Belief - 'mental acceptance of a proposition, statement, or fact, as true, on th

e ground of apparent authority, which does not have to be based on actual fact.
?nbsp; Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opin
ion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; relianc
e upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge o
r absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witnes
s; the belief of our senses a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true with
out proof
Definition of Cognitive Distortions:
Cognitive distortions are logical, but they are not rational. They can c
reate real difficulty with your thinking. See if you are doing any of the ten co
mmon distortions that people use. Rate yourself from one to ten with one being l
ow and ten being high. Ask yourself if you can stop using the distortions and th
ink in a different way.
ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING: You see things in black-and-white categories. I
f your performance falls short of perfect, you see your self as a total failure.
OVERGENERALIZATION: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pa
ttern of defeat.
MENTAL FILTER: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exc
lusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of i
nk that discolors the entire beaker of water.
DISQUALIFYING THE POSITIVE: You reject positive experiences by insisting
they "don't count" for some reason or other. In this way you can maintain a neg
ative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS: You make a negative interpretation even though t
here are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.
MIND READING: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negative
ly to you, and you don't bother to check this out
THE FORTUNETELLER ERROR: you can anticipate that things will turn out ba
dly, and you feel convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact.
MAGNIFICATION (CATASTROPHIZING) OR MINIMIZATION: You exaggerate the impo
rtance of things (such as your goof-up or someone else's achievement), or you in
appropriately shrink things until they appear tiny (your own desirable qualities
or other fellow's imperfections). This is also called the binocular trick."
EMOTIONAL REASONING: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily
reflect the way things really are: "I feel it, therefore it must be true."
SHOULD STATEMENTS: You try to motivate yourself with should and shouldn'
t, as if you had to be whipped and punished before you could be expected to do a
nything. "Musts" and "oughts" are also offenders. The emotional consequences are
guilt. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustra
tion, and resentment.
LABELING AND MISLABELING: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization.
Instead of describing your error, you attach a negative label to yourself. "I'm
a loser." When someone else's behavior rubs you the wrong way, you attach a neg
ative label to him" "He's a Goddamn louse." Mislabeling involves describing an e
vent with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded.
 PERSONALIZATION: You see your self as the cause of some negative externa
l event, which in fact you were not primarily responsible for.
If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. I
s that good news?----Robert Anthony
"Nothing is so firmly believed as that of which we know least."—Montaigne.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."-----Nietzsc
he
"With most people unbelief in one thing is founded on blind belief in an
other."--Lichtenberg
"All human beings...are programmed biocomputers.....each one of us may b
e our programmes, nothing more, nothing less."--John Lilly MD (Simulations of Go
d, 1972)
"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or be
comes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally.
These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind there are no li
mits."--John Lilly (1972)
Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source
of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it
asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of s
ystematic hatred. - Bertrand Russell, Unpopular essays
In the entire history of man, no one has ever been brainwashed and reali
zed, or believed, that he had been brainwashed. Those who have been brainwashed
will usually passionately defend their manipulators, claiming they have simply b
een "shown the light" . . . or have been transformed in miraculous ways. The Bat
tle for Your Mind: Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public By Dick Sutp
hen
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter
if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common se
nse." ----Buddha
The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. ----Buddha
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring
peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can
control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtu
e will naturally come to him.----Buddha

Most people are in love with their particular life drama. Their story is their i
dentity. The ego runs their life. They have their whole sense of self invested i
n it. Even their--usually unsuccessful---search for an answer, a solution, or fo
r healing becomes part of it. What they fear and resist most is the end of their
drama....You cannot have an argument with a fully conscious person. An argument
implies identification with your mind and a mental position, as well as resista
nce and reaction to the person's position. (The Power of the NOW p151)
Most of the so-called bad things that happen in people's lives are due to uncons
ciousness.....they are self created, or rather ego-created...."drama". When you
are fully conscious, drama does not come into your life anymore....the basic ego
patterns are designed to combat it's own deep seated fear and sense of lack. Th
ey are resistance, control, power, greed, defence, and attack. Some of the ego's
 strategies are extremely clever, yet they never truly solve any of it's problem
s, simply because the ego is the problem itself. (The Power of the NOW by Eckhar
t Tolle p150)
the ego believes that through negativity it can manipulate reality and get away
with it.....whenever you are unhappy, there is the unconscious belief that the u
nhappiness "buys" you what you want. If "you"--the mind--did not believe that un
happiness works, why would you create it it? The fact is, of course, that negati
vity does not work. Instead of attracting a desirable condition, it stops it fro
m arising.....Its only "useful" function is that it strengthens the ego, and tha
t is why the ego loves it. (The Power of the NOW p156-7)
Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you we
re."-----Cherie Carter-Scott, "If Love Is a Game, These Are the Rules"
