The Assemblage Point quotes
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"Everything you think and everything you feel depends on the position of the Assemblage Point."--Don Juan

The position of the assemblage point on man's cocoon is maintained by the internal dialogue, and because of that, it is a flimsy position at best.

[Assemblage point shift.] "After the bang on the head and the LSD, my father fell into depression.....Happiness at his new found success was replaced with aggression and paranoia."--Sadie Frost (mail on Sunday Aug 22, 2010 Extract from Crazy Days)

'From time to time, in the clinical setting, patients can present a shadow or split Assemblage Point. These are most often associated with patients suffering from schizophrenia or manic depression. In numerous cases of schizophrenia, two locations of the Assemblage Point have been observed on each patient: one shadow location high up, near the patient's right collar bone and a second brighter location lower down on the same side. Diagnosed manic depressive patients often have two locations: one strong and active, and the second a shadow location. The locations are generally lower and not so far to the right side as in diagnosed schizophrenic patients. In such cases, patients display two distinct sets of symptoms (e.g. mania and depression in manic depressive disorder, also known in psychiatry as bipolar affective disorder). These patients, by one means or another, unconsciously shift their Assemblage Point locations. This, in turn, changes their behaviour and the way they feel. In this way, the patient oscillates between two locations. Split locations can be reunited and shifted across to a more central and stable location for the patient. From a central position, the patient's mental and physical health will stabilise.' The Catalyst Of Power by Jon Whale

The STATIC ASSEMBLAGE POINT is a focal point of energy within the aura whose function is to govern how we perceive our reality. In a sense, it is like a particular station on the radio or television. Its position in the aura determines how we perceive reality. As it moves along its pathway, along the eleven resonant points of the Red Road, our perception of reality changes. When it is positioned in the right chest area, our perception remains narrow and separate. When it is situated in the central chakra line, however, we begin to develop our psychic gifts. When it is centered in the navel, we are open and enlightened, able to perceive our oneness with the Everything and we feel our unconditional love for everyone. From this position we can assemble any reality.
    Before we are born, all three Assemblage Points are located in the navel. We are in a place of harmony and alignment with the universe and we know our oneness with the Everything. At our first breath, the SAP moves up the chakra line and situates itself in a predetermined position somewhere in the right chest area within what is known as the Circle of Influence. In fact, this position is determined by each of us before our birth. It is the position that enables us to perceive reality in a way best suited for the specific growth and experiences we need from this particular lifetime. Within this Circle of Influence the SAP is known as the Stationary Assemblage Point.
    Over the next three years, the SAP moves to the Station which holds our karmic learning. This position can be shifted. In fact, it is desirable to shift our SAP to the center line and back down towards the navel. It can be temporarily shifted in this direction by crystal shifting, high level orgasm, chanting, songs of power, meditation and ceremony.
    When we work with certain teacher plants it will shift diagonally (the Yellow Road). Extreme fear, terror and psychosis will shift it straight down the right side (the Blue Road). This shift (straight down) will cause a distorted view of reality. For example, in catatonic schizophrenia, the SAP is usually shifted down the right side below the heart chakra line. This condition can be improved if the SAP is shifted back to its original resting position. When under severe stress, the SAP may also start to move straight down, but we can learn to use our will and breath to alter the direction of the movement towards the center and then down. If the SAP moves straight down the Blue Road past the navel, death will occur instantly.
    There is a gradual long-term movement of the SAP's resting position during life (i.e. towards the center and then down) as a result of spiritual growth and development and an increase in our overall energy. This is what is referred to as walking the good Red Road of life. The more enlightened and in balance and harmony we become, the more the SAP will become positioned towards the center chakra line and then down towards the navel again. Obviously, frequent temporary shifts through crystal shifting, orgasm, ceremony, etc., will facilitate the more long-term movement and repositioning.
    If a shift of one inch or more is maintained for at least a year, this will become the new resting position of the SAP. If this is maintained for at least three years, the SAP will never go back to its earlier resting position.
    The more advanced Sweet Medicine SunDance Teachings explain each of the resonant points on the Red, Yellow and Blue Road.  Harley Swiftdeer Reagan

There probably aren’t many factors of course but one thing is clear is that madness and psychotic behaviour the SAP can be completely mapped for each type of behaviour to specific positions on the body. So extreme right location of the SAP represents excessive left brain activity which is extrovert activity, panicky activity and high levels of adrenaline. And extreme left positions of the SAP represent extreme right brain activity, introvert, psychosis and the midway position is where we are balanced on the internal and external realities.  For most people the position is due to the stress of living in the western world and the extrovert activities that we take up it is on the right side of the chest which represents left brain activity. And there are degrees of it. The more balanced a person is the closer it is to the centre. Jon Whale interview on Stationary Assemblage Point (SAP)

      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.

Anything that shifts the SAP, your mothers death, some violence, hunger or thirst, drugs, accident, intimidation anything can shift it. Jon Whale interview on Stationary Assemblage Point (SAP)

I had a dropped SAP and I was in a bad state of health as a result of it and that no therapist or doctor who had been to see me concerning my condition had been able to shed any light as to what had happened. One day I was alright and the next day I wasn’t. I was ill for quite a good number of months when the incident happened.  I was very ill and I had been for a long time and  the next day I was alright again after he had shifted my SAP. So that was a profound lesson to me and he told me I should make every effort to record the SAP positions associated with every type of illness which I have done. Jon Whale interview on Stationary Assemblage Point (SAP)

Dreaming is defined as the ability to consciously move or shift the Assemblage point in order to assemble an alternate reality.---Theun Mares (Cry of the Eagle p.54)

ME is a dropped SAP and the person won’t recover unless the SAP is shifted up. It has dropped from the stress position on the right to below the liver and no matter what the person does the physical body, from that perspective, doesn’t have any of the energy anymore and it no matter what they think their body won’t function and do what their thoughts command. Shifting it up corrects it. At least if it’s done fairly soon otherwise it takes fairly longer to correct it, two or three months Two or three months for a person to regain their former vibrational rate. Jon Whale interview on Stationary Assemblage Point (SAP)

 Entering through the right, passing through the heart to the left back is the executive stress position and is extremely uncomfortable. The heart has a peculiar heartbeat associated with that position and I suspect that many pacemakers and things are fitted as a result of an incorrect position of the SAP. Jon Whale interview on Stationary Assemblage Point (SAP)

 Schizophrenia is a split SAP?  The pivot point jumps to extreme  locations. The same with epilepsy. The epilepsy itself, the fit itself, somehow rejumps the SAP back up to its position again. Jon Whale interview on Stationary Assemblage Point (SAP)

"He (Sri Yukteswar) struck gently on my chest above the heart.  My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet.  Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage........."---Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi p. 166).

