Yeah I like that too, Hinduism is full of wonderful imagery and notions, shame some just call it polytheistic and move right on. So I wonder if one of the brain's greatest attributes, that of pattern recognition, can also be it's greatest problem. It seems we recognise pattern very acutely and definitively, instinctively marking the boundaries between one pattern and the next, to such an extent as to forgot the pattern or flow like nature that underlies it all. There's definitely something about appreciating the whole, the bits and pieces that go into "making" one pattern or another, just like the simultaneous creation and destruction in every moment. I really like the Buddhist sand art but in particular their attitude towards it or their identification with it. I guess you can't really appreciate that perspective on things and people around you until you can appreciate that about yourself.
I was looking up at the clear, blue sky the other day and as opposed to the normal perception of there being just flat planes above and below, I suddenly felt as if I really was on a sphere, surrounded, blanketed by the atmosphere from all around. There was no change in visuals as such but the sky took on a curved form in my appreciation of it. Hard to explain but it was surreal, strange but somehow comforting. It made me think of the astronauts who, upon seeing the earth from space for the 1st time were overcome with emotion and awe. I think they even later described it as "spiritual", I wonder if in that moment, they were suddenly forced to re-identify with the earth in some way, blowing the lid off of the habitual habits of perception. Maybe that's some of the idea behind 'the doors of perception', peering through the eyes of God or at God ! Who knows.
I think Huxley would have liked your phrasing, and so would have the christian mystic, Meister Eckhart: "I see God with the same eye that God sees me."
Very nice. I've read a bit of Eckhart, incredible to think that at one time he was the kind of person we labelled "heretic" and tried to kill. He escaped their clutches though, good for him.