"When anger rises, think of the consequences."---Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
"Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor."----Elizabeth I (1533 - 160
3), in Francis Bacon, Apophthegms, 1625
"Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry. "----Henry Ward Beecher (
1813 - 1887)
"Meditation feeds me emotionally with a sense of harmony, uplift and peace; that
meditation feeds me intellectually with new ideas, or often flashes into my min
d something I need to know about a current situation; and that meditation feeds
me physically with a sense of body renewal, new energy, and well-being, dissolvi
ng fatigue and tension."---Catherine Ponder
"If you cannot be at ease with yourself when alone, you will seek a relationship
to cover up your unease. You can be sure that the unease will then reappear in
some other form within the relationship, and you will probably hold your partner
responsible for it."--Eckhart Tolle (The Power of the NOW p145)
Beyond happiness and unhappiness there is peace...Happiness depends on condition
s being perceived as positive; inner peace does not. (The Power of the NOW p147
)
When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the
relationship with yourself. Once you have given that up, all your other relatio
nships will be love relationships. (The Power of the NOW p145)
"Whenever two or more egos come together, drama of one kind or another ensues. B
ut even if you live totally alone, you still create your own drama. When you fee
l sorry for yourself, that's dram. When you feel guilty or anxious, that's drama
. When you let the past or future obscure the present, you are creating time, ps
ychological time--the stuff out of which drama is made. (The Power of the NOW p1
50-151)
Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. This happen
s because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past...You are not
fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned m
ind is running your life....if you are one of those people who have an issue wit
h their parents, if you still harbour resentment about something they did or did
not do, then you still believe they had a choice--that they could have acted di
fferently. It always looks as if people had a choice, but that is an illusion. A
s long as your mind with its conditioned patterns runs your life, as long as you
are your mind, what choice do you have? None. You are not even there. The mind-
identified state is severely dysfunctional. It is a form of insanity. Almost eve
ryone is suffering from this illness in varying degrees. The moment you realise
this, there can be no more resentment. How can you resent someone's illness? The
only appropriate response is compassion. (The Power of the NOW p 190.)
You cannot truly forgive yourself or others as long as you derive your sense of
self from the past. Only by accessing the power of the Now, which is your own po
wer, can there be true forgiveness. this renders the past powerless, and you rea
lise deeply that nothing you ever did or that was ever done to you could touch e
ven in the slightest the radiant essence of who you are. the whole concept of fo
rgiveness then becomes unnecessary. (The Power of the NOW p 191)
"Only fools seek power, and the greatest fools seek it through force."----Lao Ts
u
"Power draws the corrupted; absolute power would draw the absolutely corrupted."
-- Colin Barth
"It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted wit
h unlimited power." -- John
Adams, 1788
"It's important to realize that whenever you give power to politicians or bureau
crats, it will be used for what they want, not for what you want."-- Harry Brown
e
"Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of powe
r, corrupt power."--George Bernard Shaw.
"When you have power you don't have to tell the truth. That's a rule that's been
working in this world for generations. And there are a great many people who do
n't tell the truth when they are in power in administrative positions."---Dean B
urk former head of National Cancer Institute Research (interview on the Owen Spa
hn Talk Show, San Francisco, june 1972)
"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in or
der to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish th
e dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture
is torture. The object of power is power." - George Orwell, 1984
"Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors de
stroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governmen
ts destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy sp
irituality...."--Michael Ellner
Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowi
ng. ---Mencken
Truly do you believe it is that hard to enhance the spirit? Of course not, these
people are placed in the way to make the journey lengthy and hard. As I said ab
ove many have not obtained what they originally sought, which was freedom. Now t
hey are enslaved by the religion and their subconscious wishes to have company i
n their misery......I do not believe in any religion, organized or otherwise. Al
l religions, no matter what they are, are forms of group mind-control designed t
o manipulate large masses of people to stop thinking for themselves. I do believ
e in The Most High. It has no religion.---James Evans Bomćr III

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path
whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. ----J. Krishnamurti
"Churches are monuments to self importance."--Don Juan
All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding,
is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and follower
s destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. Yo
u have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.--
Krishnamurti
For centuries all of the authorities, especially the religious ones, have taught
us that God is outside. God makes the rules and God, although he is pure love,
will punish us if we don't do this or that. Is this possible? I believe it is im
possible! When people realize they are god/goddess, that God lives within them,
you cannot dominate or exploit them anymore! People can only be kept in slavery
if you make them believe they are sheep and need someone to obey other than them
selves. The moment people realize they are their only authority and obey their c
onscious, the outside authorities no longer have control over them! An Interview
With Guylaine Lanctot, M.D. By Kenneth & Dee Burke
The Fundamental Slavery
by Osho
Sex is the most powerful instinct in man. The politician and the priest have und
erstood from the very beginning that sex is the most driving energy in man. It h
as to be curtailed, it has to be cut. If man is allowed total freedom in sex, th
en there will be no possibility to dominate him. To make a slave out of him will
be impossible.
