"Everything that surrounds us is an unfathomable mystery. We must try to unravel these mysteries, but without any hope of accomplishing this. A warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds him and aware of his duty to try to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one."
Don Juan Matus
"The world we think we see is only a view, a description of the world.The reality of our day-to-day life consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations which we, the individuals who share a membership, have learned to make in common. Our cognition, which is in essence an interpretation system, is what tells us what the parameters of our possibilities are.
For us to perceive other realms, not only do we have to covet them but we need to have sufficient energy to seize them. Their existence is constant and independent of our awareness, but their inaccessibility is entirely a consequence of our energetic conditioning. In other words, simply and solely because of that conditioning, we are compelled to assume that the world of daily life is the one and only possible world."
Don Juan Matus
"It is monstrous to think the world is understandable or that we ourselves are understandable...Human beings are infinitely more complex and mysterious than our wildest fantasies...We have a very deep sense of magic. Rationality is only a veneer with us...A warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds him and aware of his duty to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries and regards himself as one."
Don Juan Matus
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"People confuse the world with what they do. The things people do are the shields against the forces that surround us; what we do as people gives us comfort and makes us feel safe. For mankind, what people do is greater and more important than the world itself. The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat it as it is, a sheer mystery. Thus a warrior treats the world as an endless mystery and what people do as endless folly."​
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Don Juan Matus
"Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of our energy; impeccability is to do your best in whatever you’re engaged in. For a warrior, there is time only for his impeccability; everything else drains his power; impeccability replenishes it.
The key to all matters of impeccability is the sense of having or not having time. As a rule of thumb, when you feel and act like an immortal being that has all the time in the world, you are not impeccable; at those times, you should turn around, and then you will realize that your feeling of having time is an idiocy. There are no survivors on this earth!"
Don Juan Matus
"One must always choose the path with heart in order to be at one’s best, perhaps so one can always laugh….A man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn’t; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of his concern."
Don Juan Matus
"Controlled folly is the only way warriors have of dealing with themselves and with everybody and everything in the world of daily affairs. Controlled folly is a sophisticated, artistic way of being separated from everything while remaining an integral part of everything. Nothing being more important than anything else, a warrior chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him, yet he knows that it doesn’t; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of his concern. All we can do is practice controlled folly and laugh at ourselves."
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Don Juan Matus
“Energy is the irreducible residue of everything.
The whole universe is energy. The social base of our perception should be the physical certainty that energy is all there is.
To perceive the essence of everything will make us understand, classify, and describe the world in entirely new, more exciting, more sophisticated terms.”
Don Juan Matus
"Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he is incapable of abandoning himself to anything. Only the idea of death makes a man sufficiently detached so he can’t deny himself anything. A man of that sort, however, does not crave, for he has acquired a silent lust for life and for all things of life. He knows his death is stalking him and won’t give him time to cling to anything, so he tries, without craving, all of everything."
Don Juan Matus
"Warriors understand discipline as the capacity to face with serenity odds that are not included in our expectations. For them, discipline is an art: the art of facing infinity without flinching, not because they are strong and tough but because they are filled with awe."
Don Juan Matus
"A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly."
Don Juan Matus
"The flaw with words is that they always force us to 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."
Don Juan Matus
"Infinity chooses. The art of the warrior-traveler is to have the ability to move with the slightest insinuation, the art of acquiescing to every command of infinity. For this, a warrior-traveler needs prowess, strength, and above all else, sobriety. All those three put together give, as a result, elegance!"
Don Juan Matus
"There are two ways of facing our being alive. One is to surrender to it, either by acquiescing to its demands or by fighting those demands. The other is by molding our particular life situation to fit our own awareness of being alive: to get thoroughly involved with the themes of life and being alive; the difference between life as a consequence of biological forces, and the act of being alive, as a matter of cognition. Everything new in our lives, such as the concepts of the warrior’s way, must be repeated to us to the point of exhaustion before we open ourselves to it. The mind and all its rational defenses cannot cope with persistence. Go slowly but don’t stop."
