A snip that I enjoyed
You know, now I really am Joe Cordoba, and this is quite wonderful because I can't fall any lower. This is all I am.
Q. What did you learn from this task?
A. The Toltec Woman teaches us through situations. The best way to learn, I think, is to put ourselves in situations where we can discover we are nothing. The other path is that of personal pride. If we follow it, we spend our lives trying to figure out if someone will love us or not. According to the Toltec Woman, the best way is to begin by knowing that it doesn't matter.
Once we were visiting a friend when some journalists from the New York Times came looking for Carlos Castaneda. La Gorda and I began to work in my friend's garden. We watched the newspeople go in and talk with my friend. When he came out to the garden, he yelled at us and insulted us in front of the newspeople. You see, he could yell out his heart's content at Joe Cordoba and his wife. Nobody tried to defend us. Who were we? Nobodies. Like so many other laborers-animals working under the hot sun.
The task taught us how to withstand hardship and the emotional impact of discrimination. Don Juan saw pride as a monster with 3,000 heads. No matter how many heads you cut off, there are always hundreds of others. We humans like to trick ourselves into believing we really are someone, something. The important thing is not to react. If you react, you are lost. You can't be offended at the tiger when it attacks you; you just step aside and let it pass.
The Freedom of Don Juan
A Conversation with CARLOS CASTANEDA
by Graciela Corvalan
http://www.seedsofunfolding.org/issues/ ... res_1b.htm
