About Perceptions

In this post I would like to tackle an important aspect of our daily experiences, that is, our perceptions. By discovering your true nature you will be amazed how much you have been deceiving yourself: what you think is happening in every moment of your life is in reality a misinterpretation of what it is actually happening. Your mind is always tricking you, so read it carefully.

Credit Picture: Thomas Lipke on Unsplash

"When you ask "Who Am I?", the question arises and appears within the answer".

- Jean Klein -

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

- William Blake -

In my previous posts ("Objectivity Is Your Own Creation - Part 1","Objectivity Is Your Own Creation - Part 2","Objectivity Is Your Own Creation - Part 3","From the Illusion Of Matter To The Reality Of Consciousness", "The Universe Is NOT Conscious") I have tried to suggest that there is not an external physical reality that is independent of your subjective faculties, such as the perceptions of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching. If you are honest with yourself and you do not get lost in logic and rationality, it represents a very simple point to get. It is right in front of your eyes.

All physical objects you think are existing independently of your perceptions do not exist.

This might sound crazy and I do need to be sure that my message gets clearly understood. By saying that a physical object does not exist when you stop looking at it does not mean that you have the super power to materialize the object once you open your eyes. What I mean is even more radical: the physical object never existed in the first place. The only substance of which objects are made out of is mind. You have no direct experience of entering in contact with something else than the perception of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching.

What it appears to you as a physical object is literally nothing else than subjective faculties. The object appears to be physical and made out of different substances because you are superimposing concepts over it. Have you ever touched metal? Wood? Plastic? Paper? Flesh? No. You have only experienced a different perception of touching. All the rest is concepts, language, words that you are attaching and superimposing to those perceptions believing that they truly exist as separate material.

You actually do have a super power. You cannot physically materialize objects (because matter never existed and will never exist), but you can deceive yourself to a point where you think that there is a physical reality outside and independent of your subjective faculties. Look whatever "object" is in front of you like a pen. All you know about this pen is the sight of it and, if you are holding it, the touching of it. All the rest are concepts. To make this pen standing as separate from your hand you need to create imaginary boundaries and distinctions about what it is you and what is not-you.

The distinction between you and the pen do not exist unless you think it exists, unless you create it. You, by using concepts and logic, are fragmenting a reality that is intrinsically one. And you are doing this creative process all the time in order to survive as a specific entity. The core issue that is keeping you asleep is that you think to exist as something or someone specific such as a human being and this is not the case. Whatever you think to be is a concept, a superimposition of what it is actually there.

I hope that this first step consisting in realizing that there is nothing else than your subjective faculties in your daily experiences is clear. I would like now to investigate a bit more what these subjective faculties actually are. In Consciousnesses' work we are looking for your true nature that happened to be also the ultimate substance of which the entire Universe is made of. At the moment we have reached the point in which you and therefore the entire Universe boils down to subjective faculties. Is this the end or we can go deeper? To answer this question let's have a look at what a perception is.

A perception is the process through which a subject can get in contact and experience something else than itself, like an object. This definition implies that there is a subject and an object to be perceived, it implies that we can get in contact with something physically different than our self. I have already concluded that all there is are our subjective faculties, therefore the object to be investigated is not anymore an external reality "out there" but the subjective faculties experienced by us (whatever we are).

This way of modeling reality is still dualistic, that is, it implies that there is someone experiencing subjective faculties. And spirituality or Consciousness's work claims that reality is non-dual, that there is only one "thing" existing in reality and that whatever appears to be other than itself is an illusion.

So the question is: "Is there really someone perceiving? Is there really a subject?". As you might understand this is not a mere philosophical question because we are talking about you. What would happen if by digging deeper and deeper we discovered that there is no you. Which implications this realization would bring in "your" life? It is undeniable that you exist, right? But you might exist as something different than what you think to be. What is real and what you think is real are quite different, right?

Are you ready to go down into the rabbit hole?

We have seen that every objects turned out to be personal subjective sensations. What we thought to exist "out there" was simply a series of sensations and concepts that made appear a subjective reality as something objective. These sensations are meant to be experienced by you. So who are you?

Instead of focusing outside, get in contact with you and try to see whether you find something different than sensations and concepts about you. Is your body really made out of physical flesh, bone, brain and muscle or by the sensations of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching? Is there really something physical there? Could not be the case that what you consider to be you, is simply another series of sensations and perceptions? Could not be the case that you have misled a series of sensations, perceptions and concepts to be you? I invite you to realize that all you can ever find of your body are perceptions, sensations and concepts. Your body, your brain, your hands are not physical, they are made out of sensations. Physicality is a concept that tries to freeze a specific sensation.

Your "physical" body is nothing else than a series of perceptions and sensations as the "physical" world around you. So the "physical" body and the "physical" world are nothing else than sensations and perceptions.

Are you with me? Bear with me please.

It may feel like that the sensations of the body are "yours" while sensations outside your body are "not-yours". But is this really true?

What is the difference between a sensation within your body, whatever that is, and the sound of the bird singing outside in the garden? Is there a real difference between the sound of "your" voice and the sound of your friend's voice? Can you realize that you are unconsciously creating conceptual boundaries that create ownership over a sensation rather than over another? "This is my voice, and that one is my friend's voice, you might say". It is undeniable that something is experienced but these distinctions are created by you, they are not intrinsically there. You are taking sensations, mixing them up and labeling as your and not-yours.

