The matter concerning the assemblage point is very well illustrated in Castaneda’s books through Don Juan’s explanations. Therefore, I will just add a few details and provide connections that, I hope, may further clarify this subject.
To seers, living beings appear as aggregations of energy fields kept together by a force, an aspect of the energy, that the Toltecs called the “vibratory aspect of energy” or “the shiny side of infinity.” This aspect of energy is actually what keeps a being together as a unit. When this aspect of energy fails, also the being’s unity ceases, and infinity can seep through the emanations inside; at that point, death takes the upper hand.
Beings that belong to a specific world (or universe) undergo the pressure of the emanations that make up that universe, that is, that alignment. Their internal energy fields can do nothing but to respond to such pressure, assuming the same alignment as the world they are part of.
This pressure forces a certain portion of the energy fields that are within the being to converge into a specific point, that warriors call “assemblage point.” The assemblage point exists of its own accord, it is potentially independent; it guides the exact alignment. The definition of assemblage point clarifies the effect of the concentration of the emanations inside and of their correspondence with the alignment: that is the area in which awareness is unified, producing the perception and then the interpretation of the world. As a matter of fact, we ARE the position of the assemblage point, as it determines both the nature of the world we belong to, and our personal traits, up to the finest details.
The assemblage point position is not natural; rather, it is induced, every species learns the exact location through a socially shared educational process. This process has a practical purpose: sharing the same interpretation of the world with one’s fellow beings. From the moment we are born, every one of our fellow beings teaches us the exact perceptual definitions of the elements that make up the world of humans, until we have an inventory of the world at our disposal. This inventory is continuously sustained and reiterated through the inner dialogue. That is why we, together with the state of reality in which we live, basically are the position of the assemblage point.
We could easily get rid of the current inventory, simply by interrupting the inner dialogue and letting the energy body create a new alignment. The problem, however, is the attention mode we have acquired. In order to fix in such a precise and final way the position of the assemblage point, we have learned rituals that obsessively channel the attention onto insignificant details of the world. Thus, these details become linchpins that condense attention, which channels the available energy and blocks the natural movement of the assemblage point.
All of our energy is used in this perverse mechanism, and this happens when we are awake as well as when we sleep. Indeed, although the assemblage point is free to move while we dream (that is why dreams enjoy other rules), the way we use our attention in the new alignments is the same that we have learned in the ordinary position. This is the main reason why it is so difficult to have lucid dreams and especially to sustain them in a sufficiently coherent and continuous way.
What we need is, first of all, a new attention mode. To obtain this new attention mode, modern seers have developed an unfailing system that combines energetic availability, sobriety, inner strength, and unbending intent. This method is the struggle against the feeling of self-importance or better, as my teachers used to define it, the concentration on the self.
I said above that our attention mode is defined by the focus on insignificant details of the world. Well, what mostly affects our attention is the concentration on our own image and on maintaining it. Success in unblocking the ensuing coercive flow carries out as a consequence the immediate repositioning of the assemblage point into locations that are a great deal more efficient, such as the place of efficiency (or of no-pity) and of silent knowledge.