Have you not seen it being done? When you want a bull to be yoked to a cart, wha
t do you do? You castrate him, you destroy his sex energy. And have you seen the
difference between a bull and an ox? What a difference! An ox is a poor phenome
non, a slave. A bull is a beauty; a bull is a glorious phenomenon, a great splen
dor. See a bull walking, how he walks like an emperor! And see an ox pulling a c
art.
The same has been done to man. The sex instinct has been curtailed, cut, cripple
d. Man does not exist as the bull now, he exists like the ox, and each man is pu
lling a thousand and one carts. Look and you will find behind you a thousand and
one carts, and you are yoked to them.
Why can't you yoke a bull? The bull is too powerful. If he sees a cow passing by
, he will throw both you and the cart, and he will move to the cow! He will not
bother a bit about who you are, and he will not listen. It will be impossible to
control the bull. Sex energy is life energy; it is uncontrollable. And the poli
tician and the priest are not interested in you, they are interested in channeli
ng your energy into other directions. So there is a certain mechanism behind it it
has to be understood.
Sex repression, tabooing sex, is the very foundation of human slavery. Man canno
t be free unless sex is free. Man cannot be really free unless his sex energy is
allowed natural growth.
These are the five tricks through which man has been turned into a slave, into a
n ugly phenomenon, a cripple.
The first is:
Keep man as weak as possible if you want to dominate him. If the priest wants to
dominate you or the politician wants to dominate you, you have to be kept as we
ak as possible. And the best way to keep a man weak is not to give love total fr
eedom. Love is nourishment. Now the psychologists have discovered that if a chil
d is not given love, he shrivels up into himself and becomes weak. You can give
him milk, you can give him medicine, you can give him everything else, but just
don't give love. Don't hug him, don't kiss him, don't hold him close to the warm
th of your body, and the child will start becoming weaker and weaker and weaker.
There are more chances of his dying than surviving.
What happens? Why? Just hugging, kissing, giving warmth, and somehow the child f
eels nourished, accepted, loved, needed. The child starts feeling worthy; the ch
ild starts feeling a certain meaning in his life.
Now, from the very childhood we starve them; we don't give love as much as is ne
eded. Then we try to force the young men and young women not to fall in love unl
ess they get married. By the age of fourteen they become sexually mature. But th
eir education may take more time, ten years more, until they are twenty-four, tw
enty-five years old then they will be getting their M.A.s, or Ph.D.s, or M.D.s. So
we try to force them not to love.
Sexual energy comes to its climax near the age of eighteen. Never again will a m
an be so potent, and never again will a woman be able to have a greater orgasm t
han she will be able to near the age of eighteen. But we force them not to make
love girls and boys are kept separate, and just between them stands the whole mech
anism of police, magistrates, vice-chancellors, principals, headmasters. They ar
e all standing there, just in between, just holding the boys back from moving to
the girls, holding the girls back from moving to the boys. Why? Why is so much
care taken? They are trying to kill the bull and create an ox.
By the time you are eighteen you are at the peak of your sexual energy, your lov
e energy. By the time you get married at twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven .
. . and the age has been going up and up. The more cultured a country the longe
r you wait, because more has to be learned, the job has to be found, this and th
at. By the time you get married you are almost declining in your powers. Then yo
u love, but the love never becomes really hot; it never comes to the point where
people evaporate, it remains lukewarm. And when you have not been able to love
totally, you cannot love your children because you don't know how. When you have
not been able to know the peaks of it, how can you teach your children? How can
you help your children to have the peaks of it?
So down the ages man has been denied love so that he should remain weak.
Second:
Keep man as ignorant and deluded as possible so that he can easily be deceived.
And if you want to create a sort of idiocy which is a must for the priest and the
politician and their conspiracy then the best thing is not to allow man to move in
to love freely. Without love a man's intelligence falls low. Have you not watche
d it? When you fall in love, suddenly all your capacities are at their peak, at
their crescendo, just a moment ago you were looking dull and then you meet your
woman and suddenly a great joy has erupted in your being; you are aflame. While
people are in love they perform at their maximum. When love disappears or when l
ove is not there, they perform at their minimum.
