We each judge and question our perceived self. Self-perception is based upon what we ‘feel’. Once we judge our self with words that describe qualities those qualities make it difficult to realise anything that is in conflict with that criteria. It is because of our ‘self-perception’ that few realise that within each one of us is the complete answer to all our questions. What people look for in other people is an answer that can only be found within. What we look for is something better than what we have judged ourselves to be. The truth of us is beyond what we define our self to be.
We can only find the true self by looking within. There are many examples of archetypes promoted by religion, culture, fashion and entertainment. Until we find the true self we compare our ‘perceived self’ with archetypes that provide the criteria for identifying any perceived lack. There is no lack within us. We look outside of us to find what can only be found by looking within because we have not realised what we are. When we look to perceived exemplars in order to find some inspiration or influence we can only drift further from our true self.
Our cries for help are like a riddle that doesn’t know what is wrong, only that something feels wrong. Our feelings are implying something of value is hidden within us. So we look outside of our self to others who we perceive to be happier, better looking, more stylish or more successful for our salvation. This is what was once termed ‘idolatry’. Idolatry rejects the self for a perceived archetype which can be worshipped or mimicked in order to create the perception in others that we are the same as those idols who we attempt to replace our self with.
If we look to others for our answers we have not recognised our gifts. We look to others in order to replace our self with an archetypal caricature. Our whole perspective is filtered through the beliefs of a caricature that is not us. Who we believe we are ‘is not who we are’. What we look for in others is what we forgot when we believed what others told us when we were children. If we do not feel good it is because of the way in which we perceive our self and what that self is experiencing. Unless injured, sick or born disabled the self is not limited.
We are only limited by how we perceive our self. The perception of self is sustained by what each individual believes about their self. Once we create self-perception, unless it changes, we enter into a life-long contract to exist within perceived limitations. The self-concept is what is referred to as the ego. We perceive what the ego perceives because we believe the ego is us and so our mind replaces our sight with our ego’s perception. With our faith its beliefs programme our mind. The medium for this communication is the body’s chemistry. Our awareness of these chemical signals is commonly interpreted and defined as emotional ‘feelings’. All feelings are neurochemical responses.
Before the ego can communicate to us using the body’s chemical resources it needs control of those resources. The ego is essentially the mechanism we create to perceive reality. The ego uses the body’s chemistry as a warning mechanism whose function is to protect us, its God and creator. In order for the ego to warn us it needs a criterion and a stimulus. For example I could have tasted food that made me ill and then decided that this food is not good for me because it made me feel ill. The criterion for the ego to communicate with me is the belief that a particular type of food makes me ill and the evidence that the belief is true is what I felt. The ego knows that food made me ill because of what I felt.
My perception will not help me to avoid having another unpleasant experience with that dish unless I believe the dish is responsible for my getting ill. But if I decide that food made me ill and feel strongly enough about it, my perception which is ever vigilant, will monitor my experience for ‘stimulus’ that conforms to the criteria that would identify ‘that food’. So if I encounter a menu which illustrates the same dish I need do nothing consciously. My perception will recognise the stimulus and communicate it to me using my body’s chemistry. This will be done by creating a particular feeling.
Our perception creates ‘perceptually induced neurochemical responses’ to communicate to us when we are exposed to something and remind us of what we chose to believe about that stimulus. The medium of communication between our perception and our self is the body’s chemicals, which are experienced as ‘feelings’. How our beliefs judge any stimulus will determine what is written on a metaphorical prescription for the chemical responses dispensed by the brain. Typically the range of chemical responses is mild discomfort, anxiety, fear and anger. These words misrepresent what is factually occurring.
What those emotions are describing are ‘perceptually induced neurochemical responses’. These chemical responses are sustained by what we believe. The belief is the cause and the feeling is its effect. The belief is a prescription to the neurochemical dispensary of our own brain. How one person perceives a spider may not be how another person perceives that spider. A person who runs from the location in which a spider is present does so because their perception has triggered a neurochemical response. Whilst the trigger stimulus is a spider, the cause of the response to that spider is ‘perception’ which is what is ‘believed’ about the spider. Another individual may feel nothing when they look at what is defined by the word ‘spider’.
