Letters to the Editor
-
A More Balanced Picture
It is quite obvious reading these posts that very few have done more than give a cursory reading of the literature, all the while acting as if they actually knew the person and his work and were personally offended by him.
It is similarly clear that very few have attempted to tackle the premises of the literature, nor God forbid integrate any of the sorceric practices into their lives for any sufficient length of time to determine whether or not they are valid.
It is quite amazing to think that this man left behind a legacy and compendium of knowledge spanning three decades of the most extraordinary training under master seers. Was that at all the focus of the article? NO. It is quite amusing to think that both the Salon article and the BBC4 documentary wasted no time in getting down to the dirt, rumor and sensationalism, rather than come to terms with the premise of sorcery that Castaneda was describing throughout his books.
Once again, only cursory mention was made of Tensegrity, Cleargreen or the worldwide practitioner body, not to mention shifts of the assemblage point or dreaming realities. For a man who has been "dead" for 10 years, his legacy has quite a head of steam. How strange? Given this amount of negative press coverage he is receiving.
Have you ever thought...in those very quiet moments...that you might be wrong, that you fell for something, that you fell for a certain interpretation of events? And what you might not be able to appreciate is the cost.
You are forgiven. Dirt sells...we understand that. But you just might have missed something crucial in all this in letting your awareness get hooked by all that crap. You might have missed the bird of freedom or the doorway to infinity.
I found many of the posts to be quite hostile and cynical, and at the same time ignorant. It is the eqivalent of showing up at an execution by stoning and starting to throw stones because everyone else is doing it.
I never had the good fortue to meet or know Carlos Castaneda but I can tell you that the warrior's path that he espouses through his writings has deep and unmistakeable parallels and resonances with most transformative and transpersonal paradigms. It is also clear beyond a doubt for anyone who has been around and committed themselves over several decades to one of these paths that Carlos Castaneda was for real.
You will have to deal with that.