When you awaken to Right Mindfulness, you free your reality. To be clear, you don’t free reality itself. But you absolutely free yourself from only being able to see your particular version of it. In other words, if we practice Right Mindfulness, some of the places where we lack awareness and consciousness can dissolve.
I’ve been reading a deep book on the Enneagram (an ancient way of understanding human nature), and I found such resonance between Right Mindfulness and how Carlos Castaneda spoke about what are called “assemblage points.” Stick with me for a minute.
When you perceive reality, you only see what you understand, or what you are open to seeing. So, for example, if you’re a white person, and you see an interaction between a person of color and a white person, you may not see racism at play. But the person of color might. And when the person of color mentions this, you could say, “Well, I didn’t see it that way at all!” And that would be true. If an understanding of racism isn’t in your view of reality, how could you possibly see it?! But does that mean it isn’t really there? Of course not. Your band of reality, as it pertains to racism, is limited.
All of us experience the world this way. Our view of reality is limited. This is where assemblage points come in.
Yacqui Indian tradition defines an assemblage point as the band of reality where we focus our attention. But our assemblage point does not access all of reality itself. The universe has infinite bands, or layers, of reality, and we usually walk around unaware of most of them. In the understanding of the Enneagram, each point or number has a particular band of reality they prefer. Each Enneagram type has a particular “twist” on how they perceive reality. But they are all, in the end, false. Because they don’t access full reality. They only see this one distortion of it, and then take that distortion as the whole truth.
This creates so, so many problems. When we don’t see the world clearly, we make poor judgments about how to be in the world. Which is why it’s so important to free our reality. To expand our own band of reality to a wider place of focus. Our assemblage point is the reality determined by our thoughts. The goal, then, is to free our assemblage point, so we gain greater possibilities for perception and understanding.
A.H.Almaas teaches three stages to free your reality. First, you find a teacher who moves the assemblage point for you. A good teacher opens up your worldview. And you need this, because you can’t access a different kind of reality if someone doesn’t show you the way. Teachers open our eyes and give us a-ha moments.
After a while, you begin to learn how to move your own assemblage point. You seek it. You search for realities different than your own. The more perspectives you gain, the more you loosen your old fixations. Much of our work at Soul Ninja guides us to move our own assemblage points in this way.
In the third stage, neither you or your teacher move your assemblage point. It simply begins to move itself. This cannot happen without trust, without a sense of faith in the universe to lead you, and a willingness to follow. But when you do, your assemblage point roams wherever it wills. Eventually, your ego- that place where fixations live- dies, and you find so much more room to live into the fullness of who you are.
And this brings us back to Right Mindfulness. Oscar Ichazo says, “Only by working in the present can real work be done and real results achieved.” You can’t free your reality from the past, or from the future. It requires you to stay present in the moment, and be open to what unfolds in the here and now. By contemplating our emotions and thoughts, and bringing awareness to where our attention lies, we free ourselves from the tiny band of reality that holds us back.
This week, how can you expand your reality? What teacher may be able to help you loosen your assemblage point?
This post belongs to my series on practicing the Eightfold Path. Read all my posts on Right Mindfulness here.
