Labels and Consciousness Work

[TDW1995]

During a one-hour self-inquiry sit about a week ago, I had an interesting insight/realization.  For one moment I opened my eyes and lost a sense of distance between objects.  My whole visual field of awareness was seen through a completely objective lens, meaning no labels were attached to any objects.  I seemed to see reality as only color instead of “chair” or “table” or “floor.”  The experience was that it seemed that “I” was just as close to a chair (which was probably 10 feet away from my body if we pulled out a measuring tape) as “I” was to my own legs.  This can be analogous to a painting of a landscape.  The painting creates an illusion that a tree is off in the distance, but in reality, the “tree” is just a color and is no further off in the distance from any other “object” that was painted.  Not completely sure if this was what we’re after with enlightment/consciousness work, but it was quite an interesting experience.  It also made me think that maybe labels are what separates us from all of reality.  After all, isn’t our visual field just colors?  If so, then how do we know that there’s a distance between awareness and reality?

[Petals]

I can relate to what you are saying. when I experience a scotoma (you can google it), i.e. when a part of my visual field disappears, I often get the sense that the world is in fact a 2D screen from which my consciousness constructs a 3D world.

this has nothing to do with enlightenment I guess but it at least makes you question the idea that there is a self-existent 3D space 'out there' independent of consciousness.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Petals