A Model of Perception

Thoughts updated to conform with Infinite Intelligence by Meher Baba

Chris Ott 2010

A Model of Perception

Introduction
The image on the right is of a movie projectionist in his booth. Baba uses seeing analogies such as a movie projector, eyeglasses, a mirror, and so forth in Innite Intelligence to explain Gods production of the imagination (Universe) and experience of the imagination. Here I want to talk about the projector, lens, light analogies I conceived in 2004 and see if I can improve on them from what Ive learned since then in Innite Intelligence. On the right is one of the charts I did in 2004 to illustrate the concept laid out in my book The Evolution of Perception, which attempted to deal with various philosophical issues in a way that seemed to me to be consistent with Meher Babas God Speaks. What the book and its charts (done later) lay out is probably the rst emanationist concept that incorporates natural laws, psychology, and many other contemporary discoveries in language, identity, cognition, and so forth. So its of contemporary interest. See Appendix A at the end of this document for the 2004 charts and some made later. They can also be downloaded online at the website shown below, along with The Evolution of Perception and my second book Essentials of a Spiritual Metaphysics that claries Evolution and ties it to Babas teaching. http://www.meherbabadnyana.net/article_percpt.html#03

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The four main symbols

Before talking about revisions to my original model, I want to rst go over some of the main metaphors that are used in all of these gures. Here are the main ones.

In brief they are: 1. The eye representing God. 2. The projector representing God as the projector of his innite latent imagination. 3. Light representing Gods seeing his imagination. 4. The lens representing the sanskara. Well go over each of these in turn and explain in more detail and precision what they do and dont symbolize. Well also discuss the characteristics of the actual things chosen as symbols and why those characteristics lend themselves so well to this metaphysical subject of experience.

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The eye analogy

The eye is a great metaphor for what it does. It sees. Only living things see. It is unique to the living. Robots and mechanical sensors are designed to appear to see, but they merely respond dumbly to physical stimulation. Seeing is closely related to consciousness, because you have to be conscious to actually see. However, the eye image in our case doesnt simply represent the faculty of sight. What is meant to be expressed with the eye is the faculty of taking experience of something. You can do this with your nose, your tongue, your ngers. Or you can even do this just with your mind when you experience your thoughts and emotions. The actual taking experience of something (being conscious of it) is what we mean to convey using the image of the eye. It doesnt matter what you take experience of or with what part of yourself you take that experience with. Baba explains that there is a state of God called Ishwar. This is covered in detail on page 19 below under the subheading Three States of God. Ishwar is the formless Creator. Ishwar corresponds closely with the usual Western conception of God producing and upholding the world. Ishwar projects (produces) the Universe (imagination) but does not identify with any form in it. Thus Ishwar does not take experience of the world he produces by way of his own conceptions, because he does not have a form through which to take experience of it.1 It is only when God is identifying with His projected imagination, identifying himself as a single form within it, that He sees the world he is projecting. When God identies with a form within the imagination to take experience of his impressions, he is called the jivatma. In Sanskrit jiv means body and atma means soul. Thus jivatma means embodied soul. In Innite Intelligence Baba refers to the jivatma
1

It is the body that gives form to the world it experiences. For instance the brain produces color from radiation, sound from vibration, and so forth. Without a body the world cannot be experienced. 4 of 33

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state of Gods thinking simply as the jiv (body). For when God takes himself to be a body, i.e. a medium for experiencing his imagination (the world), he effectively is the body for that time. Thus God, when experiencing himself as a plant or an animal or a man, is called jiv (body). Of course Hes really all the while God. This is important to know because in some charts of mine where there was a big eye on the left projecting its own light, I originally labeled this eye God. While this is true, as Ishwar who produces or projects the imagination is one state of God, it would have been more precise to use the word Ishwar. The smaller eyes supervening in the imagination of Ishwar to the right I never did label, but the correct label would have been jivs. It should be very clear that nothing in any of the charts is meant to depict anything other than God (seeing). All the seemingly extended parts, represented by the various symbols such as eyes, light, lenses, and so forth are merely the spreading out for conceptual reasons the single omnipresent God. The eye on the left, therefore, is Ishwar. When Ishwar takes himself to be one of the jivs within its imagination in order to experience its imagination, it is jiv. At one time I had considered labeling the small eyes atmas (souls), but it is more accurate to call the small eyes jivs (bodies), for really there is only one real Soul. But it is also okay to think of the small eyes as atmas, so long as it is understood that there is no true division. The apparent division is produced by Maya which expresses itself in the charts as the sanskaras (lenses). All separations represented by the spreading of the chart from left to right not unlike an unfolding accordion occur in the imagination of God. For God could never be in the imagination that he projects. Thus the big eye on the left of the diagrams represents God in his Ishwar state, who over and over comes to experience himself as jivs, and through them, experiences the world more and more as their forms evolve through the stages of evolution. In short the big eye represents God as he is, everywhere, and the small eyes coming out of him represent Gods experience of himself in the imagination as a body, i.e. limited and nite, i.e. as a jiv. All souls remain in the Oversoul (Paramatma), which is the most inclusive concept of God. This includes both Ishwar and jivs. Thus really only the left big eye represents formless soul. The small eyes represent jiv.
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The projector analogy

