Lesson 9 - Encounters with guides, gurus and gods. In ancient times and among primitive peoples, the dream world was a magical place to meet with the gods for insight and guidance. Many modern dreamers have also reported rewarding dream encounters with teachers, holy men, beings from other worlds, angels and mystical entities. The powerful creative force and inherent wisdom that generates our dreams can be personified as a guide, a guru or a god. It seems likely that many of don Juan's excellent teachings came to Carlos Castaneda, not in his waking life, but in his dreams, making them even more remarkable and no less valuable.     In ancient Greece people with illnesses hoped to be visited in a dream by Asclepius, the god of healing. They knew that many others had received advice in dreams from this divinity that often resulted in a cure. Rationally, we can hypothesize that the useful advice sprang from the dreamer's own intuition, but it was the creative power of dreaming that allowed the dreamer to go beyond rationality and the conventional medical wisdom of the day to discover a way back to health and well-being.     We can all hope to find wise teachers in our dreams. They may be no more than our "best selves" or our "future selves," but as embodiments of wisdom with a profound insight into our condition their words and lessons can transform our lives. By developing our dream awareness and making a point of remembering our dreams we establish the proper conditions for such encounters.     I dreamed I was in a theater watching "The Cosmic Juggler" performing tricks on the stage. He was wearing a magnificent black and white leotard that reminded me of the yin-yang symbol. He performed one or two fascinating tricks and then started hurling high-energy superballs out into the audience. They whizzed by over our heads and ricocheted off the walls. Soon there were dozens flying about, hurtling back and forth across the auditorium, moving at incredible speed. And then, in an instant, he made them all vanish. They were just gone. They had seemed so real, almost dangerous. And suddenly, in a split second, he made them disappear. I and everyone else in the audience looked around in wonder. It was a remarkable feat - extraordinary, impossible, magical.     The dream had to do with the angry thoughts and recriminations that were occupying my mind at the time. I couldn't stop obsessing on the things that were bothering me. Every thought was so filled with angry energy that it just ricocheted around inside my head. The thoughts wouldn't stop and they were driving me crazy. But, after seeing the "Cosmic Juggler" perform his trick in my dream, I knew how to stop thinking the thoughts that were flying though my mind and tormenting me. It was incredibly easy - I just stopped. I don't think I could have learned how to do this from a book. I wouldn't have believed anyone if they told me I could do it. The fact that I vividly experienced it in a dream - and clearly remembered the dream - made it possible for me to visualize it and do it in my waking life.     People look for magic in the real world, in the physical universe, wondering about miracles, angels, and sorcerers with supernatural powers. There's virtually no evidence of such magic, though we can't say for certain it doesn't exist. Almost as elusive, but very real and attainable, is the "magic" of transforming ourselves psychologically, breaking free of our conditioning and habits, learning to love, perceiving with clarity, living with joy and wonder, and even experiencing our spiritual unity with the rest of the universe. The New Age bookstores are filled with books on these subjects, but the vast majority are useless and misleading. The guides, gurus and gods who can truly help us understand who we are and what we need and where we should go and how to get there dwell within us. They reside in that thoroughly magical world that we visit every night - the extraordinary and unpredictable, mysterious and revelatory, unexplored world of our dreams.   Next: Philosophical implications. previous - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - next home - teachings - history - archives - FAQs