Читать «Карлос Кастанеда, книги 1-11 (на английском языке)» онлайн - страница 1735

Silent knowledge is nothing but direct contact with intent.

Shamanism is a journey of return. A warrior returns victorious to the spirit, having descended into hell. And from hell he brings trophies. Understanding is one of his trophies.

Warriors, because they are stalkers, understand human behavior to perfection. They understand, for instance, that human beings are creatures of inventory. Knowing the ins and cuts of a particular inventory is what makes a man a scholar or an expert in his field.

Warriors know that when an average person's inventory fails, the person either enlarges his inventory or his world of self-reflection collapses. The average person is able to incorporate new items into his inventory if the new items don't contradict the inventory's underlying order. But if the items contradict that order, the person's mind collapses. The inventory is the mind. Warriors count on this when they attempt to break the mirror of self-reflection.

Warriors can never make a bridge to join the people of the world. But, if people desire to do so, they have to make a bridge to join warriors.

In order for the mysteries of shamanism to be available to anyone, the spirit must descend onto whoever is interested. The spirit lets its presence by itself move the man's assemblage point to a specific position. This precise spot is known to shamans as the place of no pity.

There really is no procedure involved in making the assemblage point move to the place of no pity. The spirit touches the person and his assemblage point moves. It is as simple as that.

What we need to do to allow magic to get hold of us is to banish doubts from our minds. Once doubts are banished, anything is possible.

Man's possibilities are so vast and mysterious that warriors, rather than thinking about them, have chosen to explore them, with no hope of ever understanding them.

Everything that warriors do is done as a consequence of a movement of their assemblage points, and such movements are ruled by the amount of energy warriors have at their command.

Any movement of the assemblage point means a movement away from an excessive concern with the individual self. Shamans believe it is the position of the assemblage point which makes modern man a homicidal egotist, a being totally involved with his self-image. Having lost hope of ever returning to the source of everything, the average man seeks solace in his selfishness.

The thrust of the warriors' way is to dethrone self-importance. And everything warriors do is directed toward accomplishing this goal.

Shamans have unmasked self-importance and found that it is self-pity masquerading as something else.

In the world of everyday life, one's word or one's decisions can be reversed very easily. The only irrevocable thing in the everyday world is death. In the shamans' world, on the other hand, normal death can be countermanded, but not the shamans' word. In the shamans' world decisions cannot be changed or revised. Once they have been made, they stand forever.