Link's to definitions of perception.

http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=perception

Matthew,

I have some ideas regarding this topic from a healing perspective that I will try to gather together and post. 

I read something Don mentioned the other day about memory loss during 'decent' to lower vibrations.  From my experience this is a fairly accurate description that Don gave via the sources he mentioned.  It's my feeling that the lower vibrations is the reason for memory loss.  In essence one could turn the idea of death around and say that death is the experience of human birth.

Love, Kathy

Excellent question, Matthew!
With Lucy, I think clarification is in order. I'd like to work only on two small points: karma, free will. (This is a bit tedious in order to be rigorous, sorry.)

First, we tend to think of karma as some kind of exotic metaphysical force field. In fact, karma is simply cause and effect. People who are careless driving nails can hit their fingers. Tha's the karma of carelessness while driving nails. If you fail to put fuel in your car it will stop running. That's the karma of not gassing the car.

Karma. The nature of karma is easily understood when we look at the attitude of the actor. In this sense, attitude is the posture in life that inclines us toward certain kinds of responses, just a a physical posture tends to incline us toward correlative physical choices. As we learn to be less rejecting, we tend toward a context in which love is more accessible. As we learn to be truthful and logical, we tend toward a context in which things are more clear and understandable, as well as easier to handle. As we learn to find happiness by doing useful things in a useful manner we tend toward a context in which we feel joyful more and more of the time. These are states of our attitude. Karma, by bringing natural consequences, helps us learn to avoid errors, so that as we find ways of dealing with things and the amount of hassle is reduced, we are conditioned toward improvement. This is basic BF Skinner and Ivan Pavlow stuff.

Free will. Everything we know in our everyday lives has got to be input from outside, whether through unknown spiritual mechanisms, or social learning theory. The idea that we always have totally free will simply doesn't work. As a hypnotherapist, I often program people - so much for free will. We also bring some stuff with us, which seems to have been acquired in the past by similar means, and recalled. So let's just postulate, for a moment, that we are totally programmed, a product of 100% conditioning. I worked with the math on this for my Soc PhD - the correlation between 100% learning theory and observed data increase is on the order of r=+0.95 - for social science that's scary! - at an alpha of p<0.001. So it's good science. That mans that we DO NOT get free will on the level of social learning theory etc. At very best, our will is only partly free, and partly conditioned by context.

Now, let me take you back to the Very Beginning, prior to the MegaPiffle that started everything. What was there? In the totality of utter emptiness we have only the "Uncaused Creative Tendency". From this we have an emanation of the universe. The "stuff" of the universe must be emanated too, so it emerges prefabricated.  I suggest that the nature of the soul is not only "in the image of God" but actually "of the substance of God" in the sense of being a projected creative tendency, which is what life seems to be. In other words, we, and what we do, manifest God. (This assumes that God is infinitely near - theories that propose God as infinetely distant and alien would be different.)

When the world goes through some kind of changes, this is a real, emergent, creative act. It did not occur before. It involves, at least by inference, relationships with everything else. Thus, each event manifests God's creativity. Then God responds, in most cases indirectly through manifestations like you and me. Thus, when we make a choice or decision, we do so as God's projected agent within the world of God's projected structures. This means that we are making choices at the forefront of the surging wave of life as it expands into the conditions of its setting. Because we are acting in a totally novel manner we are not responding to conditioning, but rather we are projecting God's will, and as such, we are being truly creative. To be truly creative is just like it feels - we sort information, figure out the best course of action, and then do something that is 100% new, not programmed. The knowledge waas programmed, but the new situation places the programming in an open ended context where it is only half the picture, and our attitude toward selection of options provides the other half.

Where this goes, if you follow it through, is toward a perpetuall greater acord with the overall nature of the cosmos, and especially a greater accord with the nature of God. Then, carried into the indefinite future, the tendency is to perpetually come into ever greater oneness with God. This is a steadily increasing process, as everything evolves, including God-and-the-world system. In this manner, we not only have immediate joy from becoming closer to God, we have an eternity in which we perpetually increase in that joy as we follow an asymptote toward oneness wth God. (This corresponds roughly to Hinayana.)

