Towards the end of his lecture he gave a definition that I considered very important, because he touched on what I felt was a sensitive topic. He said:
“Dreaming is not something impossible, it is just a kind of deep meditation.”
For years, I had been doing some spiritual exercises called ‘meditation’. These practices were quite different from what Carlos was proposing, both regarding their form and their results. As soon as I had an opportunity, I asked him to clarify the distinctions between the concept of dreaming, and meditation.
He answered: “What you’re asking is difficult, because there is no way of meditating without dreaming, both terms describe the same phenomenon.”
“Then why haven’t my exercises produced any of the things you talk about?”
“You had better answer that yourself. In my opinion, what you have practiced up to now has not been meditation, but some kind of autosuggestion. It is common for people to confuse both things that, for a sorcerer, are not the same.
Pacifying the mind is not meditation, but drowsiness. On the other hand, dreaming is something dynamic; it is the consequence of a process of sustained concentration, which implies a veritable battle against our lack of attention. If it were just the result of a dulling of the senses, practitioners would not call themselves ‘warriors’.
A dreamer can be the very incarnation of ferocity or seem profoundly calm, but none of that has any real importance, because he does not identify himself with his mental states. He knows that any definite sensation is nothing but a fixation of the assemblage point.”
(Armando Torres, Encounters with the Nagual)
