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The Forum > General Discussion > A strange thought on being real.

A strange thought on being real.

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To Ashbo.

Be careful when contemplating reality without a means to perceive it in the environmental context. For example, a lot of bad advise is thrown out there by people who only know half the story (if even that). Same is true with anything else. Our perception might not always be correct. But they are more in line then our preconceived thoughts are. So our senses and perceptions should be the means to test our theory of reality.
Posted by Not_Now.Soon, Wednesday, 17 January 2018 7:14:57 PM
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Dear Ashbo,

Our intellect can mitigate some distortions in perception.
However, it cannot overcome the duality inherent in perception itself.

The game of diversity, or "Lila" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lila_(Hinduism%29) refers to how God, though one, absolute and undifferentiated, seems to play being multiple, creating the illusion of time, space and all the rest as seemingly seen from multiple points of view.

Reality cannot be contemplated, but it can be experienced directly without sensory or any other perception. Perception is required for 'A' to obtain information about some separate 'B'. For that, 'A' must take their attention outside. However, 'A' need not look outside to "perceive" itself. In order to experience yourself directly, you need to stop looking outside for other things. Once you experience yourself directly, it's just the most obvious, more obvious than anything you ever experienced through perception. English has no word for direct/immediate experiences - the Sanskrit word is 'Anubhava': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anubhava#Advaita_Vedanta
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 18 January 2018 3:59:18 PM
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To Yuyutsu.

I find myself, at least for the time being, in agreement with you on the problem of perception.
Mind you, this problem is of a philosophic nature, in so far as our ordinary day to day perceptions seem to serve us perfectly well.
I struggle with your metaphysics however. It does not seem satisfactory to me to rely on a religious experience to make sense of things presented to us by our perceptual experiences.
Posted by Ashbo, Sunday, 21 January 2018 6:03:20 PM
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Dear Ashbo,

Our ordinary day to day perceptions serve our human needs quite well, though I wouldn't give it full marks as "perfectly" well. After all, human perception evolved (and perhaps still evolves) for that purpose alone.

Perceptions cannot, however, satisfy our spiritual need, perhaps because evolution is geared for the survival of the species and there is no survival advantage in knowing one's true self or in finding God.

Making sense is a mental activity. We experience mental activities indirectly through our minds and indirect experiences are necessarily relative, imperfect and distorted to some extent. So you are perfectly right in your claim: direct experience (which I presume is what you refer to by "religious experience") does not involve the mind, so it cannot make sense, that's not what it is for.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Sunday, 21 January 2018 11:40:42 PM
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To Yuyutsu.
Thank you for your reply.
I now have a good sense of your reasoning on the matter.
Time for me to go off and do some study on "perception", so thanks again.
Ash
Posted by Ashbo, Monday, 22 January 2018 8:55:16 AM
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