MY UNIVERSITIES: TO EXTRACT THE MAXIMUM FROM LIFE, A PERSON MUST KNOW HOW TO CHANGE

           Thanks to Leushkin, I discovered the world of Carlos Castaneda and got the right introduction to his teachings. Many started reading Castaneda, but not everyone could continue or extract something meaningful from these books.

            I read all ten books about the teachings of Don Juan and, a year later, reread them. In the sequence recommended by Castaneda himself – from the third to the tenth, and then the first and second.

            I was struck by the realism of the stories about the magical world and the forms of life that exist parallel to us in other dimensions. In their practices, which are detailed in the books, Don Juan and his disciple visited different worlds. When this is repeated many times – from book to book – you no longer perceive what is described as fantasy or the ravings of a stoned shaman.

            Don Juan tells his disciple in the book: "I teach you in two states of consciousness – in the ordinary and in the altered." A blow with the nagual between the shoulder blades shifted the disciple into an altered state of consciousness, in which a person remembers everything, and the speed of thought is much higher, the capacity much greater. In this state, the teacher poured into him the main and most complex information. When the person returned to the ordinary state, he did not remember what had happened there. And the teacher told the disciple: your task is to remember all this and connect it with your practical life. And Castaneda spent the rest of his life on this.

            Thanks to Castaneda, I believed that in an altered state of consciousness, we are capable of perceiving large volumes of information, which can then be remembered and integrated into our lives.

            The main idea from Castaneda on our topic: "To extract the maximum from life, a person must know how to change. Unfortunately, people change with great difficulty, and these changes occur very slowly. Many spend years on this. The most difficult thing is to truly want to change."