The Power of Perception. Part One.

“You never miss your water until the well runs dry.”

That adage contains a wealth of knowledge.  As a parable, it informs a simple fact that can be further explored, the extent of which is limited only by the explorer.  The usual interpretation of the adage is to avoid taking for granted something important or essential.  To take for granted would mean to neglect or not cultivate.

Just behind that awareness is a profound observation:  Everything has an opposite.  Often referenced as polarity, there are “two sides to every coin” and so on.  Thus we learn that it is natural for opposites to exist.  Up, down; back, forward; high, low; good, bad; wet, dry; pretty, ugly; gentle, rough...you get the idea.

It is how such insight is used that’s important.  Everything exists as a scale with opposites separated by infinite degrees.  Temperature is a good example.  Where, on a thermometer, does “hot” end and “cold” begin?  That’s not how it works.  For temperature, it’s a matter of atomic activity.  The greater the movement (frequency) the greater heat is produced.  The slower the movement (frequency) the less heat is produced.  In our daily experience we’re fully aware of temperature and its scale.

Love and hate are the same emotion.  Where, on the scale, does hate end and love begin?  It’s a matter of degree and the higher the degree (frequency) the better the feeling (love.)  And the opposite for what is called hate. 

Wealth and poverty.  Poverty is the absence of what constitutes wealth.  What constitutes wealth is relative to culture, but its absence is universal.  Where on the scale does poverty begin and wealth end?  There are degrees of wealth and degrees of poverty.  The measure is elastic; in the USA “poverty” is a very good standard of living in much of the world.  The degree is determined by its frequency – lower becoming more poverty and vice versa.  Opposites exist and will always – that’s the way the universe works – and is why Jesus commented that the poor will always be present.

Ebb and flow; back and forth; light, dark; sharp, dull; flat, round...the list goes on and on.  This is the breathing of the universe.  Everything is in motion, nothing is static and a condition’s frequency determines its nature.  Evolution is a study of this process.  Evolution seeks to understand the movement from a lesser state (lower frequency) to a higher state (higher frequency.)  A lower state of vibration is more dense than a higher state.  Frequency determines how a thing is expressed.  Water is the supreme example.  At its low frequency water molecules move slowly and is expressed as ice.  At a higher movement water flows as liquid.  At even higher frequency water zips around as vapor.  Regardless of its expression, water is still water.

This is a fair analogy to describing the human experience.  The human evolution is generally regarded as the process of moving away from a basic animalistic foundation towards a more dynamic “human” state.  Since we are always in the process, the highest manifestation is unknowable.  We do, however, know about the lower expressions.  Water exists in three forms, all possible three-dimensional expressions at the same time.  So with humans.

Let us ascribe to water, consciousness.  The consciousness of ice may not comprehend liquid water or vapor.  Liquid water may be aware of ice but realizes it is liquid and flows.  It may or may not comprehend vapor.  Vapor, from its higher frequency position, is aware of both ice and liquid.

 Is water self-aware?  Who knows.  Humans are.  Many animals appear to be.  Even sub-atomic particles demonstrate a degree of awareness in a strange instantaneous communication that Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”  Yet always there is polarity, yin/yang and all of that.  For every thing there is a scale, consisting of infinite degrees, that constitutes perceptual reality.  Perception, then, becomes important.