How Do We Perceive Reality?
Perceiving Reality Outside Me and Inside Me
This article gives a taste on how the reality we perceive is inside us, using a well-known example from the film "What the Bleep Do We Know!?"
The World and Me or The World or Me?
I perceive reality through my senses, the five senses—sight, smell, taste, sound and touch. Everything I perceive as being outside me is really happening inside me.
Now to sharpen the question: Is it that the world exists and I’m here observing it, or is it that I exist and create the reality around me at every moment?
Have you heard the story of Columbus sailing to the American shores?
As he drew closer, the Indians, who were looking out at the sea toward the horizon, simply did not see the approaching ships.
You see, the Indians had never seen a ship before, so they had no picture installed in their minds, one that could tell them “Sir, a big house sailing on the water is coming at us. Ship!”
We Only See What’s Inside Us
We can only absorb what we have inside us. If we have no form or mould of a new object, then we can’t recognize it.
The Indian who observed the movement of the waves on the sea, understood that something was happening. By concentrating on what was causing the ripples, an image gradually formed in his mind until it became a clearly identifiable object—a ship. Only then could he see and describe it to his people as an ark with levels, tall poles and wide canvas sheets. This image was then also depicted in their imagination.
Then, the question is whether the picture that they saw in their imagination was uniform and identical for all tribesmen?
Whatever reality my eyes perceive differs from the next person’s. If I do not recognize a given form and cannot perceive it with my five senses, then that form doesn’t exist for me.
This knowledge is heavy whether we’ve read about it before or not. I mean, it always feels like there are things outside of me. If I walk barefoot at the beach, on the sand near the water, then I feel the soft, damp caress of the wet sand under my feet, and then I stop to buy a chocolate ice cream, and I feel the cold spark as soon as the ice cream enters my mouth, followed by the sweet, sweet taste of the chocolate.
So what does it mean that I’m creating this reality for myself?
And what does it mean to the Indians?
Does it mean that the ship they saw was only in their imagination?
Is the whole world around me just one big illusion?
There is a general law called “the law of equivalence of form.” As we previously discussed, this law operates in nature so that I absorb information only if I have its form, its mould inside me.
There’s a problem. On the one hand, I’m told that my reality is limited to my five senses and I do not perceive everything around me, and on the other hand, I’m told that I can only perceive something if I know it. So the problem is how am I supposed to perceive this new reality when I have absolutely no idea about what it—this new form—is like? Where would I receive these new forms inside me?
Kabbalah—Learning How to Perceive the Upper Worlds
In the same way that the Indian described the ship to his tribe, and they developed the image of this big house floating on the water in their minds, so too Kabbalists describe the structure of the Upper Worlds to us, the reality that our five senses are incapable of registering.
By so doing, they implant new moulds inside me, making me capable of perceiving a reality that is hidden from my natural senses, and give birth to a new perception of reality.
When we learn how to recognize nature’s operating forces, we can understand why things happen as they do, what my role is within what I call “reality,” and how I am supposed to act so as to live in balance with nature.
This learning of how to recognize nature’s operating forces, and guidance to equalize in form with nature, is precisely what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches.
Related Material on Kabbalah and Our Perception of Reality:
VIDEO: Kabbalah, Science and the Perception of Reality - Rav Michael Laitman, PhD refers to the example of the Indian mentioned in this article, and describes how we perceive reality in reference also to what scientists talked about in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!?
ARTICLE: What is Reality? -Kabbalah, Science and the Perception of Reality - Rav Michael Laitman, PhD discusses the general scientific evolution through Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, and Hugh Everett, and states how Kabbalah's approach fundamentally differs to these scientists' views.
LECTURE: Perception of Reality - As part of the Kabbalah Revealed introductory Kabbalah series, Anthony Kosinec explains how our five senses block us from perceiving the true, eternal reality, and how we can use what Kabbalists have discovered, to break through our limitations, and achieve the complete, eternal perception of reality.
