Why You Will Live Forever

 Why You Will Live Forever

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Thousands of years ago, Job asked, "If a man die, shall he live again?" God is Life, and Life cannot die. Life cannot die. Life has no beginning and no end. Every person walking the earth is God or Life in manifestation.

Your body is an instrument or vehicle through which the life-principle is expressed. You will always have a body of some sort, no matter in what dimension of life you function.

So-called death is not the end ; it is only a beginning. You will arrive at your new destination, actually, when you pass on from this three-dimensional to a fourth-dimensional existence, and you will look upon it as a new birth. You will possess a new, fourth-dimensional body which is rarefied and attenuated by our standards, enabling you to go through closed doors, to collapse time and space, and to be where you want to be through the medium of your thought.

Milton said, "Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity." The journey of every man is from glory to glory, from octave to octave, and through the many mansions of our Father's house.

When you pass to the next dimension of life, you will see and be seen. You will recognize loved ones. You will possess all your faculties as an individual. When you came into this world, you were met by loving hands, who took care of you; you were fondled, coddled, and cosseted. And what is true on this plane is true on all planes. You will meet loved ones who will care for you and who will initiate you into the activities of the next dimension of life.

Life Is Progression

Your life is an endless unfoldment-ever onward, upward, and God ward. You can't go backward, for the urge of life is progression, expansion and growth. God is Infinite Life. This Life is your life now ; therefore, there is no end to your newness, freedom, and spiritual awareness. Never in all eternity could you exhaust the wonders and glories that are within you.

In the 15th Chapter of the First Book of Corinthians, Paul says: There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also have the image of the heavenly.

You Live Forever

In the above-mentioned Biblical quotation, Paul is saying that there really is no death and that all men and women are immortal. Every child born in your home is simply Life taking on that form. This in scriptural language is God (life-principle) coming down from Heaven (invisible state) and appearing on earth, or being made manifest. When your present body ceases to function perfectly, you will put on a fourth-dimensional body, referred to frequently as an astral body, subtle body, celestial body, subjective body, etc. You can't take any earthly possessions with you, but you do take all that you have ever learned and believed about God, life, and the universe ; in other words, you take the sum total of your beliefs, convictions, impressions, and awareness.

Fourth-Dimensional Teachers Attend Lectures

Frequently some psychics, clairvoyants, and similarly gifted people speak to me following lectures on Sunday mornings at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles. They describe men sitting on the platform while I am speaking. I have asked them to describe the men they purportedly saw, and in each instance they have accurately described the following teachers in the next dimension : Dr. Emmet Fox, author of Sermon on the Mount; Judge Thomas Troward, author of six books on Mental Science ; and Dr. Harry Gaze, author of Emmett Fox, the Man and His Work. They have also accurately described my father, who passed on many years ago, as well as my sister and other relatives and teachers. In no instance had these sensitives ever met any of my relatives or the teachers referred to in this chapter; neither had they read any of their works or seen photographs of them.

I do not look upon their perception and experience as unusual, as there is no reason whatever why men and women who are spiritually developed can't attend spiritual gatherings whenever they wish and appear and reappear at will. I have not seen the men and women mentioned on the platform, but several people present who are highly sensitive and clairvoyant see these fourth-dimensional beings frequently on the platform Sunday mornings and sometimes at my classes on the I Ching, Tarot Symbolism, and the esoteric meaning of the Bible..

From the above paragraphs, you will glean that an individual who is highly advanced spiritually and who senses his oneness with the universal Life-Principle can project himself to any country or even other planets at will ; and the Life-Principle, which is all-wise and all-knowing and which is the only cause and substance, will project a body in harmony with the density of atmospheric pressure of the particular planet ; in other words, he would be able to appear and reappear at will.

