More on the Direct Perception of Essential Meaning

Okay. Say you're smelling a rose. It has a fruity lemon overtone and a musky undertone, which strike your olfactory sensors in two distinct places. This gives you a feeling of an expansive lightness, but with a sense of groundedness. It pleases your body to smell this rose. You are happy and content.

What I am suggesting is, at this juncture, you shift your focus to the kinesthetic feelings of expansive lightness, groundedness, happiness and contentment. Examine them, using the one-pointedness technique, and find out what these emotional responses are communicating aside from their obvious emotional content. Perhaps they are simply communicating an encounter with Beauty? Perhaps these smells are linked to past pleasant memories? Perhaps these emotions are telling you something about your body, such as it's lacking in something that this smell brings or reminds you of?

Once you have isolated the meaning behind these kinesthetic/emotional reactions, return to your focus upon the smell. Set aside the kinesthetic input (i.e., detach from it and ignore it) and replace it with your awareness of the essential meaning it was communicating. Now look again at your perception of the smell and see how the *smell* communicates what you formerly perceived through your kinesthetic feeling sense.

The above quote is a description of how one learns the direct perception of essential meaning. Here, it's applied to the sense of smell, but the process is essentially the same for any of the senses -- each sense perceives some part of the essential meaning and will lead, when treated in this way, to a direct perception of the *whole* essential meaning.  The key is to focus on the mental input underlying the astra-physical sensory input. When you touch upon that mental core of *essential* meaning, then the astra-physical layers of its expression take on crystal clarity.

In metaphor-speak, this is what is meant by the phrase "seeing with the mental eyes". Once you become accustomed to using your mental eyes in this way, it becomes second nature and you don't have to go through this process of isolation and penetration -- you simply 'look' and perceive at will.

And indeed, it's a different world to the mental eyes! It's ALIVE! ALL of it.

This leads not only to direct *perception* of essential meaning, but also to the direct *communication* of essential meaning . . .

>> This is really moving into a personal, "interpretational" relationship with the world. <<

No. It's not at all about "interpretation". It's about direct perception of *essential* meaning. The interpretive layers of consciousness are only used as the gateway to the perception of the essential meaning that *underlies*, and gives rise to, the interpretation.

My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
18 Sep 2002

>> It's interesting, that meaning behind the sensorium appears to be the progenitor of the perceived sensorium, or, perhaps it is the actual carried inner meaning of the sense data. <<

Essential meaning is what makes a thing sensible. Without this root force, a thing is not a thing and cannot therefore be perceived or sensed. Our sensory apparatus is entirely oriented to perceiving the layers of expression of this root. Normally, we focus our senses only upon the densest layers of this manifest expression (i.e., the astra-physical expression) and thus perceive only a small glimmer of the pure root itself. But when we shift our focus to the root itself, the denser layers of its manifest expression become radiant with the light of their root. This light is present at all times, it's just that we are unaccustomed to perceiving it.

When we do perceive this light, the fabric of the universe is healed ever so slightly by the fact that we have witnessed it. It is like when you are trying to get an important concept across in conversation and someone finally gets it. Their getting it (i.e., their perception of the essential meaning you were trying to convey) completes and fulfills your expression.

>> It's a perception that I can't say I have all the time, as my concentration very often is extremely insular in nature due to various pressures such as PAYING MY RENT THIS MONTH!!!! <<

;-) Well, sometimes this dance is a tango, sometimes it's a fox trot, and sometimes it's like being at a heavy metal disco. Besides, it can be VERY inconvenient to *always* have this sense in active mode. It pays to be able to turn it off and on at will.

My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
20 Sep 2002