"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

16 April 2022

Grandeur.

Weyeth, N.C., The Rakish Brigantine, 1914


He was thoroughly convinced that this is indispensable for everything sorcerers do, and for this reason he put an enormous emphasis on guiding all his students to fulfill this requirement. He was of the opinion that self-importance is not only the sorcerers' supreme enemy but the nemesis of mankind.  Don Juan's argument was that most of our energy goes into upholding our importance.  This is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of the self, about whether or not we are admired or liked or acknowledged. He reasoned that if we were capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us.  One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and, two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to enter into the second attention: to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.

Carlos CastaƱeda, from The Art of Dreaming

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