The most intelligent people are the most sexual people. This has to be understoo
d, because love energy is basically intelligence. If you cannot love you are som
ehow closed, cold; you cannot flow. While in love one flows. While in love one f
eels so confident that one can touch the stars. That's why a woman becomes a gre
at inspiration, a man becomes a great inspiration. When a woman is loved she bec
omes more beautiful immediately, instantly! Just a moment ago she was just an or
dinary woman, and now love has showered upon her she is bathed in a totally new en
ergy, a new aura arises around her. She walks more gracefully, a dance has come
to her step. Her eyes have tremendous beauty now; her face glows, she is luminou
s. And the same happens to the man.
When people are in love they perform at the optimum. Don't allow love and they w
ill remain at the minimum. When they remain at the minimum they are stupid, they
are ignorant, they don't bother to know. And when people are ignorant and stupi
d and deluded, they can be easily deceived.
When people are sexually repressed, lovewise repressed, they start hankering for
the other life. They think about heaven, paradise, but they don't think to crea
te the paradise here, now. When you are in love, paradise is here now. Then you
don't bother; then who goes to the priest? Then who bothers that there should be
a paradise? You are already there! You are no longer interested. But when your
love energy is repressed, you start thinking, "Here is nothing, now is empty. Th
en there must be somewhere some goal..." You go to the priest and ask about heav
en and he paints beautiful pictures of heaven. Sex has been repressed so that yo
u can become interested in the other life. And when people are interested in the
other life, naturally they are not interested in this life.
This life is the only life. The other life is hidden in this life! It is not aga
inst it, it is not away from it; it is in it. Go into it this is it! Go into it an
d you will find the other, too. God is hidden in the world, God is hidden here n
ow. If you love, you will be able to feel it.
The third secret:
Keep man as frightened as possible. And the sure way is not to allow him love, b
ecause love destroys fear "love casteth out fear." When you are in love you are no
t afraid. When you are in love you can fight against the whole world. When you a
re in love you feel infinitely capable of anything. But when you are not in love
, you are afraid of small things. When you are not in love you become more inter
ested in security, in safety. When you are in love you are more interested in ad
venture, in exploration. People have not been allowed to love because that is th
e only way to make them afraid. And when they are afraid and trembling they are
always on their knees, bowing to the priest and bowing to the politician.
It is a great conspiracy against humanity. It is a great conspiracy against you!
Your politician and your priest are your enemies, but they pretend that they ar
e public servants. They say, "We are here to serve you, to help you attain a bet
ter life. We are here to create a good life for you." And they are the destroyer
s of life itself.
The fourth:
Keep man as miserable as possible because a miserable man is confused, a miserable
man has no self-worth, a miserable man is self-condemnatory a miserable man fee
ls that he must have done something wrong. A miserable man has no grounding you ca
n push him from here and there, he can be turned into driftwood very easily. And
a miserable man is always ready to be commanded, to be ordered, to be disciplin
ed, because he knows: "On my own I am simply miserable. Maybe somebody else can
discipline my life." He is a ready victim.
And the fifth:
Keep men as alienated from each other as possible, so that they cannot band toge
ther for some purpose of which the priest and the politician may not approve. Ke
ep people separate from each other. Don't allow them too much intimacy. When peo
ple are separate, lonely, alienated from each other, they cannot band together.
And there are a thousand and one tricks to keep them apart.
For example, if you are holding the hand of a man you are a man and you are holdin
g the hand of a man and walking down the road, singing you will feel guilty becaus
e people will start looking at you. Are you gay, homosexual or something? Two me
n are not allowed to be happy together. They are not allowed to hold hands, they
are not allowed to hug each other. They are condemned as homosexuals. Fear aris
es. If your friend comes and takes your hand in his hand, you look around: "Is s
omebody looking or not?" And you are just in a hurry to drop the hand.
You shake hands in such a hurry. Have you watched it? You just touch each other'
s hand and shake and you are finished. You don't hold hands, you don't hug each
other; you are afraid. Do you remember your father hugging you, ever? Do you rem
ember your mother hugging you after you became sexually mature? Why not? Fear ha
s been created. A young man and his mother hugging? maybe some sex will arise betw
een them, some idea, some fantasy. Fear has been created: the father and the son
, no; the father and the daughter, no. The brother and the sister no; the brothe
r and the brother no!
