"For years I have truly tried to live in accordance with your teachings," I said. "Obviously I
have not done well. How can I do better now?"
"You think and talk too much. You must stop talking to yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"You talk to yourself too much. You're not unique at that. Every one of us does that. We carry
on an internal talk. Think about it. Whenever you are alone, what do you do?"
"I talk to myself."
"What do you talk to yourself about?"
"I don't know; anything, I suppose."
"I'll tell you what we talk to ourselves about. We talk about our world. In fact we maintain our
world with our internal talk."
"How do we do that?"
"Whenever we finish talking to ourselves the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we
kindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our
paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we
die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die.
"A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his talking. This is the last point you have to
know if you want to live like a warrior."
"How can I stop talking to myself?"
"First of all you must use your ears to take some of the burden from your eyes. We have been
using our eyes to judge the world since the time we were born. We talk to others and to
ourselves mainly about what we see. A warrior is aware of that and listens to the world; he
listens to the sounds of the world."
I put my notes away. Don Juan laughed and said that he did not mean I should force the issue,
that listening to the sounds of the world had to be done harmoniously and with great patience.
"A warrior is aware that the world will change as soon as he stops talking to himself," he said,
"and he must be prepared for that monumental jolt."
"What do you mean, don Juan?"
"The world is such-and-such or so-and-so only because we tell ourselves that that is the way it
is. If we stop telling ourselves that the world is so-and-so, the world will stop being so-and-so.
At this moment I don't think you're ready for such a momentous blow, therefore you must
start slowly to undo the world."
"I really do not understand you!"
"Your problem is that you confuse the world with what people do. Again you're not unique at
that. Every one of us does that. 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; what people do is
rightfully very important, but only as a shield. We never learn that the things we do as people
are only shields and we let them dominate and topple our lives. In fact I could say that for
mankind, what people do is greater and more important than the world itself."
"What do you call the world?"
"The world is all that is encased here," he said, and stomped the ground. "Life, death, people,
the allies, and everything else that surrounds us. 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!
"An average man doesn't do this, though. The world is never a mystery for him, and when he
arrives at old age he is convinced he has nothing more to live for. An old man has not
exhausted the world. He has exhausted only what people do. But in his stupid confusion he
believes that the world has no more mysteries for him. What a wretched price to pay for our
shields!
"A warrior is aware of this confusion and learns to treat things properly. The things that
people do cannot under any conditions be more important than the world. And thus a warrior
treats the world as an endless mystery and what people do as an endless folly."

Anything is one of a million paths [un camino entre cantidades de caminos].
Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.