For example : If you melt ice, you have water. If you continue heating the water, you will have steam, which can be invisible. But steam, water and ice are all one, vibrating at a different molecular wave length. The functions and physical properties of each are different. Likewise, you are spirit, mind and body. They are all one, but each has a separate function. There is nothing illogical about a spiritually developed man living, let us say, in New York City and contemplating himself as being in Johannesburg finding himself in the latter city instantaneously . He is a mental and spiritual being and knows that mind and spirit are omnipresent and that when he focusses on a certain location and decrees he is there, automatically he dematerializes his body, which is composed of atoms and molecules, which now appear invisible like the steam we mentioned. He then condenses down the high molecular vibration to the three-dimensional body and appears walking the streets of Johannesburg. This type of man would also be able to go to the next dimension at will as well as to other planets and to return when he wished to do so.

Your Departed Loved Ones Are Right Where You Are

Your so-called dead relatives are all about you, and you must cease believing that they are "dead and gone." They are alive with the life of God and separated from us by frequency only. You do not see cosmic rays, gamma rays, beta rays, alpha rays, ultraviolet rays, or infrared rays. Your physical eyes are blind to the great invisible reality that lies around you. You would see a different world if you began to see through your inner eye of clairvoyance; and in similar manner, what a vastly different world you would see if you were as sensitive as the x-ray machine or infrared rays.

You might say to the writer that there is no one in your room as you read this chapter, but tum the dial of your radio or television set and, lo and behold, you see, or hear, people talking, laughing, and dancing. You hear music, singing, and the voices of men and women perhaps thousands of miles away. All these programs fill the room where you are seated. Man is a broadcasting and receiving station himself; that is why he was able to invent a radio and a television apparatus, because all these powers and faculties are within him, submerged in most people, but still quite active in others who walk the streets of your own city.

Eradicate That Hypnotic Spell

The average man is under a sort of hypnotic spell of belief in death; but when he opens his spiritual eyes and lets the accumulated scales of centuries of false beliefs fall away, he will realize that he has an existence beyond time and space as we know it, and he will see and feel the presence of those whom he now calls "dead."

I have been at the bedside of many men and women during their transition. They have shown no signs of fear. Instinctively and intuitively, they feel they are entering into a larger dimension of life. Thomas Edison was heard to say to his physician before he died, "It is very beautiful over there." All of us have a natural wistfulness regarding the state of our loved ones after they leave this plane of life. We must realize that with the dawn their happy faces smile which we have "loved long since and lost a while."

How to Give the Oil of Joy for Mourning

You must never grieve nor mourn for departed loved ones. Radiate the qualities of love, peace, and joy to the friend or relative who has passed over to a larger dimension of life. Lift the other up in your mind and heart and rejoice in his new birthday, knowing that Divine love and Divine life are where he is. Realize that the dear ones who have passed on are dwelling in a state of beauty, peace, and harmony. You make the loved ones happy by this attitude of mind. Instead of feeling that they are dead and gone and that they are where their graves are, feel that the wisdom, intelligence, and love of God are flowing through them in transcendent loveliness. Whenever you think of a departed relative or friend, silently bless him by affirming, "God loves you and cares for you." The attitude of mind heals all grief and sorrow for you and yours.

Entering Into a Higher Vibration

There is no one buried anyplace, whether in the soil or far away at sea. The body is interred and undergoes dissolution, returning to its primordial elements. Modern, up-to-date, scientific thinkers never visit graves, as there is nobody there. To identify with the body in a grave and to put flowers on the grave is to identify with limitation and finality, which brings on disease and all kinds of loss to the person who indulges in this custom. In the modern funeral, there is no body in evidence, and the relatives meet for prayer and meditation, celebrating the loved one's new birthday in God as he moves onward, upward, and Godward.

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Psychic Perception, Chapter Seven (Edited)

Dr. Joseph Murphy

Joseph Murphy - Silent Prayer

Joseph Murphy - Silent Prayer

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I forgive myself for harbouring negative thoughts of any kind. If there's anyone who's ever hurt me or injured me in any way, shape or form, I fully and freely forgive that person or persons now. I am sincere; I mean this and I decree it. I wish for them all the blessings of life.

