Illusion ( part 1) - Perception

 

Once it so happened that four people were blind folded and taken to different parts of an elephant and asked to touch the elephant and guess what it was. The first person touched the trunk of the elephant and guessed it was a snake. The second person touched the tail of the elephant and guessed it was a rope. The third person touched the leg of the elephant and guessed it to be a pillar and the last person touched the stomach of the elephant and touching it he guessed it to be a round rock.

When the blindfolds of all the four person were removed, they were surprised to see the error in what they had each perceived.

The above story illustrates how removal of just one of the senses (sense of sight) can create such wide ranging mis-perceptions of one object.

So what are the types of errors or limitations that one can have when perceiving anything ?

There are four key types of areas where errors can result -

1. Limiting the number of senses. The first one was apparent from the story above, limiting the number of senses, or taking away a sense can result in an error in what one perceives. Alternatively just relying on only one of the senses can also result in distortion of what one perceives. While the human body has five basic senses (sense of touch, hearing, smell, sight and taste), most people are unaware that the entire human body is a sensory structure with myriad of internal and psycho sensory sensors that are continually sensing and providing feedback to keep the body balanced. Any of these when ignored can cause pain or harm or long term damage to the body.

 

2. Sensory limits of senses. Each sense has a sensory limit, for instance human ears can hear sounds only between certain frequencies. Anything higher or lower can not be heard. We only come to know of this limitation when we compare ourselves with animals who have a broader sensory spectrum (hearing and sense of smell of a dog, eye sight of an eagle and so on).

 

3. Interpreting what the senses perceive. When one senses something, the sense organ communicates what it has sensed to the mind. To make sense of what has been perceived, the mind compares what is sensed with what is stored in its memory. If it finds an exact match then the degree of confidence in interpreting what has been perceived is high, otherwise an approximation is used to find the closest possible match. There are three types of errors that can occur here, firstly in the recording of a nomenclature or storage of a memory and secondly in the matching process as described above and thirdly in the prioritisation of what is perceived -

 

1. When a child is born, everything is new for the child. The child's memory is empty (may have past birth memories, but we will not talk about them here). After the child is born the process of creating a memory commences. A dictionary of words of a language is given to the child, associated with patterns, images, sounds, tastes etc. Slowly the child starts building a database of structures and relationships in their memory. Some are based on what they have been told and others based on experiences. Every time they perceive anything, if it is not in their memory, they record it and give it a label and so the memory of known objects grows. The initial patterns that are given to a child can be limiting at times such as certain beliefs (white is good, black is bad or red is aggressive) or value systems. These create their own errors in perception.

 

2. The memory continues to accumulate new concepts, ideas, patterns, sounds etc, but at the same time as the child grows, its act of perceiving known structures strengthens or refines the existing memory structures and patterns. The act of matching as mentioned before can result in errors, if there is no exact match.

 

3. Once what has been sensed has been matched, something interesting happens, the mind not being able to deal with all of these perceptions at once, prioritises its attention towards them. The prioritisation is based on already stored belief systems, value systems (this is good, this is bad, etc), which are geared towards survival and optimisation. As a result even though some things have been perceived and matched, they are ignored and no attention given to them.  Once it so happened that Jill convinced Jack to buy a red car. Jack did not like the red colour complaining how few people bought a red car. Once Jack started driving the red car, his prioritisation focussed on red and what was interesting was that after a month of owning the red car he was surprised at how prevalent the colour red was in the car industry compared to what he initially thought. Initially he had de-prioritised the seeing of the red coloured cars based on his belief system, so he never observed red cars, even though red cars were always there. This type of error is more prevalent than the other errors and occurs when a certain belief system completely ignores that which is perceived.

 

4. Context within which the sensing occurs. Initially the common belief was that since the sunrise was in the east and the sunset was in the west, the sun rotated around he earth. It was not until other data points were established around the various other planets and the moon that it was finally established that in fact it is the earth that rotates around the sun. Similarly observing the earth from space debunks a number of other theories around earth being flat and the rotation and revolution of the earth. Without the appropriate set of contexts or viewpoints sensing can lead to enormous errors.

