I want to write a short bit about Carlos Castaneda. Let me start by saying that I enjoyed some of his books and considered them informative and interesting. (You might be lost a bit now, if you've never read or heard of him). I don't know that I ever believed that his Don Juan character was real. If one does some quick research into the matter, you quickly find otherwise. For me, it was about the techniques you can find inside the pages. Using various activities to change one's perspective, and various mental tools for meditation and critical thinking for example. Not the more outlandish things you can find in the stories, like eating lizards. (I am never opposed to a good fantasy story though.)
I Especially liked Castaneda's book "The Art of Dreaming". Like his other books the story is fantastical bordering on young adult adventure, if you wanted to classify it. But again I point to the techniques. A lot of the information that you can find in the books is useful. You could look at it like the Bible. If you take the stories literally, you're missing the point. A better way to read the Bible, or Castaneda, is to take the useful information out of context and apply it to your life, not to try and mimic and believe every single little word.
Nobody has an ultimate answer; no guru should hold you in complete fascination. This is a key to life I think. Life is always changing, mutating, evolving, and no one has any kind of ultimate answer; that's part of the beauty of it all. Of course learn from mentors and the worn paths of those that have gone before us. Take what you need and move on. I guess you could say I am a kind of ruthless theosophist. Culling what I think is the useful part of many traditions and stories and fusing it into my own way of trying to understand and evolve in this world.
The Art of Dreaming (others I have talked to about it agree) provides some very interesting and useful techniques to achieve various stages of lucid dreaming. Coming from someone who has researched the matter - for a long time this was the most informative and useful text someone could find on the subject. Again, you have to get past the story and use the mental techniques. It's like tools for changing your thought processes and putting them in a new direction.
I always knew the stories were too fantastical to be true and that Castaneda had a somewhat shady 2nd half of his life, but I never researched his history in detail. But the other day I stumbled upon this article which was really interesting: Salon article on Castaneda. It talks about how he was really more of a hypocritical, overbearing, manipulative cult leader in his later years. I was glad to see the author did mention that although the stories were fictional, Castaneda did pull a lot of the information from various obscure academic texts. Information that was not readily available and put together in such a way as before Castaneda wrote his books.
So I will leave with the thought that critical thinking is one of the most important tools one can have. Think for yourself, question everything, but learn what you can from others as well.
I Especially liked Castaneda's book "The Art of Dreaming". Like his other books the story is fantastical bordering on young adult adventure, if you wanted to classify it. But again I point to the techniques. A lot of the information that you can find in the books is useful. You could look at it like the Bible. If you take the stories literally, you're missing the point. A better way to read the Bible, or Castaneda, is to take the useful information out of context and apply it to your life, not to try and mimic and believe every single little word.
Nobody has an ultimate answer; no guru should hold you in complete fascination. This is a key to life I think. Life is always changing, mutating, evolving, and no one has any kind of ultimate answer; that's part of the beauty of it all. Of course learn from mentors and the worn paths of those that have gone before us. Take what you need and move on. I guess you could say I am a kind of ruthless theosophist. Culling what I think is the useful part of many traditions and stories and fusing it into my own way of trying to understand and evolve in this world.
The Art of Dreaming (others I have talked to about it agree) provides some very interesting and useful techniques to achieve various stages of lucid dreaming. Coming from someone who has researched the matter - for a long time this was the most informative and useful text someone could find on the subject. Again, you have to get past the story and use the mental techniques. It's like tools for changing your thought processes and putting them in a new direction.
I always knew the stories were too fantastical to be true and that Castaneda had a somewhat shady 2nd half of his life, but I never researched his history in detail. But the other day I stumbled upon this article which was really interesting: Salon article on Castaneda. It talks about how he was really more of a hypocritical, overbearing, manipulative cult leader in his later years. I was glad to see the author did mention that although the stories were fictional, Castaneda did pull a lot of the information from various obscure academic texts. Information that was not readily available and put together in such a way as before Castaneda wrote his books.
So I will leave with the thought that critical thinking is one of the most important tools one can have. Think for yourself, question everything, but learn what you can from others as well.
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