  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.

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.

Any movement of the assemblage point means a movement away from an excessive concern with the individual self. Shamans believe it is the position of the assemblage point which makes modern man a homicidal egoist, a being totally involved with his self-image.  Having lost hope of ever returning to the source of everything, the  average man seeks solace in his selfishness. Don Juan

There are three Human Assemblage Points. The Static Assemblage Point (SAP), the Moving Assemblage Point (MAP) and the Great Light Assemblage Point (GLAP).   The Static Assemblage Point is a focal point of energy within the aura whose function is to govern how we perceive our reality. In a sense, it is like a radio or T.V. tuner whose position in the aura (or particular station that It is tuned to) determines how we perceive reality. For example, when it is centered in the navel, we are open and enlightened, able to perceive our oneness with the Everything and we feel our unconditional love for everyone. From this position we can assemble any reality.
    When it is positioned in the right chest area, our perception becomes more narrow and separate. When it is situated in the central chakra line, however, we can begin to really develop the larien.
    When we are first born, all three assemblage points are localized in the navel. We are in a place of harmony and alignment with the universe and we completely know our oneness with the Everything. Over the course of the next three years, the Static Assemblage Point begins to move up the chakra line and becomes situated in a predetermined position somewhere in the right chest area. In fact, this position is determined by each of us before our birth to enable us to perceive reality in a way best suited for the specific growth and experiences we need from a particular life.   
    Once stationed in the right chest area the SAP is essentially in fixed position, but this position can be shifted. In fact, it is desirable to shift this assemblage point to center and back down toward the navel. It can be temporarily shifted in this direction by crystal shifting, third and fourth level orgasm, chanting, songs of power, meditation and ceremony.
    It will be shifted diagonally when working with certain teacher plants and shifted straight down the right side by extreme fear, terror, psychosis and tyrants. This straight down shift will cause a distorted view of reality. Of note, in catatonic schizophrenia, the SAP is usually shifted down the right side below the heart chakra line and the condition can be improved If the SAP is reshifted back to its original resting position. In working with the tyrants, even though the SAP will start to move straight down, we can learn to use our will and breath to alter the direction of movement to center and then down. If the SAP moves straight down past the navel, death will occur instantaneously.  ---Warrior Path workbook.

I'll briefly outline the truths about awareness which I have discussed. 1) There is no objective world, but only a universe of energy fields which seers call the Indescribable Force 's emanations. 2) Human beings are made of the Indescribable Force 's emanations and are in essence bubbles of luminescent energy; each of us is wrapped in a cocoon that encloses a small portion of these emanations. 3) Awareness is achieved by the constant pressure that the emanations outside our cocoon, which are called emanations at large, exert on those inside our cocoon. 4) Awareness gives rise to perception, which happens when the emanations inside our cocoons align themselves with the corresponding emanations at large.
      The next truth is that perception takes place because there is in each of us an agent called the assemblage point that selects internal and external emanations for alignment. The particular alignment that we perceive as the world is the product of the specific spot where our assemblage point is located on our cocoon.
      In order to corroborate the truths about awareness, you need energy. Dealing with petty tyrants helps seers accomplish a sophisticated maneuver: that maneuver is to move their assemblage points.  Don Juan

