A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda

Author:Carlos Castaneda
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Atria Books

10

I went back to visit don Juan on May 30, 1969, and bluntly told him that I wanted to take another crack at “seeing.” He shook his head negatively and laughed, and I felt compelled to protest. He told me I had to be patient and the time was not right, but I doggedly insisted I was ready.

He did not seem annoyed with my nagging requests. He tried, nevertheless, to change the subject. I did not let go and asked him to advise me what to do in order to overcome my impatience.

“You must act like a warrior,” he said.

“How?”

“One learns to act like a warrior by acting, not by talking.”

“You said that a warrior thinks about his death. I do that all the time; obviously that isn’t enough.”

He seemed to have an outburst of impatience and made a smacking sound with his lips. I told him that I had not meant to make him angry and that if he did not need me there at his house, I was ready to go back to Los Angeles. Don Juan patted me gently on the back and said that he never got angry with me; he had simply assumed I knew what it meant to be a warrior.

“What can I do to live like a warrior?” I asked.

He took off his hat and scratched his temples. He looked at me fixedly and smiled.

“You like everything spelled out, don’t you?”

“My mind works that way.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

“I don’t know how to change. That is why I ask you to tell me exactly what to do to live like a warrior; if I knew that, I could find a way to adapt myself to it.”

He must have thought my statements were humorous; he patted me on the back as he laughed.

I had the feeling he was going to ask me to leave any minute, so I quickly sat down on my straw mat facing him and began asking him more questions. I wanted to know why I had to wait.

He explained that if I were to try to “see” in a helter-skelter manner, before I had “healed the wounds” I received battling the guardian, chances were that I would encounter the guardian again even though I was not looking for it. Don Juan assured me that no man in that position would be capable of surviving such an encounter.

“You must completely forget the guardian before you can again embark on the quest of seeing,” he said.

“How can anyone forget the guardian?”

“A warrior has to use his will and his patience to forget. In fact, a warrior has only his will and his patience and with them he builds anything he wants.”

“But I’m not a warrior.”

“You have started learning the ways of sorcerers. You have no more time for retreats or for regrets. You only have time to live like a warrior and work for patience and will, whether you like it or not.”

“How does a warrior work for them?”

Don Juan thought for a long time before answering.

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