The Active Side of Infinity
by Carlos Castaneda
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Book Summary Information
Author: Carlos CastanedaEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-12-22
ISBN: 006092960X
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780060929602
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Active Side of Infinity
Book Review: A worthwhile read
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the 10th book in the series. Essentially Don Juan asks Carlos Castaneda to put together an album of the most memorable events of profound significance that have transpired in his life. As I read the first few pages of this book, I Kept wondering if this was a drawn out attempt to capitalize on the success of the Carlos Castaneda books. There are however a number of things that I like about this book. One, it gives us insights into the days prior to the first book `The teachings of Don Juan, while also giving us further details of this first book and beyond; favorable for those die hard fans. I for one am however, mainly interested in furthering my esoteric studies and did not find this book as good as all the other books; yes, my least favorite.
The other thing that was a plus for this book was the further insight into `Recapitulation'; that is going over most of the events of one's life and reliving these events in memorizing. One of the benefits of this, for example, was that one could then look at one's emotions etc and thus loosen trapped energy. The greatest of these events was the `Usher'; finding this one event would precipitate the flood gates to one's further recapitulation. For those new to this concept, there are other spiritual disciplines that also espouse this practice. The benefit of `Recapitulation', according to Don Juan, is also discovered when one dies. Basically, the universe (the eagle) craves our experiences and through the double up mechanism of `Recapitulation' one passes through death due to having lived these events twice, while death/the universe/the eagle swallows up only one of these requited life lived events; interesting to say the least.
"Don Juan spoke to me."We are alone," he said. "That's our condition, but to die alone is not to die in loneliness."
For me, one of the great things about this book is the insight that Don Juan gives regarding the `Predators'. Nowhere else, in all of the other Don Juan books, do I recall reading of these creatures? Don Juan, prior to the setting of the sun, tells Carlos to pay attention to the darkness of the foliage of the trees, without focusing his eyes. Carlos says that he sees "some strange fleeting black shadow projected on the foliage of the trees...."They looked like fat black fish to me, enormous fish. It was as if gigantic swordfish were flying in the air"..."I see fleeting black shadows all over the place." Don Juan then explains "We have a companion in life"..."We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master.
It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so."...."It took over because we are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance."..."Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our system of beliefs, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us consciousness, greed, and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal."
"But how can they do this, Don Juan?"..."Do they whisper all that in our ears wile we are asleep?"..."They are infinitely more efficient and organized that that. In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engage themselves in a stupendous maneuver - stupendous, of course, from a fighting strategist; a horrendous maneuver from the point of view of those who suffer it; they gave us their mind!" pg 220. Don Juan teaches that we are luminous balls of energy and that over this is our `glowing coat of awareness', of which the predators consumed. From childhood to adulthood, there was only left a narrow fringe of this `glowing coat of awareness'. "That fringe permitted mankind to continue living, but only barely." "He said that this narrow fringe of awareness was the epicenter of self-reflection (self-consideration, pride, self-compassion?), where man was irremediably caught. By playing on our self-reflection, which is the only point of awareness left to us, the predator create flares of awareness that they proceed to consume in a ruthless, predatory fashion. They give us inane problems that force those flares of awareness to rise, and in this manner they keep us alive in order for them to be fed with the energetic flare of our pseudo concerns."
How then does one release themselves from these predators? Don Juan tells us to have two things, 1) discipline and 2) a silent mind. There are a number of factors in my mind that give balance to the validity of this information; firstly the universe as far as I can see is parasitic. Right now there are parasites eating away within our very bodies. Regarding energy, it is obvious that there are beings that feed off of negative energy i.e. hate and fear etc. Carlos also gives us insights into the elements that correspond to this i.e. 'The allies'. On another level, this sounds suspiciously like the fallen angels of old; as if Adolf Hitler's fluorine in the drinking water, to accumulate and atrophy the pineal gland and keep us sedated/dumbed down, was not enough.
The end of this book once again details the events of `The jump into the abyss' as told in an earlier work by Carlos Castaneda; the pivotal moment in the whole Don Juan/Carlos Castaneda saga. For those who enjoy the Carlos Castaneda books, this is a worthwhile book to consider reading.
Summary of The Active Side of Infinity
"Ordinarily, events that change our path are impersonal affairs, and yet extremely personal. My teacher, don Juan Matsus, said this is guiding me as his apprentice to collect what I considered to be the memorable events of my life?. Don Juan described the total goal of the shamanistic knowledge that he handled as the preparation for facing the definitive journey: the journey that every human being has to take at the end of his life. He said that what modern man referred to vaguely as life after death was, for those shamans, a concrete region filled to capacity with practical affairs of a different order than the practical affairs of daily life, yet bearing a similar functional practicality. Don Juan considered that to collect the memorable in their lives was, for shamans, the preparation for their entrance into that concrete region, which they called the active side of infinity."
In this book written immediately before his death, anthropologist and shaman Carlos Castaneda gives us his most autobiographical and intimately revealing work ever, the fruit of a lifetime of experience and perhaps the most moving volume in his oeuvre.
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