Human beings repeatedly choose the same emanations for perceiving because of two reasons. First, and most important, because we have been taught that those emanations are perceivable, and second because our assemblage points select and prepare those emanations for being used.
      Every living being has an assemblage point which selects emanations for emphasis. Seers can see whether sentient beings share the same view of the world, by seeing if the emanations their assemblage points have selected are the same.
      One of the most important breakthroughs for the new seers was to find that the spot where that point is located on the cocoon of all living creatures is not a permanent feature, but is established on that specific spot by habit. Hence the tremendous stress the new seers put on new actions, on new practicalities. They want desperately to arrive at new usages, new habits.
      A matter of great importance is the proper understanding of the truths about awareness in order to realize that that point can be moved from within. The unfortunate truth is that human beings always lose by default. They simply don't know about their possibilities.
      The new seers say that realization is the technique. They say that, first of all, one must become aware that the world we perceive is the result of our assemblage points being located on a specific spot on the cocoon. Once that is understood, the assemblage point can move almost at will, as a consequence of new habits.
      The assemblage point of man appears around a definite area of the cocoon, because the Indescribable Force commands it. But the precise spot is determined by habit, by repetitious acts. First we learn that it can be placed there and then we ourselves command it to be there. Our command becomes the Indescribable Force 's command and that point is fixated at that spot. Consider this very carefully; our command becomes the Indescribable Force 's command.
      I've mentioned to you that sorcery is something like entering a dead-end street. What I meant was that sorcery practices have no intrinsic value. Their worth is indirect, for their real function is to make the assemblage point shift by making the first attention release its control on that point.
      The new seers realized the true role those sorcery practices played and decided to go directly into the process of making their assemblage points shift, avoiding all the other nonsense of rituals and incantations. Yet rituals and incantations are indeed necessary at one time in every warrior's life. But only for purposes of luring one's first attention away from the power of self-absorption, which keeps his assemblage point rigidly fixed.
      The obsessive entanglement of the first attention in self-absorption or reason is a powerful binding force, and ritual behavior, because it is repetitive, forces the first attention to free some energy from watching the inventory, as a consequence of which the assemblage point loses its rigidity.
      When that happens, if you are not a warrior, you think you're losing your mind. If you are a warrior, you know you've gone crazy, but you patiently wait. You see, to be healthy and sane means that the assemblage point is immovable. When it shifts, it literally means that one is deranged.
      Two options are opened to warriors whose assemblage points have shifted. One is to acknowledge being ill and to behave in deranged ways, reacting emotionally to the strange worlds that their shifts force them to witness; the other is to remain impassive, untouched, knowing that the assemblage point always returns to its original position.
      If the assemblage point doesn't return to its original position, then those people are lost. They are either incurably crazy, because their assemblage points could never assemble the world as we know it, or they are peerless seers who have begun their movement toward the unknown.
      What determines it is energy! Impeccability! Impeccable warriors don't lose their marbles. They remain untouched. I've said to you many times that impeccable warriors may see horrifying worlds and yet the next moment they are telling a joke, laughing with their friends or with strangers.
      The mind, for a seer, is nothing but the self-reflection of the inventory of man. If you lose that self-reflection, but don't lose your underpinnings, you actually live an infinitely stronger life than if you had kept it.
      The flaw is in our emotional reaction, which prevents us from realizing that the oddity of our sensorial experiences is determined by the depth to which our assemblage point has moved into man's band of emanations.
      Man's band of emanations is not like a ribbon, but rather like a disc. The luminous shape of man is like a ball with a thick disk inserted into it. If the ball were transparent you would have the perfect replica of man's cocoon. The disc goes all the way inside the ball. It's a disk that goes from the surface on one side to the surface on the other side.
      The assemblage point of man is located high up, three-fourths of the way toward the top of the egg on the surface of the cocoon. Heightened awareness comes about when the intense glow of the assemblage point lights up dormant emanations way inside the disk. To see the glow of the assemblage point moving inside that disk gives the feeling that it is shifting toward the left on the surface of the cocoon.
      The transparency of the luminous egg creates the impression of a movement toward the left, when in fact every movement of the assemblage point is in depth, into the center of the luminous egg along the thickness of man's band.
      Man is not the unknowable. Man's luminosity can be seen almost as if one were using the eyes alone.
      The old seers saw the movement of the assemblage point but it never occurred to them that it was a movement in depth; instead they followed their seeing and coined the phrase "shift to the left," which the new seers retained although they knew that it was erroneous to call it a shift to the left.
      The contention of the new seers is that in the course of our growth, once the glow of awareness focuses on man's band of emanations and selects some of them for emphasis, it enters into a vicious circle. The more it emphasizes certain emanations, the more stable the assemblage point gets to be. This is equivalent to saying that our command becomes the Indescribable Force 's command. It goes without saying that when our awareness develops into the first attention the command is so strong that to break that circle and make the assemblage point shift is a genuine triumph.
      The assemblage point is also responsible for making the first attention perceive in terms of clusters. An example of a cluster of emanations that receive emphasis together is the human body as we perceive it. Another part of our total being, our luminous cocoon, never receives emphasis and is relegated to oblivion; for the effect of the assemblage point is not only to make us perceive clusters of emanations, but also to make us disregard emanations.
      The assemblage point radiates a glow that groups together bundles of encased emanations. These bundles then become aligned, as bundles, with the emanations at large. Clustering is carried out even when seers deal with the emanations that are never used. Whenever they are emphasized, we perceive them just as we perceive the clusters of the first attention.
      One of the greatest moments the new seers had was when they found out that the unknown is merely the emanations discarded by the first attention. It's a huge affair, but an affair, mind you, where clustering can be done.
      The unknowable, on the other hand, is an eternity where our assemblage point has no way of clustering anything.
      The assemblage point is like a luminous magnet that picks emanations and groups them together wherever it moves within the bounds of man's band of emanations. This discovery was the glory of the new seers, for it put the unknown in a new light. The new seers noticed that some of the obsessive visions of seers, the ones that were almost impossible to conceive, coincided with a shift of the assemblage point to the region of man's band which is diametrically opposed to where it is ordinarily located.
      Those were visions of the dark side of man. It is somber and foreboding. It's not only the unknown, but the who-cares-to-know-it.
      The emanations that are inside the cocoon but out of the bounds of man's band can be perceived, but in really indescribable ways. They're not the human unknown, as is the case with the unused emanations in the band of man, but the nearly immeasurable unknown where human traits do not figure at all. It is really an area of such an overpowering vastness that the best of seers would be hard put to describe it.
      The mystery is outside us. Inside us we have only emanations trying to break the cocoon. And this fact aberrates us, one way or another, whether we're average men or warriors. Only the new seers get around this. They struggle to see . And by means of the shifts of their assemblage points, they get to realize that the mystery is perceiving. Not so much what we perceive, but what makes us perceive.
      The new seers believe that our senses are capable of detecting anything. They believe this because they see that the position of the assemblage point is what dictates what our senses perceive.
      If the assemblage point aligns emanations inside the cocoon in a position different from its normal one, the human senses perceive in inconceivable ways.
 

      The articulation point of everything seers do is stopping the internal dialogue. The internal dialogue is what keeps the assemblage point fixed to its original position.
      Once silence is attained, everything is possible. You stop talking to yourself by willing it, and thus you set a new intent , a new command. Then your command becomes the Indescribable Force 's command.
      This is one of the most extraordinary things that the new seers found out: that our command can become the Indescribable Force 's command. The internal dialogue stops in the same way it begins: by an act of will . After all, we are forced to start talking to ourselves by those who teach us. As they teach us, they engage their will and we engage ours, both without knowing it. As we learn to talk to ourselves, we learn to handle will . We will ourselves to talk to ourselves. The way to stop talking to ourselves is to use exactly the same method: we must will it, we must intend it.
      Infants are taught by everyone around them to repeat an endless dialogue about themselves. The dialogue becomes internalized, and that force alone keeps the assemblage point fixed.
      The internal dialogue is a process that constantly strengthens the position of the assemblage point, because that position is an arbitrary one and needs steady reinforcement.
      I have profound admiration for the human capacity to impart order to the chaos of the Indescribable Force 's emanations. Every one of us, in his own right, is a masterful magician and our magic is to keep our assemblage point unwaveringly fixed.
      The force of the emanations at large makes our assemblage point select certain emanations and cluster them for alignment and perception. That's the command of the Indescribable Force , but all the meaning that we give to what we perceive is our command, our gift of magic.
      The new seers say that since the exact position of the assemblage point is an arbitrary position chosen for us by our ancestors, it can move with a relatively small effort; once it moves, it forces new alignments of emanations, thus new perceptions.
      Power plants have that effect; but hunger, tiredness, fever, and other things like that can have a similar effect. The flaw of the average man is that he thinks the result of a shift is purely mental. It isn't.
      On both edges of man's band of emanations there is a strange storage of refuse, an incalculable pile of human junk.
      Any person can reach that storehouse by simply stopping his internal dialogue. If the shift is minimal, the results are explained as fantasies of the mind. If the shift is considerable, the results are called hallucinations.
      One of the most mysterious aspects of the seers' knowledge is the incredible effects of inner silence. Once inner silence is attained, the bonds that tie the assemblage point to the particular spot where it is placed begin to break and the assemblage point is free to move.
      If the assemblage point moves beyond a crucial threshold, the world vanishes; it ceases to be what it is to us at man's level.

