The first truth about awareness is that the world out there is not really as we think it is. We think it is a world of objects and it’s not.

You [may think] you agree with me because everything could be reduced to being a field of energy. But you are merely intuiting a truth. To reason it out is not to verify it. You cannot witness fields of energy; not as an average man, that is. Now, if you were able to see them, you would be a seer, in which case you would be explaining the truths about awareness.

Conclusions arrived at through reasoning have very little or no influence in altering the course of our lives. Hence, the countless examples of people who have the clearest convictions and yet act diametrically against them time and time again; and have as the only explanation for their behavior the idea that to err is human.

The first truth is that the world is as it looks and yet it isn’t. It’s not as solid and real as our perception has been led to believe, but it isn’t a mirage either. The world is not an illusion, as it has been said to be; it’s real on the one hand, and unreal on the other.

Pay close attention to this, for it must be understood, not just accepted. We perceive. This is a hard fact. But what we perceive is not a fact of the same kind, because we learn what to perceive.

Something out there is affecting our senses. This is the part that is real. The unreal part is what our senses tell us is there. Take a mountain, for instance. Our senses tell us that it is an object. It has size, color, form. We even have categories of mountains, and they are downright accurate. Nothing wrong with that; the flaw is simply that it has never occurred to us that our senses play only a superficial role. Our senses perceive the way they do because a specific feature of our awareness forces them to do so.

I’ve used the term “the world” to mean everything that surrounds us. I have a better term, of course, but it would be quite incomprehensible to you. Seers say that we think there is a world of objects out there only because of our awareness. But what’s really out there are the Indescribable Force ‘s emanations, fluid, forever in motion, and yet unchanged, eternal.

According to don Juan, the universe is an infinite agglomeration of thread-like energy fields called the Eagle’s emanations, which radiate from a source of inconceivable proportions. Human beings are also composed of the same energy fields, which form a layer of luminosity the size of the person’s body. A very small group of the energy fields inside this luminous ball is lit up by a point of intense brilliance called the assemblage point. Perception occurs when the energy fields in this small group extend their light to illuminate identical energy fields outside the ball. The inaccessibility of the supernatural world is due to our energetic conditioning. When the assemblage point shifts, new filaments of the universe pass through it, making it possible to perceive a different reality. This shifting is called dreaming which, according to sorcerers, is the gateway to infinity. The idea is to be conscious of it and direct it.

All this can be attained through what don Juan calls impeccable living. Impeccability is short hand for continual self-awareness, unswerving self-discipline. When Don Juan said that “impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy,” he was suggesting that improper use of energy is a huge and unnecessary drain on the person’s power. Without sufficient energy, the ‘dreaming body is not attainable, and the key is being careful not to waste energy on petty endeavours.