Castaneda

Controlled Madness

Controlled madness is the middle way between pure reason and total madness. It supposes on the part of the warrior perfect control and an equally complete letting go. If the slightest claw refuses to open in you, if you hold on to anything, however little, your project will fail.

Act without delay

We must act without ceasing, without hope, but yet believe in it. To act without waiting for the result of his action, such is the way of the warrior. The bushido. To act is not to obtain. To act is not to have. What result can you expect from your actions? No. But you have to act all the same. “All of our actions are unnecessary, and yet we have to pretend we don’t know it. This is the wizard’s controlled madness.” (source)

Between the hammer and the anvil, always the ass between two chairs. One foot here, the other there. The head elsewhere, where it is empty. The body is there, but who lives in it? Another evening until hope, another train until morning. Under the changing sky, on the blue water that reflects, be careful not to laugh about it: we must act. It is as unnecessary as it is essential. To stay on the razor’s edge is to control your ordinary madness. Divine madness cannot be controlled, it controls us.

Why do we need to act? Because only action keeps the warrior mobile. Mobile, he is mobilized. Motionless, he acts on another level. “A warrior acts as if he knows what to do, when in reality he does not know.” (source)Carlos Castaneda, Ixtlan

Action leads us, it is queen. If you act, maybe you won’t get anything, but you’ll be fine. If you don’t take action, you’ll never make a mistake. But never any progress either. You won’t move an inch. Who does not advance, retreats and dies. Whoever stops loses his life. The world has to be stopped. Not the warrior.

To live is to act. Change!

The weapon which the warrior must constantly develop is his will. It is the precious aid of the intention. “I continue to live because it is my will. I have mastered my will all my life to make it clear and perfect. Now I don’t care if nothing is important. My will controls the madness of my life.” (source)

My will keeps me alive, I intend to live and progress, it is not a project, it is a fact. And this fierce intention, however modest it may be in the eyes of the Eagle, sometimes hits the mark. The intention of the warrior calls the Intention with a capital i, the capital Intention. And you will feel yourself growing wings. While waiting for this precious help, row. It is by rowing that we learn.

“Instead of approving so easily, you need to act appropriately. Take up the challenge. Change.
– Like that, all of a sudden?
– Perfectly. The change I am talking about does not happen gradually. It happens suddenly. And you don’t do anything to prepare for this sudden act that will totally change your life.” (source)Carlos Castaneda, Ixtlan

The path of knowledge

“Every warrior on the path of knowledge believes, at one time or another, that he is learning witchcraft, but he is only allowing himself to be convinced of the power that lies within his being, and of the fact that ‘he can access it.” (source)Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence

You don’t learn witchcraft. Being a shaman is not something you can learn. You have to be born with it deep inside. Somehow it reveals itself to you. It smiles at you one fine morning, and you understand that you have always known it. The life of the warrior and the sorcerer is the way of life that our ancestors knew for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Only the advent of kaliyuga deprived us of delightful lifestyle.

Sufficiency

To live as a warrior is certainly the best thing for human being. Most of our contemporaries are convinced of the contrary by their sufficiency. They believe that their degenerate and dependent way of life is superior, when it is enough to open your eyes to misery, sadness and exclusion to be sure otherwise. Our time is of a sufficiency that nothing justifies. Today’s human being, as represented by our elites, has reached a level of stratospheric sufficiency.

It is the fixed position of the assemblage point that has made modern man a homicidal egotist concerned exclusively with his own image. Sufficiency is the force generated by the image that man has of him. It is concealed self-pity, but we recognize it in disguise. And we unmask it. By stalking oneself.

To come out of complacency is to break the mirror of self-contemplation. Children do this easily, but after a certain age, it is impossible to unstuck someone who has sat on a broomstick. Age crystallizes and petrifies what is flexible. The old are derailed, the young are messing around. Only the ripe ones can be eaten.

Implacable

Relentlessness is the opposite of sufficiency. Do not see cruelty, but sobriety. It is Arcane XIV of the initiatory Tarot: Temperance … By dint of tempering his mood, moderating his reactions, the warrior completely comes out of self-pity. It is great freedom for the mind and the ultimate defeat of the ego.

It takes a good dose of relentlessness to render anyone the only real service one can offer, to open their eyes to themselves. Play the painful role of the little tyrant to suddenly bring him to see himself as he is, until the inevitable moment when the mirror crumbles. “The only concrete help we can give someone: help them break their mirror of self-contemplation.” (source)Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence

Let me tell you that it is frowned upon, and often frowned upon. But are we here to butter each other up by singing the praises of our matons and the conditions of detention? Or to find our truth? I have chosen. Make up your mind.

“Witchcraft is a journey home. We return victorious to the spirit after descending to hell. And from hell we bring trophies. Understanding is one.” (source)Carlos Castaneda, The Power of Silence