Personally, I see this as leading to a jump in which we recognize our identity with God, and (often abruptly) realize this in nirvastarka samadhi. (This is a well documented state - read the Upanishads, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, or Hatha Yoga Pradipika to get a classical taste of it. This corresponds to Mahayana.) That is a merger into the God-stuff, after which we become co-creators with God (I like Cayce's term) and as part of God we have totally free will because everything is creative and new all the time. Programming has now been translated into learning, which is just what it feels like when we make a decision.

PUL
dave

PS- The MBS part of the name is a hint to those who want to locate me on-line, Doc. I operate the Mind-Body-Spirit Hypnoclinic in Los Osos. Ths is my one concession to advertising.

Perception..maybe it has both passive and active forms.

I was thinking of the old alchemical saying (something like this):

The eye is more inclined to see what is behind it than what is before it.

So, in the passive sense, perception occurs without free will. We learn an awful lot by mimicry; there's no free will in mimicry. one is trying to be congruent with some thing else. We just try to perceive the same things as everyone else.

Are we taught to perceive our (ego) selves as differentiated?

And what made the first split (with God)? What was the first perception of separation?

(Is the photo real or enhanced? or does it matter?)

I have the impression that because we must, due to our physical nature, be created out of mud by logical processes, even miraculous ones, we still have to be subject to the same logical definitions as a machine. At least on the most primitive levels. That implies no freedom, all genetic programming. Social programming lifts us to the next level, as do schools etc. Then we get into a regenerative mode, feeding back information to ourselves so that we can test and develop ideas. That seems to lead to transcendence, a sort of perpetually perfected awareness/perception/function, ending in an asymptote that approaches God.

Guaranteed enternal job security, and the perks improve too.

Lights of Love wrote on Jan 14^th, 2007 at 2:06pm:



This is a mirror image of how we ordinarily view life & death and beginnings & endings.


I have felt the truth of Kathy's statement.

Being in "Dreamland" has felt like the Real World. I have had a fuller memory There. Waking up in the physical world has felt like falling asleep... into the true Dreamland of this physical world. It feels true to say that 'death' is a birth back into the Real World.

I guess it's a question of perspective.

Great topic Matthew and replies all.  I believe individual re-incarnation and our solar system re-incarnation in evolution go together.

It is interesting to bring up one's Oversoul (or higher self) My thoughts are; the reason for re-incarnation into the Earth's schoolroom is ultimately to raise one's consciousness to join with one's Oversoul.  Our Oversoul being our original self.

Although we are not seperate from our Oversoul (being that small voice of reason within us) we are on the outside of our Oversoul.  And our tasks experienced in reincarnating are stepping stones enabling us to seek higher, seek the joining back to our Oversoul.

This means a seperation from our Oversoul did take place.

There is mythology writing on this seperation: 
She, is the soul and He, is the Spirit and together they make One. The original androgynous- him in her and her in him.
He projected her out of him too see her form.  (There is also mythlogies of her projecting him out of her to see him)
From the projection of the inside into the outside they became seperated and search for one another over eons of time.

Here we can see a 'bursting for life' took place and desire to evolve.  So, it is not unnatural to want to evolve and this bursting for life must be part or the reason for evolution.

The above mythology may be viewed as a fairy tale or a real event, one cannot say this is exactly what happened because one doesn't know for certain but there is a thread of mythology in this occurance of seperation and we find it in the Bible :  the Bride and the Bridegroom.

In Astrology; re-incarnation is likened to the twelve tasks of Hercules.  The Zodiac sign we experience in each life builds the Spirit strong enough to join with the Soul so eventually the need to re-incarnate dissappears as the Soul and Spirit have joined to become partakers in Creation at higher levels.

