It isn't exactly evident to our own senses, but they are energetic in nature. They (the senses) transmit electric signals via the nervous system to gather information from and respond to the environment. Our organs of sense perception (the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin corresponding to seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling) are incredibly complex 'decoders' of 'reality'. These amazing things effortlessly filter the raw data in the observable Universe into something our consciousness can recognize. Supposedly the brain receives this data, categorizes and organizes it. Since it is the command center of our nervous system, hopefully equipped with good reconnaissance, it can 'create' a response that is beneficial for the survival and ultimate evolution of our species. Hopefully.
What if our recon taking abilities get compromised? What if what we 'see out there' is actually not what we are making it out to be, and the information coming in gets filtered through our own belief system?
Back up. You are saying that I filter reality through a personal lens? What does that mean? I am saying that depending on what we choose to believe, the world appears as such. It all boils down to perception, like in the study that demonstrated this wonderfully. They took a group of volunteers and had them fill out a survey rating their levels of satisfaction with different areas of their life. On a scale of 1-10 how satisfied are you with career, relationships, domestic life, etc. The experimenters then divided the group into sub-groups A) largely satisfied with life, and B) largely unsatisfied with life. They went on to show them images on a screen while hooked up to retinal tracking technology, so that the scientists would have a 'heat map' of where they focused their eyes when looking at the screen with the image on it. Basically, they could see exactly what the person was looking at - which is super cool, because most of the time as we look out at things, we are scanning little points in an extremely rapid fashion and making a 'connect the dot' picture in our head. Fascinating.
Anyways, so group A looked a picture of a mall and a battle scene. Group B looked at the exact same image. After studying them for a short time, the group was asked to report on what was seen. Group A saw the people holding hands, the mom hugging her infant in the mall image. Group B said they saw the caution wet floor sign. In the battle scene, similar results. The largely satisfied with life participants saw a medic tending to a wounded, a man covering for his friend. The unhappy people saw a man getting shot.
What is the significance of this? The biggest takeaway here is that the experiences we place our attention on, become real to us. Once we have a thought and interpretation of them, the information has crystallized upstream into a thought as a neuropeptide, being filtered through all of the possible emotional lenses that influence our decision to act, or not act. Run or numb. The activities of our sympathetic nervous system.
Now obviously the emotions we have play a significant biological benefit when they work to our advantage. It's a no brainer that stress kills, and stress is an emotional re-action to an experience. That's all. If we notice something positive and allow ourselves to actually feel good about it, such as experiencing joy when seeing a beautiful sunset, we are celebrating on a physiological level right down to the cells that make up our body. This has a system wide affect on our whole being. Of course it does.
So going back to what we 'see' and how it is filtered down so we can respond appropriately. The human being and the human nervous system is so awesomely complex at decoding information in this quantum soup of unmanifest probability that we are all in (more on this to come), that even the best supercomputer today cannot do the level of calculation that a human brain can. We are collecting so much data while simultaneously comparing it to every other experience we've had with blinding speed. The system gets backlogged when this information gets caught in the firewall. This metaphorical firewall is the bridge between our inner system, and the outer system. It is the nervous system, with the brain as its central processing unit.
This nervous system has evolved over millions of years. Many countless iterations of Mother Nature's great attempts at really nailing it have gone into the making of this thing that animates your body. So it is really good at doing it's job. But it is influenced by something.
What is that thing? As if Mother Nature Herself is the spirit behind the material representation of Her as a human being... She is the One watching the information come into the senses. She is watching as the brain compiles it and spits out a response. She is able to make a very subtle, usually too subtle, influence over the decision before it is made, but often She is overheard, and the material body carries out its script. The script written by the nervous system - the cataloguer of experiences.
Ever been driving and got to a familiar destination and wondered how you ended up there? Or picked up a phone to call a friend (back when we punched in the numbers on a landline) and remembered the phone number automatically? These are examples of the nervous system gathering data enough times it can write a script that is like a 'plug and play'. If the situation looks similar to one previously, we already have a code for it and can place our attention elsewhere. Where does the attention go? Into thought. Dream land. The subtle world where things can be imagined without ever having 'existed' in material form. It can also go to worry world, where it is creating plans for future experiences as a result of having a previous experience that was not liked. Essentially it is the same as dream land - because we worry about things that have not happened and fabricate a reality in our mind to project into existence if the event takes place. We are trying to solve problems in the future that we create before they actually 'exist'.
If we don't pay attention to how these scripts are written, we end up writing them all over the place. Our nervous system is good at it - that's its job and its done a damn fine one for many, many years. They are written for us at a young age because we can't possibly know any better - we are a blank slate nervous system making a bajillion connections a minute as an infant and struggling to comprehend the creational onslaught of reality. Yet as we age, the patterns become fixed and layered on us. This is known as our personality. It can also be seen physically, in one's posture. How we hold ourselves in space influences everything about our physiology, ranging from neuronal output to hormonal secretions. Which certainly, most definitely play a role in our moods and emotional proclivities, even down to our likes and dislikes. Sounds like personality, no? So personality is just the range of a person's potential expressions, the probability of which can be seen in their posture.
Our posture is influenced over years of specific behavior patterns. Think about a person who has experienced many years of depression. Their mood will inevitably cause them to contract into a slouched, rounded shoulder posture. A naturally protective posture, due to the signals coming from the environment that the world is a depressing place. But who is home to pick up the message from the environment before responding to it? If no one is home, the voicemail is spit out, and everything looks and remains the same. Because it is - according to the consciousness of the observer. Their attention is simply misplaced.
Remember, what we place our attention on grows stronger for us. Our physiology shifts when having a thought and a feeling. If we place our attention on things that are not serving us, we send the signal to our cells and our tissues to respond accordingly. In this case if it is harmful, we produce cellular responses that are geared towards survival. Maybe some adrenaline is secreted. Who knows. What I do know is this - our body responds to perceived threat as if it is real threat. We have to and have had to for eons, in order to survive as a species.
Yet our species has reached a level of self-awareness that we can notice and direct our attention. We can consciously change our posture, or our breathing pattern. We can connect to deeper and deeper levels of ourselves through these layers that consciousness works through. It is in us, as us. We just have to pay attention to it. What do we pay attention to? Who is looking. Who is receiving the feed from the 'outer world' and playing it back to the 'inner world'? Are they getting in the way at all?
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