In The Fire From Within Analysis

In the Fire from Within written by Carlos Castaneda he shares with us his experience of twenty years following a medicine man named don Juan. Consequently, Carlos shares with us his philosophy, or in other words his reality. Through the teachings of don Juan Carlos is able to get to the third attention, the fire from within and gain true knowledge as he becomes a Nagual. This is the reality of Carlos Castaneda and how he reached it.
Don Juan taught Carlos many lessons in preparing Carlos for the final test in two different settings: the first attention which was everyday awareness and the second attention which was in heightened awareness, a sort of dream-like reality which was accomplished by shifting of assemblage points for the majority of the novel reached with the help of mentors.
Carlos was taught that human beings are a combination of energy waves that are in an egg shaped cocoon. There are energy waves within the cocoon and there are energy waves that travel through the cocoon. When these two energy waves align is when you are in a state of awareness, or to put it in another way you come to know. Human beings are able to shape the cocoon in order to get the aligned energy waves brought together; these are
Don Juan states, “What weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow man” (p.12) and congratulates Carlos for having a petty tyrant presently in his life as he will be able to practise putting aside his self-importance in hopes to one day abolish the concept entirely. So as to shift the assemblage point Carlos is told numerous times to “stop the internal dialogue” due to the fact that internal dialogue uses up energy that is needed for the transition. Don Juan also attempts to get Carlos to think aculturally, eliminating any bias he might