Further it is said; we meet with our Soul (if male) or Spirit (if female) or both (Gay represents a form of the androgynous) The androgynous in Spirit is beyond sexual activity as it is the coupling of all the spiritual bodies and ultimately it is female (soul) and male (spirit) joined as one - it is the ultimate joining - it is The Chemical Wedding.

.. we meet with our twin spouse eternal between death and re-birth, maybe even in sleep at night but never to have the Chemical Wedding until our wordly tasks are completed in order to consummate the marriage.

Um .. am I going off the subject a bit into mythology land?! 



Ps:  Alysia that cloud picture is stunning!

Caryn and Kathy are leading me onward into lands of higher thought   I much enjoy your knowledge of astrology  and mythology Caryn and you comparison to the bible also as there is much symbology in the bible to be deciphered. it seems we have left brained logic then we have right brained "above logic" to bring into balance on this planet, and there we have duality, contrast, polarities like the bride and the bridegroom concept.
the twelve number is interesting.
I didn't know why I picked 12 as the number of my guides, however, were there not 12 around J's table? and then you mentioned the 12 signs of the zodiac. this could have meaning.  I have been meeting with my twin spouse out of body at night, so I directly relate to your words on this.  I even remember asking him if we "were getting married?" this back in the 80's. The meetings have increased over the years.
You're absolutely right. it is the ultimate...something.  I am not finished here with my tasks.  well, you are not off the subject, at least not for me!

Kathy always has something to say to me.  You are so right the vibrations of the astral plane are faster. From obes, I have noticed to my wonderment how fast everyone moves; even some of my slow moving within physical friends and associates fairly seem to fly within this other area of being and I can see that "moving faster" correlates with a vibration thesis.

continuing with our discussion on what perception is exactly as opposed to "knowing" I am reminded of Bruce's discussion of the interpretor part of the mind. Is perception the same as an interpretation?
I don't think so. first we perceive, then we interpret what we have perceived.

I believe that's where we can get it wrong, to misinterpret what we perceive. that is where we can get into the problem of taking a comment personally from another person, who may just be asserting their own interpretation of their own perception about whatever.
Bruce said, as I recall, hello Bruce!   that when working in these areas of exploration to ask for another perception to replace the first. (perhaps a symbol) I think he said "nudge" it, and if it remains, work with it, but it can sometimes be replaced and yet another perhaps more fitting interpretation can come into place.

I'm using the above reference in terms of doing retrievals or other explorations, such as talking to your deceased family member.

thanks everybody it's been "real!"

One dictum of New Age thought is that while in spirit, we get together with spiritual advisors and select the next incarnation to maximally benefit our learning.  We are not privy to all that would happen in the life, but know it "in general."  However, when we see what goes on in the physical, it makes one wonder how much planning and choice go into it.  Take the drug abuser, wife beater, murderer, child abuser.  In one sense you may say they are working out karma.  In another, you may ask: "what purpose or learning can they have in mind while in spirit to reincarnate and become this negative person?  Some may say the spirit yearns to explore its dark side.  Oh really?  Let us not forget that many of these unfortunate or errant souls will consign themselves to a self-imposed hell on leaving the physical world.  This may endure for decades or eons. 

So what exactly were they and their advisors thinking when they decided to incarnate?  Free will is a b#$ch, isn't it?  Could they not have explored their dark side while in spirit?  Like attracts like there too, so base thoughts or desires would (according to Swedenborg) lead them to others with a like mind. 

I have heard it said that most people, when they cross over end up in Focus 27, or the free area of heaven.  I am not sure, from what I see in the physical world why this would be so.  Belief systems are rampant throughout the world.  Hells (self created) should be overflowing.  So, how does one dive down into the earth plane, go down a dark path away from God, and say it was pre-planned?  It defies logic, and there should be some divine logic to all of this. 

One could argue that the killers, abusers and the like are "new souls," or younger souls who have to work their way up.  This is the only argument that I could see that would still allow the pre-plan paradigm of New Age thought.  Still, it gives one pause. 


Matthew