Today marks the birthday of Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998,) a controversial American New Age icon. His 12 books sold 8 million copies in 17 languages before his death, and even more since.
Castaneda gained rapid celebrity during graduate school after his The Teachings of Don Juan (1968) became a best-seller in the late sixties. This and his other books describe the mystical drug-stimulated escapades he claimed he had with his mentor Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian sorcerer whom Castaneda supposedly met in 1960 while studying medicinal plants used by American Indians.
Castaneda’s writings are as mysterious as the details of his life and death. Though records proved that he was born in Peru, he claimed he was born in Brazil. Despite his fame and notoriety, he refused to be photographed, tape-recorded, or interviewed. His death was disclosed only after two months.
Citing contradictions, factual discrepancies, and the fact that Don Juan could never be traced, critics argue that Castaneda’s books are works of fiction and not based on anthropological fieldwork.
Although Castaneda’s writings were not intended to be self-help books, his followers enthusiastically interpreted them as offering a practical philosophy of living and a set of life-improvement practices.
Inspirational Quotations by Carlos Castaneda
All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy—it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
No person is important enough to make me angry.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
The only thing we all have in common is that we play tricks in order to force ourselves to abandon the quest. The counter-measure is to persist in spite of all the barriers and disappointments.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
We talk to ourselves incessantly about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk. And whenever we finish talking to ourselves about ourselves and our world, the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we rekindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his internal talk.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
Learn to see, and then you’ll know that there is no end to the new worlds of our vision.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
When a man has fulfilled all four of these requisites—to be wide awake, to have fear, respect, and absolute assurance—there are no mistakes for which he will have to account; under such conditions his actions lose the blundering quality of the acts of a fool. If such a man fails, or suffers a defeat, he will have lost only a battle, and there will be no pitiful regrets over that.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
It doesn’t matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anything is personal power.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
An average man is too concerned with liking people or with being liked himself. A warrior likes, that’s all. He likes whatever or whomever he wants, for the hell of it.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)