Teachers

I have had many teachers in my life. They are precious to me. One of my first teachers was Carlos Castaneda…even in spite of himself the teachings came across potently.

Carlos introduced me to “internal dialog”, the power of silence, a separate reality, humility, the art of dreaming, the limitations of personal history, losing self importance, petty tyrants, and the ongoing mystery of life.

But one of the most important bundles of energy and knowledge he gave me can be summed up in this poem:

For me there is only the traveling on paths
that have heart,
on any path that may have heart.
There I travel, and the only worthwhile
challenge is to traverse its full length.
and there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly.

  Don Juan Matus

Carlos, after all, was human and turned out to experience all the foibles…of being human. But in spite of his battle with self-importance and personal power, in the end he gave much more than he received. Till the end he attributed his knowledge to his teacher Don Juan. To him, I own a view of the world…just one of course.

Carlos earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at UCLA in anthropology with the series of books he wrote while studying under his Yaqui native American shaman teacher in the Sonora desert.

He wrote of a multiple dimension realities.

In The Art of Dreaming, Castaneda wrote that Don Juan contended that our ordinary world –

  …which we believe to be unique and absolute, is only one in a cluster of consecutive worlds, arranged like the layers of an onion. He asserted that even though we have been energetically conditioned to perceive solely our world, we still have the capability of entering into those other realms, which are as real, unique, absolute, and engulfing as our own world is.

http://en.wikipedia….

http://www.out-of-bo…

I would much rather speak of spiritual issues then human rights….but maybe then… they are related.