Encounters With The Nagual: Part 2 - Chapter 25. Perceptual Homogenization.

Encounters With The Nagual © 2004 by Armando Torres:

Part 2 - Chapter 25. Perceptual Homogenization.

One afternoon Carlos was talking to a group of us about the characteristics of perception. He told us that human beings have inherited from the dinosaurs the trait of seeing the sky as a blue color. On the other hand, Carlos claimed that our relatives, the primates, see the sky as a yellow color.

Answering a question from someone, Carlos described the world in which we live as 'a conglomeration of interpretation units.'

Understanding that this definition was an obscure one for his listeners, Carlos explained, saying, "Man belongs to the primate group . His great fortune though is that he can achieve unique expressions of awareness due to his capacity for attention and analysis.

"However, pure perception is always interfered with by the way we interpret, and our reality molds itself to our description.

"The goal of sorcerers is to perceive all that is humanly possible. Since we can not escape our biological condition, let us be sublime monkeys.

"To perfect our understanding, the path of attention is all we have got."

That same night I had an opportunity to talk with Carlos, and I asked him to break his statements into smaller pieces for me.

He said, "Due to our biological condition, we all work as units of perception, and it is possible for us to make a miracle of attention; 'perceptual homogenization'."

I asked, "What does 'units of perception' mean?"

Carlos answered, "It means that, since we are autonomous beings, our perception could also be autonomous.

"But it is not because by coming to an agreement with our fellow men, we all perceive the same thing. That extraordinary ability, which began as a voluntary consent aimed at survival, has ended up tying us to our own descriptions."

Carlos affirmed that the flow of the Eagle's emanations is continually new and disconcerting, but we do not see it.

He said, "We live three steps removed from the real world because of our innate sensitivity, our biological interpretations, and our social agreement.

"Those steps do not happen simultaneously, but their speed is superior to anything we can consciously determine. Because of that, we simply take for a fact the world we perceive."

I asked Carlos to to give me an example.

He answered, "Imagine that at this moment you witness a group of the Eagle's emanations.

"Automatically, you transform it into something sensorial with characteristics like brightness, sound, movement, etc. Then memory intervenes, and since it is under the obligation to give everything meaning, you recognize what you are witnessing, as for example, another person.

"Lastly, your social inventory classifies that person by comparing the person with all of those you know, and that classification allows you to identify that person.

"By then you are a good distance away from the real fact of the Eagle's emanations which are both indescribable, as well as unique.

"The same thing happens with everything we see.

"Our comprehension is the result of a long process of purifications, or 'skimmings', as Don Juan called them. We skim everything, and in that way we modify the world that surrounds us to such an extent that there is very little left of the original.

"Although this situation helps us to live under better conditions, it also enslaves us to our own creation, and makes us predictable.

"When we homogenize our assemblage points, the only things we allow ourselves to perceive are those which do not go against our preconceived idea of the world.

"We are like horses who after learning a path can no longer enjoy their freedom. All they do is to repeat a pattern.

"That homogeneity is frightful. It is too much. Start thinking! Something is missing!"

Carlos maintained that any preconceived idea, even something as simple as the names we give things, keeps us tied to reason because it forces us to create mechanisms of judgement.

He said, "For example, when you say: 'I believe in God', in fact you are saying, 'They told me certain ideas and I have chosen to adopt them. Now I will even kill for them'.

"Therefore, you are not the one who decides. It is something else; an implanted judgement.

"The ideal thing is that you determine your life starting from your own experience.

"If your belief takes something away from you, beware. Everything that does not make you free enslaves you.

"Being focused on a particular aspect of the human inventory has two effects. It turns us into specialists in our field, but, at the same time, it will fossilize our energy conduits which then learn only to react to certain stimuli; saturating our self with ideas and opinions.

"A warrior can not have the luxury of following people's ways, nor can he or she be simply reactionary.

"Freedom means to exercise other alternatives."

I asked Carlos which alternatives he meant, but he gave me a pat on the shoulder. He said it was getting late, but that we would continue our conversation another day.