  I've explained to you that man has an assemblage point and that that assemblage point aligns emanations for perception. We've also discussed that that point moves from its fixed position. Now, the last truth is that once that assemblage point moves beyond a certain limit, it can assemble worlds entirely different from the world we know.
      Without enough energy, the force of alignment is crushing. You have to have energy to sustain the pressure of alignments which never take place under ordinary circumstances.
      Warriors are in the world to train themselves to be unbiased witnesses, so as to understand the mystery of ourselves and relish the exultation of finding what we really are. This is the highest of the new seers' goals. And not every warrior attains it.
      To be a peerless nagual, one has to love freedom, and one has to have supreme detachment. What makes the warrior's path so very dangerous is that it is the opposite of the life situation of modern man. Modern man has left the realm of the unknown and the mysterious, and has settled down in the realm of the functional. He has turned his back to the world of the foreboding and the exulting and has welcomed the world of boredom.
      To be given a chance to go back again to the mystery of the world is sometimes too much for warriors, and they succumb; they are waylaid by what I've called the high adventure of the unknown. They forget the quest for freedom; they forget to be unbiased witnessed. They sink into the unknown and love it.
      In order to be unbiased witnesses, we begin by understanding that the fixation or the movement of the assemblage point is all there is to us and the world we witness, whatever that world might be.
      * * *
      The new seers say that when we were taught to talk to ourselves, we were taught the means to dull ourselves in order to keep the assemblage point fixed on one spot.
      * * *

A shift of the assemblage point to the area below its customary position allows the seer a detailed and narrow view of the world we know. So detailed is that view that it seems to be an entirely different world. It is a mesmerizing view that has a tremendous appeal, especially for those seers who have an adventurous but somehow indolent and lazy spirit.
      The change of perspective is very pleasant. Minimal effort is required, and the results are staggering. If a seer is driven by quick gain, there is no better maneuver than the shift below. The only problem is that in those positions of the assemblage point, seers are plagued by death, which happens even more brutally and more quickly than in man's position.
      My teacher thought it was a great place for cavorting, but that's all. A true change of worlds happens only when the assemblage point moves into man's band, deep enough to reach a crucial threshold, at which stage the assemblage point can use another of the great bands.
      How? It's a matter of energy. The force of alignment hooks another band, provided that the seer has enough energy. Our normal energy allows our assemblage points to use the force of alignment of one great band of emanations. And we perceive the world we know. But if we have a surplus of energy, we can use the force of alignment of other great bands, and consequently we perceive other worlds.
      This may seem like an oddity to you, but trees, for instance, are closer to man than ants. I've told you that trees and man can develop a great relationship; that's so because they share emanations.
      The cocoon of a giant tree is not much larger than the tree itself. The interesting part is that some tiny plants have a cocoon almost as big as a man's body and three times its width. Those are power plants. They share the largest amount of emanations with man, not the emanations of awareness, but other emanations in general.
      Another thing unique about plants is that their luminosities have different casts. They are pinkish in general, because their awareness is pink. Poisonous plants are a pale yellow pink and medicinal plants are a bright violet pink. The only ones that are white pink are power plants; some are murky white, others are brilliant white.
      But the real difference between plants and other organic beings is the location of their assemblage points. Plants have it on the lower part of their cocoon, while other organic beings have it on the upper part of their cocoon.
      With the inorganic beings, some have it on the lower part of their containers. Those are thoroughly alien to man, but akin to plants. Others have it anywhere on the upper part of their containers. Those are close to man and other organic creatures.
      The old seers were convinced that plants have the most intense communication with inorganic beings. They believed that the lower the assemblage point, the easier for plants to break the barrier of perception; very large trees and very small plants have their assemblage points extremely low in their cocoon. Because of this, a great number of the old seers' sorcery techniques were means to harness the awareness of trees and small plants in order to use them as guides to descend to what they called the deepest levels of the dark regions.
      You understand, of course, that when they thought they were descending to the depths, they were, in fact, pushing their assemblage points to assemble other perceivable worlds with those seven great bands. They taxed their awareness to the limit and assembled worlds with five great bands that are accessible to seers only if they undergo a dangerous transformation. In their aberration they believed it was worth their while to break all the barriers of perception, even if they had to become trees to do that.
 