When anyone of them comes into my mind, I will say, I've released you to God. God be with you. After a while, I can meet that person in my mind and there will be no sting there, I will rejoice at hearing good news about that person.

Now, if I can't rejoice in hearing good news about the person who wronged me, it means that's my problem, it's a poison pocket in my subconscious. Therefore, you continue blessing the other and forgiving yourself. And you know very well that love cast out fear, hate, jealousy, everything unlike itself. We have no alibi; we have no excuse.

Now having forgiven ourselves and others, then we can pray. Because when you stand praying, forgive, if you've wrath against any. Common sense tells you, you can't pour distilled water into a dirty vessel and have clean water. Likewise the holy spirit cannot flow through a contaminated mind. How can a person get a healing, who's full of resentment, self-condemnation, antagonism, criticism, ill will? That's their sickness; you  must get rid of the cause, then the effect passes away.

So now, no matter what your problem is, having forgiven everybody and having forgiven yourself for harbouring negative thoughts, to forgive is to give for, forgive and forget mean the same thing; Alright now you say, I have forgiven myself for harbouring negative thoughts and I resolve not to do that anymore.

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Then I remind myself of the great truths of life...

I am the lord that healeth thee, I am the lord thy god, I will come and heal thee. I will restore health unto thee and heal thee of thy wounds saith the lord my god.

 (Exodus 15:26, Isaiah 41:13 & Jeremiah 30:17)

God is guiding me now, there's right action in my life.

God's healing love saturates my whole being.

God's healing love dissolves every single thing unlike itself.

God's river of peace flows through my mind and my heart. The healing light of God flows through every atom of my being, making me whole, pure, relaxed and perfect.

The love, the light and the glory of God flow through me in transcendent loveliness, saturating my whole being so that my whole body dances to the rhythm of the eternal God.

My mind is full of peace and poise, balance and equilibrium. I am full of faith in God, in life, in the universe and all good things.

Whatever the problem is right now, do not dwell on the problem but realize the infinite healing presence which made you from a cell is the only healing power there is...It knows all the processes and functions of your body....And you quietly say to yourself, 

This healing power of God is focused at that point in my subconscious mind, where the problem is, and God's healing light dissolves it and neutralizes it, making way for the holy spirit to flow through me, making me whole and perfect now.

Now, in the silence of your soul, you imagine you're talking to your higher self, the God in you. And then you're very humble and you say,

Father, thou know all things. You are wise. You are the only healing power there is. I am your son. I am your daughter. I know you love me and I know you care for me. And this very moment, I'm giving thanks for the miraculous healing power flowing through me now.

The grateful heart is always close to God. The grateful heart lacks nothing. The grateful heart is never sick. Never impoverished. Never frustrated. never lonesome.

That's why silently you say, father I thank thee that thou hast heard me now and I know thou hearest me always.

(John 11:41-42)

Then silently repeat to yourself, thank you for the miraculous healing, over and over again. Lull yourself to sleep with the word Thank you.

The peace of God fills your soul and according to your faith is it done unto you. Let wonders happen as you pray.

(Matthew 9:29)

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From a Joseph Murphy Lecture (edited)

Challenging Conceptual Dominance

Challenging Conceptual Dominance

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6:41 To create the possibility of recognizing things unseen, we begin by more clearly noticing what’s there. If we can’t see that our experience is largely made up of concepts, how can we address this condition intelligently or effectively? When something exists as one thing but is perceived to be something else, our ability to interact with it or change it is extremely limited. Yet our experience just seems to be our experience. There’s a reason that people look everywhere except into their own experience when they want to change. They assume their perceptions are simply an accurate reflection of reality, not noticing that there is a difference between what is experienced and what is true. To adjust this mistaken impression, we need to fully perceive and acknowledge the dominating influence that concepts have on our moment-to-moment experience.

