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The Teachings Of Don Juan Analysis

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The Teachings of Don Juan tells the journey of Carlos Castaneda and his attempt to learn how to become a man of knowledge from a brujo named Don Juan. While the knowledge Don Juan shares is about his specific religion, the teachings can be applied to many aspects of my life. There are many teachings in the book that can be related to life in general. However, the four natural enemies are what I believe to be the most applicable when comparing what Don Juan teaches to my life.
Before I continue discussing the four natural enemies and how they relate to my life I feel it is prudent to give my view on them and how they differ from Don Juan’s. Don Juan states that one must completely beat the first enemy to fight the second and so on. He also says that once one beats an enemy that it is completely beaten and will bother a person no more save for the final enemy. I don’t believe that is the case for either of those statements. As I will discuss later, I don’t believe that any one can truly beat an enemy forever. I also believe that one can fight multiple enemies at one time. Having said that I don’t believe that the way Don Juan’s way of viewing the enemies is wrong. Instead I believe that both my view and Don Juan’s is …show more content…

Having said that, I believe that some use religion as a way to silence the fear that they hold about things they do not understand. Instead of learning they choose to use their faith as the be all end all of their knowledge. I think that they choose to do this because they are afraid that they are wrong. If someone has grown up believing that something is the absolute truth it can be scary to think that they have been wrong. That fear of being wrong then consumes them and leads to the inability to learn. Having said all that, I want to make it clear that I don’t believe that religion is completely bad. I just believe that it can pose a great challenge for a person of faith if they wish to

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