People are kept in separate boxes with great walls around them. Everybody is cla
ssified, and there are a thousand and one barriers. Yes, one day, after twenty-f
ive years of all this training, you are allowed to make love to your wife. But n
ow the training has gone too deep into you, and suddenly you don't know what to
do. How to love? You have not learned the language. It is as if a person has not
been allowed to speak for twenty-five years. Just listen: For twenty-five years
he has not been allowed to speak a single word and then suddenly you put him on
a stage and tell him, "Give us a great lecture." What will happen? He will fall
down, then and there. He may faint, he may die . . . twenty-five years of silen
ce and now suddenly he is expected to deliver a great lecture? It is not possibl
e.
This is what is happening! Twenty-five years of antilove, of fear, and then sudd
enly you are legally allowed a license is issued and now you can love this woman.
"This is your wife, you are her husband, and you are allowed to love." But where
 are those twenty-five years of wrong training going to go? They will be there.
Yes, you will "love" . . . you will make a gesture. It is not going to be explos
ive, it is not going to be orgasmic; it will be very tiny. That's why you are fr
ustrated after making love ninety-nine percent of people are frustrated after maki
ng love, more frustrated than they have ever been before. And they feel, "What i
s this? There is nothing! It is 'not true!"
First, the priest and the politician have managed that you should not be able to
love, and then they come and they preach that there is noth-The Fundamental Sla
very ■ 115
ing significant in love. And certainly their preaching looks right, their preach
ing looks exactly in tune with your experience. First they create the experience
of futility, of frustration then, their teaching. And both look logical together,
of a piece. This is a great trick, the greatest that has ever been played upon
man.
These five things can be managed through a single thing, and that is the taboo a
gainst love. It is possible to accomplish all these objectives by somehow preven
ting people from loving each other. And the taboo has been managed in such a sci
entific way. This taboo is a great work of art great skill and great cunningness h
ave gone into it. It is really a masterpiece! This taboo has to be understood.
First, it is indirect, it is hidden. It is not apparent, because whenever a tabo
o is too obvious, it will not work. The taboo has to be very hidden, so you don'
t know how it works. The taboo has to be so hidden that you cannot even imagine
that thing against it is possible. The taboo has to go into the unconscious, not
into the conscious. How to make it so subtle and so indirect?
The trick is: First go on teaching that love is great, so people never think tha
t the priests and the politicians are against love. Go on teaching that love is
great,, that love is the right thing, and then don't allow any situation where l
ove can happen. Don't allow the opportunity. Don't give any opportunity, and go
on teaching that food is great, that eating is a great joy; "Eat as well as you
can" but don't supply anything to eat. Keep people hungry and go on talking about
love. So all the priests go on talking about love. Love is praised as highly as
anything, just next to God, and denied every possibility of happening. Directly
they encourage it; indirectly they cut its roots. This is the masterpiece.
No priests talk about how they have done the harm. It is as if you go on saying
to a tree, "Be green, bloom, enjoy," and you go on cutting the roots so that the
tree cannot be green. And when the tree is not green you can jump upon the tree
and say, "Listen! You don't listen. You don't follow us. We all go on saying 'B
e green, bloom, enjoy dance' . . ." and meanwhile you go on cutting the roots.
Love is denied so much and love is the rarest thing in the world; it should not be
denied. If a man can love five persons, he should love five. If a man can love
fifty, he should love fifty. If a man can love five hundred, he should love five
hundred. Love is so rare that the more you can spread it the better. But there
are great tricks you are forced into a narrow, very narrow, corner. You can love o
nly your wife, you can love only your husband, you can love only this, you can l
ove only that the conditions are too much. It is as if there was a law that you ca
n breathe only when you are with your wife, you can breathe only when you are wi
th your husband. Then breathing will become impossible! Then you will die, and y
ou will not even be able to breathe while you are with your wife or with your hu
sband. You have to breathe twenty-four hours a day.
Be loving.
Then there is another trick. They talk about "higher love" and they destroy the
lower. They say that the lower has to be denied; bodily love is bad, spiritual l
ove is good.
Have you ever seen any spirit without a body? Have you ever seen a house without
a foundation? The lower is the foundation of the higher. The body is your abode
; the spirit lives in the body, with the body. You are an embodied spirit and an
ensouled body you are together. The lower and the higher are not separate, they a
re one rungs of the same ladder. The lower has not to be denied, the lower has to
be transformed into the higher. The lower is good if you are stuck with the lower
the fault is with you, not with the lower. Nothing is wrong with the lower rung
of a ladder. If you are stuck with it, you are stuck; it is something in you.
Move.
Sex is not wrong. You are wrong if you are stuck there. Move higher. The higher
is not against the lower; the lower makes it possible for the higher to exist.