It is very easy in the path of knowledge to get lost in intricacies and morbidity. Seers are up against great enemies that can destroy their purpose, muddle their aims, and make them weak; enemies created by the warrior's path itself together with the sense of indolence, laziness, and self-importance that are integral parts of the daily world.
      The mistakes the ancient seers made as a result of indolence, laziness, and self-importance were so enormous and so grave that the new seers had no option but to scorn and reject their own tradition.
      The most important thing the new seers needed was practical steps in order to make their assemblage points shift. Since they had none, they began by developing a keen interest in seeing the glow of awareness, and as a result they worked out three sets of techniques that became their cornerstone.
      With these three sets, the new seers accomplished a most extraordinary and difficult feat. They succeeded in systematically making the assemblage point shift away from its customary position. The old seers had also accomplished that feat, but by means of capricious, idiosyncratic maneuvers.
      What the new seers saw in the glow of awareness resulted in the sequence in which they arranged the old seers' truths about awareness. This is known as the mastery of awareness. From that, they developed the three sets of techniques. The first is the mastery of stalking , the second is the mastery of intent , and the third is the mastery of dreaming . I taught you these three sets from the very first day we met.
      Stalking had very humble and fortuitous origins. It started from an observation the new seers made that when warriors steadily behave in ways not customary for them, the unused emanations inside their cocoons begin to glow. And their assemblage points shift in a mild, harmonious, barely noticeable fashion.
      Stimulated by this observation, the new seers began to practice the systematic control of their behavior. They called this practice the art of stalking . The name, although objectionable, is appropriate, because stalking entails a specific kind of behavior with people, behavior that can be categorized as surreptitious.
      The new seers, armed with this technique, tackled the known in a sober and fruitful way. By continual practice, they made their assemblage points move steadily.
      Stalking is one of the two greatest accomplishments of the new seers. And stalking is merely behavior with people.
      You can now understand that shifting the assemblage point was the reason why the new seers placed such a high value on the interaction with petty tyrants. Petty tyrants force seers to use the principles of stalking and, in doing so, help seers to move their assemblage points.
      Stalking belongs exclusively to the new seers. They are the only seers who have to deal with people. The old ones were so wrapped up in their sense of power that they didn't even know that people existed, until people started clobbering them on the head.
      The mastery of intent together with the mastery of stalking are the new seers' two masterpieces, which mark the arrival of the modern-day seers. In their efforts to gain an advantage over their oppressors the new seers pursued every possibility. They knew that their predecessors had accomplished extraordinary feats by manipulating a mysterious and miraculous force, which they could only describe as power. The new seers had very little information about that force, so they were obliged to examine it systematically through seeing . Their efforts were amply rewarded when they discovered that the energy of alignment is that force.
      They began by seeing how the glow of awareness increases in size and intensity as the emanations inside the cocoon are aligned with the emanations at large. They used that observation as a springboard, just as they had done with stalking , and went on to develop a complex series of techniques to handle that alignment of emanations.
      At first they referred to those techniques as the mastery of alignment. Then they realized that what is involved is much more than alignment; what is involved is the energy that comes out of the alignment of emanations. They called that energy will .
      Will became the second basis. The new seers understood it as a blind, impersonal, ceaseless burst of energy that makes us behave in the ways we do. Will accounts for our perception of the world of ordinary affairs, and indirectly, through the force of that perception, it accounts for the placement of the assemblage point in its customary position.
      The new seers examined how the perception of the world of everyday life takes place and saw the effects of will . They saw that alignment is ceaselessly renewed in order to imbue perception with continuity. To renew alignment every time with the freshness that it needs to make up a living world, the burst of energy that comes out of those very alignments is automatically rerouted to reinforce some choice alignments.
      This new observation served the new seers as another springboard that helped them reach the third basis of the set. They called it intent , and they described it as the purposeful guiding of will , the energy of alignment.
      As time passed and the new seers established their practices, they realized that under the prevailing conditions of life, stalking only moved the assemblage points minimally. For maximum effect, stalking needed an ideal setting; it needed petty tyrants in positions of great authority and power. It became increasingly difficult for the new seers to place themselves in such situations; the task of improvising them or seeking them out became an unbearable burden.
      The new seers deemed it imperative to see the Indescribable Force 's emanations in order to find a more suitable way to move the assemblage point. As they tried to see the emanations they were faced with a very serious problem. They found out that there is no way to see them without running a mortal risk, and yet they had to see them. That was the time when they used the old seers' technique of dreaming as a shield to protect themselves from the deadly blow of the Indescribable Force 's emanations. And in doing so, they realized that dreaming was in itself the most effective way to move the assemblage point.
      One of the strictest commands of the new seers was that warriors have to learn dreaming while they are in their normal state of awareness. Following that command, I began teaching you dreaming almost from the first day we met.
      Dreaming has to be taught in normal awareness because dreaming is so dangerous and dreamers so vulnerable. It is dangerous became it has inconceivable power; it makes dreamers vulnerable because it leaves them at the mercy of the incomprehensible force of alignment.
      The new seers realized that in our normal state of awareness, we have countless defences that can safeguard us against the force of unused emanations that suddenly become aligned in dreaming .
      Dreaming , like stalking , began with a simple observation. The old seers became aware that in dreams the assemblage point shifts slightly to the left side in a most natural manner. That point indeed relaxes when man sleeps and all kinds of unused emanations begin to glow.
      The old seers became immediately intrigued with that observation and began to work with that natural shift until they were able to control it. They called that control dreaming , or the art of handling the dreaming body.
      There is hardly a way of describing the immensity of their knowledge about dreaming . Very little of it, however, was of any use to the new seers. So when the time of reconstruction came, the new seers took for themselves only the bare essentials of dreaming to aid them in seeing the Indescribable Force 's emanations and to help them move their assemblage points.
      Seers, old and new, understand dreaming as being the control of the natural shift that the assemblage point undergoes in sleep. To control that shift does not mean in any way to direct it, but to keep the assemblage point fixed at the position where it naturally moves in sleep, a most difficult maneuver that took the old seers' enormous effort and concentration to accomplish.
      Dreamers have to strike a very subtle balance, for dreams cannot be interfered with, nor can they be commanded by the conscious effort of the dreamer , and yet the shift of the assemblage point must obey the dreamer 's command--a contradiction that cannot be rationalized but must be resolved in practice.
      After observing dreamers while they slept, the old seers hit upon the solution of letting dreams follow their natural course. They have seen that in some dreams, the assemblage point of the dreamer would drift considerably deeper into the left side than in other dreams. This observation posed to them the question of whether the content of the dream makes the assemblage point move, or the movement of the assemblage point by itself produces the content of the dream by activating unused emanations.
      They soon realized that the shifting of the assemblage point into the left side is what produces dreams. The farther the movement, the more vivid and bizarre the dream. Inevitably, they attempted to command their dreams, aiming to make their assemblage points move deeply into the left side. Upon trying it, they discovered that when dreams are consciously or semiconsciously manipulated, the assemblage point immediately returns to its usual place. Since what they wanted was for that point to move, they reached the unavoidable conclusion that interfering with dreams was interfering with the natural shift of the assemblage point.
      From there the old seers went on to develop their astounding knowledge on the subject--a knowledge which had a tremendous bearing on what the new seers aspired to do with dreaming , but was of little use to them in its original form.
      Thus far you have understood dreaming as being the control of dreams, and every one of the exercised I have given you to perform, such as finding your hands in your dreams, was not, although it might seem to be, aimed at teaching you to command your dreams. Those exercises were designed to keep your assemblage point fixed at the place where it had moved in your sleep. It is here that the dreamers have to strike a subtle balance. All they can direct is the fixation of their assemblage points. Seers are like fishermen equipped with a line that casts itself wherever it may; the only thing they can do is keep the line anchored at the place where it sinks.
      Wherever the assemblage point moves in dreams is called the dreaming position. The old seers became so expert at keeping their dreaming position that they were even able to wake up while their assemblage points were anchored there.
      The old seers called that state the dreaming body , because they controlled it to the extreme of creating a temporary new body every time they woke up at a new dreaming position . I have to make it clear to you that dreaming has a terrible drawback. It belongs to the old seers. It's tainted with their mood. I've been very careful in guiding you through it, but still there is no way to make sure.
      I'm warning you about the pitfalls of dreaming , which are truly stupendous. In dreaming , there is really no way of directing the movement of the assemblage point; the only thing that dictates that shift is the inner strength or weakness of dreamers . Right there we have the first pitfall.
      At first the new seers were hesitant to use dreaming . It was their belief that dreaming , instead of fortifying, made warriors weak, compulsive, capricious. The old seers were all like that. In order to offset the nefarious effect of dreaming , since they had no other option but to use it, the new seers developed a complex and rich system of behavior called the warrior's way, or the warrior's path.
      With that system, the new seers fortified themselves and acquired the internal strength they needed to guide the shift of the assemblage point in dreams. The strength that I am talking about is not conviction alone. No one could have had stronger convictions than the old seers, and yet they were weak to the core. Internal strength means a sense of equanimity, almost of indifference, a feeling of being at ease, but, above all, it means a natural and profound bent for examination, for understanding. The new seers called all these traits of character sobriety.
      The conviction that the new seers have is that a life of impeccability by itself leads unavoidably to a sense of sobriety, and this in turn leads to the movement of the assemblage point.
      I've said that the new seers believed that the assemblage point can be moved from within. They went one step further and maintained that impeccable men need no one to guide them, that by themselves, through saving their energy, they can do everything that seers do. All they need is a minimal chance, just to be cognizant of the possibilities that seers have unraveled.
      All that is required is impeccability, energy, and that begins with a single act that has to be deliberate, precise, and sustained. If that act is repeated long enough, one acquires a sense of unbending intent , which can be applied to anything else. If that is accomplished the road is clear. One thing will lead to another until the warrior realizes his full potential. When a warrior understands all of that, it will indeed be a godsent example of the strength that I am talking about. At that point his assemblage point will have shifted, it will have been moved by sobriety to a position that fosters understanding, instead of being moved by capriciousness, to a position that only enhances self-importance.
      * * *
      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.
     
