Carlos Castaneda Quotes

If I had a prayer, it would be this: "God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen."

When you begin your transcendental training, focusing your best efforts, without attachment to outcomes, you will understand the peaceful warrior's way.

That man has reached immortality who is disturbed by nothing material.

My perspective is that you should be IN the world, but not OF the world.

You must learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies. You must learn to live alone in silence.

My faith did not require beauty or belonging - the deeper I went into my practice, the less it required at all.

I don't care what people think of me. I don't even care what happens to me.

I stay in my lane and do what I want to do. I don't worry about the outside world.

Not to borrow the strength of another, nor to rely on one's own strength; to cut off past and future thoughts, and not to live within the everyday mind... then the Great Way is right before your eyes.

The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so,believing that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.

The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked only to infinity.

Serenity is when you get above all this, when it doesn't matter what they think, say or want, but when you do as you are, and see God and Devil as one.

I wish neither to possess nor to be possessed. I no longer covet 'paradise'. More important, I no longer fear 'hell'. The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it, until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel, consuming myself.

What I mean by living to one's self is living in the world, as in it, not of it.

So even if the hot loneliness is there, and for 1.6 seconds we sit with that restlessness when yesterday we couldn't sit for even one, that's the journey of the warrior. (68)

People who have let go of themselves are so pure that the world cannot harm them.

When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

We are awakened to the profound realization that the true path to liberation is to let go of everything.

This world is not for cowards. Do not try to fly. Look not for success or failure. Join yourself to the perfectly unselfish will and work on. Know that the mind which is born to succeed joins itself to a determined will and perseveres. You have the right to work, but do not become so degenerate as to look for results. Work incessantly, but see something behind the work. Even good deeds can find a man in great bondage. Therefore be not bound by good deeds or by desire for name and fame. Those who know this secret pass beyond this round of birth and death and become immortal.

You have to be a warrior and say, "Maybe it's everyone else's system, but it's not mine." (from her recent interview here, on Goodreads)

I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.

Therefore, the truly great man, although he does not injure others, does not credit himself with charity and mercy (these are natural to him). He does not seek gain, but does not despise his followers who do. He struggles not for wealth, but does not take credit for leaving it alone... The ranks and emoluments of the world are to him no cause for joy, it's punishments and shame no cause for disgrace.

I'm not religious, but I am spiritual. I have my own relationship with a being that I consider to be everywhere. All and everything. I don't need a church or a synagogue or a mosque. I don't need to kneel down, I don't need to stand up, I don't need to be hanging from a thread.

Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand, Only when infinity weds the finite's thought, Can man be free from himself and live with God.

If you are really Master of your Fate, it shouldn't make any difference to you whether Cleopatra or the Bearded Lady is your mate.