Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/35

knowledge. The techniques taught by Don Juan to Castaneda to save energy have nothing to do with drugs or the use of fantastic arts; on the contrary, it’s about attitudes and behavior in the "real and everyday life" world. In this world the apprentice will begin his battle. Many Castaneda urban readers have sought knowledge in the mountains, with shamans and, in some cases using drug. But Don Juan is very clear on this: he says that in the doings of our world, there, we will find the way. In the end what we should work with in principle, is in removing all the garbage that we all carry within and remove the cluster of fixed and preconceived ideas with which we move.

Finally will say that all techniques Don Juan taught Castaneda on the right side were intended to teach him to save energy. It is very easy to get "lost" in the jungle of techniques, in other words, take them as an end, when they are only means. In addition must remember that Castaneda turned out to be a "tough" apprentice in the field of reason and Don Juan tried by different means of "sensitize" him, remembering that Castaneda selected in his work what he thought convenient to relate. But always acknowledged that many of the lessons, at the beginning, did not understand or intuited. At the beginning Castaneda felt that Don Juan was an old and strange indian who said things or gave him tasks that did not make any sense, but later, when he saved sufficient energy, he "understood".

"—Were those ghosts allies, don Genaro? —I asked.
—No. They were people.
—People? But you said they were ghosts.
—I said they were no longer real. After my encounter with the ally, nothing was real anymore...
—All those that Genaro encounters on his way to Ixtlán are nothing more than ephemeral beings —explained don Juan—. You, for example. You are a ghost. Your feelings and anxiety are those of people. That is why he says that on his journey to Ixtlán only encountered ghost travelers.
Suddenly I realized that the don Genaro journey was a metaphor.
—Then, his journey to Ixtlán is not real —I said.
—It is real! —don Genaro stated—. Travellers are not real...
By then, of course, you'll be a witch, but that doesn't help; at a time like this, the important thing for us all is the fact that everything that we love, hate or desire is behind us. But the feelings of the man does not die or change, and the witch begins its way home knowing that he will never get there, knowing that no power on earth, even his own death itself, will lead him to the site, the things, people he loved. That's what Genaro said...
—Only as warrior can survive the knowledge path —he said—. Because the warrior art is to balance the terror of being a man with the prodigy of being a man." C.C.