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Florinda: (...) The only way we can break the barriers of perception, according to Don Juan, is that we need energy. All our energy is already deployed in the world to present the idea of self- what we are, who we want to be perceived as, how other people perceive us. So Don Juan says 90% of our energy is deployed in doing that, and nothing new can come to us. There's nothing open to us, because no matter how "egoless" we are, or we pretend to be, or we want to believe we are, we are not. Even let's say "enlightened" people, or gurus that I have met- at one time Carlos Castaneda was going around trying to meet gurus- and the ego of those people was so gigantic, in how they wanted to be perceived in the world . And that's, according to Don Juan, exactly what kills us. Nothing is open to us anymore.

(...)

A: What's the nature of the battle? Because you use the language of the warrior. What's the nature of the battle? What are you fighting?

Florinda: The self.

A: The self.

Florinda: It's not even the self; it's an idea of the self, because if we would really get the self below the surface, we don't really know what it is. And it is possible to curtail this idea, this bombastic idea we have of the self. Because whether it's a negative idea or a positive idea doesn't really matter. The energy employed to sustain that idea is the same.

A: So there's tremendous emphasis in this tradition on overcoming what is called self-importance.

Florinda: Self-importance, exactly. That's the main battle. To shut off our internal dialogue. Because even if we're isolated someplace, we are still constantly talking to ourselves. That internal dialogue never stops. And what does the internal dialogue do? It always justifies itself, no matter what. We replay things, events, what we could have said or could have done, what we feel or don't feel. The emphasis is always on me. We're constantly spouting this mantra- me...me...me, silently or verbally.