And these tricks have created many other problems. Each time you are in love som
ehow you feel guilty; a guilt has arisen. When there is guilt you cannot move to
tally into love the guilt prevents you, it keeps vou holding on. Even while making
love to your wife or your husband, there is guilt. You know this is sin, you kn
ow you are doing something wrong. "Saints don't do it" you are a sinner. So you ca
nnot move totally even when you are allowed, superficially, to love your wife. T
he priest is hidden behind you in your guilt; he is pulling you from there, pull
ing your strings.
When guilt arises, you start feeling that you are wrong; you lose self-worth, yo
u lose self-respect. And another problem arises: When there is guilt you start p
retending. Mothers and fathers don't allow their children to know that they make
love, they pretend. They pretend that sex does not exist. Their pretension will
be known by the children sooner or later. When the children come to know about
the pretension, they lose all trust. They feel betrayed, they feel cheated.
And fathers and mothers say that their children don't respect them you are the ca
use of it, how can they respect you? You have been deceiving them in every way,
you have been dishonest, you have been mean. You were telling them not to fall i
n love "Beware!" and you were making love all the time. And the day will come, soo
ner or later, when they will realize that even their father, even their mother w
as not true with them. How can they respect you?
First, guilt creates pretension. Then pretension creates alienation from people.
Even the child, your own child, will not feel in tune with you. There is a barr
ier your pretension. One day you will come to know that you are just pretending an
d so are others. When everybody is pretending, how can you relate? When everybod
y is false, how can you relate? How can you be friendly when everywhere there is
deception and deceit? You become very, very sore about reality, you become very
bitter. You see it only as a devil's workshop.
And everybody has a false face, nobody is authentic. Everybody is carrying masks
, nobody shows his original face. You feel guilty, you feel that you are pretend
ing and you know that everybody else is pretending. Everybody is feeling guilty
and everybody has become just like an ugly wound. Now it is very easy to make th
ese people slaves to turn them into clerks, stationmasters, schoolmasters, deputy
collectors, ministers, governors, presidents. Now it is very easy to distract th
em. You have distracted them from their roots.
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Quotes from Don Juan
Realizations are of two kinds. One is just pep talk, great outbursts of emotion
and nothing more. The other is the product of a shift of the assemblage point; i
t is not coupled with an emotional outburst but with action. The emotional reali
zations come years later after warriors have solidified, by usage, the new posit
ion of their assemblage points. - Don Juan
Any movement of the assemblage point means a movement away from an excessive con
cern with the individual self. Shamans believe it is the position of the assembl
age point which makes modern man a homicidal egoist, a being totally involved wi
th his self-image. Having lost hope of ever returning to the source of everythin
g, the average man seeks solace in his selfishness. Don Juan
I'll briefly outline the truths about awareness which I have discussed. 1) There
is no objective world, but only a universe of energy fields which seers call th
e Indescribable Force 's emanations. 2) Human beings are made of the Indescribab
le Force 's emanations and are in essence bubbles of luminescent energy; each of
us is wrapped in a cocoon that encloses a small portion of these emanations. 3)
 Awareness is achieved by the constant pressure that the emanations outside our
cocoon, which are called emanations at large, exert on those inside our cocoon.
4) Awareness gives rise to perception, which happens when the emanations inside
our cocoons align themselves with the corresponding emanations at large.
The next truth is that perception takes place because there is in each of us an
agent called the assemblage point that selects internal and external emanations
for alignment. The particular alignment that we perceive as the world is the pro
duct of the specific spot where our assemblage point is located on our cocoon.
In order to corroborate the truths about awareness, you need energy. Dealing wit
h petty tyrants helps seers accomplish a sophisticated maneuver: that maneuver i
s to move their assemblage points. Don Juan

'The characteristic of miserable seers is that they are willing to forget the wo
nder of the world. They become overwhelmed by the fact that they see and believe
that it's their genius that counts.' Don Juan
"Meditation is not circling thought, nor is it the random repeat of a mantra, be
cause this boils down to internal dialogue. True meditation consists of complete
inner silence - a silence in which there is only awareness. This awareness is o
f course the dreamer, and when that state is entered the social being is quite l
iterally en rapport with his dreamer.
This in effect means that during meditation the practitioner enters into his ful
l awareness, and in that state he is capable of understanding the purpose of his
dreamer at that particular moment in time. It should therefore be clear that tr
ue meditation cannot take place before the practitioner has first mastered the a
rt of silencing the internal dialogue. However, to stop the internal dialogue, l
ike everything else, requires personal power.......most practitioners get caught
up in either the form of the meditation, or else in the mantra, and consequentl
y never reach the desired goal. For example, in Raja Yoga the man normally becom
es obsessed with the act of visualization without realising that the visualizati
on is merely an aid to stop the internal dialogue. Likewise, the man who uses a
mantra meditation becomes obsessed with keeping the mantra going and does not re
alise that the mantra should at some point cease as inner silence takes over. In
both of these examples it is the man's obsession which is his downfall and whic
h keeps the assemblage point firmly fixed in normal awareness.
