Carlos Castaneda Quotes

My nature is... well... I'm a searcher by nature. I'm constantly searching for something; that's why I have a song called 'Looking for Something.' How do I do it? I read a lot of spiritual books; I meditate.

Every morning I stay in bed for ten minutes to ponder my place in the universe. Then I wash my face and check my karma.

Before embarking on important undertakings sit quietly calm your senses and thoughts and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.

When you first awaken or before drifting off to sleep, quiet your mind, lift up your heart, muse, mull over, make discoveries. Consider, conceive, create, connect, concede that it all starts within.

Everything we do, our entire interior monologue, is prayer.

Self-reflection is a desire felt by the body, as well as the soul. As dancers, healers, and saints all know, when you turn your attention toward even the simplest physical process - breath, the small movements of the eyes, the turning of a foot in midair - what might have seemed dull matter suddenly awakens.

Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.

When the mind is thinking it is talking to itself.

I have no inner monologue.

I bring spiritual books with me while travelling. I like books about thoughts and how you see the world.

In my head I'm talking all the time.

It's hard to turn my internal dialogue off from that character I become.

I have never got on with the quietist movements: they lapse too easily into self-congratulations: I have found the oneness, you have not. I prefer to look outside myself if I possibly can, not inside. Meditation reminds me too forcibly of being made to lie on a mat at nursery school and take an hour's nap.

Except witnessing, I don't teach anything else. So just witness your mind and the meditation will be happening. And once you have got in tune with your being, you know the way, you know the how. Then it does not matter where you are. Alone or in the crowd, in the silences of the forest or in the noises of a marketplace, it is all the same. You can simply close your eyes and disappear inwards.

It is not a question of sitting silently, it is not a question of chanting a mantra. It is a question of understanding the subtle workings of the mind. As you understand those workings of the mind a great awareness arises in you, which is not of the mind. That awareness arises in your being, in your soul, in your consciousness.

He who looks without, dreams; he who looks within, awakes.

What an odd, ruminating, noisy, self-interrupting conversation we conduct with ourselves from birth to death.

Worship the Silent Space in you.

Why, the little Voice inside my head, of course. You mean you don't have one? I did.

Whenever the internal dialogue stops, the world collapses, and extraordinary facets of ourselves surface, as though they had been kept heavily guarded by our words.

Meditation isn't just something we do to make ourselves more peaceful and to take some of the stress out of our lives. We do it because it's the only direct experience we can have of knowing God. Because God is that which is indivisible. Everything else in the universe, in the physical world, is divisible. Up and down, good and bad, right and wrong, male and female, and so on. But that which is indivisible in our physical experience is called silence. And when you get into silence, you're coming to know the indivisibleness of your life - and that's conscious contact.

The highest levels of consciousness are wordless.

There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.

When I use the words 'inner journey', I simply mean that you have looked at one aspect of the journey in your life called 'outer', now try to look at another aspect of the journey called 'inner'. You have been running after money, now run after meditation. You have been running after power, now run after God. Both are running. Once you start running after meditation then one day I will tell you, 'Now drop meditation too. Now stop running.' And when you stop running then real meditation happens.

Through meditation one has to achieve a dreamless sleep with full alertness. Once this happens, the drop falls into the ocean and becomes the ocean.