  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.
      There's one thing you haven't understood yet about the earth's being a sentient being; that the supreme awareness of the earth is what makes it possible for us to change into other great bands of emanations.
      We living beings are perceivers. And we perceive because some emanations inside man's cocoon become aligned with some emanations outside. Alignment, therefore, is the secret passageway, and the earth's boost is the key.
      Alignment has to be a very peaceful, unnoticeable act. The sobriety needed to let the assemblage point assemble other worlds is something that cannot be improvised. Sobriety has to mature and become a force in itself before warriors can break the barrier of perception with impunity.
      The position of the assemblage point is everything, and the world it makes us perceive is so real that it does not leave room for anything except realness.
      When the assemblage point assembles a world, that world is total. This is the marvel that the old seers stumbled upon and never realized what it was; the awareness of the earth can give us a boost to align other great bands of emanations, and the force of that new alignment makes the world vanish.
      Every time the old seers made a new alignment, they believed they had descended to the depths below or ascended to the heavens above. They never knew that the world disappears like a puff of air when a new total alignment makes us perceive another total world.

To see the Indescribable Force 's emanations you must first move your assemblage point until you see the cocoon of man.
      Alignment is a unique force because it either helps the assemblage point shift, or it keeps it glued to its customary position. The aspect of alignment that keeps the point stationary is will ; and the aspect that makes it shift is intent . One of the most haunting mysteries is how will , the impersonal force of alignment, changes into intent , the personalized force, which is at the service of each individual.
      The strangest part of this mystery is that the change is so easy to accomplish. But what is not so easy is to convince ourselves that it is possible. There, right there, is our safety catch. We have to be convinced. And none of us wants to be.
      It is possible for you to intend your assemblage point to shift deeper into your left side, to a dreaming position . Warriors should never attempt seeing unless they are aided by dreaming .
      To move the assemblage point away from its natural setting and to keep it fixed at a new location is to be asleep; with practice, seers learn to be asleep and yet behave as if nothing is happening to them.
 

For purposes of seeing the cocoon of man, one has to gaze at people from behind, as they walk away. It is useless to gaze at people face to face, because the front of the egglike cocoon of man has a protective shield, which seers call the front plate. It is an almost impregnable, unyielding shield that protects us throughout our lives against the onslaught of a peculiar force that stems from the emanations themselves called the rolling force, or the tumbler.
      The tumbler is a force from the Indescribable Force 's emanations. A ceaseless force that strikes us every instant of our lives. It is lethal when seen , but otherwise we are oblivious to it, in our ordinary lives, because we have protective shields. We have consuming interests that engage all our awareness. We are permanently worried about our station, our possessions. These shields, however, do not keep the tumbler away, they simply keep us from seeing it directly, protecting us in this way from getting hurt by the fright of seeing the balls of fire hitting us. Shields are a great help and a great hindrance to us. They pacify us and at the same time fool us. They give us a false sense of security.
      A moment will come in your life when you will be without any shields, uninterruptedly at the mercy of the tumbler. It is an obligatory stage in the life of a warrior known as losing the human form.
      Seers describe the human form as the compelling force of alignment of the emanations lit by the glow of awareness on the precise spot on which normally man's assemblage point is fixated. It is the force that makes us into persons. Thus, to be a person is to be compelled to affiliate with that force of alignment and consequently to be affiliated with the precise spot where it originates.
      By reason of their activities, at a given moment the assemblage point of warriors drift toward the left. It is a permanent move, which results in an uncommon sense of aloofness, or control, or even abandon. That drift of the assemblage point entails a new alignment of emanations. It is the beginning of a series of greater shifts. Seers very aptly called this initial shift losing the human form, because it marks an inexorable movement of the assemblage point away from its original setting, resulting in the irreversible loss of our affiliation to the force that makes us persons.
      * * *
      Seeing is a euphemism for moving the assemblage point. * * *
      There are balls of fire that are of crucial importance to human beings because they are the expression of a force that pertains to all details of life and death, something that the new seers called the rolling force.
      The rolling force is the means through which the Indescribable Force distributes live and awareness for safekeeping. But it also is the force that, let's say, collects the rent. It makes all living beings die. The ancient seers describe the tumbler as an eternal line of iridescent rings, or balls of fire, that roll onto living beings ceaselessly.
      Luminous organic beings meet to rolling force head on, until the day when the force proves to be too much for them and the creatures finally collapse.
      By becoming familiar with the rolling force through the mastery of intent , the new seers, at a given moment, open their own cocoons and the force floods them rather than rolling them up like a curled-up sowbug. The final result is their total and instantaneous disintegration.
     
