July 27
And the days wing by, one after another, faster and faster. Or slower and slower. Perception—that is what we wish to speak to you of today. You know just how powerful it is, how it can shape your experience and your very being in many cases.
The trick is to keep it uppermost in your consciousness. Perception is a function of many different facets all working together, externally and internally. Each perception already perceived contributes to the next, and that to the one after it.
You tend to build the structure of your life upon a scaffolding of previous scaffolds. This, as you can see, is a potentially dangerous route to take. It could and sometimes does work out well—a clear outlook of any sort produces perception that is consistent and has the integrity to be maintained.
Thus one avoids the inconvenient intrusion of raw reality.
But if you want to really know what is going on, it is necessary to separate your own perception from events and from the energies which exist regardless of whether and how you see and feel them.
This can be extremely difficult. After all, you have been striving to make sense of, to master, to find your place in this life using the very instruments that take the life itself and form it into your personal perceptions. To step back from this hard-learned pattern feels awkward, uncomfortable and somehow not-enough for many humans who attempt it.
But it can change your life, and lead you into a relationship with truth you never imagined. Which is why we bring it to your attention today.
You may meditate (or do something like that), which, in basic theory, should lead to something similar to what we are describing. You know that it is good to still your mind, to make space, to breathe.
But you can take this into your every interaction if you want to.
These days there is much changing and changing quickly. There is pain on a scale difficult to even describe that filters through your life from without, even if you are not aware of it. The pressures are great, in other words.
If you can remove, even a little, some of the layers of personal experience and expectation that build upon nearly all of these occurrences, you will be freer and happier. You will be less bound by the past and more open to what could be, right now.
If you are still with us, and get the gist of what we are saying, you will probably want some advice on just how to accomplish this. Sadly, we have no magic pills. But we can tell you that your emotional life and your physical being provide very reliable information. Your heart will tell you when something is “amiss.” Your body is an exquisite truth-telling instrument that will not let you ignore those situations where perception creates unease. When you are aware that you are uncomfortable, then you have the opportunity to stop.
Stop and recall that nothing is as it seems to you on first look. Clear the perception. Drop it. Then you will be able to look for the reality that remains.
Animals developed the ability to perceive in order to survive.
Humans have distorted this mechanism so that it works to protect the survival of the ego.
It is time for the separation and the destruction caused by ego to collapse.
*** or “the egoic mind”
Eckhart Tolle has developed, IMO, some better words for these truths. When people hear “ego,” they think Freud, or selfishness — or the useful function of defending yourself and your interests.
The egoic mind means when your mind is out of control, and rules you, and says “I am you.” NO! Your brain is not you. It is a bag of blood and meat.
You are a soul, an eternal soul, bravely having an incarnation, and doing the right thing now by reading spiritual truths.
I just spoke with a friend whose relationships are in tatters, as is his financial situation as a result — and his solution is to fret and drink.
His egoic mind wants to keep inflicting pain on him. It is a monster. And it is winning. He is miserable.
Your mind must again be your slave. If it is not, it is insubordinate. It became your master, your cruel, abusive master.
Your soul is what should be running your life.
It should be setting and achieving goals.
Then the pain of life on this planet is far less, and the inner peace, and joy, and satisfaction are constant.
***
To this end, perceptions that support ego become increasingly painful while glimpses of raw reality begin to be welcomed without fear.
So trust in your experience of discomfort, be it emotional or physical, to point you toward those places where your interpretation of reality is separating you from truth and from love. Take your cue and try to follow it to a different and more neutral understanding of whatever is before you. Meditate in action, if you will.
Again, this is not a practice, but rather a way to live more successfully and peacefully. It is also a way to change the world. Stop trying to own bits of it and allow it to be solely and completely what it is. You would ask the same for yourself.
We send great love and all our blessings. — E.West
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