The power of perception

Perception, perception, perception. It is all about perception.

What do we mean by this? Let's discuss!

How we experience life, or how we see life, is determined by our mental perceptions. Not merely how we see, as in seeing with our physical eyes, but our overall experience of reality.

Our realities are direct reflections of our minds and our mental conditioning determines our experience. We shall use some examples a bit further in this article, in order to put this statement into perspective.

Products of our societies

Our minds are conditioned according to our societies, religions, beliefs, and more. We were all raised uniquely and differently, and therefore we have unique understandings and judgments, each individual a little bit different from the next one. Since childhood, we have been told what to believe and how to perceive life. We have been told what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'.

We were raised with the beliefs and understandings of our parents, and their parents again conditioned them with their understandings. Thus, our conditioning is a collection of principles and understandings (or misunderstandings) of our past and present societies. Through this pattern, we become products of our societies.

For example, the author was born and raised in the Apartheid era in South Africa. Even though the author was young when Apartheid ended (on paper), he was still raised and conditioned by the minds of the people that were experiencing this period. Therefore, it is understandable that at some point as a youngster, his views and understandings were quite similar to that of the society and community he grew up in. These understandings then create one's reality.

Now, when the author visits South Africa, he can still recognize how strong this conditioning is, how people are still living very much trapped in their mindsets, and creating a lot of suffering for themselves and those around them. Creating suffering due to strong beliefs and ideas. Conditioning.

Considering this, let's look at how our mindset has a direct impact on our attitudes and our experience. In other words, how our minds create our realities. Let's use the following scenario; a person wakes up in the morning with sunlight coming through the bedroom window, birds singing outside. The person drives to work and is offered coffee by a co-worker.

This is how two different mindsets can experience this situation;

Mindset 1: What a beautiful morning! I am so fortunate to wake up in my bed, healthy, happy, and alive. So enchanting to hear the birds singing. While going to work, I am so blessed to have a job, there are so many unemployed people, suffering. At work, my colleague offers me a coffee - how kind of them. I am so lucky!

Mindset 2: This stupid sun is so bright in my room and these birds are making such noise, how annoying! On the way to work, this sun is blinding me and the people drive like maniacs. At work, I hate being here! When offered coffee - can these people not just leave me in peace!

Now sure, this may be a little bit extreme, but is this not true? The very same scenario, two completely different experiences. Why? Because of the mindsets applied!

Inner freedom

We may have the feeling that we cannot control what happens externally. We feel that we are not in control of what happens around us, but what we are in control of, 100%, is the way we act towards our realities.

Within any given moment, there is freedom. The freedom to decide if we want to suffer, or if we want to be at peace. This is freedom we always have, but we are probably not aware of it. Again, due to our conditioning.

We can make time to check up internally, and see how our conditioning has influenced our realities. Things we label as 'good' or 'bad' - are these things really 'bad', or are they just not in line with our way of thinking? 

We can meditate on this.

Through understanding this, we can create a very happy and peaceful reality for ourselves. Is this not true? We know that we are in control of how we perceive life. Therefore, when we apply wisdom and compassion to our experience, imagine what kind of experience we can have? Instead of getting angry, we act with understanding. Instead of thinking that someone is a completely bad person, we act with compassion. 

We have the power to remain peaceful, patient, and compassionate towards others, even in the most challenging circumstances.

All of this takes some time, of course. We can not just wake up one day and say "From now, my perception will change completely". Un-conditioning or re-conditioning our minds takes time. The mind is a creature of habit, and it has been bound to its habits for so long. As an antidote, we feed our minds with kindness and compassion, daily. Before we start our day, take some time, even if it is just five or ten minutes, and think about how we can change our perception to have a different reality. The trick here is to not only think of this in the morning but to actually put it into practice during the day!

It takes time, but each time we practice this, we grow more and more into this habit until we need no more conditioning, and we just become kindness and compassion ourselves!

How do we perceive this image? An exhausting, lonely road we need to travel alone, or a beautiful, peaceful journey?
Photo taken in Ceres, South Africa. 2018.