      Move your assemblage point, first by setting up your unbending intent to move it, and second by letting the context of the situation dictate where it should move. Don't worry about procedures, because most of the really unusual things that happen to seers, or to the average man for that matter, happen by themselves, with only the intervention of intent . You are not consciously refusing to let your assemblage point move. Every human being does that automatically.
      Something is going to scare the living daylights out of you. Don't give up, because if you do, you'll die. Warriors live with death at their side, and from the knowledge that death is with them they draw the courage to face anything. The worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have anything to fear.
      * * *
      Your first attention doesn't want to give up control. * * *
      A shift of the assemblage point is marked by a change in light. In the daytime, light becomes very dark; at night, darkness becomes twilight. Don't indulge in fear, especially after you have realized that warriors have nothing to fear. When fear disappears all the ties that bind us dissolve.
      * * *
      The earth's boost is the force of alignment of only the amber emanations. It is a boost that heightens awareness to unthinkable degrees. To the new seers it is a blast of unlimited consciousness, which they call total freedom.
      The tumbler's boost, on the other hand, is the force of death. Under the impact of the tumbler, the assemblage point moves to new, unpredictable positions.
      Technically, as soon as the assemblage point shifts, we are asleep. You are absolutely asleep without having to be stretched out.
      During normal sleep, the shift of the assemblage point runs along either edge of man's band. Such shifts are always coupled with slumber. Shifts that are induced by practice occur along the midsection of man's band and are not coupled with slumber, yet a dreamer is asleep.
      The new seers maintain their assemblage points along the midsection of man's band. If the shift is a shallow one, like the shift into heightened awareness, the dreamer is almost like anyone else in the street, except for a slight vulnerability to emotions, such as fear and doubt. But at a certain degree of depth, the dreamer who is shifting along the midsection becomes a blob of light. A blob of light is the dreaming body of the new seers. Such an impersonal dreaming body is conducive to understanding and examination, which are the basis of all that the new seers do.
     
      I have given you a detailed account of the two forces that aid our assemblage points to move: the earth's boost and the rolling force; plus the three techniques worked out by the new seers--stalking , intent , and dreaming --and their effects on the movement of the assemblage point.
      Now, the only thing left for you to do before the explanation of the mastery of awareness is complete is to break the barrier of perception by yourself. You must move your assemblage point, unaided by anyone, and align another great band of emanations. Not to do this will turn everything you've learned and done with me into merely talk, just words. And words are fairly cheap.
      When the assemblage point is moving away from its customary position and reaches a certain depth, it breaks a barrier that momentarily disrupts its capacity to align emanations. We experience it as a moment of perceptual blankness. The old seers called that moment the wall of fog, because a bank of fog appears whenever the alignment of emanations falters.
      There are three ways of dealing with it. It can be taken abstractly as a barrier of perception; it can be felt as the act of piercing a tight paper screen with the entire body; or it can be seen as a wall of fog.
      There is great comfort and ease in seeing it as a wall of fog, but there is also the grave danger of turning something incomprehensible into something somber and foreboding; hence, my recommendation is to keep incomprehensible things incomprehensible rather than making them part of the inventory of the first attention.
      Exercises of assembling other worlds allow the assemblage point to gain experience in shifting. The initial boost to dislodge your assemblage point from its usual position comes from intent . Since alignment is the force that is involved in everything, intent is what makes the assemblage point move.
      The mastery of awareness is what gives the assemblage point its boost. After all, there is really very little to us human beings; we are, in essence, an assemblage point fixed at a certain position. Our enemy and at the same time our friend is our internal dialogue, our inventory. Be a warrior; shut off your internal dialogue; make your inventory and then throw it away. The new seers make accurate inventories and then laugh at them. Without the inventory the assemblage point becomes free.
      * * *
      The mold of man is a huge cluster of emanations in the great band of organic life. It is called the mold of man because the cluster appears only inside the cocoon of man.
      The mold of man is the portion of the Indescribable Force 's emanations that seers can see directly without any danger to themselves.
      To break the barrier of perception is the last task of the mastery of awareness. In order to move your assemblage point to that position you must gather enough energy.
      Anger is a natural reaction to the hesitation of the assemblage point to move on command. It will be a long time before you can apply the principle that your command is the Indescribable Force 's command. That's the essence of the mastery of intent . In the meantime, make a command now not to fret, not even at the worst moments of doubt. It will be a slow process until that command is heard and obeyed as if it were the Indescribable Force 's command.
      There is an unmeasurable area of awareness in between the customary position of the assemblage point and the position where there are no more doubts, which is almost the place where the barrier of perception makes its appearance. In that unmeasurable area, warriors fall prey to every conceivable misdeed. Be on the lookout and don't lose confidence, for you will unavoidably be struck at one time or another by gripping feelings of defeat.
      The new seers recommend a very simple act when impatience, or despair, or anger, or sadness comes their way. They recommend that warriors roll their eyes. Any direction will do; I prefer to roll mine clockwise. The movement of the eyes makes the assemblage point shift momentarily. In that movement, you will find relief. This is in lieu of true mastery of intent .
      To see the mold of man on your own, unaided by anyone, is an important step, because all of us have certain ideas that must be broken before we are free; the seer who travels into the unknown to see the unknowable must be in an impeccable state of being. To be in an impeccable state of being is to be free of rational assumptions and rational fears.
      The old seers as well as the mystics of our world have one thing in common--they have been able to see the mold of man but not understand what it is. Mystics, throughout the centuries, have given us moving accounts of their experiences. But these accounts, however beautiful, are flawed by the gross and despairing mistake of believing the mold of man to be an omnipotent, omniscient creator; and so is the interpretation of the old seers, who called the mold of man a friendly spirit, a protector of man.
      The new seers are the only ones who have the sobriety to see the mold of man and understand what it is; the pattern of every human attribute we can think of and some we cannot even conceive. We are what it stamps us with.
      Anyone who sees the mold of man automatically assumes that it is God. The new seers have seen that what we call God is a static prototype of humanness without any power. We are simply the product of its stamp; we are its impression. The mold of man is exactly what its name tells us it is, a pattern, a form, a cast that groups together a particular bunch of fiberlike elements, which we call man.
      * * *
      Real affection cannot be an investment.
      * * *
      There are two ways of seeing the mold of man. You can see it as a man or you can see it as a light. That depends on the shift of the assemblage point. If the shift is lateral, the mold is a human being; if the shift is in the midsection of man's band, the mold is a light.
      The position where one sees the mold of man is very close to that where the dreaming body and the barrier of perception appear. That is the reason the new seers recommend that the mold of man be seen and understood.
     