Next is the old-fashioned lm projector, the type they used in Babas day. Baba uses this image to symbolize more than one effect he explains in Innite Intelligence. Ill go over all of them here. There are many unique and fortunate characteristics about old lmstrip movie projectors that come together to form an excellent metaphor for mysticism. But before going into these, know a little about actual projectors. For it will help in understanding the analogies. Inside a projector housing is a projector bulb. Light that emits from this bulb has no color or shape to it. It radiates as white light in all directions within the projector housing unless a lens is attached to the front of the projector which directs and focuses the light. The light that emits from the bulb is pure white light radiation. White light radiation contains all the colors latently. But before these are split apart by a lter or prism, the light has no color, but contains all latently. It has no limitations and thus forms no picture. When the light passes through the lens and lm strip it becomes limited which causes it to form a picture. The lens forces it to focus into one direction (rather than be dispersed) and the lm strip gives it color.

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The way the movie on the screen gets its color is that the celluloid pigment on the lm restrains portions of the spectrum of light in various places. What hits the screen is the portion allowed through by the celluloid strip. Just as sunglasses hold back some spectrums of light but not all to get to your eyes. Thus what you see on the movie screen in a cinema are literally the colored shadows of the dye on the lm. So light is passing through a strip of lm before it is caste upon the screen of the movie theater. What you see moving on the screen is actually a colored shadow produced by the fact that some of the color spectrums latent in the pure white imageless light coming from the projector bulb are held back from hitting the screen by the color on the lm. The result is a picture. Thus what you are actually seeing is a colorful shadow. Understanding this is helpful for understanding Babas analogy. For part of what Baba is saying is contained in this fact of forming shadows by withholding of the whole. For what you see on the screen in a cinema is actually the result of what you are not seeing, i.e. what is held back from the totality of light coming from the bulb, not something real being added to it. This is the same with any ordinary shadow incidentally. What produces the images is not a substance, but is formed out of what is not getting past an obstruction. The image you see is made up of the absence of what you dont of the totality of all latent possibilities in the white light. Not only is a movie an illusion, but an illusion made of an absence (as with all shadows). This helps to see the depth of Babas analogy, as well as his frequent use of the word shadow when speaking of the Universe. For he often calls the illusion (the Universe) Gods shadow. In Innite Intelligence Baba compares sanskaras (impressions left on our mind by the past, that color what we see) to the frames of a lmstrip passing one by one through a projector that partially block the light of the projector bulb. And of course these lm frames are what produce the images for us on the screen by coloring the light. Thus sanskaras block us from seeing the white light as it is unbroken up, and thereby produce an image. Anyone who is familiar with Platos Analogy of the Cave will recognize that the lmstrip analogy Baba uses in Innite Intelligence is nearly the same. Plato imagines a group of slaves who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The slaves watch shadows projected on the wall by
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things passing in front of a re behind them, and begin to ascribe reality to these shadows. According to Plato, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to seeing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners. Using the analogy of a cinema the people in the cinema represent the slaves. We are all watching the cinema of our impressions (sanskaras) play out on the screen of our own mind. So this repeats an ancient Platonic idea.2 Men who are bound (by their desires) take the shadows of their sanskaras and forming an illusory image on the screen (which is actually their own light or seeing projected through the lmstrip in the projector) to be real and so do not take experience of themselves. They do not become Self-realized, i.e. God-realized. When the falseness in the thinking appears, i.e. when sanskaras appear or the realizing of the universe appears, the bandaa ((bound)) slave state begins. (Infinite Intelligence)

