What meets the eye,
And escapes the vision,
What evades the vision,
And catches the eye,
Are all but versions of this reality,
One blurred in memory,
Another faded in cognition.
A labyrinth of notions,
An array of perceptions,
Creating a chimera,
In the minds of the observer,
And he keeps deciphering,
Pondering and contemplating,
Trying to clear this illusion,
Unravelling the layers,
Removing the dust,
Cleaning the stains,
Of these blurred realities.
reality : philosophy : life
I feel rust orange tonight.
Stagnant thoughts of the past,
Make me feel scratchy and rusty,
The mobile emotions tonight,
Make me feel vibrant and zesty.
As my surface withers away,
Removing layers of pinching toxicity,
It reveals beneath itself,
Another layer of soothing positivity.
This breaking apart is true freedom,
From the shackles of restricted life,
As I dismantle part by part,
I relish my disintegration,
Mingling gleefully with willingness,
In the source of my creation,
To be born again in time,
In another form and name.
Another identity that will chain,
My life for sometime,
In a complex quagmire of physicality,
But everytime I’ll reach this threshold,
Of leaving the dimensions of perception,
And entering a terrain unknown,
The one beyond living comprehension,
And I’ll always feel rust orange,
The way I feel tonight.
rust : orange : life
Perception – A source of knowledge
Knowledge is the basis of understanding everything about this existential phenomenon and beyond. It is a journey from known to the unknown that forms any philosophy. The Indian schools of philosophy have laid down six different ways to gain this knowledge.
These are-
1. Perception or Pratyaksha
2. Inference or Anumana
3. Verbal Testimony or Sabda/ Agama
5. Comparison or Upmana
6. Implication or Arthapati
7. Non-apprehension or Anupalabdhi
Let’s discuss perception in the present article.
Perception implies using the senses to perceive. This happens through a contact with the object and the sense organ. Thus, perception involved a sense organ, an object and a contact between them.
Five sense organs exist, namely, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. Corresponding to these five sense organs, one can experience five types of perception, namely, visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactual.
Almost, all schools of Indian Philosophy accept perception as a reliable, and valid source or knowledge. The Carvaka accept only perception as a valid source of knowledge and refute others. They establish their stand by saying that one cannot establish an invariable unconditional concomitance relation (Vypati) between the perceived (hetu) and the unperceived (sadhya), that is the known and the unknown, respectively. To understand this better, let’s take an instance of a smoke and a fire. Vyapti cannot be established between the two, as we do not have knowledge of all cases of smoke and fire. Perception allows us to have knowledge of a specific smoke and associated fire. A particular case can not lead to a generalization, what is perceived at that particular instant is the only truth. The universal proposition theory will lead to a fallacy called illicit generalization.
According to them, inference as a source of valid knowledge is like taking a leap in the dark, from the perceived smoke and the unperceived fire.
To counter attack the Carvakas, The Jain’s propound that just as inference can go wrong sometimes, similarly perception can also go wrong, as it happens in the case of illusion and hallucinations. So, perception can not be termed as the only source of valid knowledge. The stance by Carvakas about perception being valid in every instance, makes them go towards inference.
The Sautantrika school of Buddhism puts forth their stance against the Carvakas saying that if an object exists, it is not the subject matter of perception. It is the mind that through its own consciousness infer the existence of external objects.
The Nyayas go a little further, stating that taking perception as the only source of valid knowledge will make our lives limited and practical life difficult.
philosophy : perception : knowledge
Tulip Brook 