Perception

Real and true perception has more to do with involvement and sensitivity with
total intensity and intense totality. I have many examples for this in real life
experience and from our Itihasas, Puranas and history. Let me avoid the
examples and get into the question of perception.
why no one took note of the great artist?

1] Our tool of perception the brain is a very delicate, susceptible but extremely
capable instrument. However in normal modes of our perception, we are often
subject to certain errors of perception basically because our brain’s bio chemistry
itself has a propensity to get conditioned and use those conditioning as tool of
perception or very often presume assumptions as perceptions. These are known
as classical and inevitable errors of perception. For example if you are sitting
inside a train in a station waiting t o proceed on a journey and the train alongside
starts to move, you automatically feel for a moment as if your train is moving.
Whereas if you were sitting inside the station master’s room and see the same
phenomenon then you won’t feel so , because then, you would not be expecting to
move. So your expectation created the conditioning of your brain and you
assumed as if you were moving, the feeling is almost real. It happens to all
normal human beings. So in a way all perception is conditioned and intentional.
[ a detailed account of this is available in COLIN WLSON’S excellent book ‘NEW
EXISTENTIALISM’ ]

2] It is not often our perception but the scale of observation and frames of
reference which creates the phenomenon. The scale of observation depends on
man; it is he who creates it. In nature, different scales of observation do not exist.
There is only one immense, harmonious phenomenon on a scale which, in
general, escapes man. The structure of man's brain necessitates dividing into
arbitrary compartments and cutting up into isolated pieces. With the aid of
several instruments science creates more phantasmagoria: "on our scale of
human observation, as pointed out before, the edge of a razor-blade is a
continuous line. On the microscopic scale, it is a broken but solid line. On the
chemic scale we have atoms of iron and carbon. On the sub-atomic scale we have
electrons in perpetual motion which travel at the rate of several thousand miles
per second. All these phenomena are in reality the manifestations of the same
basic phenomenon, the motions of the electrons. The only difference which exists
between them is the scale of observation" [Human Destiny, Lecomte du Nuoy- a
marvelous book that everyone must read – if I remember correctly this comes in
34th page I have read that book at least 8 times].
3] here besides what is more important is not recognizing the artist but
recognizing the music he produced with an aesthetic sense, even had he been an
ordinary unknown artist any person with an aesthetic sense would listen. This
incident therefore indicates not only indifference but insensitivity to aesthetics.
4] With all these artificially created scales of observation, has science succeeded
to unveil the mystery of substance? With every step science has been revising its
hypotheses. Maybe (if not surely) even the basic phenomenon, the motions of the
electrons, must be revised and adapted to the only one immense, harmonious
phenomenon on the pramana scale of observation in its relation to microcosmic
Nyava (and macrocosmic Hyang Vidhi), which is indeed Goethe's Weltseele (Welt
Ather.)
5] Most often our perception is one-dimensional it cannot perceive from different
perspectives much less through different modes of perception I mean multi
sensory and multi pronged that is having macro vision and ensuring
comprehension of even the minutest details of every micro element in the thing
perceived. This is not possible to be taught and it has not been even attempted to
be taught in known and documented history. But it happens automatically when
the trinity of Intuition, Senses and Reason gather together and it is these that
produce discoveries, inventions and creations.
6] There is a clear manifestation of this trinity in all forms of bakthi oriented
literature and music.

7] If by intuition (or inspiration) we mean a sudden, direct and valid initial

conception of a new system occurring spontaneously in the mind of the
conceiver; by reason, a constant, logical mathematical, syllogistic (or dialectic)
process of thinking of the idea through in its inductive, deductive, analytical and
synthetic aspects; and by sensory experience, a perception of the sensory
phenomena related to the idea and a sensory verification of it through empirical
evidence (experimental, observational, statistical and practical), then all three
types of mental activity are necessary for the discovery, creation, or invention of a
significant cultural system. NEITHER INTUITION NOR REASON, NOR
EMPIRICAL EXPERIENCE ALONE IS SUFFICIENT. Innumerable scientists
have spent their lives in an empirical (sensory) study of phenomena without
achieving any notable discovery. Multitudes of teachers of philosophy, logic, and
mathematics have failed to conceive any new philosophical, logical, mathematical
or other system. There have been millions of intuitive daydreamers, who, having
stumbled upon an idea, have failed to clarify, develop, verify and apply it in
constructing an original system. TRULY CREATIVE THINKERS HAVE BEEN
FORTUNATE IN POSSESSING AND EXERCISING ALL THREE TYPES OF
MENTAL ABILITY.

8] On the whole our perception is inherently extremely vulnerable and terrible

influenced by environmental, cultural, social, religious, academic and many other
forms of conditioning.
9] Because all our perceptions which emanate from our thoughts are , as the great
JK used to say is caught in the vicious circle, a vicious circle which justifies the
statement that all our knowledge is limited.
10] the vicious circle is like this every situation in life we1] act or react 2] this
action or reaction gives us 3] some knowledge or/and experience 4] this
knowledge or/and experience is stored as memory in the form of 5] thought next
time when we encounter similar or dissimilar situation we act or react based on
the store house of these collective thoughts/knowledge. The grand perception can
happen only when we get out of this vicious circle.