      Freedom is like a contagious disease. It is transmitted; its carrier is an impeccable nagual. People might not appreciate that, and that's because they don't want to be free. Freedom is frightening. Remember that. But not for us.
      * * *
      The dreaming body and the barrier of perception are positions of the assemblage point, and that knowledge is as vital to seers as knowing how to read and write is to modern man. Both are accomplishments attained after years of practice.
      The dreaming body is known by different names. The name I like the best is, the Other. We can be in two places at once, we can experience a sort of perceptual dualism. There is no end to the mystery of man and to the mystery of the world.
      The only thing that soothes those who journey into the unknown, is oblivion. What a relief to be in the ordinary world!
      For warriors, there are two positions of the assemblage point where there are no more doubts. In one you have no more doubts because you know everything. In the other, which is normal awareness, you have no doubts because you don't know anything.
      No rational assumptions should interfere with the actions of a seer. Rationality is a condition of alignment, merely the result of the position of the assemblage point. You have to understand this when you are in a state of great vulnerability. To understand it when your assemblage point has reached the position where there are no doubts is useless, because realizations of that nature are commonplace in that position. It is equally useless to understand it in a state of normal awareness; in that state, such realizations are emotional outbursts that are valid only for as long as the emotion lasts.
      You can travel by waking up at a distant dreaming position. By moving your assemblage point from normal awareness all the way to the position where the dreaming body appears, your dreaming body can actually fly over incredible distances in the blink of an eyelid. The mystery is in the dreaming position. If it is strong enough to pull you, you can go to the ends of this world or beyond it, just as the old seers did. They disappeared from this world because they woke up at a dreaming position beyond the limits of the known.
     
There is no way of knowing how it is done. Strong emotion or unbending intent , or great interest serves as a guide; then the assemblage point gets powerfully fixed at the dreaming position , long enough to drag there all the emanations that are inside the cocoon.
      * * *
      Now you need to have one last clarification: the coherent but irrational realization that everything in the world we have learned to perceive is inextricably tied to the position where the assemblage point is located. If the assemblage point is displaced from that position, the world will cease to be what it is to us.
      A displacement of the assemblage point beyond the midline of the cocoon of man makes the entire world we know vanish from our view in one instant, as if it had been erased--for the stability, the substantiality, that seems to belong to our perceivable world is just the force of alignment. Certain emanations are routinely aligned because of the fixation of the assemblage point on one specific spot; that is all there is to our world.
      The soundness of the world is not the mirage. The mirage is the fixation of the assemblage point on any spot. When seers shift their assemblage points, they are not confronted with an illusion, they are confronted with another world; that new world is as real as the one we are watching now, but the new fixation of their assemblage points, which produces that new world, is as much of a mirage as the old fixation.
      There is probably no way to soothe anyone who realizes the journey of the dreaming body.
     
* * *
      You say that you feel terribly sad. Who cares about sadness? Think only of the mysteries; mystery is all that matters. We are living beings; we have to die and relinquish our awareness. But if we could change just a tinge of that, what mysteries must await us! What mysteries!
     
      Warriors end their training when they are capable of breaking the barrier of perception, unaided, starting from a normal state of awareness.
      The only force that can temporarily cancel out alignment is alignment. By intending a new position for your assemblage point and by intending to keep it fixed their long enough, you will assemble another of the seven worlds and escape this one. You'll be separated from your normal world by the very barrier that you have broken: the barrier of perception. But you will remain. That is the mystery.
      The wall of fog, the plain with yellow dunes, the world of the apparitions--all are lateral alignments that our assemblage points make as they approach a crucial position.
      To assemble other worlds is not only a matter of practice, but a matter of intent . And it isn't merely an exercise of bouncing out of those worlds, like being pulled by a rubber band. You see, a seer has to be daring. Once you break the barrier of perception, you don't have to come back to the same place in the world. See what I mean.
      For warriors the danger of assembling other worlds is that those worlds are as possessive as our world. The force of alignment is such that once the assemblage point breaks away from its normal position, it becomes fixed at other positions, by other alignments, and warriors run the risk of getting stranded in inconceivable aloneness.
      Breaking the barrier of perception is the culmination of everything seers do. From the moment that barrier is broken, man and his fate take on a different meaning for warriors.
      What you are going to do is to make this world vanish. But you are going to remain somewhat yourself. This is the ultimate bastion of awareness, the one the new seers count on. They know that after they burn with consciousness, they somewhat retain the sense of being themselves.
      This street, like all others, leads to eternity. All you have to do is follow it in total silence.
     
      Intend the movement of your assemblage point. You must remember that intent begins with a command.
      If warriors are going to have an internal dialogue, they should have the proper dialogue. That's the detached manipulation of intent through sober commands.
      The manipulation of intent begins with a command given to oneself; the command is then repeated until it becomes the Indescribable Force 's command, and then the assemblage point shifts, accordingly, the moment warriors reach inner silence.
      The fact that such a maneuver is possible is something of the most singular importance to seers. It means escaping the Indescribable Force by moving their assemblage points to a particular dreaming position called total freedom.
      The old seers discovered that it is possible to move the assemblage point to the limit of the known and keep it fixed there in a state of prime heightened awareness. From that position, they saw the feasibility of slowly shifting their assemblage points permanently to other positions beyond that limit--a stupendous feat fraught with daring but lacking sobriety, for they could never retract the movement of their assemblage points, or perhaps they never wanted to.
      Adventurous men, faced with the choice of dying in the world of ordinary affairs or dying in unknown worlds, will unavoidably choose the latter. The new seers, realizing that their predecessors had chosen merely to change the locale of their death, came to understand the futility of it all; The futility of struggling to control their fellow men, the futility of assembling other worlds, and, above all, the futility of self-importance.
      One of the most fortunate decisions that the new seers made was never to allow their assemblage points to move permanently to any position other than heightened awareness. From that position, they actually resolved their dilemma of futility and found out that the solution is not simply to choose an alternate world in which to die, but to choose total consciousness, total freedom.
      By choosing total freedom, the new seers unwittingly continued in the tradition of their predecessors and became the quintessence of the death defiers.
      The new seers discovered that if the assemblage point is made to shift constantly to the confines of the unknown, but is made to return to a position at the limit of the known, then when it is suddenly released it moves like lightning across the entire cocoon of man, aligning all the emanations inside the cocoon at once.
      The new seers burn with the force of alignment, with the force of will , which they have turned into the force of intent through a life of impeccability. Intent is the alignment of all the amber emanations of awareness, so it is correct to say that total freedom means total awareness.
      Freedom is the Indescribable Force 's gift to man. Unfortunately, very few men understand that all we need, in order to accept such a magnificent gift, is to have sufficient energy. If that's all we need, then, by all means, we must become misers of energy in order to accept the Indescribable Force 's gift ourselves