Monday, May 3, 2010

Three Basic Ways of Perceiving Reality

Though there may be many other basic systems of both perceiving and approaching reality these are the three that I had found that are the most prevalent on earth. Also, I'm giving a very simplistic approach to these three basic systems which probably doesn't do any of the systems full justice and so I apologize to all who believe in and use any or all systems as I'm only trying to give a very simplistic overview to the reader. If the readers want to explore further these ways of perceiving reality one should study online, in books, or with people who are masters of perceiving reality in these ways.

I will start with the rationalist approach. In the rationalist approach only that which one can see with their eyes, taste with their tongue, feel with their bodies and hands or hear with their ears is reality. Most everyone on earth understands this approach and most people on earth are capable of approaching reality this way at least some of the time.

Next I will give you the Australian Aborigine approach. In this way of perceiving reality dreams are the real reality and physical reality is a dream. I can understand why this system might be useful in many ways but I can also understand why English people coming to Australia when it was first colonized would have great difficulty with people who perceived this way as a culture. However, if you look closely at the character who plays the boys Aborigine Grandfather in this context you can make much more sense of his behavior and actions as he would be a master shaman within his tribe in the way he functions in the movie "Australia" with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Next, I was told by Tibetan Lamas that were my friends and that I studied with that a Tibetan Buddhist Perception of reality would be that all physical reality and dreams would be considered to be equally real. But it would also be useful to say that all physical reality and dreams would be equally real and unreal simaltaneously. But you might need to read and study Buddhist philosophy to fully make sense of this. Now, I think many westerners who don't know this would be surprised at this point of view. However, in some ways this view of reality makes the most sense to me.

Even though I recognize the value of the Australian Aborigine's approach to reality, for me having both dreams and reality being equal I find more useful to me. However, I also see the usefulness of seeing dreams as real and reality as inherently unreal. However, one might have to spend a day choosing to perceive reality this way when one didn't have to work or go to school to fully appreciate this way of functioning.

Obviously, in the western world one should be careful in approaching any but the rationalistic approach because of the societies we live in. Because the other two approaches would be okay from a religious point of view but one would need to be able to also encompass a fully rationalistic approach to work and go to school and to live their life in the regular western world. However, in a religious or spiritual sense one could embrace all three types of approaches when useful in one's life as long as one could keep a good perspective and to realize who one was talking to. So, each of these three approaches are like languages of perception. Really amazing things happen when you travel down any of these roads.

However, if you were in a war as a soldier it might be very difficult to be in any but the rationalistic approach if you were raised in the western world and not as an Aboriginal thinking person or as a Tibetan Buddhist thinking person. But in most other types of lives other than as police or soldier combining all three types of approaches might be useful in different situations. The only reason I'm saying this is that if you had to take a life if you used a non-rationalistic approach you might find yourself haunted by the person whose life you had to take as a police person or soldier if you were in a non-rationalistic approach at the time.

As long as you realize they are all potential languages of your soul and you keep a perspective about it all they all can be useful.

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