Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda is supposed to be one of The Fifty Spiritual Classics, they are listed in a book by Tom Butler -Bowden, reviewed on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html - 7 out of 10

Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda is supposed to be one of The Fifty Spiritual Classics, they are listed in a book by Tom Butler -Bowden, reviewed on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html

 

7 out of 10

 

Journey to Ixtlan has good advice and offers the possibility for transcendence, perhaps obtain a Higher state of consciousness – or The Highest State of Consciousness – which is exactly what we need, if it brings about Nirvana, as per the definition, then there is Noting else to look for, for you get there when there are

 

-          No more cravings

 

However, hoi polloi, people like this reader find it difficult to take off, to get to Flow https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/flow-by-mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.html instead, I found aspects that were annoying, this Wizard Don Juan  appeared irritating, aggressive and insulting, which goes to show

 

-          It is difficult to comprehend a Yaqui shaman, or any other such sorcerer

 

Don Juan Matus knows what he is doing, he has to have some control, the apprentice has to push away the floss, whatever stands in the way of illumination, so there is that, why complain about the method, when ‘the goal justifies the means’, oh, wait, that is Machiavelli, The Prince, it is not the best way to continue

Nonetheless, in the classic of psychology The Paradox of Choice https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-paradox-of-choice-by-barry-schwartz.html by Barry Schwartz, we find there are two types of humans, the Satisfizer and the Maximizer, we want to be the former:

 

-          Because that this the one that is happy with the very good, while the other individual would moan and seek perfection

 

We may say that this Journey to Ixtlan is one that may build character, and this is supposed to be from The Talmud – ‘be careful with your thoughts, for they become words, mind your words, they will become acts, watch your acts, for they become habits, habits form character, and character is You’ hence the importance of rituals

 

Aristotle https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/aristotle-in-ninety-minutes-by-paul.html said ‘we are what we regularly do, excellence is not an act, it’s a habit’ – we find some light in Journey to Ixtlan, and with the help of a real guru, it may work better, as it is, with the book to concentrate on, it did not work for the undersigned

 

-          First of all, it needs focus

 

There are some conditions for Flow, Higher State of Consciousness (or the highest) and they will be: you are in control, though when they speak of drugs, mushrooms, I wonder what happens, I have not used any (though I was curious, maybe it will happen someday) so it looks to me as if the ‘high’ does not involve control

Other conditions include:

 

-          nothing else matters, it is autotelic, you have clear goals, there is constant and instant feedback

 

furthermore, time changes, the examples would be ‘the brain surgeon that comes out of the operating room to ask for lunch and they tell him it is evening, he had been operating for so many hours, that he had lost sense of time

 

-          then there is the ballerina, on the stage for just a few minutes, and she feels as if she was there for days

 

then the last element is you have to be on the line between burnout and boredom, and alas, The Journey to Ixtlan alternates for this reader, at times it feels boring, and then there are passages that imply some burnout

Not that it is inaccessible, say Kant or Hegel like, no, it is just that I could not reach the level of empathy, curiosity required, which is a shame and a deficiency, indeed, Wisdom is made of:

-          love of learning, creativity, curiosity, judgment, open mindedness

 

this is the formula offered by the co-founder of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, so we could bet on it https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/flourish-by-martin-seligman.html he also offers PERMA as the secret of happiness

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/maybe-you-have-some-ideas-click-on-link.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’