Chapter 2, Perception and Focus

I have placed this topic close to the beginning of the book because understanding the full complexities of focus and perception are paramount to our daily existence. Every single day we have a certain perception about how we look, what social status we have, how positive or negative life is, how much we have to struggle, how hard we have to work and also how much we have to sacrifice just to get through each day. These perceptions are mostly egoic responses that become our focus, and our focus becomes our reality. Simply put, our overall happiness, enjoyment and success is defined by our perception.

Let me put it another way. YOUR perception is YOUR truth. And what is truth? According to the dictionary, truth is defined by fact or reality. But in a world where we create our own reality, how can we define what is true or not? Essentially, whatever you perceive to be true… IS true! And even scientific proof pointing towards the other direction may not be enough to convince you otherwise. Why? Because your belief is your universe and only you see life through your eyes. You are unique.

Let’s use an example. Do you believe in ghosts? Some people might say yes and others might say no. So who is right? On a spiritual level it is truth because not only do many people see the afterlife, they also feel its presence. On a scientific level we can’t completely rule ghosts out either. Although we can state psychologically that a person can create these images within their mind, there are also other theories within science where ghosts can exist. Thanks to string theory you may say that they belong in parallel universes which we can’t understand because we are limited in our duality, which is restricted by our five senses.

So if all of the above is true, then who is right and who is wrong? Do ghosts exist or do they not? Well, without science giving us an answer it is purely up to speculation. There is no right or wrong, there are only different beliefs.  In many ways the meaning of life falls into the same category. Because there is no proof, there is no ultimate and infinite answer that we can all agree on (yet). It all comes down to our own perception, and we can’t demand or expect others to believe in the same things we do.

It is for this reason that some of the greatest theorists of our time speculate that we ourselves are gods. It is important to realise that we only see the universe through our own eyes, and there is no one else on this Earth that can understand how we view and perceive our unique universe. You might even say that we have CREATED our own universe. Without knowing it we have shaped a belief system, moral and value driven perception derived from simply existing. That is an impressive way of saying we were born and we learned things…

We choose what we believe in, design a structure of life which suits us, pay attention to what we want to focus on and we can also ignore what we don’t want to focus on. Most of the time, we don’t even do this consciously, we are simply running old patterns that we learned a long time ago. The funny thing about all of this is that many of our conceptualised ideas were created before we were even able to speak. After this the weights began to be added, one by one, year by year and experience by experience. This is why we are all so different. There are 1440 minutes in each day, or 86,400 seconds, during which our thoughts and experiences grow and then individualise our reality from everyone else’s. It’s surprising that society agrees on as much as we do…