But Baba improves upon Platos analogy in Innite Intelligence. The viewer in the cinema is the same one who is causing the movie to play. Each individual is his own projectionist turning the crank on his own 1920s lm projector, projecting his own light through his own sanskaras (lm strip) for himself onto a screen, and forgetting that it is he himself that is doing the cranking. For he has forgotten himself and come to take himself to be a character in his own movie. He thus cries and laughs at the scenes in the lm as if they were his life. Baba says that each individual plays the roll both of director and audience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was very keen on the idea that Plato had made trips to India where he learned many of his ideas. Incidentally Plato himself had been made a slave for a period of time and nearly died. An admirer of his luckily bought his freedom. 8 of 33

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Above is a 19th century hand crank projector. Notice the lamp house on the left, next the lens that focuses the light (Gods concentration on his search), followed by its passing through the lm strip, signifying the sanskaras. The lm is shadow.

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The light analogy

Light is an ever-present spiritual symbol that seems to always convey something religious or heartfelt to people. It is central to mysticism and religion through the ages, yet its symbolism has many interpretations. In ancient times both solar deities and the sun itself were very often worshipped. Today many religions use light and darkness to represent good and evil. But the mystical interpretation of light and darkness has always been as knowledge and ignorance.3 In the most general terms light represents seeing truly (enlightenment or illumination); while darkness represents its opposite of seeing falsely (Maya). It is a good metaphor for it is in the bright light that things are made most clear. Thus it is an obvious leap to a mystical symbol of knowledge. Although there are forms of light other than physical light that we are told people on the higher planes perceive with their subtle senses, like halos, such forms of hidden occult light are not the sense in which the symbol is used in the highest forms of mysticism, nor are such ner kinds of light what we mean in the charts here. Here light stands for seeing itself, the light of seeing.4 This may seem a bit strange or counterintuitive, for light seems more like something that is seen than the seeing itself. But for the sake of forming an image to represent to us
3

Since ignorance produces evil actions, it is clear how this simplication for purposes of communication to most people occurs. For the mystic, darkness represents ignorance which he attempts to overcome in himself. For religious people who are not so far along, the focus is put on controlling the bad actions that ignorance causes.
4

The light does not represent Gods imagination, for imagination is darkness. It represents the seeing of it or conceiving of it.

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the feeling of Gods that his imagination projects out, something must stand in as a metaphor for this. While the light symbolizes the same thing as the eye (i.e. seeing), to rely entirely on it as the sole metaphor would be too limiting to convey much about that seeing. At best the eye analogy can be extended to include the analogy of its stages of gradual opening upon waking to mean taking more and more experience of the world by way of evolution, which Baba does at length in God Speaks. But when discussing its dynamic processes of seeing through and in terms of its stored past impressions, and its causing for itself the appearance of projection into space and time, the notion of light passing through pieces of glass, or being delimited by obstacles such as lm to form shadows, or being reected in a mirror, is matchless.5 In God Speaks Baba uses the analogy of an eye opening in seven incremental stages to symbolize the evolution of consciousness. The eye fully closed represents God unconscious. And each stage of its opening represents a stage of evolution where there is more consciousness. Finally the human form is reached where there is full consciousness, represented by the fully open eye, that is open but seeing falsely. We might thus think we should add this eye opening to these charts. However, in these charts we begin and end with the eye open. This is because the same process is being expressed in a different way. The accumulation of impressions, symbolized by the addition of pieces of glass being added in front of the eye, causes the build up of experience that creates the consciousness for the eye. Were we to combine these two metaphors of eye opening and lenses being added to the eye it would not make sense. They are two ways of saying the same thing, emphasizing different aspects of the process (one emphasizing consciousness, the other the rise of phenomenal experience) and to merge them in one image would be redundant and confusing. Here the emphasis is upon explaining the rise of world experience, which in turn gives to the soul these stages of increased consciousness expressed with the opening eye. In truth it is the accumulation of the sanskaras (symbolized by the pieces of glass in the charts) that causes this awakening process of consciousness that God experiences and which Baba symbolizes with the eye opening.6

The light rays represent Gods seeing of his imagination when God is projecting it, symbolically extending from and away from Him. This merely means that God is conceiving of what he sees as being apart from himself, out there. The light rays dont stand for the imagination actually projecting away from God, which would make no sense since God is omnipresent and eternal.
6

However, if the reader likes they may imagine the simultaneous opening of the eye as the process goes on up to human and full consciousness, which would correspond to the seven stages of the opening eye in Part 8 of God Speaks. But note that this ought not be imagined to apply to the big eye on the Left, because it represents the conscious, producing, but not aware aspect of God. And the seven phases of the eye opening applies to the experience of the jiv. Thus it should really be the small eyes in the chart (on the right) that should be gradually opening if any. What can be done through expensive animation at another time may be able to resolve these issues in a wonderful way by covering each at a time. 11 of 33

