Fire from Within

 

Fire from Within
Fire from Within
by Authors: Carlos Castaneda
Released: 01 January, 1991
ISBN: 0671732501
Paperback

Sales Rank: 11024

 
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Fire from Within > Customer Review #1:
Another level of the onion

Carlos Castaneda continues a new round of explicating and evoking his apprenticeship with Don Juan, a Yaqui Indian who has attained the highest possible level of development possible to man by becoming a man of knowledge or a seer. He continues to present his transcendent vision to Carlos who continues to pit his puny rationality with less and less conviction as he is overwhelmed by one experience after the other of a separate reality and to the inescapable fact that the human socialized idea of the world is just that, an idea, which we live in and which comforts us but also imprisons our awareness and bores us to death, when its not making us miserable. As the I Ching says (another transcendent book), "Prisons must not become dwelling places."


Fire from Within > Customer Review #2:
The Fire Rekindled: "unquenching curiosity and guts galore"

"One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against the stupidity in all of us."--Don Juan . . . The best book of a masterful author. In the fiction/nonfiction controversy, I lean toward fiction, but with the caution that these fictional stories are being used to demonstrate great truths. If anything, seeing the books as fiction makes Castaneda seem greater. Who else has written this many books, without plots of murder, war, or romance, that grip the reader the way these do? Not only are we gripped, but our minds are being changed. We can almost feel the chemical soup in our braincases being altered as we experience these tales. The device of the bone-headed Carlos is ingenious, putting us on the side of the seemingly rational, but actually post-rational Juan. The most amazing thing to me has been the way the lessons in this book have become my companions, helping me to live my life more fully and with greater awareness. It provides a new way to look at the feelings and impressions we all struggle with, reminding us that we and our lives are unique and powerful, that sobriety and self-containment are paradoxically the path to the mystery and the magic. This book is full of laughs, creepy stories, new concepts, and terms that you may not grasp until one day months or years later when something happens, and you realize "This is what he meant!" Everytime I reread part of it, I feel that fire within me rise and flicker.


Fire from Within > Customer Review #3:
A Halographic Universe

This is my favorite Castanenda book, and I have read almost all of them. Please skip my following justification for these books if you are already a fan: Regardless of how one feels about the New Age movement, it is clear that, as Einstein observed, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." Reading Castaneda gave me an appreciation for people who take seriously the complexities of the mind, the universe and their infinite dance. Castaneda, in this book, seems ready to acknowledge that the fact of other ways of perceiving the world seems to mean that there are rational and non-rational ways which intertwine with eachother.
Having said that, Castaneda lovers will enjoy the many characters, stories and esoteric teachings that really coalesce in this book unlike in any other. We finally understand who La Catalina really is; we go deeper into the teachings on the Eagle; we get to here more about the interplay between Don Juan and Don Genaro, and we see Carlos opening up a bit too. It was not until I read this book that I realized how hard it was for Carlos to lose his "self-importance," and what a difficult task this is. Enjoy.



 
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