Post by zayin on Dec 6, 2005 14:39:20 GMT -5
"...we become aware of something, that when brought into awareness, seems so obvious we may surprise ourselves that we missed it. This something is:
->Our perception determines our experience<-
This is an essential realization on a spiritual path, and can assist us immensely in the living of life – our quality of life. If we wish to have better experiences, we need to change our perception. If we wish to experience All-That-Is, or the Nagual, we must change our perception.
The fact that our perception is very limited is basic to Toltec teachings. When we thoroughly work the Mastery of Awareness, we come to understand that the knowledge we have acquired growing up creates a world that is not real. We begin to understand that the world we perceive is nothing but the result of the content of our knowledge and our beliefs. How we perceive the world is determined by our domestication.
Let me give a real life example of how our perception is determined by our knowledge, or what Toltecs call, our inventory.
When I was a graduate student I was living in Japan studying cultural anthropology. For part-time work I translated manuals from Japanese into English. On one occasion I was translating a manual that said in Japanese, "To start the machine push the ‘aoi’ button." Because I didn't actually have the physical machine in front of me I didn't know how to translate the Japanese word ‘aoi.’ The word ‘aoi’ in Japanese can mean either blue or green.
Therefore, a native Japanese speaker will point to a ‘blue’ sky and say it is AOI. They will then point to a ‘green’ leaf and say it is the same color – AOI. Due to their knowledge and conditioning, they actually PERCEIVE the sky and the leaf as the same color.
This can be understood when we look at a color spectrum. The colors blue and green are right next to each other on the spectrum. It so happens that most languages of the west divide the spectrum of blue and green into two colors. In truth, there are an infinite number of color frequencies within the range of blue and green. We just happen to divide the range into two basic colors and this is what we see.
Other cultures divide the color spectrum up differently. (It should be noted that modern Japanese now has more words for colors such as ‘midori’ for green and ‘buruu’ equivalent to the English word ‘blue’ and so on.)
When studying different cultures, Anthropologists found that different cultures have a different number of words for colors. Some cultures had five words for different colors, others had as few as four or even three words. What was even more significant, however, was that in some traditional cultures, if there were only three words for colors, they would only see three different colors! Their language "colored" their perception. Their perception determined their experience of color. They only experienced three colors.
A baby doesn't see blue or green until he is taught the words that define the colors. He sees the total color spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet as different "shades" of just ONE color. The words we are taught define the boundaries of the bundles of frequencies we perceive. When we are taught the word blue we learn a concept called blue. The concept defines a particular range of frequencies within the color spectrum, which is bound by the concept blue. When a color frequency falls within that range we call it blue. As the baby grows into a child and learns to speak, it no longer sees ONE color with different shades. It sees SEVERAL distinct colors defined by the vocabulary it has learned. It sees blue, green, red and so on. This is an example of how our language defines what we perceive.
The same is true of sounds. A native Japanese speaker does not hear the difference between an "l" sound and an "r" sound. Unless they study English they perceive them as the same sound. A native English speaker hears two distinct sounds because that is what he or she was taught. To the English speaker, the "p" in "pit" sounds the same as the "p" in "spit." However, to the Chinese speaker, these two "p" sounds are as distinctive as "l" and "r" are to the English speaker.
There is no right or wrong in this. It is just what we have learned. In actuality, there are an infinite number of sound frequencies between "l" and "r." But an English speaker hears just two. There are an infinite number of color frequencies in the color range bound by the word "yellow." But the English speaker perceives everything within the "yellow" range as “yellow." We may have a few words for different shades of "yellow," but we still perceive them as a shade of "yellow."
The average man or woman believes they know reality. They act and react according to what they believe they know. But what they know is the past. It is just one concept added to a concept added to a concept, a belief added to another belief in their inventory. Their inventory just grows horizontality. It has no depth. When we “see" and have knowingness it comes from another plane. It does not come from the horizontal plane of our knowledge inventory.
As the above examples illustrate, WHAT WE PERCEIVE is due in large part upon what we have learned. With all of our conditioning and learning, by the time they are adults, the average person has little ability to perceive WHAT IS. This is why Toltecs say that as long as you have inventory (knowledge), you cannot perceive the Nagual.
A pre-requisite for a true spiritual path is to first become aware of our beliefs (inventory), and then be willing to let them go. Until we eliminate our beliefs we can never perceive reality for what it is. Until we clear out our inventory, we will never know self, as we cannot see self as it is.
