08. Perception & Logical Reasoning
Four friends are sitting on the beach on a very cloudy-day. Suddenly
there is a very loud thunder. Imagine the friends' possible reactions:
- Normal Person: "Very Loud!"
- Blind Person: "Oh! Deafening!!"
- Deaf Person: No expression (no reaction)
- Dumb Person: Some body-reaction
These reactions differ according to the individual's Sensory Perceptions
All our 'facts and truths (including the 'scientific'
are, at the root, based on sensory perceptions only. Even if you use some sort of gadgets
or processes in scientific experiments or in the study of other phenomena,
the final observations are based on your senses only. Our sensory
perceptions are like the set of 'inputs' (key-board, USB socket, mouse,
...) into the 'computer', ...
The deaf not hearing the thunder is as much true, naatural and obvious as
the normal person hearing the thunder. The deaf, eventually accepts and
believes in 'sound, thunder, etc.' trusting the normal person's experience
and his perceptions. "Would you call this superstition, or blind belief?"
What is 'authentic scientific' data for the scientist is the same for the
ordinary non-scientist aslo!
(Most) humans have (maximum) 5 senses. The 5-sensed human easily spots if
someone has less than 5, say, 4 or 3 or ...
What if one has 6 senses? No one would be able to find out. The 5-sensed
human has no way of sniffing someone's extra (6th!?) sense if he doesn't have
the same himself. A person who does not possess
a sense has no way of 'sensing' that 'sense'! A blind person cannot recognize
the 'vision capability' of another! Hence, perhaps, the maximum number of
human senses are fixed at 5.
The fact is that most have 5 senses; very few have less than 5 and
have more than 5. You can find many humans with such
extra senses in Bharath. (Note that I am not negating other regions and cultures.)
Some are gifted at birth; some acquire it by doing thapas and penance for
prolonged periods, some by intense devotion and prayer to Gods, some by deep
meditation, conquering ego, desire and most bodily needs (like hunger, thirst,
etc.) and so on. Most
such people with extra senses, serve and guide the
society without looking for any material or worldly benefits. But the rational
person refuses to 'accept there is sound, there is music, there is thunder'
etc. This minority thinks they are the most intelligent and the vast majority as
superstitous. These are indeed a poor lot! 'Ignorance is bliss!
The 5-sensed 'modern' man simply sweeps the extra sense under the carpet
calling it as E
erceprion, in short,
. Now it is well documented and established that there are
more than 1, (innumerable
), ESP stories.
What about those who may have more than 5, say 6, 7, ..., or humpteen, senses?
Also, people having one extra sense may not have the same sense as the 6th sense.
So the 5-senses ceiling on the humans is simply a cruel joke! The 'Modern
man rationalises his ignorance or inability by labelling any sense beyond
the 5, flatly, as Extra Sensory Perceptions.
The vast majority of the humans have 5 senses, a very small fraction of them
having less than 5. By the same token, at least a very small fraction of humans
would have more
than 5 senses! The average human, with 5 senses has no
way of experiencing and hence being aware of the 6th, 7th, ..., senses, as he
doesn't have these senses. As and when some odd human experiences and expresses
sensory perceptions beyond the '5', the human society handles the situation
society has 'limited
' the maximum number of human senses to 5.
Also a person with less than 5 senses, say 4, cannot deny the experiences and
perceptions of the 5th
sense of a normal person and call it ESP
By the same token the average human, with 5 senses, cannot deny the possibility of the 6th, or 7th,
or the humpteenth sense and the corresponding perception, experience etc.
of another person and call them as Extra Sensory Perceptions
So God created mankind in his own image, (Genesis 1:27)
Body , Animal, Life
- Perceptions and hence 'facts' (even 'scientific' facts) depend very much
on the senses - Sensory Perceptions to be more precise.
- The deaf not hearing the thunder is as much true as the normal person hearing the thunder.
- Also, the deaf, trusting the normal's word, believes there is sound,
thunder, etc. and this does not become superstition, nor blind belief.
In Bharath tradition, those few people who are born-with, or acquire, after
prolonged practice of 'tapas', any sensory perception beyond the 5 are said
to have acquired certain 'sidhdhy
' and would be addressed as Guru,
Rishi, Muni, etc. and greatly respected.
In most cases these persons had conquered 'desire' and so they have no personal,
material and worldly interests. When they declare some facts or processes
these are accepted as supreme truth.
I, with my 5 senses, believe and accept the perceptions and experiences of a
person with 6 or 16 senses. In the olden days our great Rishis acquired these
extra perceptions by doing intense, single-minded thapas (meditation) for very
prolonged periods. [Note that humans lived very l..o..n..g years during the First
or Sathya yuga of any chathur-yuga cycle.]
(this is what
the Bharathiya Wisdom does!)