6:42 Have you ever tried to stop your thinking for even a minute? Try it now. (Even if you have, try again, and try to keep it up longer than normal.) Sit for a few minutes (set a timer if you like) and stop all thinking of any kind. Keep a vigil on your experience from moment to moment. You may seem to have shut off your thinking, but begin to notice a subtle background kind of thinking, a sort of “talking quietly to yourself.” See if you can shut that off too. Perhaps you notice that your mind continues to work even when you perceive no internal speaking or chatter; see if you can shut that down also. Don’t even form mental images or engage in any other conceptual activity. Can you do this for a few minutes? Try. I’ll wait here while you do.

6:43 Couldn’t do it, could you? If you indeed tried to stop all thinking for several minutes at a time, you experienced an inability to do so. If you didn’t attempt it, then please do. Experiencing this inability is far more valuable than taking my word for it. It won’t become clear, however, unless you attempt it in earnest.

The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece with a difficult violin passage. After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it. Stravinsky said, “I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.”

—Thomas Powers

6:44 Why do you think it’s so difficult for us to suspend our thinking? I propose it’s because something needs to happen that can’t occur without constant mental activity. (It might have something to do with the creation and maintenance of a conceptual self and the management of that self in relation to everything perceived, but we’ll look into that possibility later.) What’s important to recognize right now within your own experience is the power and dominance of concepts. The ceaselessness of our thinking is one place we can clearly see the drive to conceptualize.

6:45 Another area where we find conceptual dominance is a place few people would expect. Our culture’s way of holding thought as distinctly separate from emotion sets up the assumption that they are of two completely different natures, or at least that they are independent activities. There is certainly something about a thought that is very different from a feeling, no doubt about it. But there is also something quite similar in how they each arise, and this we overlook. Emotions and thoughts are both produced through mental activity. It’s easy to recognize the conceptual nature of thinking, but we prefer not to acknowledge that emotions—and the many feeling-reactions and impulses too subtle or obscure to be labeled as emotions—also occur within the mind.

6:46 Now, the moment I say that emotions are concepts, I suspect more than one reader will object. Clearly emotions have a charge to them; our feelings have gusto and passion. They aren’t “dry” like intellect, or mere thought. We’re moved by our emotions. It seems as if we’re in charge of our thoughts, but emotions seem to arise without our bidding. If we recall our attempt to stop thinking, however, we might hesitate to conclude so boldly that we indeed control our thinking.

6:47 The activity of thinking appears to be less than completely under our control. Conversely, we must admit that we do have some say in our emotions. We’ve all experienced being a little angrier than was called for—found ourselves actually pumping it up a bit because we liked the effect it was having on ourselves or on others. We might pout or fan the flames of our hurt so as to elicit more sympathy, or perhaps nurture feelings of love even though we perceive that the circumstances don’t really warrant such romantic feelings. So we have to admit, even if only to ourselves, that we influence our emotions also.

6:48 What most of us don’t realize, however, is that the basic nature of all emotions is conceptual. A feeling-reaction occurs as a result of a complex mental stimulus that is conceptual in nature. This is what we experience as an emotion. A fuller explanation of the phenomenon of emotion will emerge as we proceed, but for now I’d like you to take my word for it that emotion is conceptually based. It’s important for you to recognize the full scope of our conceptualizing so that you can see just how dominated we are by it. Usually, the strong influence that our feelings have on us is more readily apparent and acceptable than the fact that we’re dominated by our own thinking.

6:49 It’s not difficult for us to look back and recall the many emotions we’ve had over our lifetime, including those that were painful or undesirable. Even in our more recent past we can count a large number and variety of emotional feelings that have passed through our experience. More difficult perhaps is to be aware of the ever-present activity of feeling-states that pulse through the body and mind as steadily as a heartbeat. If you take a moment to check out your feelings right now, you can probably identify some mood or emotional feeling that occupies your background awareness. Unless you are particularly moved by what you’re reading or your sister has just poured cold water down your shirt, you may not have a clear and “loud” emotional experience at present. But you do have feelings, right now and always.

