The Night I Met Carlos Castaneda

Carlos Castanedo was an anthropologist who, between the years 1960 - 1973, became an apprentice to a Yaqui Toltec sorcerer in Mexico named Don Juan Matus. Carlos wrote a series of 11 popular books based on his experience and the knowledge he gained from it. I read many of those books voraciously and the things that he wrote about stayed with me throughout my life. There is some concern that he fictionalized the books. Although I believe he did not it ultimately doesn’t matter. The information has enormous value regardless.

In the early to mid 80s, rumor had it that Carlos was coming to Los Angeles and making himself available for free discussions at various art galleries. The information was made available the day before the event and only to the art gallery he had chosen. They would then send the information out and whoever heard about it was welcome.

I arrived early to the small gallery that was hosting him and sat in the front row of chairs that had been set out. Although there were maybe 30 people there at the most, I only recognized one of them, Molly Barnes, who owned a gallery at the time. Carlos was short, handsome, looked like he was in his early fifties, with a strong smile and strangely perfect white teeth. His manner was very direct, humorous, humble, serious and irreverent just like his books. I appreciated the way he structured the event. He didn't lecture and he didn't have a Q&A with a host. He just stood in front of the audience and said “ask me questions”. I've always thought that the ability to ask interesting questions was as valuable as having interesting answers. The following are some of the ideas that have stayed with me…

His biggest point was to emphasize the need to shift our attention away from the bias of our perceptions to a point of real seeing. He claimed we are hypnotized by the collective agreement we call reality (Lily Tomlin once said “reality is nothing but a collective hunch’) and yet we all sense there is something mysterious and truer that underlies the gloss of our accepted reality. Although we cling to this cultural bias for security he claimed we needed to shift our attention to the underlying reality and solve the never-ending mystery at the heart of all our cravings. That mystery is what we find when all of these desires have been satisfied and we are left asking ourselves “ is that all there is?” To get on with the act of confronting the mystery is what we all truly crave and to desire anything else is fool's gold and the vanity of the personality.

He also emphasized that reality on this earthly plane is plastic, easily shaped and molded to the intention of the sorcerer. The power of the sorcerer lay in their ability to focus their intention so impeccably that they are able to “create reality”. He said this ability was not reserved for special people and claimed we are all masters of intent, constantly creating the realities we find ourselves in. The difference is that the sorcerer is one who acts consciously and with total intention, no wasted moves. The intention is brought to bear completely in the moment, that small space where fibers of Light reaching out from Infinity, flow in. I found this was interestingly close to descriptions of things I've learned in my studies of the Qabalah. Of course there are evil sorcerers who create harmful realities that serve themselves (Trump) and enlightened sorcerers who serve the greater good in their efforts to free others.

He talked about the usefulness of dreaming. It's in dreaming that the biases of perception are easily broken and one can fully practice intention (Lucid dreaming). He claimed that he and his group of students all work together, dream together and upon awakening discuss what they experienced. He says it's an important exercise because it begins to map out the inner territory in preparation for when we cash in our chips, implying that we have to work at creating and strengthening a true inner substance in order to still exist when the world disappears.

I raised my hand and asked him how do romantic relationships change when one is travelling on what he calls the Warriors Path. He told the following story:

He was once romantically involved with a woman he was madly in love with but was convinced she was seeing someone else whenever he went on his trips down to Mexico. So he told her he was leaving and that night he took his friend's car and parked it down the street a bit and watched her place. Sure enough a handsome man showed up and she answered the door all dressed up and they drove away in his car. He waited all night but she didn't return. He drove down to Mexico brokenhearted and furious and told Don Juan the whole story. Don Juan asked “What happened to that woman you were going out with 3 months ago?” Carlos agitated complained that they were not talking about her. They were talking about this woman. Don Juan asked “But didn't you have a similar experience with another woman about 6 months ago?” Carlos, even more agitated, accused Don Juan of being an old man and forgetting what being in love was like. Don Juan laughed and told him he had a statue of a woman and he just kept knocking the heads off and replacing them. Everybody laughed.

“But,” I said, ”you didn't really answer my question. How does this change when one is walking on the Warrior’s path?” And his answer provided an awakening of sorts. An insight that shifted my perception from the bias of my conditioning to an understanding of something that was deeper and truer. He replied, “A Spiritual Warrior is not concerned with whether somebody likes them or not, they're only concerned with whether or not they like.”

Being overly focused on the need to be liked (I had an emotionally absent father) often found me being interested in men that withheld affection and strangely uninterested in romantic liaisons with men who were willing to give it. I found myself reenacting that childhood pattern and reliving the frustration and confusion that accompanies the withholding. I remember a girlfriend telling me I was too focused on whether or not my current amor really like me or not and admonished me to focus on whether or not I actually liked him! I indeed had a statue of “man” that I replaced the heads with.

This insight from Carlos suddenly freed me and gave me a sign post to guide me through my relationships romantic and otherwise. When I experienced a breakdown in a friendship or encountered someone I liked but who didn’t return the affection, my main focus became “do I like them?” rather than an unspoken demand that they should like me. I realized that if I actually liked the person my affection for them wasn’t diminished by any lack of interest they had toward me. I acknowledged and respected the boundary set and it left a door open for reconnection down the line, but this new perspective freed me from dragging resentments around on my back. Or if I found I actually didn’t like them, resentments and judgements were minimized. Who was I to tell them what they should or should not feel about me?

The underlying message of Carlos Castaneda’s generous outreach was to know how to own your own power, to accumulate energy and discard or overcome whatever drains it from you. To recognize and eliminate ones indulgences. The Life Force must be accumulated, focused and used to liberate oneself from the illusions that bind it. Even today, decades later, after I have dedicated myself to this effort in a variety of ways and have enjoyed the great fruits of my labor, the effort is ongoing, the distractions never ending and the consequences of making the effort, enormous and relentlessly joyful.