You are misleading the sound of a bird and the sight of a bird with a real physical bird singing. You are misleading the sound of your voice and the sight of your mouth with a physical human talking. And on top of that you label the first experience, the bird singing, as not-you and the latter experience as you. And you do not realize that this boundary, this distinction, this separation is created by the concept you have about yourself. You take the bodily sensations and you superimpose the idea and the concept that are yours. Then you take the sound happening "out there", and you superimposes the idea and the concept that are not yours.

Whatever sensation is happening within "your body" is not different that a sound of a birds. You simply need to stop assuming that there is a physical body and that there is a physical bird. A body and a bird are subjective sensations that through the power of concepts and ideas, become distinct "things". There is no physical body, there is no physical hand, there is no physical brain, there is no physical world, there is no physical Universe. All boils down to subjective perceptions that are appearing from the same field (whatever this field is) and therefore are equal. What seems to be above or to claim ownership over something else is a conceptual constructions, it is a thought!

Try to become aware that all the sensations you are experiencing are standing on the same level, that there is no hierarchy. Try to realize that a thought, a sound, a smell, a touch are all appearing in and disappearing within the same field. How can one sensation perceives another sensation being at the same level? Since all sensations and perceptions are at the same level, the idea that "your body", that is a mix of sensations, is perceiving something else is non-sense. No sensation can perceive any other sensation, unless it thinks it can...

You are putting thoughts and concepts over a pedestal, you are giving to a thought and to a concept the power to prevail above any sensations. You are giving to thoughts full authority. By doing so concepts and ideas are giving physicality to something that has not. By doing so concepts and ideas are taking ownership over some perceptions making them "yours". And all the rest is "not-yours".

So, who is perceiving all these perceptions? Whoever it is, it cannot come and go as it happens for perceptions, sensations and thoughts but it has to be the one always present to experience their appearing and disappearing. Trace back the one that experiences these perceptions, sensations, concepts until you hit the bottom. Ask yourself, "Who is perceiving these perceptions, sensations, concepts and thoughts?". We are looking for the "place" in which subjective faculties appear and disappear into. That "place" is you.

It is undeniable that sensations, perceptions and emotions appear and disappear in you. But who are you? Whoever you are must be inherently devoid of any thought, sensation and perception, right? One of your main attribute should be to have no particular shape in order to accommodate any possible emotion, perception and thought. If the sky had a particular shape it would prevent clouds to have any possible conformation. If water had some structural limitations, waves would not be free to take any desire shape. If what you are was somehow limited, the possible range of thought, emotion, feeling and perception would be limited. And it is not. You are free to experience all possible thought, emotion, feeling and perception that you can imagine.

You might quickly answer that thoughts appear in the brain/head and that sensations appear within the body. Do not fall in this trap. Remember that what you call brain, head and body are themselves sensations. There is nothing else than subjective faculties that constitute brain, head and body. Where these "physical" sensations appear and disappear? The sensation of your toe is a sensation. Where does it occur? In your feet? No, because your own feet is a mix of sensations. What is the container of all these experiences? What allows and support sensations and perceptions in their process of appearing and disappearing?

Notice that when thoughts, emotions, feelings and perceptions disappear nothing happen to you. You are always ready to welcome any possible thought, emotion, feeling and perception to arise. We need to find that container.

What your mind will automatically do, it is to look for a an objective space because mind is used to look for objects. But by doing so you are already a step forward to That out of which the mind has appeared. What mind does is pointing to the content that is arising, but it cannot point to the "place" from which it has raised for the same reason that an eye cannot look at itself, a knife cannot cut itself, a tongue cannot taste itself. Whatever mind will point to is going to be another sensation, perception, emotion, thought.

So mind cannot be used to find yourself. You need to step back and realize that you are That which is aware of mind. Since you have no particular attribute to allow anything else to be, mind cannot find you because it would not know where to look at. But still you exist and you are the only thing existing. You are like the white light that has no qualities but that at the same time it allows any color to appear.

Sound, hearing and you are not three different things. They are not even intimately close. They are the same "thing", they are made of the same substance, that is, Consciousness. They only seem to appear as multiple through the power of mind. You need to become conscious that there was never a separation. The separation has been created through concepts and language.

What I am trying to say, is that you are a thought. Or better, what you currently think to be is a thought. What you actually are is "something" else. You have been misleading Yourself to be a thought. You have been veiled by this powerful tool that is mind that has deluded you to be born, to have a personal history, that there is an external world out there, that one day will die. All these are concepts.

So to conclude you currently think to be a physical body that is experiencing an external physical world through your personal perceptions. What I am suggesting here it is that:

1) There is not an external physical world.

2) All there is are subjective faculties, such as perceptions and thoughts.

3) Perceptions and thoughts are not owned by a physical individual body because the body itself is a mixture of sensations and perceptions and thoughts.

4) The "you" that thinks is perceiving the world behind the eyes is not a physical entity but a concept. You need to become conscious that your sense of a physical "you" is an illusion. That there is no one behind the eyes.

5) The real You is literally Consciousness perceiving Itself by taking a specific point of view. You are the knowing element of which everything else that seems to exist is made out of. It is the mind that makes appear reality as if it is made out of many separated objects.

Only through this realizing, you can make sense of the fact that you are the whole Universe, that there is nothing, literally nothing, that is not you.

Logic and rationality will not be handy to realize all this because mind itself is the source of the illusion. No matter how clever or smart you are, mind will always veil your true nature. Can you see the problem? The one that is thinking is the problem, it is the veil, it is the illusion. The one that is thinking to be thinking is a thought! You need to go beyond mind, you need to realize to be That which is aware of subjective faculties.

Thanks for reading.