6:50 Begin to increase sensitivity to your current feeling activity by doing the following exercise:

Put your attention on the sensations and feelings in your body and mind in this moment, and see how many you can identify as not physically produced. In other words, what feelings can you find that aren’t something like an itch on your foot, or a sense of the room temperature? How you feel about the itchy foot or in reaction to the warm room are not in themselves physiological sensations. Perhaps the itching bothers you, or maybe you enjoy scratching it. The warm room might feel cozy and safe to you, or perhaps it’s uncomfortably stuffy. These background reactions may not occur to you as clearly as some emotions, but they are emotional in nature. 

Other feelings you have are not even that clear. If you pay close attention, you can begin to pick up more subtle moods and feelings, some of which would normally pass for sensations. Upon inspection, they turn out not to be physically based, but rather subtle emotional reactions to certain background ideas and mind states. You might notice that feeling energized is really an underlying excitement, or discover that the slight discomfort of wearing a tie is actually impatience making you a bit hot under the collar. Feelings like these remain obscured in the background. Either they’re so familiar that we take them for granted, or so subtle or insignificant that we fail to become conscious of them.

See how many feelings and varieties of feeling you can identify just as you sit there. Over time, watch them shift and change. Merely putting your attention on them and increasing your sensitivity will create a marked change in the feelings that you have. Regardless what you do with them, notice that these subtle and not so subtle emotional feelings are a constant activity.

6:51 Having noticed that feelings—various moods and attitudes, reactions and emotions, impulses and urges, dispositions and mind states—are constantly a part of your overall experience, it is time to acknowledge their influence.

Just as you did with your thinking, take a few minutes, perhaps a few more than you did with thinking, and attempt to suspend all feeling of any kind. Stop feeling any emotion or even having an attitude toward anything. This means you must give up all dispositions and judgments because all judgments are emotionally charged. Try to have no impulse, no desires, fears, drives, or urges of any kind. Be completely free of any possible reaction or upset, no matter what may occur. Know that suppressing or ignoring what you feel is not being free of it. Try to remain aware and receptive but without a hint of feeling for several minutes. Do this now.

6:52 Difficult, isn’t it? Actually you’ll find that it is as difficult as suspending your thinking. This is because thinking has an interrelationship with feelings, and vice versa—they evoke and provoke one another. There is a reason for this, which, once again, you’ll look at later. For now, focus on increasing your awareness of the influence that concept has on your experience and perception. If all thinking and all emotional feelings are conceptual in nature, consider how much of your experience is dominated by these activities.

6:53 The task of directly experiencing the real nature of Being requires that we recognize and free ourselves of any and every concept we have—even the subtle and hidden ones—about who we are. This can be as immense and difficult a task as it is a worthy one. In the next chapter we’re going to take this notion of conceptual domination and apply a more grounded look at how it operates in our daily lives. Proceeding in steps and stages, we can begin to uncover and detach ourselves from the dominance and confusion of the conceptual domain and take steps to return our consciousness to a more genuine sense of self.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston

The Solidification of Concepts

The Solidification of Concepts

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6:35 When something is held to be true or real—existing outside of our imagination—we hold it in a different category than something that’s known to be just a concept. In the hierarchy of perceptions, we relegate abstract ideas to a lower rung of importance than objective reality. We may not like what the bus driver thinks about us, but we’ll be sure to get out of the way of the bus. Experience tells us we need to take that solid objectivity seriously. Even if we had the belief or fantasy that we could fly, when the bus bears down and flying isn’t an option, we will jump aside instead. We respect the uncompromising aspects of objective reality, yet often blur the line of distinction between it and our mental activities. In so doing, each of us frequently perceives an idea as if it were a self-evident truth.

