Awareness

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In Moving Images We See What Is Not

 

What is vision? We are able to see objects and other externalities because of

our visual perceptive apparatus that has the attribute called as persistence of

vision. A motion picture is made up of a series of still pictures. When each of

these still pictures is followed by another in less than a sixth of a second,

the brain interprets the sequence as a continuum. And so we see the sequence of

images as a motion picture without realising that what we think we see is just

an illusion, a perception.

 

The continuum is implied. The continuum is enabled by a programme of the

neurological apparatus. And we are actually deceived by " virtual reality " . Each

individual and his constituents are all the while in a state of change. Even the

skeletal system that we believe to be hard and which forms the infrastructure of

the body is constantly being remodeled. Absorption and reformation of the bones

are a continuous process. So, when we all are constantly being reformed as it

were, the perception of our own continuity is a mere hallucination.

 

Change is the only certainty. We all are constantly changing and so is the

environment. So any perceived continuity or seeming constancy is just an

illusion of our perception. If we wake up to the fact that every aspect of

existence is in a constant flux, then the question that automatically arises is

" What is unchangeable, permanent and eternal? "

 

The constancy is in the perceiver; it is in the act of observing. All creation

is comprised of three distinct entities: the perceiver, the perceived and the

act of perception. All are manifestations of the same universal consciousness.

Saint Dhyaneshwara refers to this trilogy as `triputi'. The perceived is all the

while in a state of flux and change. So the perceiver is the only constant in

this apparent variable equation of creation. What is perceived all the while is

changing.

 

Quantum physics expounds that if the observer does not observe an event, then it

never happened. Out of the infinite possibilities, when the observer observes an

event, then, all the other waves of possible events are squashed. Till the

observer observes, all events are in a state of being possible. All perception

is centered on awareness. To any observer, the universe exists only till the

observer exists. Once the observer ceases to exist, then from his perspective,

the universe also ceases to exist.

 

When ancient scriptures comment on the illusory nature of all creation, they are

alluding to the impermanence and deception created by sensory perception. The

continuum of existence is only a mirage. We are not the same entity at two

discrete points in time. We as well as the environment are continuously changing

and any continuity is just an illusion of the perceptive apparatus. In deep

sleep, there is a period of non-perception of the outer world. On waking, this

world reappears and the show goes on. Despite non-perception of the external

world there does remain a certain am-ness that is aware and says that I slept

well. That awareness is the witness and the unchangeable and permanent entity,

the immortal Atman.

 

In death that personalised awareness again becomes impersonal awareness. In the

state of realisation, the trilogy of perceived, perceiver and the act of

perception merges into unity, into the Paramatma.

(The article is from a Neurosurgeon)