If you ever go to a sporting event that’s being televised and you walk around the stadium, you’ll note that there are many different cameras located in many different positions throughout the stadium so that they can get shots from different angles. And all of these views from different angles go back to a control center which has a number of screens on it, each one of them showing the different angle that the shot is being taken from because it’s being taken from a different portion of the stadium. And then there is someone there who is a director who picks which shots to show on the actual broadcast, controlling what you see and what he thinks is the most important for you to see.
Now, each of us has the capabilities of a camera, a video camera. We walk around and we look and we see. We’re kind of limited to our one perspective, though, because we’re also not just the camera; we are the camera box. And we may be able to walk around, but we still only have this one perspective. So, depending on where you’re sitting in a football game, for instance, there are different things that you notice. There are different things that you see. And you come away with a certain point of view as to what occurred. Different things are more emphasized for you because they’re closer to you or you’re able to see them more easily.
Well, perspective is a very important matter. How do we see things? And how do we see things over time? What actually happens to the way we perceive things? How does our perception go after periods of time? Well, a lot about perception has to do with our consciousness. We perceive things dependent on the state of our consciousness. What do I mean? I mean that if you are a being who is within the grasp of the animal portion of ourselves, the lower portion of ourselves, you perceive things from the perspective that an animal perceives things. And how does an animal perceive things? Well, it’s quite simple. Can I eat that? Can I use that? What will that do for me? How do I need that in the way I do things? What purpose will that serve for me? A coyote passes a squirrel and it sees lunch. There are different perspectives. An insan kamil, a human being with divine qualities, when he sees situations, sees from a different perspective. His perspective might be how can I aide this situation? How can I help this situation? What can I do to relieve the sorrow in this situation? What can I do to relieve the pain in this situation? How can I intervene to make things better for the people around here?
Well, one perception is how can I make things better for me, and the other perception is how can I make things better for everyone else? Different perceptions. Now, the reason there are different perceptions is because of the different states of consciousness the perceiver is in. One of the things that we need to understand, quite an important point, is that the lower self sees things through the maze of the mind while the elevated self sees things through the clarity of the love of the heart. And each of those different ways of perceiving has an influence on what’s actually perceived. In other words, the mind puts a spin on things…
