I find the concepts of perception and sensation very interesting. As well as the idea that when we see or touch something, what is evident and obvious to our senses is not necessarily really the thing itself but rather our sensation of seeing and touching through which we infer the existence and quality of that which we assume is causing these sensations.
It’s like in the “Haunted House,” where you are blindfolded and they stick your hand in a bowl of brains. They sure feel like brains, and kids often believe (or at least suspend disbelief—what an amazing and confounding power this is) that what they feel is brains, when in fact it is Jell-O, or something with a supposedly brain-like texture. We sense a certain texture and temperature, and we perceive “brains.” This perception is processed sensation, processed through our conceptual frameworks—what else?
Can we really trust our senses? When we sense things we rely on our own powers of induction and deduction within our own (illusory!) conceptual frameworks to know what and how something is.
Another example: you see and touch and smell beautiful fresh flowers. In fact, they are incredible fakes. All of your senses and logical and empirical knowledge tells you that they are real, and you believe they are real, until you are told that they are really fake.
What is the difference between this belief and any other belief? Do we not rely on our same conceptual frameworks for all of our beliefs? Do we have anything else by which to know or believe?
Remember, the fact that you believe the flowers to be real—if you go to your grave believing they are real—does not make them real, does not make them what they are not. The fact that they are real “to you” does not make them real, for, in reality, they are synthetic, fake. Thus, whether you believe them to be real or fake does not make them real or fake—they are fake. Whether they are real or not, then, is in no way dependent upon your perception and belief in them.
How can you trust your beliefs and perceptions (even of yourself) when they are based wholly upon your proven-to-be less than reliable conceptual framework and senses? This is what it means to see illusions for what they are—to see the reality of the illusion. Perhaps a good definition of reality is the absence of illusion.
. . . . I am simply saying that our realities—which are the products of our conditioned conceptual frameworks, which come at least partially from our flawed and unreliable interpretations of our misunderstood sense perceptions—are not what we think they are.
What could possibly be of more importance than the realization, acceptance, and application of this? For what is not dictated by the ignorance/denial/avoidance of it? Nothing, as far as I know.
We must learn to go deeper. We are more than our sense perceptions. We are more than the sum of our perceptions, and the conceptual frameworks we build and live in from our perceptions. To free yourself of that which limits you, to free yourself of the prison of your sense perception-based conditioned existence and conceptual framework—this is freedom, this is the path to happiness/enlightenment.
How do we do this? One step at a time; to see it and do it as a process, with patience and courage. It is a process, and a process exists one step at a time—to try to do otherwise is to guarantee failure.
Where do you start? Well, with yourself, of course. With your own illusions (beliefs, assumptions, certainties, fears, etc.) He/she who is prepared to take this step, take it. It takes a great deal of courage. Perhaps courage is the key, the door and the path.
What could possibly be more profound, and applicable to everyday life, than the realization that there is a difference between what a thing is and what we perceive to be? For how can we perceive things as they really are when we base our knowledge and understanding on our perceivings, when our perceivings are based on our senses? It is thus impossible to perceive anything as it really is as long as we are perceiving it at all.
Beyond perception. This is beyond even Nietzsche going beyond good and evil. Beyond perception. Beyond existence as we know it. Do not trust what you trust, because what you base your trust and beliefs on is untrustworthy. Take a step back. Look again. Unassume as opposed to assume. This is the first step of true self-awareness.
It takes courage. It takes decision. It takes using more than that which you think you can use. It means digging deeper than you think can be dug. It means being more than you currently think you can be, doing more than you currently think you can do. It means wanting to live fully as opposed to partially.
You are, you have, so much more than you currently know. How trite, how deluded the mechanisms of our society seem when such things are thought about. The way we think about the things we think about—what could be more important to life and death, societies and governments, every person and every belief and action?
To not realize this, to not examine this, is to be controlled, to be a slave to your conditioned and self-limited existence.
He who thinks he is free is the most assured slave. He can be free, but until he realizes the ways in which he is enslaved, he can only think he is—and not really be—free.
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From my personal notes, 12/7/99.