6:36 For example, someone might imagine that sex is somehow evil, or that his political party embodies the only correct view of human relations, or that her religion defines the nature of reality, or that science has the only real description of the universe, or any number of notions, many of which are far too subtle or ingrained to recognize easily. But all of these are simply concepts that are believed to be representative of what’s true.

6:37 We stand just as firmly on many assumptions about ourselves. When someone says that he is worthless, we may know clearly that he is not, but for him, this self-description is a fact of his existence. The assumptions surrounding this “truth” are so ingrained in him that he can’t see it as merely a powerful concept that influences his every thought and action. This trap makes what is only imagined in our minds seem like something objectively so.

6:38 Such a distinction is significant because what we can and can’t do in relation to objects is different from what we can and can’t do in relation to concepts. For example, if you have no legs, there is little you can do to change it. Pretending you have legs doesn’t improve your running skills. If you think you are bad or stupid, clumsy or worthless, and that these assessments exist in the same category as having no legs, then you are just as stuck with them as you would be with a wheelchair. Although they are only assumptions that you’ve adopted, or have been trained to believe, they are deeply programmed and are perceived as if they are permanent traits. On the other hand, if you realize that these attributes are conceptual in nature, immediately you will experience the possibility that you can change them, or get free of them altogether.

6:39 Shifting your self-concept in some way does indeed change your perception of yourself, but if this is something you desire, it’s ineffective to rush ahead without a proper foundation. Such a change is rarely easy because our presumptions run deep, not just personally but culturally. Our self views are based on conceptual fabrications that are deeply rooted in the values, beliefs, and assumptions of our culture and personal history. We observe that cultures don’t seem to change overnight, and we observe the same thing about individuals.

6:40 The beliefs upon which self and culture stand are not easily recognized, nor are they easily discarded once we identify them. Remember that both culture and self are created in much the same way—they’re the products of many foundation assumptions. These assumptions—accepting particular ideas to such a degree that they become taken-for-granted realities—give structure to our lives. They are the backdrop for our sense of self and reality, and they offer what seems like solid ground in a world of uncertainty. We may benefit from such structure, but we need to recognize that our assumptions are also responsible for most of the limitations and suffering that we experience. What generally goes unnoticed is that they are not facts but merely beliefs, and since they are conceptual in nature, they are not necessary in and of themselves.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston

There's more to Perception than Meets the Eye

There's more to Perception than Meets the Eye

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6:28 Boiling down what I said above: any perception we have is only understood through concept. This is a very dominant aspect of experience. Seeing an object doesn’t give us much until we recognize it as a chair that we can sit on, or a dog that might bite our leg, or a rotten apple that is best thrown away. Along with every perception is an automatic mental association with many concepts.

6:29 But don’t take my word for it; take some time to look around you.

Gaze at different objects and try to ascertain what each object means to you. What do you believe about it? What feelings come up immediately when you look at it? What is the object called? Do you like it or not, or don’t you really care either way?

6:30 For example when you look at a red sports car, a certain lifestyle association immediately pops up along with commensurate feelings and attitudes. Glancing over at a minivan reveals through contrast the many reflexive associations made with the sports car, since very different meaning is placed on the van. A rock may have a rather lackluster set of mental connections, unless you need one to throw at the dog who wants to bite your legs. A bar of pure gold usually conjures up associations that evoke much more exciting reactions, while an old rocking chair might elicit many fond and comforting memories.

6:31 Once you’ve done a few of these, try another practice.

Just as you did in the exercise in Chapter Four, look at an object and try to see it without knowing what it is. Knowing is automatic and immediate and difficult to stop, so you’ll need to put some real effort into it. Keep your attention on whatever you perceive and try to not-know anything about it—like what it’s used for, what it can or can’t do. Attempt to throw out any and all reactions, associations, and feelings you have about it. Don’t know what it “is” for a moment—not even what it’s called. Focus on the object until everything familiar about it has dropped away from your awareness, until you can see it without all the normal mental applications in attendance.

