third enemy lurks. Suddenly, without knowing it, he will have succumbed in the battle. The power will make him cruel and capricious. A man in such circumstances comes to death without actually handling his power. Men has to intentionally challenge his power. He must realize that conquered power is not actually his. If he manages to understand that without self-control, clarity and power are terrible enemies, he will reach the point where he will dominate everything. He will know when and how he should use his power. He will then have defeated his third natural enemy.
By this time men will be at the end of their knowledge path and, almost without noticing it, will face his last natural enemy: old age! He will have lost fear to clarity and will no longer be impatient, all his power will be controlled, but he feels a constant desire to rest. If he accepts his desire to relax and forget, lulled asleep by fatigue, his enemy will turn him into an old and weak creature. His clarity, power and knowledge will be defeated.
If men can dust off fatigue and fulfills his destiny until it the end reaches, he may consider himself a man of knowledge, even if for only a few brief moments in which he manages to defeat his last enemy, one he may never overcome.
Don Juan tells Castaneda that in life there are many ways to go, but a man, before embarking on a path, must be free of fear and ambition; then, he should question whether the path has a heart or not. Once the question is made, he will know the answer. A path without a heart is never enjoyed; on the contrary, it turns against us and destroys us. A path with a heart, on the other hand, it is not difficult to enjoy. The path without a heart throughout its way, gives us pain and anguish. The path with a heart gives us harmony and well-being.
When Castaneda has his first encounter with the world of witchcraft, full of the most terrible fear decides to abandon learning.[1] He had to order their ideas. His western conception of the world already lacked an absolute certainty. He thought that on his way to become a man of knowledge had succumbed to his first natural enemy.
"You must own your resources. Now I know that I can accept your only desire as a good reason for learning...
—I have secrets. I have secrets that I will not be able to reveal to anyone if I can't find my chosen...
I myself had a teacher, my benefactor, and I also became his chosen by performing certain feat. He taught me everything I know...
—A man goes to knowledge as to war: fully awake, with fear, with respect and with absolute confidence. It is a mistake to go in any other way to knowledge or war, and who does it will live to regret his steps...
—A man of knowledge is someone who has truly followed the hardships of learning —he said—. A man who, without hurry, without hesitation has gone as far he can to untangle the secrets of power and knowledge...
—What is a true life?
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- ↑ Don Juan skillfully convinces Castaneda that he is amidst a battle with a witch named Catherine, who has allegedly committed to kill don Juan. Castaneda is willing to help Don Juan, who asks him to confront Catherine. The details of this conflict are described by Castaneda in the book A separate reality. We will only say that the impression of this confrontation and the "evidence" that the Catherine witch had turned against him, were decisive, as Castaneda acknowledged in "A separate reality", to abandon learning full of the most irrational panic.
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