#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.