Lesson 3

Hello my friends! I come today with a lesson of perception. I thank you for reading this, and hope you find value as well.

There are many things about perception that are not known to the bulk of people in this world and by understanding these things we learn to see life in a new light. Perception is simply how we see things, when broken down, it is how we interpret the world around us. For most people in the world - we are taught to see things as good or bad, but when all things are divine, would this be a healthy perception? Perhaps it is simply that we lack understanding of these things that give them a 'bad' association in our minds. For instance, poverty. Poverty is something which most find to be distasteful, you have no money, how will you get food, shelter, and clothing? You may feel as if your world is on it's edge of ending, but this is not so, for even in the most 'primative' of times, we find that they could live off of the land easily. So is it that these things are unavailable, or that we are convinced that without it being easy and living in luxury, that we can't do it? The food to eat, water to drink, wood to build shelter, and hides to make cloths are all in nature, so why can't we live without a small piece of paper? This paper only finds value because we place value on it. We use it instead of bartering, so we value it very much, but in the end, it is still only paper with ink on it. We cannot eat it, cloth ourselves in it, or make any type of useful shelter with it, so clearly it is not as important as we assume. This is a lovely illustration of how our perception affects everything.

So this brings the question, is it that we bring heaven to earth, or that we see the heaven which has never left? We choose by our perception which things are not heavenly, and this is not to say many mistakes are not in place, humans have done many misguided things with the perception that it is fine, and some of these things are still here, but why let this change our views of this world? Time moves on and these things will be changed, but until that day, are we going to wallow in our own illusion of turmoil which we ourselves have crafted, or are we going to see this magnificent world as the gift it is? A gift that is not used is wasted, yes, but a gift misused could be dangerous. It is in our nature to be opinionated - as humans, we try to craft our views and often come out with a richly unique piece of art, yet, we allow much beauty to be absent. People hold fear, anger, hate, superiority, inferiority, and sorrow to all be things which are in life for us, but are any of these real? I would say no, for we only feel these emotions with the perception of something being scarey, wrong, inferior, or better then us. We hold grudges, the grudges don't just exist. Why do we do this? As mentioned before, we were taught it from birth. It is perhaps important that we learn how others see the world, but to adopt these things as our own views is harmful to us. By learning these perceptions we block that which we have always known.

The only thing which is 'bad' is that which causes pain, but we must be observant in an unbiased manner - did this really cause us pain, or have we simply inflicted pain on ourselves because of our beliefs? After-all, our beliefs craft a large part of our perception, if we believe something is ugly, it is ugly to us, but it is not far fetched to say that someone else sees this same thing as beautiful. We choose what is ugly and what is beautiful in our worlds - as to say, our individual perceptions of this world. But by wishing everything to be good, we find a simple problem. Would you wish to live this moment if already alive? Would you wish health for this moment if already healthy? No, it wouldn't make sense to wish for what is already present, so why can't everything be good? Simple. Everything in this world is perfect. We as humans choose to complicate this lovely simplicity with our various views, and only make a mess of things. By accepting the unending marvelousness of this vast world, we find that we are already in heaven, and we shape our views to see the center of the circle which we all strive for. It is right in front of us. It is not that we need to fix any natural part of this world, or that we need to live the lives we've been taught we should, for these we cannot fix what is not broken, and we cannot live a life which is not right for us. The only things we should fix friends, are the misguided perceptions which hold this world back. The things which may have been fine once are not fine now, and should be remedied so as to allow everyone their legs on which to support themselves. The only truly bad thing in this world, is that which keeps us from being free. Not just one, but everyone. If we were all free, then we could never hurt eachother, because if we could, not everyone would be free.

I hope these words make sense to you and once again I offer blessings and thanks for your time. The quote below is a favorite of mine by the way, I hope you enjoy that as well.
Namaste - Stay True
Great Eagle

Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,
we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket,
he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being
was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians,
therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know
how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things
that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.

John (Fire) Lame Deer
Sioux Lakota - 1903-1976