Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan’s Teachings

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The name dreaming body means a feeling, a surge of energy that is transported by the movement of the assemblage point to any place in this world, or to any place in the seven worlds available to man.

The procedure for getting to the dreaming body starts with an initial act which by the fact of being sustained breeds unbending intent . Unbending intent leads to internal silence, and internal silence to the inner strength needed to make the assemblage point shift in dreams to suitable positions.

This sequence is the groundwork. The development of control comes after the groundwork has been completed; it consists of systematically maintaining the dreaming position by doggedly holding on to the vision of the dream. Steady practice results in a great facility to hold new dreaming positions with new dreams, not so much because one gains deliberate control with practice, but because every time this control is exercised the inner strength gets fortified. Fortified inner strength in turn makes the assemblage point shift into dreaming positions which are more and more suitable to fostering sobriety; in other words, dreams by themselves become more and more manageable, even orderly.

The development of dreamers is indirect. That’s why the new seers believed we can do dreaming by ourselves, alone. Since dreaming uses a natural, built-in shift of the assemblage point, we should need no one to help us.

What we badly need is sobriety, and no one can give it to us or help us get it except ourselves. Without it, the shift of the assemblage point is chaotic, as our ordinary dreams are chaotic. So, all in all, the procedure to get to the dreaming body is impeccability in our daily life.

Once sobriety is acquired and the dreaming positions become increasingly stronger, the next step is to wake up at any dreaming position . That maneuver, although made to sound simple, is really a very complex affair–so complex that it requires not only sobriety but all the attributes of warriorship as well, especially intent .

Intent , being the most sophisticated control of the force of alignment, is what maintains, through the dreamer ‘s sobriety, the alignment of whatever emanations have been lit up by the movement of the assemblage point.

There is one more formidable pitfall of dreaming : the very strength of the dreaming body . For example, it is very easy for the dreaming body to gaze at the Indescribable Force ‘s emanations uninterruptedly for long periods of time, but it is also very easy in the end for the dreaming body to be totally consumed by them. Seers who gazed at the Indescribable Force ‘s emanations without their dreaming bodies died, and those who gazed at them with their dreaming bodies burned with the fire from within. The new seers solved the problem by seeing in teams. While one seer gazed at the emanations, others stood by ready to end the seeing .

It’s perfectly possible for a group of seers to activate the same unused emanations. And in this case also, there are no known steps, it just happens; there is no technique to follow.

In dreaming together , something in us takes the lead and suddenly we find ourselves sharing the same view with other dreamers . What happens is that our human condition makes us focus the glow of awareness automatically on the same emanations that other human beings are using; we adjust the position of our assemblage points to fit the others around us. We do that on the right side, in our ordinary perception, and we also do it on the left side, while dreaming together.

Any warrior can be successful with people provided that he moves his assemblage point to a position where it is immaterial whether people like him, dislike him, or ignore him.

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The two basic qualities of warriors are sustained effort and unbending intent .

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It goes without saying that the most difficult thing in the warrior’s path is to make the assemblage point move. That movement is the completion of the warrior’s quest. To go on from there is another quest; it is the seers’ quest proper.

In the warrior’s way, the shift of the assemblage point is everything. The old seers absolutely failed to realize this truth. They thought the movement of the point was like a marker that determined their positions on a scale of worth. They never conceived that it was that very position which determined what they perceived.

The position of the assemblage point dictates how we behave and how we feel. The way to move that point is to establish new habits, to will it to move.

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The only way to deal with peerless warriors is not to have self-importance, so that one can celebrate them unbiasedly.

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Realizations are of two kinds. One is just pep talk, great outbursts of emotion and nothing more. The other is the product of a shift of the assemblage point; it is not coupled with an emotional outburst but with action. The emotional realizations come years later after warriors have solidified, by usage, the new position of their assemblage points.

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The earth itself is a living being. The old seers saw that the earth has a cocoon. They saw that there is a ball encasing the earth, a luminous cocoon that entraps the Indescribable Force ‘s emanations. The earth is a gigantic sentient being subjected to the same forces we are.

The old seers, on discovering this, became immediately interested in the practical uses of that knowledge. The result of their interest was that the most elaborate categories of their sorcery had to do with the earth. They considered the earth to be the ultimate source of everything we are.

The old seers were not mistaken in this respect, because the earth is indeed our ultimate source. It was the old seers who, on discovering that perception is alignment, stumbled onto something monumental. That the magic key that opens the earth’s doors is made of internal silence plus anything that shines.

Just cut off the internal dialogue. The key to everything is the firsthand knowledge that the earth is a sentient being and as such can give warriors a tremendous boost; it is an impulse that comes from the awareness of the earth itself at the instant in which the emanations inside warriors’ cocoons are aligned with the appropriate emanations inside the earth’s cocoon. Since both the earth and man are sentient beings, their emanations coincide, or rather, the earth has all the emanations present in man and all the emanations that are present in all sentient beings, organic and inorganic for that matter. When a moment of alignment takes place, sentient beings use that alignment in a limited way and perceive their world. Warriors can use that alignment either to perceive, like everyone else, or as a boost that allows them to enter unimaginable worlds.

The unknown is not really inside the cocoon of man in the emanations untouched by awareness, and yet it is there, in a manner of speaking. When I say that we can assemble seven worlds besides the one we know, don’t take it as being an internal affair.

The portion of emanations inside man’s cocoon is in there only for awareness, and awareness is matching that portion of emanations with the same portion of emanations at large. They are called emanations at large because they are immense; and to say that outside man’s cocoon is the unknowable is to say that within the earth’s cocoon is the unknowable. However, inside the earth’s cocoon is also the unknown, and inside man’s cocoon the unknown is the emanations untouched by awareness. When the glow of awareness touches them, they become active and can be aligned with the corresponding emanations at large. Once that happens the unknown is perceived and becomes the known.

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A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge. A nagual comes and goes without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes him a nagual.

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When man’s assemblage point moves beyond a crucial limit, the results are always the same for every man. The techniques to make it move may be as different as they can be, but the results are always the same, meaning that the assemblage point assembles other worlds, aided by the boost from the earth.

The boost from the earth is the same for every man. The difficulty for the average man is the internal dialogue. Only when a state of total silence is attained can one use the boost. You will corroborate that truth the day you try to use that boost by yourself.

It takes years to become an impeccable warrior. In order to withstand the impact of the earth’s boost you must be better than you are now.

The speed of that boost will dissolve everything about you. Under its impact we become nothing. Speed and the sense of individual existence don’t go together.