6:32 What happened when you did this? Among other things, you should have noticed that what you perceive has many concepts attached to it, without which the perception falls into a very different category of awareness. Apply this technique to other objects or people. With this simple exercise, you become more apt to recognize how much concept influences your entire experience.

6:33 This kind of conceptual influence is equally present in the experience of one’s self. Our experience and perception of ourselves are found within and dominated by concepts—thoughts, feelings, beliefs, images, memories, assumptions, and programming. Yet this entire conceptual makeup cannot, as a matter of fact, bring us to, or even represent, an experience of our real being. Why this is so will unfold more clearly as we go.

6:34 Examining the relationship between concept and experience may not seem very important except for one frequently overlooked fact. The very concepts that dominate our experience, attention, and awareness are strongly influenced, if not outright determined by, unconscious personal and cultural beliefs and assumptions. This in itself perhaps wouldn’t be a problem either, except for another overlooked but very important point: many of these are wrong.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston

Concepts Dominate Our Perceptions

Concepts Dominate Our Perceptions

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6:20 In simple terms, every perception we have is understood in relation to the concepts we have about what is being perceived. Once we learn to glimpse perception prior to our conceptual additions, we begin to understand the nature of concept and how it can limit us in our ability to experience. I’m not suggesting that we attempt to live without concept, but that we need to be aware of how concept dominates our perceptions and experience. We’ve already touched on this notion, but now let’s look into it in more detail and depth.

6:21 Pure perception is incomprehensible to us. What we commonly call perception is really the interpretation of a meaningless phenomenon into a specific and useful “cognition.” Fundamentally, a perception is simply a sensory encounter with some object or occurrence, and is without association or emotional charge.

6:22 There are two major conceptual contributors that dominate all of our experience: “interpretation” and “meaning.” Since perception as itself is meaningless, what we perceive is useless without interpretation. The mere fact of seeing an object, hearing a sound, or feeling a sensation means nothing unless we know what it is and how it relates to us. To make sense of what we perceive, we automatically associate, classify, and interpret the meaningless data that is available. First, everything perceived is quickly interpreted so as to determine what it is—a flower, a squeak, a dog, a chair, soft, fast, a person. Having conceptually identified what something is, we then immediately relate it to ourselves.

6:23 No matter what we perceive, once we interpret it in some basic way, we will go on to assess its value or threat to us by associating it with an array of past experiences and beliefs, and so supply it with meaning. This meaning renders the thing ugly, expensive, mine, hers, sacred, too big, useful, ridiculous, friendly, dangerous, or what have you. Once meaning is attached, our minds will immediately infuse the thing with some “emotional” charge, subtle or gross, to indicate in a feeling-sense how we should relate to it. This charge is based on the value or threat that a thing or notion has relative to us, and so this feeling-reaction contains information suggesting particular behavior—should we run or feed it a biscuit? Such feeling-charge manifests as attraction, fear, disinterest, annoyance, desire, boredom, importance, repulsion, and so on, as well as many such feelings far too subtle to warrant a name. The application of interpretation, meaning, and emotional-charge occurs so fast and automatically that we do not distinguish any of these as separate activities within our whole experience.

6:24 This mechanism is a remarkable feature of the human mind—a rapid means of converting all perceptions into a self relating form which enables us to take the necessary actions to insure our safety and survival. It’s wise to remember, however, that everything we think we “know” is an interpretation. Every bit of information we take in is influenced and altered by our particular set of beliefs, assumptions, and associations. These alterations are conceptual “add-ons” that strongly influence our experience of whatever is perceived. What we react to is not the object itself but rather the interpretation and meaning that we ourselves apply to the object.

There is nothing either good or bad,

but thinking makes it so.

