Perception

"We do not see the world as it is: we see it as we are"

What we perceive as real is... precisely what we need to perceive at any given moment. It makes no differerence if we're looking at flames in the fire, or passing clouds, the patterns tea-leaves make at the bottom of a drained cup, or even people - every one of us will see different images in them. What we recognise as significant at any given time is always highly influenced by our past conditioning and unsatisfied needs.

More often than not, what we perceive as happening in the here-and-now is in fact seen through an obscuring fog of 'unfinished business' from our personal past. That is to say, in our on-going yearning for gratification of our suppressed but authentic needs we unconsciously overlook and ignore vital elements in what's really happening in the present. Instead of absorbing the outside world by a process of osmosis, we select only those elements that fit in with a fixed, unchanging, and obsolete point of view.

Human need may be defined as a lack of equilibrium: an imbalance between ourselves and the world outside. Once we become aware of the relationship between need and perception we can separate fact from fantasy, trust the validity of our own experience, and begin to live a creative and authentic life in the real world.