Perception
When our false perception is corrected, misery ends also.
― Adi Shankaracarya
Each thing tends to move towards its own nature. Like a fire always goes up, water always flows down. It is in their nature that heat always expands while cold contracts. Nature has been smart enough to assign each element its own nature. This makes us wonder our own nature of humans. What's our true nature? Not of a single human being but humanity.
If we look close enough we find we always desire happiness, be it from an external or internal stimulus. Which means that happiness is our true nature. And one's own nature is a never a burden to it. Happiness is never a burden to us, whilst sorrow is.
So naturally we ask the crucial question of: What makes one happy?
We know it nearly enough: when we get what we want we are happy. Meeting our friends makes us happy, and then we get sad when nobody's around. Eating a good and delicious meal on occasions makes us happy. Watching a great movie or reading a good book makes us happy. Staying inside when it's stormy outside, safe and cozy in our bed makes us comfortable. We are never happy when we've to study a boring subject or talk to a person really stubborn. This means we derive our happiness and satisfaction from external stimulus most part of our lives, precisely from material comforts and sensual pleasure. Fair enough in life you do get to taste happiness from time to time. But there are time of utter sadness and sorrow when our expectations are not met. When relationships break down. When we fail in our endeavours. And we are unhappy, away from our nature. So the next question is: why are we carrying the burden of sorrow much part of our life and drifting away from our true nature? Or have we been fooled long enough by our minds to replace pleasure for happiness?
First, let's give some food to our conceptual brains. We have made sense of our world and ourselves using 3 fundamental tools:
- Perception
- Concepts
- Knowledge
We use these 3 tools every walk and moment of our life. Suppose you are hungry and there's an apple on the table. First you perceived your body's hunger, and there's the knowledge: that you should eat. Then there's the apple kept on the table. First see and perceive the apple. Then you construct a concept, that it is green and has certain texture, shape and is eatable. This is fed into your knowledge and you eat it. Similarly we perceive ourselves and the world around us and make concepts about everything with thoughts. Infact everything is a concept. And every concept is created by perception.
So what has perception, reason(concept) and knowledge has to do with our happiness?
Thing is it has they have nothing to do with happiness but ourselves. Let's move aside happiness and examine the one who get's happy. Because understanding ourselves is the key to unlock our happiness.
Usually for most of us, our external stimulus decides our mood and well being. Our body gets hungry and we are unhappy. As soon as we eat something great, we are happy. We are going through a tough stressful day ahead of an exam and all of a sudden you hear it's cancelled, your mood lighten up. Also we use smartphones, junk-foods as wells watch the latest Youtube feed only to gratify ourselves instantly. So there's the external stimulus, an important factor.
But, we also derive happiness and satisfaction from internal stimulus. Precisely our memories and thoughts, we get happy when we remember our first love or when we had a great vacation trip. Oppositely we get angry or sad when bad memories come up and we look again for another pleasurable stimulus to get away. More than that, we use imagination to construct a beautiful scenario of our life ahead and so that we can be positive in the present moment. So, we also perceive memories and imagination as long as they seem comfortable and makes us satisfied.
Now what has all this perception has to do with you?
Again answer is: Nothing.
What? You've been reading about perception all this time only to find out it's for nothing.
Putting it properly, perception has nothing to do with you because: you are not what you perceive. Try to remember that as a principle. It's a principle which we will use to construct a new way of thinking and knowing our world. And since perception has nothing to do with you, so are concepts and knowledge useless. Let that sink in for a moment. We are going to find out who we are precisely using the first tool of perception to find the very key to our own happiness. We are going to find out that the very act of perceiving shows us that we are not what we perceive.
Till now we have used perception and concepts to build our world, and using perception we've constructed our existence as well the identity of who we are and have been pretty much unhappy all this time.
Lets' start again. Our first sphere is clear; we can perceive the world and ourselves. Now let's bring reason into play.
Let's see what are the things we can perceive and find our who we are?
Perception: We can perceive our laptop, the table and the smartphone.
Conclusion: This is pretty easy, we not the laptop, the table or the smartphone.
But you do get identified with them from time to time and this ruins your nature/happiness from time to time. There's this smartphone on your hand. As long as it feeds your instant information-gratification you are happy. As soon as it's broken or goes down. You are unhappy. Because you could perceive it in first place, you somewhere made it to be a part of you. This is not bad, we identify ourselves with a lot of material things and get unhappy when we loose or break them. But now remember: you are not what you perceive.
Perception: We can perceive other people.
Conclusion: With other people, you can pretty much say the person sitting next to you is not you. Because you can perceive him/her. And you are not what you perceive.
Perception: Moving away from others: we come to perceive ourselves. Precisely our own body. Till now we know for sure that we are our bodies. Because we are in control of it so much all time, or maybe it's the other way around that it controls us.Whatever be the case, we know we can perceive it, right?
Conclusion: The body gets hungry from time to time and wants food for creation of energy and maintenance of cells. We perceive this hunger and we say: I am hungry. The body gets tired after a while and has to recharge and wants sleep: And we say: I want to sleep. It's not that we are fighting for survival, it's our instrument in space and time. Moreover as long as we sleep , we cannot perceive our body. So, if we can perceive our body while awake doesn't mean we have to identify with it. And therefore we conclude we are not our body. Strange but it's a truth.
Let's move further:
Perception: While moving in this train of thought: we can come to another conclusion: if we are not our bodies we are our minds. This is the thought perhaps that made Descartes to make this very profound statement: "I think therefore I am".
So let's investigate the mind. What is the mind? Mind is just a constant stream of thoughts. Thoughts from memories, thoughts constructed using imagination. Is anything there prior to mind? Is there anything which perceives the mind? Here's the time we go away from bookish knowledge and experience and meditate. Or if you feel lazy, sleep.
Conclusion: If you did meditation long and proper enough, you will start to observe your thoughts also. This means you are prior to thoughts. Another level incremented: you are not your thoughts! You perceive them and identify them just like you did with your smartphone and body. And if slept long enough to deep sleep, you lose the perception of mind even.
Now we come to the final perception after 'I think therefor I am' to:
Perception: I am.
Conclusion: Yes obviously, we are. We've come to the very perception of our very own being, this opens up a new different dimension of ourselves. This is complicated to understand at the moment using words because in this dimension only Silence prevails. If you've meditated long enough, you'll get there.
Now if you are nothing what you can perceive, then who are you, what's your true nature and what will make you happy?
We don't have all the answers, just questions and reasons for you to think about.
One thing we can think for certain: we are not what we perceive. Therefore nothing what we can perceive is our true nature. Nothing can define us. Nothing that we can perceive can make us happy. Advantage is: nothing can make us sad too. We remain free from the dualistic world of pain and pleasure altogether in a different dimension at the best free. Nothing can be added, nothing can be subtracted. We go beyond thoughts and beliefs, beyond emotions and sensation, beyond perceptions and experience. We go beyond the mind itself. Since there are no words to describe anything beyond the mind, I have come to the end of my misery.
And I'm back!
zphilosopher