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The lens analogy

The nal symbol is the lens. A lens is not a mere piece of glass. It affects the light that passes through it. For instance if the lens is tinted a particular color and you look through it, things will appear to be caste with that color. If the lens is ground, then it will affect the shape and size of objects. A compound lens is many lenses that are used in succession. Glasses you wear use only one ground piece of glass. But lenses for cameras and projectors use several in compound lenses. In a compound lens the affect of many layers is more that the sum of its parts. Many interesting effects can be achieved. On the left is a cut-away of a camera lens showing the many different lenses that make up the compound lens. The effect that a lens has, either on the color or shape, works in both of two ways. First, it applies to the light that is projected through the lens onto a screen. This is projected light or outward moving light. Second, the exact same effect by the lens (color or shape) occurs when you look through it. In that case the light is coming toward the viewer and is affected by the lens prior to being received by the eye. The eye itself is such a lens for light. We need to be aware of this for it allows for two kinds of metaphor, the glasses metaphor and the projectors metaphor. Just know its the same basic concept being used in two directions.

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Light is passing through a strip of lm before it is caste upon the screen of the movie theater. What you see moving on the screen is actually a colored shadow produced by the fact that some of the white imageless light coming from the projector bulb is held back from hitting the screen by the color on the lm. The result is a picture. What you are actually seeing is a colorful shadow. Baba likens this lm strip to impressions left on our mind by the past that color what we see. They are what produce the images for us on the screen by coloring the light.

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How The World We Experience, Touch, See and Smell Comes About
Gods Omnipresence and Omniscience
Everything that can be conceived is conceived by God. In the beginning God conceived nothing. He was asleep, not conceiving. He was mere Intelligence that was not being used and did not even know of its own existence. This Intelligence also had the capacity for imagination, for imagination is necessary for conceiving thoughts. But it too was latent and unused. Before God woke or began to conceive, before the beginning of things, God had no body, no color, no form. For all these can be conceived, and since all that can be conceived is conceived by God, there were no such qualities as these prior to his conceiving them. So how could he be any of them? Not only did God have no color or form, he took up no space. For space can be conceived. And God had not yet conceived it. Thus it did not apply to him. And God had no mind, for a mind is a body of thoughts, and God had no thoughts. For thoughts too must be conceived. And God had not conceived any. So, there being no thoughts to form a mind, God had no mind. God had nothing. He was merely Innite Intelligence, dormant, latent, sleeping innity. As said, this Intelligence also had the capacity for imagination, for imagination is necessary for conceiving thoughts. But it too was latent and unused. And God had the capacity for taking awareness of his imagination, i.e. taking the experience of it, i.e. seeing it, if he should ever imagine anything. But of course prior to God conceiving anything, there was nothing for God to see. Not even a dream. That is much how Gods original condition is described in God Speaks and Innite Intelligence. But now we want to go further and build a picture to express what happened next.

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First Urge

We begin with the image of an eye, representing the Intelligence that God is, which, though entirely capable of conceiving (thinking) or recognizing (seeing) anything, originally conceived nothing, and saw nothing, for there was nothing to see but itself. But, itself being so tranquil (not thinking), it did not take note even of that. Thus this eye was not even aware of itself. It was mere sight with nothing to see but itself. God peering into God, not knowing it. Next the tranquility of this intelligence stirred with a question, i.e. urge to know. There was nothing but himself to know, so in hindsight we say it was himself that God wanted to know. But the intelligence did not know even this much yet. It did not know what it was seeking. It just had the urge to know.

This question or urge to know, which was just a whim by God and had no prior cause, was the rst action by God. It was the rst event in the intelligence that was God. Ones actions which one experiences always cause an impression.7 And so Gods rst action (which was his desiring to know who he was) left an impression. And the impression that it left was the lens of distinction. For in the very act of asking or wanting to know what he was, God had conceived of a separation between himself and what he
7

In truth an action must impress someone (cause a psychic reaction) in order to leave an impression. Perfect Masters experience the illusion without gathering any impressions because they know it is an illusion, and thus are entirely unimpressed. It causes no fear or desire in them. What God conceived when he felt his own rst urge did impress him, which was the feeling of separation or distinction. And it did cause a desire to see its possibilities multiply. The rst urge impressed God because he did not know that this idea was a bogus illusion, a mere idea. 15 of 33

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sought. For this act pulled his consciousness away from himself in search of what he might be. But since there was nothing but this intelligence, which was omnipresent, there was no out of God in which to look. This act produced the imagined impression that there was. And this created the impression in God of distinction or separation. For distinction is presupposed in the very asking of the question what or who, though not consciously. This forged in God the rst lens and causes all subsequent lenses (which are all forms of distinction) to be made possible. Thus this was the rst action, the rst impression, and the rst projection. Thus God begins to look out (into void where he imagines he might be which is where he is not) through the schema of distinction.

