Awareness

Paladin said:
Can you be that which you perceive?
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No, I don't think so. I don't think we're anything that we perceive, and yet all our awareness is perception... Does that make us nothing? No, otherwise we wouldn't be aware of anything. So are we simply awareness? I'm aware of my thoughts, but I'm not my thoughts... I build thoughts as a builder builds buildings. Absolute existence, however, is strictly confined to God. I'm like a thought of God, I belong to God, but He is much greater, just as I'm greater than one of my thoughts, God is so much greater than any of us. We're totally dependent on God for our existence, but God doesn't need any of us. He created us because He loved our creation... not of necessity, but of love.
 
per·ceive
Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[per-seev]Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–verb (used with object), -ceived, -ceiv·ing. 1.to become aware of, know, or identify by means of the senses: I perceived an object looming through the mist. 2.to recognize, discern, envision, or understand: I perceive a note of sarcasm in your voice. This is a nice idea but I perceive difficulties in putting it into practice.
[Origin: 1250–1300; ME perceiven < AF *perceivre, for perçoivre < L percipere to lay hold of, grasp, equiv. to per- per- + -cipere, comb. form of capere to take
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]
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Yes.
 
Paladin said:
Can you be that which you perceive?
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I am one of the things I perceive.
You are one of the things I perceive.
I am more than what I perceive about myself.
You are more than what I perceive about you.
I am more than the totality of my perceiving.
You are more than the totality of your perceiving.

Namiste,
Dr Free
 
seattlegal said:
If you are what you perceive, then what happens when you go to sleep?
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Dreams? ;)

Here are some examples of what I'm not... I'm not my eyes, I'm not my ears, I'm not my sight or hearing. I'm not my fingers, I'm not my arms. I'm not my body. I'm not my brain or my heart. I use all of those, but I'm not those. The soul is the sun by which the body is illumined.
 
Dawud said:
Dreams? ;)

Here are some examples of what I'm not... I'm not my eyes, I'm not my ears, I'm not my sight or hearing. I'm not my fingers, I'm not my arms. I'm not my body. I'm not my brain or my heart. I use all of those, but I'm not those. The soul is the sun by which the body is illumined.
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Almost exactly like this quote.....

YouTube - Scientology Video: The Parts of Man

You sure about Scientology not having agreement with Baha'i?
 
seattlegal said:
If you are what you perceive, then what happens when you go to sleep?
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Exactly!
Be careful though, this line of inquiry could mean the end of all machinations, and we all know that's not what the human race wants.
 
Quote from The Search for the Real Self (pg 35 by James F. Masterson M.D.) that suggests the necessity of not completely perceiving ourselves:
Instead of allowing the images to remain split into their good and bad components, the child learns to repress the negative aspects into the unconscious. Personality development depends on repression because the drives and feelings that are repressed enter the unconscious for sublimation. They become the raw material for creativity, the pool of energy that fuels our desires to become doctors, lawyers, mothers, fathers. If a person can't repress, he or she can't sublimate because there isn't the psychic energy to respond to life in creative and successful ways.
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This information is based on a relatively modern understanding of childhood psychological development.
 
I would say that, although you cannot literally be only what you perceive, one's perceptions and their interpretations of those perceptions can shape what they are into what they perceive. For example, a person who insists that all relationships are doomed will sometimes unwittingly create an environment for themselves that fulfills those very perceptions.

Perception also tends to share some blurry lines with 'conception' (meaning, in this unique case, the creation of concepts with which to make sense of raw perception). In my experience, even some of the most intuitive or intellectual people I have met have difficulty distinguishing between perception, on one hand, and interpretation, on the other.
 
you make a perception which is thence a projection of or within the observer. if we don’t project the perceptive quality of mind then the only thing it can perceive is itself.

perhaps then the difference is in the adaption of the minds utility, when projected it is perception, when not projected it is awareness.

...and do we really sleep? i.e. is the mind ever actually switched off or just the body, one may be woken at any time and remember that we were thinking about something, so our concept of sleep may have much to do with being disconnected with the physical memory rather than not being present.
 
sort of.

independently existing objects are not discrete objects they are, in essence, a set of relationships which extend outwards to all things. ~H. Stapp, 21st Century physicist.

metta,

~v
 
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