If we are unable to know self, we are unable to transform self and our lives in alignment to higher spiritual principles. We will continue with failed relationships, lack and difficulties in life.
To transform something we must first see it for what it is without avoidance and denial. We must be clear enough and free enough from our beliefs and stale knowledge to see things as they are.
In the Mastery of Awareness we stalk different aspects of ourselves. Stalking perception is a powerful exercise. When we stalk our perception we bring into awareness why we perceive things the way we do. This can be a basic thing like why we see the colors we do or why we hear the sounds we do. More important, however, is to stalk the way we think, feel, act and react. Do we perceive something as wrong or right because of beliefs we have been taught? Do we have unresolved emotional issues that cause us to feel nervous around our boss?
Unresolved emotional issues can dramatically throw our perception off. For example, say our boss hasn't called us into his office for a long time and we begin to perceive that he doesn’t appreciate or like our work. However if someone were to ask our boss why he hasn't called us into his office for a while, he may say it is because he trusts us to do our job without a lot of supervision. We have misperceived his actions. Why? Perhaps we have unresolved emotional issues about receiving approval from our parents or those in authority positions. This emotional issue perverts our perception. In this example it causes us to misperceive our boss’s actions.
As we stalk our perception we will find many ways in which it is determined by our domestication, our education, our language, our beliefs, and our emotional wounding. We will also begin to see how our perception actually determines our experience. In the above example we may be experiencing insecurity at work due to our misperception of our boss's actions.
Toltecs of ancient times discovered the importance of stalking perception. Through the Mastery of Awareness we come to realize that the world that we thought we knew, doesn't really exist at all. We see it as just a dream - a dream consisting of our conditioned assumptions about the world, and our agreements with others in the world. With this new perception comes the freedom to enter a new dream, the dream of heaven.
Want enlightenment? Change your perception. Want to change your perception? Clean, clear, heal and strengthen self. Fully engage your awareness, make no assumptions, and throw your knowledge and beliefs out the door. See self and the world with the beginner’s mind" (Raphael, 2004).
Reference:
K. Raphael (2004)Want Enlightenment? Then Change Your Perception, The Mastery of Awareness.Retreived from world wide web: toltecnagual.com/board/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=332
->Our perception determines our experience<-
This is an essential realization on a spiritual path, and can assist us immensely in the living of life – our quality of life. If we wish to have better experiences, we need to change our perception. If we wish to experience All-That-Is, or the Nagual, we must change our perception.
The fact that our perception is very limited is basic to Toltec teachings. When we thoroughly work the Mastery of Awareness, we come to understand that the knowledge we have acquired growing up creates a world that is not real. We begin to understand that the world we perceive is nothing but the result of the content of our knowledge and our beliefs. How we perceive the world is determined by our domestication.
Let me give a real life example of how our perception is determined by our knowledge, or what Toltecs call, our inventory.
When I was a graduate student I was living in Japan studying cultural anthropology. For part-time work I translated manuals from Japanese into English. On one occasion I was translating a manual that said in Japanese, "To start the machine push the ‘aoi’ button." Because I didn't actually have the physical machine in front of me I didn't know how to translate the Japanese word ‘aoi.’ The word ‘aoi’ in Japanese can mean either blue or green.
Therefore, a native Japanese speaker will point to a ‘blue’ sky and say it is AOI. They will then point to a ‘green’ leaf and say it is the same color – AOI. Due to their knowledge and conditioning, they actually PERCEIVE the sky and the leaf as the same color.
This can be understood when we look at a color spectrum. The colors blue and green are right next to each other on the spectrum. It so happens that most languages of the west divide the spectrum of blue and green into two colors. In truth, there are an infinite number of color frequencies within the range of blue and green. We just happen to divide the range into two basic colors and this is what we see.
Other cultures divide the color spectrum up differently. (It should be noted that modern Japanese now has more words for colors such as ‘midori’ for green and ‘buruu’ equivalent to the English word ‘blue’ and so on.)
When studying different cultures, Anthropologists found that different cultures have a different number of words for colors. Some cultures had five words for different colors, others had as few as four or even three words. What was even more significant, however, was that in some traditional cultures, if there were only three words for colors, they would only see three different colors! Their language "colored" their perception. Their perception determined their experience of color. They only experienced three colors.
