The Art of Observing

Definition
American Heritage Dictionary: To be or become aware of, especially through careful and directed attention; notice;from L. observare "watch over, look to, attend to" from ob "over" + servare "to watch”.

When one decides that it is desirable to seek Truth, then the first action is to become an Observer.  Of course one does not have to seek Truth.  One can merrily go about life playing the games presented to one, or creating ones own games, without ever stopping to consider what is illusion and what is not.  Perhaps that is enough for some.  But others at some point realize that there an things in the world that are illusion, and not true.  And after discovering a few of these items may find themselves irrevocably on the Path of Seeking Truth.  When this happens it behooves this person to know something about the Art of Observing.

First Principle
The first and most basic principle of observing is that the observer and that which is being observed are distinct, i.e., are not the same.  Thus, if you can observe something then you are not that thing.  I see a tree.  I am different than the tree, and I am not the tree.  I see my hand.  I am not my hand.  With physical objects this principle is obvious.  But it also applies to non-physical things.  I see a sad bit in a movie, and I observe that a sad feeling rushes over me.  I observe this emotion, so I am not this emotion.  My stomach grumbles (not me) and I see a picture of a hamburger.  I observe this picture, so it is not me.  I can further observe the process of how it occurred, and know that this working of the mind is not me.  So, much can be discovered by just applying this basic, simple principle.

Illusion
The Hindu call it Maya. Aborigines, and shaman from North, Central, and South America call it the Dream. Or the waking Dream. The Toltec wisdom and the Ancient Egyptians had teachings on the illusory world.  In fact, in almost every culture on earth, the deeper spiritual teachings from ‘men of knowledge’ talk of the Illusion of what we experience as the Real World.  So as a student of the Art of Observation, maybe this is something we should take notice of.  Although there are many levels to this perplex Illusion, maybe a good starting point would be perception.

What do we Really Perceive?
When we 'look' at something with our eyes, about 13 different electrical impulses cascade into a portion of the brain. The actual image is inverted in the retina. The various electrical impulses signal things like contrast, motion, color, etc. We then take this composite of signals with inverted image and create something like a holographic image out of it and decide this is what we are 'seeing'. Notice that for us to have what we call 'sight', rather than something akin to a bunch of meter readings from the signals we process, we have to creatively project an image out to view.  Just as the word is not the thing, this image we project is not the thing.  This is not reality or the world out there, but just our creation.  In addition, all our ‘vision’ depends on light.  All our signals come from light reflecting off of objects.  Even the reflections are not the things.  We seem to be far removed from directly sensing any objects or real world ‘things’.  And even that reflected light is only from one small range of electro-magnetic radiation.  If we had more adequate receptors would could sense reflected light from a hugely wider range.  But getting back to our created projections, we also screen the limited input we get.  At any one moment, it is estimated that we tune out over 90% of all sensory input.  For example, if you focus to your peripheral vision you will see much more.  Most likely you have filtered out background sound like street traffic, or the hum or your computer.  So, our created world view is very limited, and is by no means what is ‘really’ there.  It is a very personalized view.  Now add to this that we make errors in perception (no two people describe traffic accident the same way), and let emotions and fixed ideas change our created view and I think you being to get an idea, at least partially, of why what we think of as Reality can be called an Illusion.

I owe many of my insights and inspirations to write about Observing to the writings and teachings of Richard Rose.