Sunday, August 20, 1961

A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear,
with respect, and with absolute assurance.  Going to knowledge or
going to war in any other manner is a mistake, and whoever makes it
will live to regret his steps.

...

Sunday, April 15, 1962

When a man starts to learn, he is never clear about his objectives.
His purpose is faulty; his intent is vague.  He hopes for rewards
that will never materialize because he knows nothing of the
hardships of learning.

He slowly begins to learn - bit by bit at first, then in big chunks.
And his thought soon clash.  What he learns is never what he
pictured, or imagines, and so he begins to be afraid.  Learning is
never what one expects.  Every step of learning is a new task, and
the fear the man is experiencing begins to mount mercilessly,
unyieldingly.  His purpose becomes a battlefield.

And thus he has stumbled upon the first of his natural enemies: Fear!  
A terrible enemy -- treacherous, and difficulty to overcome.  It
remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting.  And
if the man, terrified in its presence, runs away, his enemy will have
put an end to his quest.

He must not run away.  He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he
must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next.  He
must be fully afraid, and yet he must not stop.  That is the rule.
And a moment will come when his first enemy retreats.  The man
begins to feel sure of himself.  His intent becomes stronger.
Learning is no longer a terrifying task.

When this joyful moment comes, the man can say with hesitation that
he has defeated his first natural enemy.

Once a man has vanquished fear, he is free from it for the rest of
his life because, instead of fear, he has acquired clarity -- a
clarity of mind which eases fear.  By then a man knows his desires;
he knows how to satisfy those desires.  He can anticipate the new
steps of learning, and a sharp clarity surrounds everything.  The
man feels that nothing is concealed.

And thus he has encountered his second enemy: Clarity!  That clarity
of mind, which is so hard to obtain, dispels fear, but also binds.

It forces the man never to doubt himself.  It gives him the assurance
he can do anything he pleases, for he sees clearly into everything.
And he is courageous because he is clear, and he stops at nothing
because he is clear.  But that is all a mistake; it is like
something incomplete.  If the man yields to this make-believe power,
he has succumbed to his second enemy and will be patient when he
should rush.  And he will fumble with learning until he winds up
incapable of learning anything more.

His second enemy has stopped him cold from trying to become a man of
knowledge; instead, the man may turn into a buoyant warrior, or
clown.  Yet the clarity for which he has paid so dearly will never
change to darkness and fear again.  He will be clear for as long as
he lives, but he will no longer learn, or yearn, for anything.

He must do what he did with fear: he must defy his clarity and use
it only to see, and wait patiently and measure carefully before
taking any new steps; he must think, above all, that his clarity is
almost a mistake.  And a moment will come when he will understand
that his clarity was only a point before his eyes.  And thus he will
have overcome his second enemy, and will arrive at a position where
nothing can harm him anymore.  This will not be a mistake.  It will
be only a point before his eyes.  It will be true power.

He will know at this point that the power he has been pursuing for
so long is finally his.  He can do with it whatever he pleases.  His
ally is at his command.  His wish is the rule.  He sees all that is
around him.  But he has also come across his third enemy: Power!

Power is the strongest of all enemies.  And naturally the easiest
thing to do is to give in; after all, the man is truly invincible.
He commands; he begins by taking calculated risks, and ends in
making rules, because he is a master.

At man at this stage hardly notices his third enemy closing in on
him.  And suddenly, with knowing, he will certainly have lost the
battle.  His enemy will have turned him into a cruel and capricious
man.

[A man] has to defy [power] deliberately.  He has to come to realize
the power he has seemingly conquered is, in reality, never his.  He
must keep himself in line at all times, handling carefully and
faithfully all that he has learned.  If he can see that clarity and
power, without his control over himself, are worse than mistakes,
he will reach a point where everything is held in check.  He will
know then when and how to use his power.  And thus he will have
defeated his third enemy.

The man will be, by then, at the end of his journey of learning, and
almost without warning he will come upon the last of his enemies:
Old age!  This enemy is the cruelest of all, the one he won't be able
to defeat completely, but only fight away.

This is the time when a man has no more fears, no more impatient
clarity of mind -- a time when all his power is in check, but also a
time when he has an unyielding desire to rest.  If he gives in
totally to his desire to lie down and forget, if he soothes himself
in tiredness, he will have lost his last round, and his enemy will
cut him down into a feeble old creature.  His desire to retreat will
overrule all his clarity, his power, and his knowledge.

But if the man sloughs off his tiredness, and lives his fate
through, he can then be called a man of knowledge, if only for the
brief moment when he succeeds in fighting off his last, invincible
enemy. That moment of clarity, power, and knowledge is enough.

	Don Juan, in 
	*The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge*
	by Carlos Castaneda.