The Wheel of Time
by Carlos Castaneda
Don Juan was in a key position. He knew about the existence of another realm of reality,
a realm which was neither illusory, nor the product of outbursts of fantasy.
To see energy as it flows in the universe meant, to don Juan, the capacity to see a human being
as a luminous egg or luminous ball of energy, certain features shared by men in common,
such as a point of brilliance in the already brilliant luminous ball of energy.
The claim of shamans was that it was on that point of brilliance, which those shamans
called the assemblage point, that perception was assembled.
They could extend this thought logically to mean that it was on that point of brilliance
that our cognition of the world was manufactured. Odd as it may seem,
don Juan Matus was right, in the sense that this is exactly what happens.
The perception of shamans, therefore, was subject to a different process than the
perception of average men. Shamans claimed that perceiving energy directly led them
to what they called energetic facts. By energetic fact, they meant a view obtained by
seeing energy directly that led to the conclusions that were final and irreducible;
they couldn´t be tampered with by speculation, or by trying to fit them into our
standard system of interpretation.
Don Juan said that for the shamans of his lineage, it was an energetic fact that the
world around us is defined by the processes of cognition, and those processes are not
unalterable; they are not givens. They are a matter of training, a matter of practicality
and usage. This thought was extended, to another energetic fact: the processes of standard
cognition are the product of our upbringing, no more than that.
For the shamans of ancient Mexico, intent was a force they could visualize
when they saw energy as it flows in the universe. They considered it an all-
pervasive force that intervened in every aspect of time and space. It was the impetus
behind everything; but what was of inconceivable value to those shamans was that intent-
a pure abstraction- was intimately attached to man. Man could always manipulate it.
The shamans of ancient mexico realized that the only way to affect this force was through
impeccable behavior. Only the most disciplined practitioner could attempt this feat.
Another stupendous unit of that strange cognitive system was the shamans´ understanding and
usage of the concepts of time and space. For them, time and space were not the same phenomena
that form part of our lives by virtue of being an integral part of our normal cognitive system.
For the average man, the standard defintion of time is ¨a nonspatial continuum in which
events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the
future.¨ And space is defined as ¨the infinite extension of the three-dimensional field in which
stars and galaxies exist; the universe.¨
For the shamans of ancient Mexico, time was something like a thought;
a thought thought by something unrealizable in its magnitude.
The logical argument for them was that man, being part of that thought which was thought by
forces inconceivable to his mentality, still retained a small percentage of that thought;
a percentage which under certain circumstances of extraordinary discipline could be redeemed.
Space was, for those shamans, an abstract realm of activity. They called it infinity,
and referred to it as the sum total of all the endeavors of living creatures.
Space was, for them, more accessible, something almost down-to-earth.
It was as if they had a bigger percentage in the abstract formulation of space.
According to the versions given by don Juan, the shamans of ancient Mexico never regarded
time and space as obscure abstracts the way we do. For them, both time and space,
although incomprehensible in their formulations, were an integral part of man.
Those shamans had another cognitive unit called the wheel of time.
The way they explained the wheel of time was to say that time was like a tunnel of infinite
length and width, a tunnel with reflective furrows. Every furrow was infinite,
and there were infinite numbers of them.
Thoughts
I. When a man is not concerned with seeing, things look very much the same
to him every time he looks at the world. When he learns to see, on the other hand,
nothing is ever the same every time he sees it, and yet it is the same.
To the eye of a seer, a man is like an egg. Every time he sees the same man he sees
a luminous egg, yet it is not the same luminous egg.
II. The core of our being is the act of perceiving, and the magic of our being is the act
of awareness. Perception and awareness are a single, functional, inextricable unit.
III. 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.
IV. The human form is a conglomerate of energy fields which exists in the universe,
and which is related exclusively to human beings. Shamans call it the human form
because those energy fields have been bent and contorted by a life time of habits and misuse.
V. We perceive. This is a hard fact. But what we perceive is not a fact of the same kind,
because we learn what to perceive.
VI. In order to follow the path of knowledge, one has to be very imaginative.
On the path of knowledge, nothing is as clear as we´d like it to be.
VII. Every bit of knowledge that becomes power has death as its central force.
Death lends the ultimate touch, and whatever is touched by death indeed becomes power.
VIII. To be angry at people means that one considers their acts to be important.
It is imperative to cease to feel that way. The acts of men cannot be important enough
to offset our only viable alternative: our unchangeable encounter with infinity.
IX. Warriors say that we think there is a world of objects out there only because of
our awareness. But what´s really out there are the eagle´s emanations, fluid,
forever in motion, and yet unchanged, eternal.
X. There is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no
sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without kindness and knowledge without sobriety are useless.
XI. Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind
that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it
under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear
or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that
a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: Does this path have a heart?
All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never
enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy - it does not make a warrior work
at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.
XII. The eyes of man can perform two functions: one is seeing energy at large as it flows
in the universe and the other is ¨looking at things in this world.¨ Neither of these functions
is better than the other; however to train the eyes only to look is a shameful and
unnecessary loss.
XIII. Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. It operates in spite of the warrior´s indulgence.
Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.
XIV. Every time a man sets himself to learn, he has to labor as hard as anyone can, and the limits
of his learning are determined by his own nature. Therefore, there is no point in talking about
knowledge. Fear of knowledge is natural; all of us experience it, and there is nothing we can do
about it. But no matter how frightening learning is, it is more terrible to think of a man
without knowledge.
XV. The world is all that is encased here: life, death, people, and everything else
that surrounds us. The world is incomprehensible. We won´t ever understand it;
we won´t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat the world as it is: a sheer mystery.
XVI. 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 heights reaching to infinty.