So does that mean that all that we perceive is unreliable and has a potential for errors and cannot be trusted at face value  

Yes everything that you perceive must not be directly trusted as being true until you have at least applied your sense of discrimination / logic and aware of potential areas of error listed above. There is one other fundamental error that encompasses all these errors is the error of the illusion.

What is this error of the illusion ?

We know now that all that is perceived can have at least four types of errors, but notwithstanding these errors, that which we perceive appears to be real, at least that is what we believe. Herein lies the biggest error of all, all that appears to be real is in fact an illusion, it is a projection, much like the movie you see on the screen in a cinema hall.

How can you be certain or prove that everything that appears is an illusion ?

We all have experienced dreams and we know dreams are not real. It is our experience that, that which we dream of in our sleep state rarely occurs in the waking state, is not consistent, is not repeatable (we may see different objects that are rarely repeated) and is temporary (it disappears after we wake up).

Now let us try and apply some of the criteria we have applied to dreams to what we observe in the waking state. In the waking state we observe certain objects and if they consistently appear, as well as appear they are unchanging, we consider them to be real. However if you pick any object, lets say a concrete structure which is considered to be very stable and consistent and fast forward time to a few decades later or rewind time to a few decades earlier, the structure does not exist or changes over time. Similarly every object, concept that you can observe is changing, only the relative span of time over which it changes is much larger in the waking state than in the dream state. If we apply a sufficiently long time span, even earth, the sun, the planets and the galaxy itself will change and disappear. So in terms of consistency, repeatability and permanence, all things that appear in the waking state also follow the criteria of the dream state, only the time scale is much bigger. In addition, all that appears in the waking state also disappears when one sleeps and goes in the dream state just like all that appears in the dream state disappears when you wake up.

Hence everything that appears in the waking state is also changing and anything that changes is not permanent and an illusion just like the appearances in the dream state.

But I can touch things and feel them and they appear to be so real in the waking state ?

If you have ever had a dream in which everything appears to be so real, but only when you wake up do you realise that it all was a dream, you will know that, that which appears to be real can still be an illusion.

Does that mean that everything that appears is not real, it is an illusion or a projection ?

Yes it is. The dream state provides a very good perspective into the illusory nature of all appearances. Those that have had out of body experiences, or near death experiences or experiences in the projected states will be convinced beyond any doubt that all that appears is an illusion. To establish the illusory nature of all that appears, multiple perspectives from different states are required (just as you need multiple perspectives to establish the earth rotates around the sun), which conclusively establish waking state as yet another projected state or a dream.

Lets say if everything that appears is an illusion and I understand the errors in perceiving it, how does it help me or cause suffering ?

Once you realise that everything that appears is an illusion, just like dreams, you do not waste time chasing after experiences in the illusion. Experiences that you chase after lead to suffering. With the knowing that all experiences are illusory, comes a realisation that one should treat all experiences as just that - experiences with an entertainment value. Neither you get attached to them, nor you chase them, nor should they take over your life. You just observe them and be part of them if required but don't get entangled in them by treating them as real. Life becomes joyful and a play.

I can't just observe all appearances, at times I have to be part of some experiences in order to survive.

Yes that is right, we have already established that, all that appears is an illusion, but we still have to eat our food to survive, we still need sleep to rest, we need shelter from nature. In other words survival requires us to take some action and engage in this illusion, without which we can not survive.

So what criteria can I use to assess what I have perceived is not distorted in my day to day life ? 

On a day to day basis in order to survive, humans need to act on information from their senses and make decisions on the information they have gathered. A decision making process that is based on errors (as seen from the sensing errors) results in a sub-optimal decision and hence action.

Each of the errors can be turned around into questions / criteria that can be used to establish the relative truth of that which is perceived. The fundamental truth that, all that appears is continually changing and hence is an illusion needs to be remembered to put all conclusions that are drawn in perspective. This will negate the need to take anything that is perceived as real, however where for purposes of survival, the relative truth of that which appears is necessary, the below criteria can be used to discern the relative relevance and priority of that which is perceived.

