him by doug boyd by the same name. There is also red elk, but i'm not sure he's genuine.

  • Don juan may not have really existed.

  • Whether he did or not,nevertheless,the teaching comes from 'higher' sources

  • The same can be said from Gurdjieff's sources. He had a link into the other worlds/Dimensions, Planes, realms, probably personally and direct.

  • I agree

  • people might say the same about anyone in history

  • Hi Jim,

    People are pre-occupied in their minds with thinking that people are talking and thinking about them (the feeling of centrality) when in fact, those very same people are thinking about what others are thinking of them.

    Suffering(false suffering)comes from a false sense of centrality which continues to keep the Ego alive(sleep)

    A traffic light changes from green 2 yellow 2 red,not because of me, not in relation to me.

    A fight over looking at someone wrong is just the same

  • Well said

  • Sadly, human beings use society as a benchmark for reality, a benchmark for behavior, and a benchmark for perfection. It cannot be emphasized enough how generic and lame society actually is. Worse yet, everyone has a never-ending inner conflict between their real self and their pretentious, social self.

  • But the first step is to realize that we have that conflict and that we are in a wakeful sleep and can do nothing

    Benchmarks of society and culture are just another distraction, illusion to keep us asleep.

    The scoreboard that we think we have is infact false.

    Do u think that our soul has the same scoreboard as we do?

    Its not whether society is lame or generic, its that society(people)are asleep and unaware of themselves, others or their false habits that create false suffeings.

  • I concur.

  • if my realty were a dart board, your comment is a dart that struck the center of my 2 centimeter bulls eye. nice shot.

  • I would say that the concept 'humble' belongs to false-personality, and that great teachers are neither humble nor non-humble. They're concerned with their work.

  • To call oneself "humble" or to become identified with being humble is false personality

  • I'd say: The notion of humbleness is not necessary, what is necessary is the absence of self-importance. This isn't a subtlety.

    With respect to that it's quite interesting to compare the 4th Way's "false-personality" with Casteneda's "Flyers Mind" which might perhaps also concoct a beautiful 'version of humbleness' for itself. This is sleep.

    Rudolf Steiner also had an idea that tallied quite well with both false personality and the flyer's mind: that of "The Doppelganger."

  • How these concepts work out on a wider societal level is quite well expressed by Guy Debord in his book "The Society of The Spectacle."

    "This same historical moment when Bolshevism triumphed for itself in Russia and social democracy fought victoriously for the old world also marks the definitive inauguration of an order of things that lies at the core of the modern spectacle's rule: this was the moment when an image of the working class arose in radical opposition to the working class itself."

  • Krishnamurti also said something like this.

    He said: "when you get offended, what gets hurt? is it you or the image of yourself?"

    Humbleness is the key.

  • krishnamurti spoke all time about silence, so for him anything you could feel as emotions were just imaginations so not silence:)

  • Wow that's crazy most of the people of this world live a world in their head as if they're very important or more like as if they're the better than others. Capitalism teaches us life works that way; yet all this comes back to social darwinism which is a sad way to veiw life. When I think about it; its as if were living to become civilized animals, but with the deal in which we keep our primitive animal status quo. xD

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