Carlos Castaneda Part 2

Here is another installment of Stephanie's view of Carlos Castaneda.

Moving the Assemblage Point – Shifting your awareness away from the usual filters though which you view reality.

Don Juan described the assemblage point as the energetic nexus of awareness located between the shoulder blades. I understood this to be the anchor of my physical, earthly concept of reality. My identity is defined by the way I am programmed to view the world, and since birth, as each day passed, my anchor gained mass until my personality became so fixed that very few influences were capable of shifting my concept of existence. So much so, that any personal goals and desires which contradicted this fixed anchor of perception were very difficult to implement – as they required a vast amount of energy to alter my anchor.

I am speaking of myself in the past tense, as though I am now able to morph my identity with ease.  This is not the case.  I am very much ME – with ego intact. My filters of perception are fully fixed. However, I am keenly aware of them, and the hold they have over me.

But, I recognize that there is another ‘I’, a higher ‘I’, which is the seer – wearing my filters as goggles. And if my goggles change, that ‘I’ never stops being the seer – it just watches a new show.

I also recognize that there is another ‘I’, the ‘I’ which exists between the two planes of awareness, the ‘I’ that has the ability to alter the goggles – the programmer – the ‘I’ which can manipulate the filters of the mind – the ‘I’ which is continually aware of the fixed nature of the filters – and in that manner – somewhat free from their gravity – the ‘I’ that is self-aware.

By moving this fixed assemblage point of perception, the ‘I’ of self-awareness is shifted and becomes even more detached – closer the ‘I’ of the Seer.

Don Juan began his teachings with Carlos by trying to instill a level of command over his assemblage point. He did this with a variety of exercises to slowly erode the anchor of awareness, while occasionally shocking his assemblage point into abrupt shifts to convince Carlos that his reality could, in fact, be altered – drastically.

I’ll talk next about the methods, and my attempts, to slowly erode the dense anchor which holds my assemblage point fixed…