See Do also used this deconstruction of consciousness to point out how limited we are in sensing what is around us. In this, he pointed to light as a key tool to seeing. To seeing what we can’t see.
As we see, visually we are aware of light coming off of surfaces around us. This is how, or what we see. This scattered, reflected, refracted light. This energy moves through space and enters through a small hole, our pupil, to be focused on a tiny swarm of cone cells, the fovea, at the back of each of our eyes. We see a consistent light in the space around us.
Look at any object in your immediate view. Everything you are seeing is just the tiny beam that enters through your pupils. And the surface of that object is spraying out that light in every direction. At any moment, you are only detecting the tiniest fraction of that whole. In fact, notice how if you close one eye, the object does not get half as bright. That’s an instant re-calculation by your mind.
Keep looking. Now close one eye and then the other. Back and forth. These are two completely different streams of energy. Continuous, consistent streams. But there is no way you can detect the light energy that goes past you. But the vast, vast majority of light around you does. As you read this page, all the visual information of everything you can see in the space around you is passing by, in real time, between your eyes and the page. Look around, it’s an utterly enormous amount of data. And there is no clue it is there. And no way to detect it all. You may believe there is nothing but thin air between you and the page. But all that light information, all that data, is obviously and undeniably there.
This is everywhere. All around you. Step outside on a clear night and look up into the sky. Think of one of the great shots taken through a large observatory telescope. That visual data is flowing past you. And has been flowing past the Earth for perhaps millions of years. Perhaps billions.
Or think of the images you have seen taken through the mightiest microscopes. Images of patterns of atoms. That information is here too. All around you. If you had the power to resolve it. Detailed information for every single atom. Our eyes are blunt instruments. The energy your mind does make use of is a tiny fraction of what is going on. Welcome to reality.
So think about what is clearly and obviously happening around you. The energy that flows by, undetected. This is utterly the tip of the iceberg, if even that. This is just our narrow visual spectrum of electromagnetic energy. There are other energies. Powerful energies. The energies that hold all matter together. And gravity. Spectrums untold.
He tried to open my mind to these thoughts.
And to let them wash over and overwhelm me. Saying that there will be more answers after that. That I needn’t try and understand everything he is saying right now. He is patient. It will come. And that he will be there.
— continued