Version 2006.05.20

## "The Wheel of Time: The Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts about Life, Death and the Universe" - ©1998 by Carlos Castaneda

### Quotations from "The Eagle's Gift"

The art of dreaming is the capacity to utilize one's ordinary dreams and transform them into controlled awareness by virtue of a specialized form of attention called the dreaming attention.

The art of stalking is a set of procedures and attitudes that enables a warrior to get the best out of any conceivable and every inconceivable situation.

The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material things on which to focus their power, but to focus it on the spirit; on the true flight into the unknown, not on trivialities.

Everyone who wants to follow the warrior's path has to rid himself of the compulsion to possess and hold onto things.

Seeing is a bodily knowledge. The predominance of the visual sense in us influences this bodily knowledge and makes it seem to be eye-related.

Losing the human form is like a spiral. It gives a warrior the freedom to remember himself as straight fields of energy and this in turn makes him even freer.

A warrior knows that he is waiting, and he knows what he is waiting for; and while he waits, he feasts his eyes upon the world. A warrior's ultimate accomplishment is to enjoy the joy of infinity.

The course of a warrior's destiny is unalterable. The challenge is how far he can go and how impeccable he can be within those rigid bounds.

People's actions no longer affect a warrior when he has no more expectations of any kind. A strange peace becomes the ruling force in his life. He has adopted one of the concepts of a warrior's life- detachment.

Detachment does not automatically mean wisdom, but it is, nonetheless, an advantage because it allows the warrior to pause momentarily to reassess situations; to reconsider one's position. In order to use that extra moment consistently and correctly, however, a warrior has to struggle unyieldingly for the duration of your life.

I am already given to the power that rules my fate.

And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend.

I have no thoughts, so I will see.

I fear nothing, so I will remember myself.

Detached and at ease,

I will dart past the Eagle to be free.

It is much easier for warriors to fare well under conditions of maximum stress than to be impeccable under normal circumstances.

Human beings are two-sided. The right side encompasses everything the intellect can conceive of. The left side is a realm of indescribable features; a realm impossible to contain in words. The left side is perhaps comprehended, if comprehension is what takes place, with the total body; thus its resistance to conceptualization. [* conceptualization- inventing or contriving an idea or explanation and formulating it mentally]

All the faculties, possibilities, and accomplishments of shamanism, from the simplest to the most astounding, are in the human body itself.

The power that governs the destiny of all living beings is called the Eagle, not because it is an eagle or has anything to do with an eagle, but because it appears to the eye of the seer as an immeasurable jet-black eagle, standing erect as an eagle stands, its height reaching to infinity.

The Eagle devours the awareness of all the creatures that, alive on earth a moment before and now dead, have floated to the Eagle's beak like a swarm of fireflies to meet their owner; their reason for having had life.

The Eagle disentangles these tiny flames, lays them flat, as a tanner stretches out a hide, and then consumes them; for awareness is the Eagle's food.

The Eagle, that power that governs the destinies of all living things, reflects equally and at once all those living things. There is no way, therefore, for man to pray to the Eagle; to ask favors; to hope for grace. The human part of the Eagle is too insignificant to move the whole.

Every living thing has been granted the power, if it so desires, to seek an opening to freedom and go through it. It is evident to the seer who sees the opening, and to the creatures that go through it, that the Eagle has granted that gift in order to perpetuate awareness.

To cross over to freedom does not mean eternal life as eternity is commonly understood- that is, as living forever. Rather, warriors can keep their awareness, which is ordinarily relinquished at the moment of dying.

At the moment of crossing, the body in its entirety is kindled with knowledge. Every cell at once becomes aware of itself and also aware of the totality of the body.

The Eagle's gift of freedom is not a bestowal. Its a chance to have a chance.

A warrior is never under siege. To be under siege implies that one has personal possessions that could be blockaded. A warrior has nothing in the world except his impeccability, and impeccability cannot be threatened.

The first principle of the art of stalking is that warriors choose their battleground. A warrior never goes into battle without knowing what the surroundings are.

To discard everything that is unnecessary is the second principle of the art of stalking. A warrior doesn't complicate things. He aims at being simple.

A warrior applies all the concentration he has to decide whether or not to enter into battle, for any battle is a battle for his life.

This is the third principle of the art of stalking. A warrior must be willing and ready to make his last stand here and now. But not in a helter-skelter way.

A warrior relaxes and abandons himself. He fears nothing. Only then will the powers that guide human beings open the road for a warrior and aid him. Only-then. That is the fourth principle of the art of stalking.

When faced with odds that cannot be dealt with, warriors retreat for a moment. They let their minds meander. They occupy their time with something else. Anything would do. That is the fifth principle of the art of stalking.

Warriors compress time. This is the sixth principle of the art of stalking. Even an instant counts. In a battle for your life, a second is an eternity, an eternity that may decide the outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time. Warriors don't waste an instant.

In order to apply the seventh principle of the art of stalking, one has to apply the other six: a stalker never pushes himself to the front. He is always looking on from behind the scenes.

Applying these principles brings about three results. The first is that stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously. They learn to laugh at themselves. If they are not afraid of being a fool, they can fool anyone. The second is that stalkers learn to have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry, they never fret. And the third is that stalkers learn to have an endless capacity to improvise.

Warriors face the oncoming time. Normally we face time as it recedes from us. Only warriors can change that and face time as it advances on them.

Warriors have only one thing in mind: their freedom. To die and be eaten by the Eagle is no challenge. On the other hand, to sneak around the Eagle and be free is the ultimate audacity.

When warriors talk about time, they are not referring to something which is measured by the movement of a clock. Time is the essence of attention. The Eagle's emanations are made out of time, and properly speaking, when a warrior enters into other aspects of the self, he is becoming acquainted with time.

A warrior can no longer weep. His only expression of anguish is a shiver that comes from the very depths of the universe. It is as if one of the Eagle's emanations were made out of pure anguish, and when it hits a warrior, the warrior's shiver is infinite.