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The mechanics
Every action leaves an impression (sanskara), which causes a desire, which compels another action, which causes another impression and so forth.

Thus from the rst action of God (his initial original whimsical urge to know Self) there was an endless sequence of cause and effect reactions. This is the domino that set off the dominoes that created the Universe. My charts are an imperfect attempt to line up those dominoes correctly. But this action impression desire action motif is not enough to entirely describe how this process of Gods thinking works to produce the Universe, which is nothing but the evolving ideas of God projected into imagined space. For there is one more aspect to make sense of it that is difcult to add to the charts and it remain clear what it means. As each impression (lens) is added to the eye, there is something that God experiences following that lens. There is some degree of image produced. He then does not see the lens itself but sees what is produced through and as a result of this lens. This is the evolving percept.8 So when God had the Urge to know Self, it formed in him the impression of distinction. But through the impression of distinction (through that lens) God saw endless possibilities for distinctions.9

8 9

I think it would be possible for this to be expressed with computer animation.

From a psychogenic point of view the world is made out of distinctions. All subsequent attributes which evolve after distinction are forms of distinction. 17 of 33

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These potentialities for distinctions conceived by God (who conceives freely as he is independent) caused in God desire and delight. This is part of the lela of God.
God said, "I command light to shine!" And light started shining. God looked at the light and saw that it was good. (Genesis 1)

Ishwar, while not experiencing the Universe as form, does continually experience these primal conceptions upon which the phenomenal Universe supervenes, and it is with these conceptions that God plays in his sleep without seeing the Universe. This is what Baba means in Innite Intelligence when he says that God thinks the Universe but does not see it. Only the jiv takes experience of form in the universe through the media of a form. Only as jiv does God experience the world he is all the while creating as Ishwar. Pran and Akash In Innite Intelligence Baba talks about pran and akash, i.e. primal energy and spaceless space. Here I wish to explain how I believe pran and akash come about, what they are, and how I believe they relate to the charts. When the eye rst looks for itself, begins to look into the spaceless vacuum or void (of itself) for what it might be, it produces the sense for God of an outerness. In fact there is no such thing as outerness, for God is omnipresent and so nothing is outside of God. But the very act of looking produces in its enactment the sense of space, and this produces the experience of a spaceless space for God in which to search for himself. And this spaceless space that is projected from God is the akash. Staring in search of itself (or concentrating for something to see) produces for God the feeling of space, the schema of space, i.e. it produces akash. Simultaneously, Gods looking for himself in the akash is felt with some urgency, which was originally merely latent in God, a potential urgency that was not enacted. The whim enacted or released this urgency. So the initial urge projected for God his latent sense of urgency. And this urgency is pran (primal energy). And primal energy still pervades the Universe and is the energy behind all subtle and gross energy.

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Now Gods sense of urgency (pran) is applied to the spaceless space (the void into which he attempts to nd himself) and this coming together of pran and akash begins to vibrate with possibility that explodes as Gods imagination. So the result of Gods initial act of looking projected pran and akash, which then, working upon each other to nd Gods identity, left the rst sanskara. But pran and akash do not t into the chart of how the impressions cause the Universe. For pran and akash are not impressions. They are not sanskaras caused by experience. Rather they are actual aspects of God that are projected out of him with the original whim. They are not part of the dominoes. They are Gods own aspects that he uses to form his imagination. Thus pran and akash should not be included as lenses or pieces of glass in the charts. They are another aspect of the story, which is incommensurable with this analogy of lenses and light passing through it. In a complicated animation, the pran and akash could be explained with voice over and images, but should not be demonstrated as concurrent or continuous with the model of the lenses. It is an earlier event that makes the out-folding of the lenses and resultant experiences possible. So it should be understood that the phenomenal type of space and energy (e.g. motion, gravity) that we experience and that is described in Evolution of Perception is not the pran and akash. Yet these reect in some manner pran and akash. Three states of God In metaphysics, discussion of God often includes subdivisions when speaking of God in terms of his different functions and manifestations. For instance Catholicism divides God into three people to express three conditions of his being, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hinduism has Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (or Mahesh), i.e. preserver, creator, and destroyer. Gods attributes are also three in Hinduism and together are known as sat-chit-anand (Power, Knowledge, Bliss). One such subdivision of God that Baba emphasizes in Innite Intelligence is of Parameshwar, Ishwar, and Sadguru State (or Nirvakalpa State).10

