Is There Any Difference in Perception Between Us? - 1st February 2016

She says, 'Is there fundamentally a difference in perception between you and I? And is there a gap there that needs to be bridged?' So this is an interesting topic. Two or three points for this. One is that we just spoke about what we mean by perceiving. When we are talking about the phenomenal perception, the objects in our perception, obviously they can be different, isn't it? The phenomenal perception through the senses must also be functioning in the same way. But what we are talking about as awareness is that which is aware even of this perceiving happening or not happening. Then the point is, of course, no difference there in awareness.

The point is, if there is any difference, what seems to be so? I can talk about what happened here where earlier some perceiving was happening; it was always along with the mind of the interpretation. 'What's in it for me?' I saw that there was this—I see now that there was this habit to look at everything with the aid of the interpreter, which is saying, 'Okay, what's in it for me in this? What's in it for me if I talk to her? What's in it for me if I speak to him? What's in it for me?' Anything, everything like that. 'What value is being added to me because of it?' It's always this 'me, me, me.' So that gets dropped because you realize there's nothing that this world can give you. You have no need for anything as awareness. There is no need for anything, there is no lack of anything, and there is nothing that the world can give you because nothing in the world touches what I am anyway.

So then the sense of 'what's in it for me' predominantly, mostly, it is not. So then this perceiving is just happening as perceiving. Otherwise, it's like we constantly have this hearing aid on which is saying, 'Okay, now you're here, what's in it for you? Are you wasting time? Why is it like this?' All of this selfish way of—I don't like the word 'selfish' sometimes because the self—egoistic way of looking at life, that drops. And that is the only fundamental difference between how it was earlier here and how it is now. And also this self-judgment was also missing, no? It's like, 'Oh, why am I saying this? Am I saying the right thing? You know, why am I getting angry or not?' Why is all this also being run? Just watch it. You're watching the entire thing. So it's very spontaneous and fresh.

20/20. So I said okay, but if hindsight is the only thing which is 20/20, then why not use it? 20/20 means complete clarity of vision because it's often said that, 'Oh, but hindsight is 20/20.' It's okay to say it later; after the event, you can see things clearly.

So I said okay, if hindsight is 20/20, then it's good. Let's use it because it's 20/20. It's a nice thing, yes. There's no trouble with even referring back. The trouble is that if we refer back and we make judgments about ourselves and others and we pick up doership—that 'I should not do this' or 'do that'—then it is. And you said there is nothing, so I went back to the recording. There's nothing wrong with that, you see.