A baby doesn't see blue or green until he is taught the words that define the colors. He sees the total color spectrum from infrared to ultraviolet as different "shades" of just ONE color. The words we are taught define the boundaries of the bundles of frequencies we perceive. When we are taught the word blue we learn a concept called blue. The concept defines a particular range of frequencies within the color spectrum, which is bound by the concept blue. When a color frequency falls within that range we call it blue. As the baby grows into a child and learns to speak, it no longer sees ONE color with different shades. It sees SEVERAL distinct colors defined by the vocabulary it has learned. It sees blue, green, red and so on. This is an example of how our language defines what we perceive.
The same is true of sounds. A native Japanese speaker does not hear the difference between an "l" sound and an "r" sound. Unless they study English they perceive them as the same sound. A native English speaker hears two distinct sounds because that is what he or she was taught. To the English speaker, the "p" in "pit" sounds the same as the "p" in "spit." However, to the Chinese speaker, these two "p" sounds are as distinctive as "l" and "r" are to the English speaker.
There is no right or wrong in this. It is just what we have learned. In actuality, there are an infinite number of sound frequencies between "l" and "r." But an English speaker hears just two. There are an infinite number of color frequencies in the color range bound by the word "yellow." But the English speaker perceives everything within the "yellow" range as “yellow." We may have a few words for different shades of "yellow," but we still perceive them as a shade of "yellow."
The average man or woman believes they know reality. They act and react according to what they believe they know. But what they know is the past. It is just one concept added to a concept added to a concept, a belief added to another belief in their inventory. Their inventory just grows horizontality. It has no depth. When we “see" and have knowingness it comes from another plane. It does not come from the horizontal plane of our knowledge inventory.
As the above examples illustrate, WHAT WE PERCEIVE is due in large part upon what we have learned. With all of our conditioning and learning, by the time they are adults, the average person has little ability to perceive WHAT IS. This is why Toltecs say that as long as you have inventory (knowledge), you cannot perceive the Nagual.
A pre-requisite for a true spiritual path is to first become aware of our beliefs (inventory), and then be willing to let them go. Until we eliminate our beliefs we can never perceive reality for what it is. Until we clear out our inventory, we will never know self, as we cannot see self as it is.
If we are unable to know self, we are unable to transform self and our lives in alignment to higher spiritual principles. We will continue with failed relationships, lack and difficulties in life.
To transform something we must first see it for what it is without avoidance and denial. We must be clear enough and free enough from our beliefs and stale knowledge to see things as they are.
In the Mastery of Awareness we stalk different aspects of ourselves. Stalking perception is a powerful exercise. When we stalk our perception we bring into awareness why we perceive things the way we do. This can be a basic thing like why we see the colors we do or why we hear the sounds we do. More important, however, is to stalk the way we think, feel, act and react. Do we perceive something as wrong or right because of beliefs we have been taught? Do we have unresolved emotional issues that cause us to feel nervous around our boss?
Unresolved emotional issues can dramatically throw our perception off. For example, say our boss hasn't called us into his office for a long time and we begin to perceive that he doesn’t appreciate or like our work. However if someone were to ask our boss why he hasn't called us into his office for a while, he may say it is because he trusts us to do our job without a lot of supervision. We have misperceived his actions. Why? Perhaps we have unresolved emotional issues about receiving approval from our parents or those in authority positions. This emotional issue perverts our perception. In this example it causes us to misperceive our boss’s actions.
As we stalk our perception we will find many ways in which it is determined by our domestication, our education, our language, our beliefs, and our emotional wounding. We will also begin to see how our perception actually determines our experience. In the above example we may be experiencing insecurity at work due to our misperception of our boss's actions.
Toltecs of ancient times discovered the importance of stalking perception. Through the Mastery of Awareness we come to realize that the world that we thought we knew, doesn't really exist at all. We see it as just a dream - a dream consisting of our conditioned assumptions about the world, and our agreements with others in the world. With this new perception comes the freedom to enter a new dream, the dream of heaven.
Want enlightenment? Change your perception. Want to change your perception? Clean, clear, heal and strengthen self. Fully engage your awareness, make no assumptions, and throw your knowledge and beliefs out the door. See self and the world with the beginner’s mind" (Raphael, 2004).
Reference:
K. Raphael (2004)Want Enlightenment? Then Change Your Perception, The Mastery of Awareness.Retreived from world wide web: toltecnagual.com/board/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=332
Hope to catch up soon!