So what sustains the different and sometimes conflicting perceptions we each have regarding the same stimulus? The cause of all perception is the beliefs that sustain it. If my beliefs define you as my enemy then what neurochemicals do you think I create when I think of you or my perception reveals that I am exposed to you? How will I behave towards you? If I do not perceive you as my enemy how will I behave towards you? The above example reveal contrasting experiences that do not exist outside of our mind and are sustained exclusively by our perception. For thousands of years ‘perceptually induced neurochemical responses’ have been defined as ‘emotions’ and ‘feelings’.
All conflict in the world today is sustained by behaviour controlled by neurochemical responses. A mind that is prejudiced by its beliefs can only respond to its perception of every experience it encounters. All perception is sustained by what we have been educated to believe or chosen to believe about every experience. For example, someone may slip on ice and fall, feeling pain felt in the body. In this example the pain experienced ‘is not’ a perceptually induced neurochemical response. The pain is caused by our body’s natural response to the force of the impact felt by the body when it collided with the ice. In this example the cause of the chemical response is the factual experience.
Our beliefs exclusively programme our perception. What we know is not what we perceive because what we perceive is what we believe. What we know is what we know. We can only believe what ‘we do not know’ because when we know we have no need of beliefs because we know. Our perception filters our experiences through the ‘criterion’ of our belief system. What this means is that if we change our beliefs we change how we perceive reality. If we change how we perceive reality we change our chemistry. If we change our chemistry we change how we ‘feel’.
In the moment we believe we are what our parents tell us we are we create an existential constraint that is a perspective. This perspective is our given name. Once we are conditioned to respond to our name we are domesticated in exactly the same way a dog is domesticated. From this moment forwards we can be trained to understand and respond to spoken commands. So when we are asked a question it is the trained perspective that is expected to ‘obediently’ respond. We perceive a question according to our understanding of it. Our understanding is what we believe or what we know.
Our perspective is not who we are it is who we believe we are. Once we believe we are who we are told we are we become trapped within an existential perspective. It is this perspective that creates and worships what it believes about what it perceives in experience. Once a belief is created our perception replaces an experience with what it believes it to be. From this moment forward our perspective vigilantly monitors our perceived experiences to remind us of our belief when exposed to any stimulus that conforms to our belief’s definition. Without a belief we feel nothing but peace.
If we have a belief about any stimulus it programmes our a particular emotional response to any future encounter with that stimulus. In simple terms if I judge something to be ‘bad’ I feel bad when I am exposed to what I have judged that way. So we judge people, things and experiences to be ‘bad’, ‘boring’, ‘frightening’, ‘fearful’, ‘anxious’ and, when exposed to any qualifying stimulus that conforms to that criteria, our mind uses our body’s chemistry to create the appropriate ‘perceptually induced neurochemical response’.
The criterion is sustained by beliefs that are forced, instilled or promoted by religion, politics, education and medicine and defined in conceptual terms. Good, bad, sinner, guilty, undeserving, stress, disease, self-sacrifice, martyr, soldier, law, criminal, sacrilege, heretic, blasphemer, terrorist, freedom fighter, insurgent, politician, need, profit, debt did not exist until they were created. These we all created to confine the mind within certain existential paradigms in order that the mind could be ‘remotely controlled’ by authority. These concepts are used to justify acts by man against man.
Once believed these conceptual parameters control our ability to objectively see by prejudicing our perception. Our perception is prejudiced by the beliefs we worship as the ‘truth’. Our mind uses these beliefs to define our reality. Once believed our beliefs create a phenomenon that some define as ‘hypnosis’. We have absolute faith in our beliefs as long as we believe them. The quality of our whole life is determined by what we believe. We can choose to believe or we can choose not to believe. Many enjoy defining themselves as the victim of experiences which in truth have never had any effect upon them or what they feel. It was their perception which existed exclusively within their own mind that caused their victimhood.