10

Baba emphasizes this tripartite subdivision in Innite Intelligence because it best helps accentuate the roll of sanskaras and their effect. The main thrust of Innite Intelligence is directed at explaining the sanskaras and their eradication, and why this is is necessary and how to eradicate them. 19 of 33

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1. Parameshwar, unconscious God in his original state. (does not produce or see the world)11 2. Ishwar, conscious God (produces but does not see the world).12 3. Nirvakalpa state, superconscious God (neither produces nor sees the world but sees Self) In God Speaks Baba explains that all the many states of God, along with their subdivisions, which are more than are listed here, are all forms of the most inclusive sense of God called Paramatma. Paramatma means the one supreme soul, the self in every self, the thinker in all thinkers, the dreamer in all dreamers, the realizer in all realizers, everything. Absolutely everything is Paramatma playing a role as that from a speck of dust to Ishwara to a sadguru. Here I use the word God when I mean to convey the most supreme sense of God, i.e. Paramatma (the all-inclusive sense).13 When I speak of one of His subdivisions Ill speak of it by its name to avoid confusion with another subdivision. So for instance, if I mean sadguru state (Real State) Ill say that. If I mean Ishwar, Ill say that. If I mean Gods original unattributed state Ill say Parameshwar.14 This is to improve ease of reading, and I may not be perfectly consistent. Sometimes I use the word God without concern for which sense I mean, also to improve the ow of the writing style. Going over this division again: 1. Parameshwar. This means unconscious God in his original deep sleep state. When you go to bed you are also in Parameshwar state. 2. Ishwar = Conscious Paramatma who is Creating the imagination (Universe), but not realizing it. He is projecting the universe but does not see it. In the charts this is the big eye on the left. He is the furthest back projector. When we are awake going about our day all of us are Ishwar in one sense. Ishwar in his grand formless sense is conscious, produces the Universe, yet having no body (i.e. not taking himself to be his imagination, not identifying with any forms in it) does not

11 12 13

Parameshwar is God without attributes Ishwar is God with attributes, i.e. God as he is usually conceived of in the West.

I am trying to make the reading ow easier. The closeness of the Sanskrit words Parameshwar and Paramatma impedes reading, I think, when used often. Thus Im choosing those terms that seem to best aid ease of readership. Luckily Baba uses many synonyms from which to choose for nearly any major concept.
14

Note: In God Speaks Baba refers to God in His Beyond Beyond State, God in His Beyond State, and so forth. Thus using the word God to mean Paramatma (the all inclusive sense) is not inconsistent with God Speaks either. 20 of 33

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experience the Universe he is producing. Ishwara in his enformed state can take experience of the world through his gross or subtle senses.15 3. Sadguru state or Nirvakalpa state = God in his Superconscious state. Here God experiences Self but does not experience the Universe, or as sadguru takes turns experiencing each until he drops his body. Then experiences only Self. It is only when Ishwar takes himself to be the imagination, as a jiv (body) in the imagination, that he takes experience of the world through that media. For to experience the gross world requires a gross body. Through the gross senses experience is taken of gross objects. Through the subtle senses experience is taken of subtle objects. With no body, no experience is possible, except for experience of Self. And what makes the soul take itself to be the jiv in the imagination is the sanskaras gathered by the mind of that jiv. Seeing through its stored impressions (sanskaras) God takes himself as a jiv in the imagination and thus sees, through the media of the body formed by those impressions, the world as if all around him. The Jivatma then takes the Universe (that he sees all around him including his own body) to be everything, and takes himself (that is formless and colorless and invisible) to be nothing. Therefore, the big eye on the left of the charts stands for Ishwar, which is God Creating but not seeing what he is creating. And the small eyes depicted are the jivs. Each individual Jivatma is Ishwar, but Ishwar thinking falsely, i.e. taking Himself to be within the movie he alone is projecting. He takes himself to be a jiv (body) within it and experiences it through that body. Ishwar is Paramatma creating the Universe by conceiving it, thinking it. Jiv is Ishwar (and thus also Paramatma) taking himself to be his imagination and in it, and thus not only experiencing it but experiencing it as real and all around him and himself as part of it. And the sadguru is one who has stopped all this but remains conscious and thus is conscious of Self.