The important point here is that when the warrior has acquired sufficient intent
he will be able to silence the internal dialogue, which will in turn enable him
to break the fixation of his awareness and to make his assemblage point fluid.
Once this has been accomplished the warrior not only enters the awareness of his
dreamer, but he also becomes at-one with his dreamer, which is of course his re
al self. It is this state of being which is termed the Third Attention, a level
of awareness in which the warrior can consciously manipulate his dreamer's expre
ssion of the one universal force, namely the will of the Eagle, or intent. Hence
it is stated that there comes a time in the life of the warrior when the comman
d of the warrior becomes the command of the Eagle."---Theun Mares (Return of the
Warriors p185)
"No man can be trapped without his consent." Theun Mares (Return of the Warriors
p80)
What a strange paradox! Every warrior on the path of knowledge thinks, at one ti
me or another, that he's learning sorcery, but all he's doing is allowing himsel
f to be convinced of the power hidden in his being, and that he can reach it.---
-Don Juan Matus, The Power of Silence
"The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior ta
kes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a bless
ing or as a curse."--Don Juan
“He (Don Juan) said that a warrior had no compassion for anyone . For him, to have
compassion meant that you wished the other person to be like you, to be in your
shoes, and you lent a hand for that purpose. The hardest thing in the world is
for a warrior to let others be. Only a sorcerer who sees and is formless can aff
ord to help anyone——to his understanding every effort to help on our part was an arb
itrary act guided by our self interest alone.”(271) La Gorda
"Self-importance is man's greatest enemy. What weakens him is feeling offended b
y the deeds and misdeeds of his fellow men. Self-importance requires that one sp
end most of one's life offended by something or someone."--Don Juan
Inner silence works from the moment you begin to accrue it. What the old sorcere
rs were after was the final dramatic, end result of reaching that individual thr
eshold of silence. Some very talented practitioners need only a few minutes of s
ilence to reach that coveted goal. Others, less talented, need long periods of s
ilence, perhaps more than one hour of quietude, before they reach the desired re
sult. The desired result is what the old sorcerers called "stopping the world",
the moment when everything around us ceases to be what it's always been. This is
the moment when sorcerers return to the TRUE nature of man. The old sorcerers a
lways called it "total freedom" ----Don Juan (Carlos Castanada)
Everything we do, everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we have eno
ugh of it, one word is enough to change the course of our lives. If we don't, th
e most magnificent piece of wisdom can be revealed to us and that revelation won
't make a damn bit of difference. Do you know that at this very moment you are s
urrounded by eternity? And do you know you can use that eternity, if you so desi
re? Do you know that you can extend yourself forever in any direction and use it
to take the totality of yourself forever in any direction? Do you know that one
moment can be eternity? If you had enough personal power, my words alone would
serve as a means to round up the totality of yourself and get to the crucial par
t of it out of the boundaries in which it is contained.-From Tales of Power
Once inner silence is attained, everything is possible. The way to stop talking
to ourselves is to use exactly the same method used to teach us to talk to ourse
lves; we were taught compulsively and unwaveringly, and this is the way we must
stop it: compulsively and unwaveringly.
It doesn't matter how one was brought up. What determines the way one does anyth
ing is personal power.-From Journey To Ixtlan
For the average man, the world is weird because if he's not
bored with it, he's at odds with it. For a warrior, the world is
weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable.
A warrior must assume responsibility for being here, in this
marvelous world, in this marvelous time.
Impeccability begins with a single act that has to be
deliberate, precise and sustained. If that act is repeated long
enough, one acquires a sense of unbending intent which can be
applied to anything else. If that is accomplished the road is
clear. One thing will lead to another until the warrior realizes
his full potential.
A warrior must cultivate the feeling that he has everything
needed for the extravagant journey that is his life. What counts
for a warrior is being alive. Life in itself is sufficient,
self-explanatory and complete.
Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the
experience of experiences is being alive.
A warrior must focus his attention on the link between
himself and his death. Without remorse or sadness or worrying, he
must focus his attention on the fact that he does not have time and
let his acts flow accordingly. He must let each of his acts be his
last battle on earth. Only under those conditions will his acts
have their rightful power. Otherwise they will be, for as long as
he lives, the acts of a fool
Warriors compress time; this is the sixth principle of the
art of stalking. Even an instant counts. In a battle for your
life, a second is an eternity, an eternity that may decide the
outcome. Warriors aim at succeeding, therefore they compress time.
