Page:Para leer a Carlos Castaneda.djvu/118

 The Toltec "saw" that the lace point moves a little when people are dreaming. This movement is involuntary and erratic, but it is "movement". So, after observing and practicing for hundreds of years the Toltec were able to develop methods to move "the lace point" at will.

The first is that only the filaments passing exactly at the lace point become coherent perceptions.

The second is that when the lace point moves in any direction, albeit slightly, different strands begin passing through the lace point, which leads to a different perception.

The third is that they saw in the dream the lace point moves slightly by itself on the luminous egg surface or towards its interior.

The fourth is that through a disciplined technique, called "the dreaming art", the lace point could be moved in dreams at will.

And the fifth was, they saw that the lace point can be moved outside of the luminous egg and become in contact with the energy universe, beyond the human.

The Castaneda text deals with the impossible in an absurd manner. Through a methodology that seems fantastic, and he calls "the seven dream gates", pretending that common dream becomes the mechanism which the practitioner uses to temper the energy body, to make it coherent and flexible as the physical body, exercising little by little, through an iron discipline that seems impossible to sustain for long time (entire years) with a sustained effort, without ambition or obsession. This would be the key Toltequity achievement and the means to achieve freedom.

When the energy body is condensed it is possible to turn it into a unit capable of perceiving independently from the physical body perception. This is achieved not only with the reverie practice, but obtain energy, requires modifying the behavior during vigil, to rechannel the energy needed to maintain focus on the dream. As it has repeatedly been said throughout the Castaneda work, the way in which we spend most of the energy depends on the need to maintain and enhance personal importance, base of our being, and at the same time, of our major constraint. As humans do not "create" more energy than they have, must save and rechannel what they have.

Don Juan taught Castaneda that the "dreaming art" is the lace point displacement, and "the stalking art" means fixing the lace point anywhere it shifts to. That is why these two techniques are complementing and mutually irreplaceable.

The text, as Castaneda noticed, gradually becomes, fantastic and incredible. In Castaneda dreams appear the "trackers, explorers and emissaries". The inorganic beings world the author begins to perceive through