#inthought - The Difference Between Observation and Perception , does one lead to the other?

26 August 2019 : 9.35 pm.

This will be a rather tricky issue to discuss, because we would be going right into the very tool we are using for our examination. The very fact of reading these discussions of _inthought you are making an observation provided your level of attention is of a sufficient quality so as to give you an insight into what you are observing. That very insight should give you a subtle change within your being, and in that we would say that there is perception; or it has taken place. This is really a discussion into the art of seeing, because there are very many tricks which can arise from this observation and if one is not clear on what it is they are observing they may fall into a trap of self-delusion. It is rather something which demands complete attention and a great deal of energy to observe and in that observation perception takes place, and that very perception is action of our consciousness; that is, a change takes place. When there is no change, then there is a self delusion taking place, so what is the root of this self delusion?

The observation would have it that, one has to see clearly what it is they are looking at, because there is the seeing of something just with our eyes, and then making knowledge out of it, which means it has become part of memory, and there nothing takes place apart from the creation of a memory and that is not perception, it is simply looking, like an optical camera would, but it would not register at ones depth of being. So when one looks at this it is easy to see that memory in itself is what interferes with perception, and that is what prevents observation. The reason this is so, is that memory in itself implies time, that is the time in which the memory was created and that is separate from the actual moment, because the moment is always moving, but the memory is locked in the past. This can be applied to any situation, and can be most apparent when practiced in nature. One can look at a tree,or a flower or a small plant and in that very looking, there is act of recognition and naming and categorising and in that very action one is locked in the past, referencing all past knowledge and experience and laying it over the same observation and in that more memory is formed. This prevents the very looking at the flower and what it is doing, what it actually is and in that there is no perception only observation and analysis. When one is free from the need to know, recognise, name and evaulate every object/situation in ones observation one can ‘see’ clearly exactly what is going on, and that very ‘seeing’ has a clarity about it, and perception takes place, which is an action in itself.

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#inthought - The Root of Dualistic Thinking

This would not be the first instance of writing about duality, in itself as a concept. There would not be a need to define or describe the nature of dualistic thinking, but rather to elaborate on the path of observation which aimed to describe duality. The most common dualistic thinking expressed by most today is in the sense of morality, which really seems to be the basis of behaviour in relationship , either between ourselves or the environment within which we find ourselves caught in. The distinction between good and bad can be seen as a measure of describing the nature of action, since all our expression takes place in the form of action, either action in speech, gesture or creation. Our ability to set attributes of observation to action seems to stem from the observation of the ideal expression of life, and relationship. The basis of which stems from the general nature of the relationship with this ideal in some religions know it as God, or nirvana, or the ultimate realisation of being, so in essence we can state that a dualistic assertion, either as good or bad is actually a description of the relationship between the nature of the particular action and the ‘ideal’ so to speak. A movement towards it, may be seen as an ideal, hence ‘good’ and a movement away from it may be seen as ‘bad’. So by this, it can be seen that dualistic thinking is basically a judgment according to an ‘ideal’ and as such may not be describing what is actually taking place. To percieve duality one has to transcend duality as it is taking place, which means one has to observe fact, which is what is actually taking place and perception is observation because it is actually taking place.  The nature of attachment to observation determines how one cognises the nature of their observation and the conclusion which is reached is ultimately based on their state of intelligence.

The most common example of duality is in the description of the general basis of behaviour, which is a way of classifying human action according to an ideal set of behaviors, something which can be hard to fathom, since ideal human action is something which has a rather great difficulty in its description, and therefore, we have used religion to describe superlative human traits which are said to exist far beyond the realm of perception. We have therefore developed intermediaries between these non-physical traits through text and speech as a reference for the nature of the dualistic description of human behaviour. This inevitably breeds conflict because, one bridges action and perception through judgement, therefore  all action then takes place according to whether it conforms to an ideal which has been described through a particular religious text or doctrine and so there is never action which is purely based on perception, all action becomes divided as it has to conform to the past which may be text based, speech based or image based. So all action takes place according to the past, and is never based on what is actually taking place, which is what breeds conflict.

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