As usual I'm "late" with my Socrates Cafe discussion entry, which has been ongoing since Mar. 20. I am attempting to post an entry for each topic. I chose only one topic for this week, however. The following article ties very well to my Universal Blog, as do most of my entries in these discussions. For more information about my Spiritual Journey, please read the Books of the Realizations and the articles in the Universal Blog. Socrates Cafe topic posts are generated by the Socrates Cafe Blogring. More Socrates Cafe discussions can be found on the latest topic post. This topic is hosted by tychecat.
Perception is reality. Agree or disagree?
The Universal Mind cannot be touched, heard, seen, tasted, or smelled. Neither can the Universal Mind engage in sensual empathy with the world in and of itself. These "senses" are purely physical manifestations of the corporeal world. The corporeal world is that which we "experience" from day to day. We touch physical objects. We hear the world around us. We taste and smell. We look around and we "perceive" what we "think" to be the "real world". If two of us are standing beside one another, we believe we are experiencing the same world, we believe we can converse intelligently about these perceptions, and since the consensus is that we think we are "sensing" the same space, this perception "is" reality.
This isn't necessarily so, however. The "mind plays tricks" with our perception in slight but subtle ways, and whenever a group of people are asked to remember something, chances are they will remember different events and different scenery.
The "reality" for us is our perception of it, but the reality doesn't in fact exist. It is a construct of the Universal Mind, "made real" by our corporeal senses. In actuality, the neutrinos and quarks that ultimately make up universal space cannot be sensed. Scientists "know" they exist because of their paths and trails. With more powerful microscopes and telescopes, mankind has found that even the most "solid" of surfaces is in fact "nothing" and the stars which shine in the night sky actually burned bright millions of years ago. Scientists attempt to explain these seeming breaks and anomalities in "reality" to us, and sometimes we feign understanding, but most of the time, we tend to dismiss anything other than our own senses, and our ultimate perception is our ultimate reality.
The Universal contains our corporeality, and exceeds it. We are not meant to grasp the "total picture" or the "true nature" of univiversality until we pass from the corporeal to the Universal. Then, all the questions are answered in an instant. In the Universal, the "mind", this same mind which cannot be "sensed", is the total picture. The mind contains the Universe, and the Universe contains the mind. Everything attians understanding, and the shades and slivers of individual perception are noticed and acknowledged by the total as such. There are many shades to any individual color. I and you can both see "red" and both see different colors, but our corporeal perception is that we both see red. We can "color" our perception to match others, but this isn't a true "snapshot" of our reality. The more enlightened we become, the more we can relate to the simple fact that all is not what we perceive, and our corporeal minds do not use the totality of power with which they have been given. That totality "shows" us (a Universal perception, if you will) the many truths which actually make up the Universe.
In conclusion, perception is what our corporeal mind "thinks" is the truth of reality. Universal perception becomes reality, and the truth of reality is much more than we "think" it is while we are locked in our bodies on the planet Earth, or wherever we live in the many galaxies inhabiting the Universe.
So I guess I would say that I agree that what I perceive on Earth is reality to me, even though I know that I do not sense the "big picture." My Universal perception will "become" reality, so upon my assension to the Universal, I would disagree that my corporeal perception was reality at all, but merely a snapshot of a small section of it.