PERCEPTION AND REALITY
July 20th, 2010From Cam Mosher
I am going to shift from solving the problems of government to more personal areas. Let’s begin with some realizations on Reality. Follow along with me here.
Here is a way to understand life. We all live in a box. Each of us lives in his/her own individual box. Projected on the inside of that box is our entire perception of reality. Our perception of reality is unique to each of us as individuals! To comprehend that, consider that, as human beings, the only means we have to get information from outside of us is through five physical senses: sight, hearing, smelling, touch and taste. I will grant one more sense, an inner intuitive (some call it a spiritual) sense, where we have thoughts, ideas, realizations, etc. But that is it. Everything that comes to our perception comes through one of those senses. The key word to all this is PERCEPTION. All these senses, including that inner, intuitive sense, are Perceptual Senses!
All any of us have regarding reality is what we perceive to be real. No one knows what is real. Ponder that for a minute. Our perception IS our reality. But our reality is projected on the inside of our box!
What is it that filters reality into our perception of it?
As we entered mortal reality as conceived beings, and began to experience it, we formed conclusions about reality as we experienced it. Those conclusions became our beliefs about reality, each belief a definition of that piece of reality that we experienced. The sum total of those beliefs became what I call our individual BELIEF SYSTEM, the sum total of our uniquely personal definition of reality. Our beliefs are the filter through which we perceive reality. If we have not experienced something, we have no belief definition of it, and hence it does not exist in our reality.
You can relate to this by thinking about a time when you heard or read a new word. You took some action to find out what it means, then suddenly that word was all around you. It had always been all around you, but for some reason you had not encountered it before in a way that gave it meaning to you. It did not exist in your previous perception of reality because you had no belief definition for it.
Because your Belief System is your entire definition of reality, and you created each of your beliefs through some conclusion you made about an experience of something you encountered along the way, you have literally created your own reality that you continue to experience in life. It is unique to you.
So the question I pose is, WHO IS RIGHT about your perception? Of course, YOU ARE! And the next question I pose (to all the people you are with in life, including you of course) is, WHO IS RIGHT about all your individual perceptions? And the answer, of course, is ALL OF YOU ARE! Each of you perceives reality in your own unique way, and each is RIGHT in your perception!
Apply that to your relationships. In any situation, each of you perceives it uniquely, and each of you IS RIGHT about your perception, because IT IS how you perceive it! Therefore the question is never WHO IS RIGHT? Because both of you, or all of you, ARE RIGHT in your perception of the situation. When there is a decision that must be made, the only relevant question is, can we stay with the communication long enough to evolve an outcome that we all can be satisfied with?
Now apply this to solving the problems of the world! There are over six billion of us on the planet. Each person has his/her own unique and personal definition of reality, hence perception of it! Over six billion different realities! And who is right?
So the question is never who is right, but can we have communication, and stay with that communication long enough, to find solutions that we can all be satisfied with? Or must we fight with each other, kill each other, enslave each other, trod each other down, in an eternal drive to BE RIGHT?
I would really love to have some conversation on this post. Comments? Other posts? Here is where the real meat of solving the problems of the world lies, personally, and as a human species. It is never about who is right, it is always about finding outcomes that can satisfy everyone. That is what I call CONSENSUS. It is a skill and a process that can be learned and taught.
Cam Mosher
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Thank you for sharing this. We’re always looking for great resources to share with clients and my coworkers, and this post is certainly worth sharing!
Cam, great post! The gist of what you say about reality & perception is the preamble to an awesome course called Revolution of The Mind, offered by New Earth Institute.
Here we diverge on intent: your conclusions re: political resolution, given that no one can be absolutely “right”, are “right on”. However it is possible for nearly anyone to learn how to apprehend the moment AS IT IS without all the cloudy lenses of assumption,habit,resentment,ideology,propaganda,bias,acculturation,and,in short, BELIEFS. Now there must have been historic good reason for humans to develop belief systems,(perhaps a psychologist reading this will chime in with those reasons if they are known), but it is tragically apparent in this time that BELIEFS are literally killing us, the planet and all our relations. So maybe it is a good time for as many people as possible to do the work it takes to perceive without the distortion of belief. Yes, the perception is still limited by the senses (except science does provide the ability to extend, deepen, enhance, broaden, sort & analyze what can be perceived), but at least the precepts are relatively undistorted and clear and may lead to new concepts, conclusions and individual and collective behavior (ie, enlightenment!).
David, thanks for your comment! Actually I don’t see divergence of intent as much as a mutual call for awareness. We all filter our perception of reality through the lens of beliefs. I don’t see how we can avoid that. None of us “sees” what is real; all of us “see” what our beliefs render into perception. It is through awareness of this filtering process that the “enlightened” become able to stand back from their perceptions and consider alternatives, perhaps even the alternatives perceived by others. That is “the work” to which you refer, and I promote through the spirit of this blog. “God willing” (to quote a phrase used by one of the more narrow perceptions among us), that is what could bring all of God’s children together into the possibility of sharing this planet in tolerance, and maybe even peace and harmony.
Cam Mosher
I remember absorbing this lesson into my senses from you personally Dr. Mosher, and I want to say thank you for the insight again. It is almost as if we need to invoke astral-projection for some people to get this concept. It makes perfect sense to me. My favorite example of how this works, although I don’t advocate the exploitation of people’s feelings, would be the television show: “American Idol” Here we witness youth exposing their perception of themselves infront of heckling judges, and staunch but realistic critics. However, in the realm of their senses, in this “BOX” as you put it, they are nothing less than the creative gifts, infusions, and new incarnations of Michael Jackson, Elvis, or whoever is hip these days. The results and feedback can be painful, but it is neccessary to consider when applying depth to “CONSENSUS” as you mentioned. Taking people out of these boxes is a risk to their identity. How do we change the course of humanity if no one wants to engage in releasing their entitlement? As Americans, we are a grotesquely entitled group.
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Thank you. Pass the good word on.
Cam Mosher
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