If we feel we are not as good as some conceptual criteria or generic archetype we may feel bad. Eventually, this ‘psychic dynamic’ begins to take its toll on our body. Our body’s chemistry continually attacks us with what we generically define as our ‘feelings’. Our body’s chemistry creates ‘pain’ in response to the conditioned mind’s perception of us or our experience. This creates two sources for our body’s chemical responses. The first is the truth of experience and the second is our perception of our experience. Perception is the exclusive cause of the ‘perceptually induced neurochemical response’ defined by the word ‘fear’.
The perspective creates separation within our mind. Each child is born with an innate wisdom counselled by compassion. However, once the child’s mind is conditioned with beliefs, those beliefs create a ‘un-whole’ division within the whole mind. This is also referred to as the ‘fall of man’. When knowledge replaced the truth of experience we replaced ‘what is’ with what we believed it to be. The ‘un-whole’ division within the whole mind created the paradox of the believer and his beliefs. A believer is controlled by his perception and his perception is controlled by his beliefs.
This makes the believer a victim of his own judgement. This is why it was said in KJV Matthew 7:1-3 “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Like a torch light that beam is projected. Until our faith in our beliefs is undone we cannot experience communion and, without communion, the believer will always be the victim of his own beliefs.
Communion refers to ‘one’ mind. Our mind is separated between believer and belief. The belief is the name our mind is conditioned to respond to as children. The conditioning starts by creating a number of conditioned response to our given name. It is this perspective that judges our experiences, controlling us with ‘perceptually induced neurochemical responses’ that we define as ‘fearful feelings.’ If we undo this we return to the pre-belief innocent child that we are in truth. To understand what this means we need look no further than the scriptures.
This is what Jesus is quoted to have said in KJV Matthew 18.3 “And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” We can be saved but our perspective cannot. It cannot be saved because it is not true. What does not exist does not exist. If we are trapped within our perspective then we are condemned by our own judgement, existing in the form of beliefs. We cannot worship God and the ego. The ego loyally serves us its master and creator.
Merely knowing and understanding duality will not result in the realisation of our self whole. In truth we are not divided or separate and we never were. We just pretended to be what we pretended to be. The ego perspective being unreal outside of our mind created beliefs to sustain the collective hallucination when the truth of experience threatened its continued existence. We invested our faith in beliefs to generate thoughts and feelings that reinforced the victimhood of the false perspective. When we began to form beliefs about our existence from this limited perspective we believed our beliefs were true.
At first it was a wonderful adventure to pretend to be an archetypal me. When faced with a situation in which this caricature that represents us had no experience it could only refer back to its beliefs for guidance. Unless this caricature believed in compassion then there was no compassion because it is simply a ‘belief system’. If our perspective has no beliefs to guide it then it cannot cope. We are not alone in this self-delusion because all of mankind has invested their divinity in the belief in their own identity.
We each play a part in our great adventure until we wish to wake up. Our choice of caricature may not be the ‘Cowboy’ or the ‘Indian’ or the hero or the villain but we always play what we define to be ‘me’. How we each identify me is not the real me but what we believe we are. The perspective that is the identity is therefore a part of us, created with our belief in it. To escape the limitations created and perceived by the identity we are looking at the TV, the internet and to other people to find a better way. The joyful child acquired beliefs which made it feel limited and fearful.
We have no fear. Fear is a neurochemical response ‘that we create’ within our self ‘with our own power’. Our unhappiness was nothing more than perceptual hallucinations that created chemical responses within our body that were triggered by exposure to what ‘we chose’ to fear. We do this by using our beliefs to define our self. We are the feeling. We are the life. We are the way. Until we realise, our consciousness will remain trapped within the hallucination of our ‘self-concept’. This is why we look to become something else. We know that something is wrong, but we don’t know what.
What we haven’t fully realised is that we are whole as we were created. We are not without sin but sin is belief. A belief only exists within our mind whilst it retains our ‘faith’. Forgiveness is the withdrawal of our faith in our judgemental ‘beliefs’. We can only believe what we do not know so we are ‘innocent’. We just haven’t ‘collectively realised’ this yet because some are still looking outside of their perceived self for guidance. We each label our perceived self and then believe that the label we refer to is ‘me’. The label misrepresents us. This label is not us. The label is just what we believe. We are the believer not the belief which means it cannot be us.
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