15

Experience of the gross world is taken through the gross body through the gross senses. Experience of the subtle world is taken through the subtle body through the subtle senses. 21 of 33

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A new version of the model of perception

God before he asked the original question was Parameshwar (Supreme God). Upon asking the question and looking within himself for the answer he is Ishwar (Creating God). When God as Ishwar begins to think, he is creating a universe that he does not realize he is creating. For in this state God does not identify with any form within his conception. As forms begin to supervene upon Ishwars thinking Ishwar identies with a form. Once this happens God is jiv. In this rst chart there is only Ishwar. Jiv has not yet appeared.

Distinction was the rst impression. Each impression produced by Ishwar when he is thinking is experienced as a new idea lled with unexplored potentiality for its application toward further ideas, which so impresses God that it leaves a new impression (sanskara) and so forth. But these sanskaras need not be resolved (worked out) by God for in this state God does not think falsely, i.e. take himself to be his imagination. He merely is thinking independently, producing thoughts and enjoying playing with them. This is the lela of God that he does without knowing what he is producing.

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In other words, the result of each conceptual experiment that God tries (to nd out who he is) as Ishwar (formless Creator) winds up only granting him new possibilities for how to conceive. The impression caused by each action lls God with wonder at what is thus possible from that.

Natural laws, ratios, geometries, harmonics, and pure relations of mathematics build up, producing the Universe in its primary (formless, colorless) state. God experiences these relations he is producing and loves them but does not see the Universe they are simultaneously producing. In this Ishwar state God does not take himself to be the Universe (does not identify with it) thus is not bound by the impressions. He does not think falsely. During this period the atom begins to evolve through its seven subtle forms and eventually reaching its rst fully gross form, hydrogen. With this form the jiv becomes a reality as Ishwar takes experience through atom (stone).
So in the series of evolution, the stone (i.e. atom, but for clearer explanation we will speak of the atom as stone which is the corresponding form of the atom) form is the lowest form (most imperfect form)16

With the maturation of the atom, this marks the start of inorganic evolution (described in Evolution of Perception). From this point forward the Universe with its stars, moons, nebula and so forth all evolve into their present being, but in their primary quality state of pure relations, continuing to not be imbued yet with color or perceived form, which must be done by the evolving jiv. For only through the media of jiv are these qualities imbued into the relations. Note carefully, for this is the underlying logic of my whole book Evolution of Perception, that each stage in the evolution of perception is nothing more than the sum of the
16

Innite Intelligence Notebooks p. 9 of original handwritten manuscript (changed in published version). 23 of 33

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schemata that have come before, applied to some new development in seeing, and seen differently through that development. Only one schema at a time is added, and this gradual process forms the Universe we observe. The arising of the rst atom is important. For this is the moment when Ishwar identies with the imagination as jiv and is the start of the evolution of consciousness for the jiv. However, the sense of separate identity does not occur in this earliest form. Experience increases with each stage of development of the form that the jiv experiences through, as do impressions and consciousness. In the plant form, which is the beginning of organic evolution, separation and true individuality begins to occur very slightly and this increases in increments up to man where it is complete. Summarizing Thus rst came the evolution of the perceptual schemata like time and space, that made the natural laws possible. Upon these conceptions supervened the natural laws which are also schemata of seeing. And upon these supervened the rst atom. The rise of the rst atom marks the start of inorganic evolution, i.e. atoms into elements, elements into gases, gases into solids, solids into into planets, and so forth. Suns, galaxies, nebula, all evolved in this period, but still in a primary unseen state. The beginning of the stage of Inorganic evolution marks a juncture in the evolution of perception. For it is the point that Ishwar begins to identify with the imagination as jiv in the stone form. Organic evolution marks the start of life and separate identity, experiencing as a separated individual within a population. I use my original diagram of it from 2004, for it still holds good. What follows after this is the organic evolution of the forms of the jiv, which in turn is followed by the cultural evolution that occurs in the human beings, in which distinctions such as good and bad, rich and poor, are imbued into the image. This nal stage coincides with the process of reincarnation.

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If we could summarize this whole evolution in one image, without any name labeling at all, to accentuate intuition over discursiveness, what would we see? We would see something like this.

