 Without my contacts on, I am virtually blind. If the numbers mean anything to you, my contact prescription is -9.75. To put this in perspective for those of you with fabulous eyesight, something would need to be one fist away from my face for me to see it clearly. It occurred to me yesterday, in the space of time where I removed my glasses and had yet to put my contacts in, that what I see "au naturale" is not easily describable to others. Even if I were to take a picture, me looking through the camera lens not being able to see much of anything, the camera would take a perfect picture; it would take a picture of what it sees rather than what I see. Compare this idea to how many times you have felt misunderstood by anyone or even everyone. Isn't it funny how often we expect other people to "understand us"? We expect people to see through our eyes when they cannot. Guess what? We can't see through theirs either.
Now think about this. If I were to describe something to you without my contacts on, I would use words like blurry, fuzzy, and lacking in detail. I might only see merging areas of color but is that what whatever I am looking at really looks like? You would look at the same object and say, no, that's not what it looks like at all. And with my contacts on, I would agree with you. The sanskrit word maya means illusion. Isn't everything we see an illusion of our perception? We would all agree, perhaps, the object exists. But your purple is my violet; your gray is my silver. Our descriptions are based on our biases and perceptions. “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”-Buddha Here's another example. I have white countertops in my bathroom. If a clear bottle, such as Visine, were to be sitting on it, I would never see it without my contacts on; it would not even exist. But that would not be truth to you, would it? You would argue, of course it exists, it is right there! But not in my world. Are you starting to understand why no one can truly understand you and you them? Don't take it to sound depressing as it is not. It is just that we are all looking at the world through our personal veils. When we understand all is one and all are one, maya disappears. To feel everything is independent is maya. Do you have one physical body? Hmmm, maybe. But it is made up of millions and billions of individual cells. And if those cells did not operate as one, then they would try to operate alone and via ego thinking they were each It (avidya= ignorance). We would not be able to function that way. Your goal is to learn to put down your biased filters, releasing illusion and ignorance, and acknowledging in your heart we are all part of the same, we are one. “To understand everything is to forgive everything” - Buddha "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us “universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." ~Einstein
1 Comment
|
Archives
March 2024
|
RSS Feed