 

1. Can my perception of that which I perceive be sharper if I add more senses to my perceiving ? In other words am I using only a few of my senses in my perception which may be resulting in errors in perceiving.

 

2. Are the sensory limits of my senses in any way distorting my perception ? If I am deaf to certain frequencies or colour blind, does that distort my perception. If so then how much reliance should I place on what I perceive.

 

3. Is my interpretation of what my senses have perceived based on incorrect classification or recognition of experiences and how much of a role do my beliefs and values play in interpreting what is perceived ? In other words am I distorting what is observed because of my inherent beliefs or my values.

 

4. Is there more context that will provide more data points that can make my perception of what appears more complete ? In other words are there more perspectives that can make my perception more accurate.

Is it ever possible to perceive anything as is, without any errors or impurities and what are the benefits ?

Let’s start with the benefits first. Observing anything “as is” offers a person an ability to perceive everything for what it is and enjoy everything. Imagine if you went to see an Alaskan glacier in the wilderness and you spent a number of days and a sizeable amount of money to see it, how would you feel if you saw only part of it, because half the time you were pre-occupied with thoughts of work. On a day to day basis we are continually missing out on a lot of things that we are sensing due to our pre-occupation with other concepts and ideas or work. Once you perceive things for what they are you begin to truly enjoy life.

The second key benefit of having this ability to sense everything untainted is that it gives one an ability to recognise other people’s perspectives as all perspectives are just a subset of the complete picture you have seen. This ability to relate to or see from other people’s perspectives is essential according to Dalai Lama the famous Tibetan spiritual leader and Noble peace prize winner to have compassion.

In summary, yes it is possible to perceive everything as is.

So how is it possible to perceive without any distortions ?

We have already seen the four types of errors that creep up when we perceive all that appears. Out of the four types of errors, the second one is a result of the physical limitation of the senses, which can not be avoided as long as the sense organs of the mind body structure are in use for sensing. The other distortions relate to the thinking process of the mind. Not enough attention leads to not applying all your senses or getting the context wrong. Distortions related to conditionings and beliefs result from the memory and the thoughts in the mind. Once the memories are created you can’t wipe them off, they are always there. However without thoughts the memory is not accessed (unless your attention is scattered) and without thoughts there is nothing to carry the memories.  So if you become thoughtless or near thoughtless for a minute or two you are totally in the moment watching everything in its “as is “ state, without interpretation, without any mental noise.

That is what one must do - bring your attention to the present and you will be so absorbed in the present that your conscious and unconscious distortions will disappear. The other benefit of this approach is that by bringing attention to the present it helps dissolve conditionings that one may have gathered in the past making one's experiencing more refined.

Another approach quite effective also is “becoming a watcher” - a watcher of thoughts. You watch thoughts as they come and go without attaching to them bringing your attention to sensing rather than analysing, interpreting, classifying and categorising. This approach creates a gap between the watcher and the watched making one an alert but detached observer.

We have all from time to time been in this state of “as is” observation when we have seen something spectacular in nature or had our first time sky diving experience. At this time we are highly alert and thought free and free from any preconditioning.  All that is required is to replicate this same process.

Initially it may appear to be hard to master the art of observation but practice makes perfect and the benefits are immense - you become totally alive !

Once the art of sensing through sense organs is mastered, the natural progression towards sensing without the physical sense organs naturally follows. That’s right you don’t need eyes to see, ears to hear and so on.

This topic will be covered in a future post, but for now it suffices to say that one can perceive without distortions.

In summary all that changes is an illusion, entanglement in this illusion or chasing illusory experiences leads to suffering, however for purposes of survival relative relevance and prioritisation of that which is perceived is necessary. With awareness practices and being present, it is possible to remove the distortions in perceiving all that appears as illusion.

next post Illusion (part 2) - Happiness