Warriors don't waste an instant.
A warrior acknowledges his pain but he doesn't indulge in it.
The mood of the warrior who enters into the unknown is not one of
sadness; on the contrary, he's joyful because he feels humbled by
his great fortune, confident that his spirit is impeccable, and
above all, fully aware of his efficiency. A warrior's joyfulness
comes from having accepted his fate, and from having truthfully
assessed what lies ahead of him.
The self-confidence of the warrior is not the self-confidence
of the average man. The average man seeks certainty in the eyes of
the onlooker and calls that self-confidence. The warrior seeks
impeccability in his own eyes and calls that humbleness. The
average man is hooked to his fellow men, while the warrior is hooked
only to infinity.
A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's
control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go.
That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind.
No one can push him, no one can make him do things against himself
or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive and
he survives in the best of all possible fashions.
Acts have power. Especially when the warrior acting knows that
those acts are his last battle. There is a strange consuming
happiness in acting with the full knowledge that whatever he is
doing may very well be his last act on earth.
Our fellow men are black magicians. And whoever is with them
is a black magician on the spot. Think for a moment, can you
deviate from the path that your fellow men have lined up for you?
And if you remain with them, your thoughts and your actions are
fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. The warrior, on the
other hand, is free from all that. Freedom is expensive, but the
price is not impossible to pay. So, fear your captors, your
masters. Don't waste your time and your power fearing freedom.
[this paragraph clearly defines what lee hong zhi has done to his practicioners
: lining up a path, and if one remains with the path, all his actions, thoughts
are forver fixed in his own terms and this is slavery]
A warrior is never under siege. To be under siege implies that
one has personal possessions that could be blockaded. A warrior has
nothing in the world except his impeccability, and impeccability
cannot be threatened.
To discard everything that is unnecessary is the second
principle of the art of stalking. A warrior doesn't complicate
things. He aims at being simple. He applies all the concentration
he has to decide whether or not to enter into battle, for any battle
is a battle for his life. This is the third principle of the art of
stalking. A warrior must be willing and ready to make his last
stand here and now. But not in a helter-skelter way.
The flaw with words is that they always make us feel
enlightened, but when we turn around to face the world they always
fail us and we end up facing the world as we always have, without
enlightenment. For this reason, a warrior seeks to act rather than
to talk, and to this effect, he gets a new description of the
world a new description where talking is not that important, and
where new acts have new reflections.
Applying these principles brings about three results. The
first is that stalkers learn never to take themselves seriously;
they learn to laugh at themselves. If they are not afraid of being
a fool, they can fool anyone. The second is that stalkers learn to
have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never
fret. And the third is that stalkers learn to have an endless
capacity to improvise.

Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A

warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless
challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad.
Challenges are simple challenges.
The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material
things on which to focus their power, but to focus it on the spirit,
on the true flight into the unknown, not on trivialities.
Everyone who wants to follow the warrior's path has to rid
himself of the compulsion to possess and hold onto things.
The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a
warrior. It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified
in doing so, believing that someone is always doing something to us.
Nobody is doing anything to anybody, much less to a warrior.
A warrior takes his lot, whatever it amy be, and accepts it in
ultimate humbleness. He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as
grounds for regret but as a living challenge.
When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our
toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is
hiding behind than to behave as though we knew everything.
As long as a man feels that he is the most important thing in
the world, he cannot really appreciate the world around him. He is
like a horse with blinders; all he sees is himself, apart from
everything else.
There is no completeness without sadness and longing, for
without them there is no sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without
kindness and knowledge without sobriety are useless.
Everything that warriors do is done as a consequence of a
movement of their assemblage points, and such movements are ruled by
the amount of energy warriors have at their command.
Power always makes a cubic centimeter of chance available to a
warrior. The warrior's art is to be perennially fluid in order to
pluck it.
The worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and
since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who
have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.
What we need to do to allow magic to get hold of us is to
banish doubts from our minds. Once doubts are banished anything is
possible.
A warrior must learn to make every act count, since he is going
to be here in this world for only a short while, in fact, too short
for witnessing all the marvels of it.
Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy and vain. To be a warrior one needs to
be light and fluid.
Dwelling upon the self too much produces a terrible fatigue. A man in that posit
ion is deaf and blind to everything else. The fatigue itself makes him cease to
see the marvels all around him.
When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when the
re is something we can still cling to.
For a seer, the truth is that all living beings are struggling to die. What stop
s death is awareness.
The only freedom warriors have is to behave impeccably. Not only is impeccabilit
y freedom; it is the only way to straighten out
the human form.