—William Shakespeare

6:25 The same process that we apply to objects of perception also works the same way on our own thoughts, emotions, and sensations. We associate them with the past, we assess their meaning and value— just about any reaction we can have to physical objects will also arise in relation to our own mental processes. Our ideas and beliefs and, in a way, our entire history are applied to everything that comes into our awareness—whether it’s people and objects, or our own thoughts and feelings.

6:26 What we know as reality is influenced by the concepts with which we interpret it. From “tree” to “hot” to “disgusting,” what something means to us predetermines how we will perceive it. Yet this relationship between concept and reality is so seamless it is undetectable. The car “is” beautiful in our eyes, the apple “is” delightful in our mouths. Our reactions to an ugly and dangerous monster are pretty much the same thing to us as the experience of the monster itself.

6:27 Unless we make the distinction between our additions and what’s there, we can’t become conscious of what’s actually there. Our whole experience of self and life is conceptually dominated. This means that we are not simply experiencing life and who we are; we’re also constantly “imagining” life and who we are. Since it doesn’t seem like it’s our imagination we’re perceiving, we don’t know the difference between what we are adding and what is there. Let’s see if we can recognize the way this conceptual influence acts on our personal experience.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston

What Is a Concept?

 What Is a Concept?

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6:14 But what actually is a concept? There is some confusion about what is meant by concept, so let’s look into it by starting with a definition or two:

Concept:

1. A general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences.

2. Something formed in the mind; a thought or notion.

3. A scheme; a plan.

Conceptual:

1. Of, pertaining to, or relating to mental conceptions.

6:15 We often think of a concept as a general idea, or a vaguely organized mental image: I’ve never been to a barn raising, but I get the concept. But anything that is fabricated in the mind is conceptual. A concept is unreal in the objective sense, meaning nothing substantial exists. Some people might call it a “conceptual object” since it appears to us as some “thing,” but a concept has no mass, no location, occupies no space—it exists solely within our mental perceptions or imagination. This does not make it any less powerful, simply less objective. What we need to grasp at this juncture is that concept is not something that exists of its own accord, but is the summation of a mental process. It refers to something; it is never the thing itself.

6:16 Concepts are ways of knowing, and everything we know is conceptual. Some examples of concepts are interpretation, memory, beliefs, ideas, notions, dreams, imagination, thoughts, fantasies, visualizations, assumptions, and anything else that is a product of the mind. We could even say that emotions are conceptual in nature since they are produced through conceptualization. Concepts are not limited to one aspect of mental activity; they comprise the entire field of mind and as such they influence almost everything of which we are aware.

6:17 Abstractions, such as a mathematical formula, a daydream, or a decorating idea, are easily recognized as concepts because they are different from our normal experience and perceptions. But one of the main jobs of concept is to mimic our everyday perceptions and experiences. This means that a perception such as the sight of a bus can be somehow “known” when there is no bus around. We can “see” the bus in our minds, so to speak. It is the same with sounds—like remembering a song—as well as smells, tastes, and touch. Anything we’ve perceived, and even things we haven’t, can be conceptually perceived in the mind. Whenever we remember something, we are “reperceiving” past events. Given we are conscious that these events have passed, we know them as memories, but they are conceptual nonetheless. Concept not only mimics reality, however, it serves to help create reality.

6:18 When we look at a tree, we imagine that we are merely perceiving the tree when in actuality we are interpreting or “knowing” it as a tree. We may see some object there, but when we interpret it as a tree something more is now perceived that wasn’t there previously. This is a conceptual superimposition placed upon what is perceived, without which we would not see a “tree.” We don’t recognize that we live entirely within a conceptual reality any more than a fish recognizes that water has always surrounded him.

6:19 Everything we perceive, whether it’s an object or mental image, is subject to interpretation—making sense of incoming data so we can recognize and categorize it. Interpretation allows us to order our world, which requires mental processes that are all conceptual. It is also true that much of what is “experienced” as oneself is really a concept rather than an experience. And as I’ve suggested already, there is a distinction we need to make between the experience of being and the concept of self.

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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six

Peter Ralston