Carlos castenda

[fredhedd]

i have read some of his books.  i don't know that i enjoyed them.  i read some more though.  i was very curious to see what he had to say.  i don't know where i stand w/ him, but the skeptic in me came out and  this thought came to mind after reading the books...here is this guy who has been hanging on every word of person who has been feeding him peyote buttons.  some of the time while he's eating the peyote buttons this person is directing him and telling him what to expect (sometimes).  while it is great to have a teacher to help you learn, i wonder if it were possible to have the same experiences if the same rituals were performed independent of outside influence.  if carlos ate the peyote buttons and performed the same actions but w/out the knowledge that they were going to bring on mescalito, i wonder what would have happened.  maybe, maybe this old man had a  much larger influence on him than he thought.  maybe not.

[Jeff_Mash]

quote:Originally posted by fredhedd:
i have read some of his books.  i don't know that i enjoyed them.  i read some more though.  i was very curious to see what he had to say.  i don't know where i stand w/ him, but the skeptic in me came out and  this thought came to mind after reading the books...here is this guy who has been hanging on every word of person who has been feeding him peyote buttons.  some of the time while he's eating the peyote buttons this person is directing him and telling him what to expect (sometimes).  while it is great to have a teacher to help you learn, i wonder if it were possible to have the same experiences if the same rituals were performed independent of outside influence.  if carlos ate the peyote buttons and performed the same actions but w/out the knowledge that they were going to bring on mescalito, i wonder what would have happened.  maybe, maybe this old man had a  much larger influence on him than he thought.  maybe not.

This is why I've strayed away from his books for a long time, for the simple fact that a lot of his experiences were induced from peyote.  However, I take knowledge wherever I can get it, and the bottom line is that I'm getting a lot out of the teachings of Don Juan.  Not so much his doctrine or anything dealing with scorcery, but he says things which make sense to my astral travels.  For example, here is something that clicked with me from his book, "The Art of Dreaming:'

"The energy body is like a child who's been imprisoned all its life.  The moment it's free, it soaks up everything it can find, and I mean everything.  Every irrelevant, minute detail totally absorbs the energy body."

This made sense to me.  The last few times I was out of my body and I decided to stare at something, it not only increased my lucidity but it started to ruin my experience, because I was latching onto and observing the smallest details of everything!  Castenada continues with his warning:

"The most asinine detail becomes a world for the energy body.  The effort that [projectors] have to make to direct the energy body is staggering.  I know that it sounds awkward to tell you to view things with care and curiousity, but that is the best way to describe what you should do. [On this level] you have to avoid a nearly irresistable impulse to plunge into everything, and you avoid it by being so curious, so desparate to get into everything that you don't let any particular thing imprison you."

I don't know if this rings true with anyone else, but this advice is exactly what I needed to here in my current astral realm learnings.




Keep smiling,

Jeff Mash
MyJokeMail.com - Jokes and Humor
http://myjokemail.com

[Gandalf]

His ideas on the afterlife, or lack of it as far as Carlos seems to be concerned, (unless you do what he suggests), doesnt seem to equate with (what little) we do know of the astral and of the individuals  that you find there who seem to have clearly passed on from the physical realm intact.

Mind you, Carlos is operating from a particular belief system  and he structures around that -
I would agree with jeff though, in that although I may not agree with his doctrine, all that stuff about training yourself up so that when you die you can retain your awareness and 'escape' to become some kind of 'cosmic traveller' and so on, that doesnt mean that he doesnt have LOTS of useful information as well.

Thats one of the first half decent spiritual things I learned, that just because you might not agree with a PART of a spiritual system, that doesnt discredit ALL of the information,,, a lot of good stuff is there as well.
This is big problem in academic circles as well, You may have a piece of work that contains a lot of great ideas but the whole lot might get thrown out the window because of one eroneous idea or concept you dont agree with.

'throwing the baby out with the bath water' is the expression we use over here!

Douglas

[jilola]

Hmm I haven't read all of his books but from whhat Ive read I've gathered that he believes  that the individual existence is lost at death unless one is sufficiently advanced to retain th memory of individuality.
But the energy part and is manifested as the individual is preserved but doesn't necessarily remember being an individual.

2cents

jouni

[Donna]

HI all,
Perhaps in relaying some personal experinence in "spirit retreval" might help to understand the state one might find themselves in after they have crossed over in death.
On one of my explorations of Stonehenge, a spirit materialized from a swirling black mass into handsome young man. He had dark blue eyes and black hair. He was dressed in dress slacks and a white longsleeved pinstriped dress shirt, with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up a couple of turns. He also wore shiney black dress shoes. We communicated telepathicly, I did not at first know that he had just passed over. We had quite an adventure together visiting his mother, whom he was concerned about, she being still alive in a lovely stone cottage some miles distance away. We had flown there together for this visit, she did not even notice us when we entered her kitchen, she was busy baking.
I then took his hand again and brought him to my home here. We landed outside in my garden, after materializing over a nearby bridge here, and proceeding to my house. He left shortly after, and then returned, by that time I had returned to full lucidity here. When he arrived in my home, I was sitting at my comperter reading, I did not see him, only heard telepathically "I can travel now?!!" It was then that I realized that he was newly dead, and offered to have a higher realm spirit open a doorway that he could leave this plane and go through to a higher one where he would be cared for, and could progress spiritually.  He was very concerned about leaving his mother, but finally agreed. At this point I asked for my one of my guides to escort him up. Later that afternoon, in my garden, I received a simple report "Ethan is fine now."
There have been many other spirit retrevals this is only one situation a newly crossed over person may find themselves in, our present personal belief systems rule our whereabouts in the realms we arrive when we cross over in death. Some have no idea they are dead, and become Earthbound, causing many of the hauntings experienced.
Donna

[fredhedd]

there is definetly some useful information there.  that's why i kept reading the books.  i haven't read the art of dreaming yet but it's on my book list.  it's the one i've been looking forward to the most actually.  i'm always looking for new material to read up on dreaming to keep it fresh in my mind in order to help w/ lucidity.  i've read laberges'  books and the info on the web is almost all the same so it's hard when using the nap induction tek to read something new.  i end up reading the same paragraphs over.

[Gandalf]

I havent read any of his books yet although I have read a sumery of his ideas.
What do people think of his work?

One thing he seems to suggest is that our awareness dies with us at physical death unless you follow his method to escape this end.

However, this seems to contradict everything that I or others have experienced and read about higher levels, the astral planes and so on, where you commonly come across people who 'died' and reside on the astral or beyond (see Monroe etc).

There is the process of the 'second death'
once you have lived out your desires/reached a level of realisatio, on the astral planes you go through the 'second death' where you shed your old personality, however this is not to be confused with 'identity' or awareness. 'Personal' after all is Greek for the 'actors mask'. We then emerge from this process as or true selves.
This seems to be the most common accounts by those who reside on these levels, plus it makes more sence than your awareness dying along with your body.
In effect, Casaneda seems to think that there is in fact no 'life after death'  unless we make it happen.

Or have I picked this up all wrong. I might have done as he also talks about escaping from the endless wheel of reincarnation like what budhists talk about, but how can there be a wheel if physical death is the end?

Regards,
Douglas