Dropping perceptions...and the whole motherload

This is a sequel to my last blog Technology, Truth and Success. There are too many who decry the current state of affairs, lament how the world is going to pieces because of our obsession with perception, and manufacturing the truth, rather than accepting it

But what is the solution? A good friend asked me: "What is your suggestion, should we discover the truth?how? OR keep manufacturing it?" This is my humble attempt to address that question. As per my understanding. 

Seeing through our perceptions

1. Start by realizing that perception(including our own) is NOT the truth. Regardless of its popularity or volume. 
2. But perception is all we have, including our own - to sense and gauge reality
3. The fault does not lie in perception itself, but in mistaking it for reality. Especially when its common or loud.
4. Perception by definition is subjective. That's not sad - its just a fact
5. Conflict is an outcome of contradicting perceptions meeting each other. Again, conflict is scary but natural. 
6. How will we respond to this conflict? Our ability to response is 'response-ability'. If we are attached to one of the 2 perceptions, then the conflict will be uncomfortable. The highest degree of attachment is identification. The conflict then becomes a matter of SURVIVAL. Since there is a risk of you - not just your belief - dying!! The mind will resist that possibility. That resistance is fear. Then blaming, denial will begin.
7. Fear compounds the conflict. Whereas the need was to see through the two perceptions and UNTANGLE them. Best case scenario - our confusion simply results in a third convoluted, perverted view in addition to the earlier two! The euphemism often used is  'compromise' - hidden under the excuse of achieving 'balance', 'harmony', 'reaching a common ground' etc. The confusion and hence the fear increases. 
8. Now its time to observe the fear moving inside us and remind ourselves of points 1,2 and 3. It helps DETACH ourselves from either of the perceptions. Start really LOOKING at them with open eyes, rather than squinting at them - looking for those facts which suit our preferred beliefs. Once we really look(without our beliefs obscuring our vision), we are able to see THROUGH the layers of confusion, the misconceptions, their MOVEMENT, how they work - separate facts from fiction.
9. These 'facts' are also our perception - but it might be much CLEANER, much more efficient, much deeper. Closer to reality. Perhaps reality. How can we tell? The sign is CLARITY, not CONVICTION. The latter needs a lot of validation and feels threatened by contradictions. Clarity is removing our red colored glasses and SEEING(not PROVING) "Yes, the grass is green". Even if a 100 people scream its red, you do not feel threatened or 'wrong'. Amused or Compassionate maybe - but not threatened(fear). Conviction is constructing a fort of evidence that nobody can (hopefully) break down - but the fear always lingers. That the truth is as strong as the fort. And has no intrinsic value.

The nature of 'Truth'

If the above makes sense, then we note that truth is not a static object to be discovered. Reality is alive - a process. A drop, a ripple, a wave. It is our perceptions that are static. Conclusions drawn from observation of facts that have long changed! Our attachments to them are like holding on to an attractive ripple pattern, and trying to keep it alive. It is already dead - made way for a more beautiful pattern, a wave or even a tsunami! It exists only in our mind(memory) now.

Can we see this process? Can we understand how it all works? We cannot understand a part of it and try to extrapolate it. Its all or nothing. The voyage is not a treasure hunt, but one of UNDERSTANDING. All that's going on, especially the things that we hate(and hence fear). Bring in any personal judgments, should/should nots - and we are again looking through distorted glasses. 

The real questions
The question is not "How do we get rid of fear?" but more like "What is fear? How does it arise? How does it come into being?", "What is this 'Truth'? Why does it need to be discovered?". It is a process of constant observation, rather than continuous conclusions. Ready to challenge any beliefs that come in the way - including our own. Especially our own. A process of dropping our conditioning, rather than accumulating the 'truth'. Simply seeing perceptions for what they are: Dead nails, not live organs. And hence cutting them off. That open mindedness, that complete attention, that absence of fear, that clarity itself transforms us. Truth becomes a natural by product of our life, rather than a learned discipline. 

It gets better...
The other good news is this process is not linear. The more we see through, the more we realize the weight of our beliefs, their pointlessness. The more beliefs we become ready to drop, the more light we become, the more our ABILITY to look increases. The mind is not forced, tamed, disciplined into quietness(chanting, meditation techniques, religious practices etc). It simply realizes the problem of the noise, the chatter, the distortion and the resulting conflict, confusion and the fear that it creates. And just surrenders more easily. Becomes silent. And in that silence, there is insight. Now the whole world can continue manufacturing the truth and convincing themselves that it is the truth. But you have dropped out of that game! Not because it was 'wrong'. But because you have grown out of it.

Life now becomes an exercise in creation, rather than imitation.