If we could turn around and see what has created us, ourselves in our original state, we would see God and the impressions. Ishwar creates the Universe without seeing it, and takes experience of it as jiv. The lenses before Ishwar (top left) are the primary lenses forming the objective world. The lenses before the eyes of the thee jivs on the right are the cultural lenses (or human sanskaras) that form the cultural world. Involution is not touched upon in The Evolution of Perception, nor described in the charts, because it is outside the scope of the book, which is limited to the evolution of perceived phenomena on the gross level with which we are confronted. My own emphasis has been on discouraging materialism, and my writing has mostly been limited to that. For a description of involution, the reverse process back toward enlightenment, which is unconditioned by any schemata at all while remaining conscious, i.e. Christ or Buddha consciousness, refer to God Speaks by Meher Baba.

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Appendix A
2004 Evolution of Perception charts

gure # 1 This was the rst chart I did in 2004 to illustrate The Evolution of Perception. Its not perfect But it still conveys the general notion. The screen image that appears in this image simply represents the image world that is seen by the jiv (the individuals percept). It does not represent a screen the light of God hits. It is just the image enjoyed by jiv. Each jiv has his piece of the whole image, partially molded by his own impressions and partially by those of Ishwar (projecting from behind him and through him). He himself is a dreaming a dream within Ishwars greater dream, as Baba explains.
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This was the last chart from 2004 in which I tried to combine all of the ideas as they were developing in my mind into one chart.

gure # 2

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These two charts form one long chain that I could not t on one piece of paper. The rst depicts inorganic evolution, as described in Evolution of Perception. And the second depicts cultural. There is one that ts in between, at the point where the individual splits off its identity from the whole. That middle image that connects them follows on the next page.

gures # 3 and # 4

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This image is meant to describe the rst appearance of a sense of separate identity at the juncture between the inorganic and the organic evolution. This would coincide with Ishwar taking himself as the plant form. One might assume that this takes place when Ishwar identies himself with the atom form and thus rst becomes jiv. While Baba says consciousness begins with the atom form, I believe the sense of being a separate one of something among somethings, or a conception of in and out, does not. In stone jiv state it seems there is merely a nearly nil sense of being, and nothing more. And the experience is as of the species of stone, and not as a particular stone in a eld of stones as we think of stone. Thus it was experience, but not differentiated experience from the whole. It was still fused as one. This is very likely because in Innite Intelligence Baba repeatedly compares the sadguru state to the stone state, saying it is the same state but had full consciously.17

gure # 5

17

This is because the seven stages of evolution (formed out of the evolving schemata) are retraced backward in the seven planes of involution. In involution (the spiritual path) the schemata gathered in evolution are discarded in reverse order until the original state of unity is regained, all the while keeping the full consciousness that was created as a result of the evolution. So seventh plane mirrors stone form. Baba says the sadguru is like a stone in that he is entirely unaffected by what happens to him. 29 of 33

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gure # 6 In this chart I tried to delineate the distinction between where the objective and subjective worlds arise in the sequence of Gods creativity.

gure # 7 In this image I am showing how the body supervenes upon the natural laws that form in the mind of God prior to his identifying with the rst form, i.e. stone (atom). Note that the eye is overlapped with a lens. This is to show that the body through which you see forms a sort of lens in itself, not unlike a sanskara.

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gure # 8 I made this chart specically for Essentials of a Spiritual Metaphysics. It was intended to show the reader why the source of ourselves is so hard to discover. It is because they cannot be discovered in the percept of ones experience, i.e. the phenomenal world of observation. One cannot even nd the source in ones thoughts, for ones thoughts are also observed and are in a sense phenomenal (before your minds eye). Thus only the enlightened one like Baba that has stepped back from the cave and returned to help the slaves can explain it.

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This image above shows light being projected through many eyes, to form the world in front of them. It meant to communicate that it was all the same light passing through each. I felt this failed to some extent because it appeared to show three lights from the start. This is just due to the limits of my tools and graphic ability. The idea is that one white light breaks up into many colors as through a prism when it passes through the various individual jivs. It represents clear light becoming the phenomenal world we see.

The idea of this chart seems self-explanatory. I meant to emphasize one witness. Innite Intelligence, which had not been published yet, made me think this is not quite right. Ishwar on the left does not take of experience of what he produces. It is only the jivs (small eyes) that do. gures # 9 and gure # 10
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The main thing that this image was meant to convey was that it was the exact same light (Intelligence) passing through all jivs. This is emphasized in the beginning of Innite Intelligence, which I read later.

gure # 11

gure # 12 And this one I did upon the spur of the moment.

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