The Transcendental Science of Perception

You cannot use common knowledge and subjective ideas to investigate natural phenomenon, as they are outside experiences of ordinary life.

“Wisdom is not assimilated with the eyes, but with the atoms.  When your conviction of a truth is not merely in your brain but in your being, you may diffidently vouch for its meaning” (Sri Yukteswarji).

We must awaken from the mind, for the mind is blind and most of what we know is filtered through our memory and past experiences in thought, both good and bad.

I would like to share some wisdom from the pages of Raja Yoga.

The intent is to provide some clarity to the mechanics of perception and further insight to our Being.

I have eyes.  The eyes do not really see.  Take away the nerve center, which is in the brain, the eyes will still be there, with the retinae complete, as also the pictures of objects on them, and yet the eyes will not see.  So, the eyes are only a secondary instrument, not the organ of vision.  The organ of vision is in the nerve center in the brain.  Infinite worlds are created in an area (mental screen) just a few centimeters in size in the back of the brain.  What we see is nothing more than light waves (photons with varying wavelengths) and electrical signals.  The two eyes are not sufficient.  Sometimes you can be asleep with your eyes open.  The light is there and the picture is there, but, a third thing is necessary: the mind must be joined to the organ.  There is a depth to everything there; the stars seem very far away, while a pencil we hold in our hands seems very close, however, everything is on the same plane in our brains and at the same distance.  The Sun seems to be millions of miles away.  However, it is actually right next to us in our brains.  The reason why the sun exists in our brains is simply and solely electrical signals that we cannot hold in our hands nor even really know exists.  Incidentally, other ‘beings’ whom we may or may not “see,” themselves may “see” and interpret the same electrical signals that we “see” and interpret. 

First there is the instrument, second, the organ, and third, the mind’s attachment to these two.  The mind takes the impression farther in and presents it to the determinative faculty, which reacts.  Along with this reaction flashes the idea of ego.  Then, this mixture of action and reaction is presented to the real Soul, which perceives an object in this mixture.  

Our world is limited to what we are shown on the screen in our brains.  Dreams occur on this same screen with no corresponding matter, only electrical signals.

An ancient Chinese sage once said that he had dreamed that he was a butterfly.  His dream was so real that he could feel the warmth of the sun on his wings, feel the gentle breeze as he flew in and out of the shade of trees, and sense the delicate fragrances, through his antennae, of the various nectars from the diverse garden flowers.  His dream was so real, that when he woke up, he did not know if he was a man dreaming that he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man.  All electrical signals!

The organs, the mind, the determinative faculty, and the egoity – all these together form the group called the internal instrument.  They are but various processes in the mind-stuff, waves of thought manifesting like whirlpools of energy.

What is thought?  Thought is a force, as is gravitation or repulsion.  From the infinite storehouse of force in Nature, the instrument called mind-stuff takes hold of some, absorbs it, and sends it out as thought.  Force is supplied through FOOD, and out of that food, the body obtains the power of motion, and so forth.  Others, the finer forces (vibrations), it sends out as what we call thought.  So, we see that the mind is not intelligent; yet it appears to be intelligent, because the intelligent Soul is behind it.  The Soul is the only sentient Being; the mind is merely the instrument through which it perceives the external world.  Take these words; as words, they do not exist outside; what is outside is unknown and unknowable.  The unknowable furnishes the suggestion that gives a blow to the mind, and the mind gives out the reaction in the form of words, just as when a stone is thrown into the water, the water is thrown against it in the form of waves.  The real Universe is the occasion of the reaction of the mind.  A word form or an elephant form or a human form is not outside; all that we know is our mental reaction to the outer suggestion.  Matter is the permanent possibility of sensations.  It is only the suggestion that is outside.

Take an oyster for example.  You know how pearls are made.  A parasite gets into the shell and causes and irritation, and the oyster throws an enamelling round it and this makes the pearl.  The universe of experience is our own enamel, so to say, and the real Universe is the parasite serving as nucleus.  The ordinary man (mind) will never understand it, because when he tries to do so, he throws out an enamel and sees only his own enamel.     

So, we must live our participation in life from a different place.  There are modes of expression other than words, for language, as we know it, is peculiar to humans and is tricky – is an engineer one who minds the train or trains the mind?

Therefore, we must act by the principles of what we are by Nature.  We are not what we are practicing now and we were never that.  In us is the original germ of creation.  The first atom that burst forth to give sound is still active.  Sound is the original creational tone.  Everything is made up of energy at various frequencies.  All things in Nature vibrate to sound.  Sound frequencies affect everything about us.  Our body is not solid.  Rather, it is energy that is held together by sound.  Weakness did not bring us into the world.

Materials from the earth give us a body for breath to enter.  The atoms of Life in the air are the things that give us Life.  It is the same breath of Life that carries the Earth.  When it entered the body, it made a sound and from that sound (vibration) we could, walk and we could guide ourselves.  Our real Soul is our Breath.

It is the Silence between the breaths that the blind mind exists, where silent thoughts reside, a place where silent intuitive communion between our Soul and the Universal Intelligence can become One again, a portable Paradise.