Don Juan Matus
"Since we have no way to plug into any external source for a boost of energy, we must redeploy our existing energy, by any means available. The most effective means of energy redeployment is “losing self-importance.” 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. 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 catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe."
Don Juan Matus
"Without the awareness of death a warrior would only be an ordinary man involved in ordinary acts. He would lack the necessary potency, the necessary concentration that transforms one’s ordinary time on earth into magical power...But to be concerned with death would force any one of us to focus on the self and that would be debilitating. So, the next thing one needs to be a warrior is detachment…The knowledge of his death guides him and makes him detached and silently lusty; the power of his final decisions makes him able to choose without regrets and what he chooses is always strategically the best; and so he performs everything he has to with gusto and lusty efficiency."
Don Juan Matus
"Warrior-travelers roll with the punches. They go wherever the impulse may take them. The power of warrior-travelers is to be alert, to get maximum effect from minimal impulse. And above all, their power lies in not interfering. Events have a force, a gravity of their own, and travelers are just travelers."
Don Juan Matus
Energy is everything. The whole universe is energy. The social base of our perception should be the physical certainty that energy is all there is. A mighty effort should be made to guide us to perceive energy as energy. I am convinced that for man to survive now, his perception must change at its social base.
Don Juan Matus
“A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting. A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows that nothing is more important than anything else.”
Don Juan Matus
The world we think we see is only a view, a description of the world... All of us throughout our lives develop one direction to look. Through the years that direction becomes overused and weak, and unpleasant, and since we are bound to that particular direction we become weak and unpleasant ourselves…The world is incomprehensible. We won’t ever understand it; we won’t ever unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat it as it is, a sheer mystery.
Don Juan Matus
Controlled folly is a sophisticated, artistic way of being separated from everything while remaining an integral part of everything….Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn’t; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of his concern.
Don Juan Matus
“What is wrong with us human beings, and has been wrong since time immemorial, is that without ever stating it in so many words, we believe that we have entered the realm of immortality. We behave as if we were never going to die—an infantile arrogance. But even more injurious than this sense of immortality is what comes with it: the sense that we can engulf this inconceivable universe with our minds.”
Don Juan Matus
"Every act performed by sorcerers, was either performed as a way to strengthen their link with intent or as a response triggered by the link itself…choice, for warrior-travelers, was not really the act of choosing, but rather the act of acquiescing elegantly to the solicitations of infinity…The art of the warrior-traveler is to have the ability to move with the slightest insinuation, the art of acquiescing to every command of infinity."
Don Juan Matus
"A light and amenable disposition was needed in order to withstand the impact and the strangeness of the warrior’s path…the mystery of sorcery must be cushioned in the mundane. It must stem from nothing, and go back to nothing. That’s the art of warrior-travelers: to go through the eye of the needle unnoticed."
Don Juan Matus
“A warrior is someone who is striving to clear and revive his connecting link with the spirit….The average man’s connecting link with intent is practically dead, and warriors begin with a link that is useless….Once the link is revived, he is no longer an apprentice, but until that time, in order to keep going he needs a fierce purpose….War, for a warrior, is the total struggle against that individual self that has deprived man of his power.”
Don Juan Matus
“The reason for the existence of all sentient beings is to enhance awareness.” “The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy.” -- Don Juan Matus
"A warrior has nothing in the world except his impeccability... Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy…impeccability is the sense of having or not having time. As a rule of thumb, when you feel and act like an immortal being that has all the time in the world you are not impeccable; at those times you should turn, look around, and then you will realize that your feeling of having time is an idiocy. There are no survivors on this earth!”
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Don Juan Matus
"Men of ancient times had a very realistic view of perception and awareness because their view stemmed from their observations of the universe around them. Modern men, in contrast, have an absurdly unrealistic view of perception and awareness because their view stems from their observations of the social order and from their dealings with it...I am convinced for man to survive now, his perception must change at its social base...By separating the social point of perception you'll perceive the essence of everything...Everything is energy. The whole universe is energy. The social base of our perception should be the physical certainty that energy is all there is."
Don Juan Matus
