The Three Properties of Experience
There are three types of experiences; sensation, perception and feeling.
Sensation
Sensation is what you see, hear, smell, taste and feel in your physical body. Sensation is a cooperative effort mostly between your senses, your skin, your nervous system and your brain.
Perception
Perception is what you think and feel emotionally. Your opinions, likes and dislikes, attitudes, beliefs, values and rationalizations. Perception is a cooperative effort between memory, reason, imagination and creativity, or what is called your mind.
Feeling
Feeling is detached observation. It’s the ability to notice and witness a particular experience in a dispassionate way without intellectual or emotional involvement, attachment or reaction. (Feeling is not emotion. You can feel an emotion but you can’t emotion a feel.) Feeling is a cooperative effort between your attention, consciousness and awareness, or what is called your spirit.
Your senses, thoughts, emotions and feelings are always “turned on” and partially occupied by whatever is happening around you. All three types of experiences overlap and simultaneously take in whatever is happening around you.
For example if you hear a sudden noise it immediately occupies your senses, perceptions and feeling. You see, hear and feel physical sensations, you think and react emotionally, and you feel it with your attention, consciousness and awareness.
The Boundaries of Sensation
Notice that where you are sitting or standing you hear sounds, see objects, and feel physical sensations. Take a moment and:
1. Look at A Physical Object…
Notice that your vision takes you only as far as to the surface of the object you look at and stops there… You don’t see through solid objects, do you? You can’t see an invisible thing with your eye’s, can you?
2. Listen to A Sound…
Notice that you’re hearing takes you only as far as to the loudest volume of the sound you listen to and stops there… You don’t hear above the loudest volume, do you? You can’t hear silence, can you?
3. Feel a Physical Sensation in Your Body…
Notice that your physical sensation takes you only as far as to the greatest intensity of the sensation you feel and stops there… You don’t feel beyond the most intense sensation, do you? You can’t feel emptiness (nothingness,) can you? This is the limit and scope of your senses, the farthest reaches of your senses.
Notice how sensation is hampered by distance and reaches only as far as your senses allow.
The Boundaries of Perception
Notice that when you look at the nearest wall your sensation stops on its surface and that in order to “see” even one inch further beyond the surface you have to look in the opposite direction, into your mind.
Perception Begins Where Sensation Ends.
Take a moment and:
1. Recall a Specific Thing that You Know Is on The Other Side of The Nearest Wall…
Notice that your memory takes you only as far as the accurateness of your memory and stops there…
You can’t remember that which is beyond the accuracy of your memory, can you? Go to the farthest reaches of your memory and notice how imagination must begin where your memory ends…
2. Imagine a Specific Thing that Might Be Behind the Wall…
Notice that your imagination takes you only as far as the resourcefulness of your imagination and stops there… You can’t imagine that which is beyond your resourcefulness, can you?
Go to the farthest reaches of your imagination and notice that creativity must begin where your imagination ends…
3. Create a Specific Thing that You Know Is Not Behind the Wall…
Notice that your creativity takes you only as far as the originality of your creativity and stops there… You can’t create that which is beyond your originality, can you? Go to the farthest reaches of your creativity and notice that feeling must begin where your creativity ends…
This is the limit and scope of your perception, the farthest reaches of your mind. Notice how perception reaches farther in space than your senses. And notice that in order to perceive you must go inwards, where distance and space lose their real meaning.
The Boundaries of Feeling
Think about something and notice that your perception stops where the originality of your creativity runs out and that in order to go even one inch further beyond the most original creation of your mind you have to feel. Feeling begins where your perception ends… Take a moment and:
1. Watch that You Are Seeing….
2. Meditate on That You Are Meditating…
3. Observe that You Are Observing…
Notice that in order to feel you must be present, where time loses its real meaning. Beyond Feeling
Take a moment and:
