3.6 - Homework & Lab #3: Truth Perception

We will do an exercise in mentally jumping parallels through truth perception and cognition. Pick an object, any object. Examine it and ask questions. Then ask, "What is this like?"

Some common parallels that are useful involve light; most light parallels are analogous to Truth. Parallels into life can come from something that involves air or water. Food can make parallels into learning, growth, and survival. Fire or chemical reactions make great metaphysical parallels into change, both passive and active. Tools and utensils can parallel the human condition.

Pick an object!

Jeanie picks an on-off switch on an in-line power supply and amplifier for a microphone.²⁹ The power supply uses a battery. It has a little clip on it so it can go on the belt or shirt. Start asking questions about the object. Who, what, when, where, why, how, sequencing of relationships, etc., and make a list. (Be careful with whys.)

• For example, who would use this? Somebody who wishes to record.
• Who would make that? Somebody who wishes to eat.
• How does it work or what is it? It is something that aids the microphone in the transmission of sound to a tape recorder.
• When is it used? When you wish to record on a tape recorder. You do not use it when you want to play the tape recorder; it might give feedback. Without that on-off switch, amplifier, or battery, the mike will not work.

The next thing to do is examine some relationships. The microphone is recording, but what is it recording? The mike can record a myriad of things: music, words and discussions, or nonsense and noise. The mike is totally neutral in terms of what it lets through to the recorder or does not. What the on-off switch and amplifier are doing is relaying electrical signals (created by sound), from the mike to the tape recorder. The sound is coming from the source, through the medium of the air. The mike takes the sound, changes it to electrical energy, which travels down the wire into this battery back and amplifier. It is amplified by the battery (which is engaged by the switch) and then is picked up by the tape recorder. The mike, amplifier, on-off switch, and cord are a whole transducer assembly. It transduces sound to electricity.

Once you pick an object like this and mentally examine it, start going in parallels. The best thing to do for beginners is stay in generalities. Do not try to get too specific. Stick to statements like: Some people are like ______. Or: Life is like ______. Also, the lesson is easier if you stick to simple things like windows, spoons, pencils, etc.

We have mentally dissected the object. What does it do, how is it used, and what is it for? Next, is to jump into parallels. Ask what else does this, or what is this like? For example: what else acts like an amplifier between what is done on one end, as the mike (a transducer), and how it's received on the other, as the tape deck?

Communication, perception.

Right. Language is one thing, perception is another. So you can say things like: language (communication) can be used as an amplifier of ideas from one place to the other. The mike and the tape deck have a specific relationship, one is sending and one is receiving. The mike's inline amplifier is there to facilitate that. If we look at the mike, amplifier, and tape deck as being all in one person, then we can say our grasp of language acts as an amplifier or transducer of what we hear to ideas we recognize. This amplifier is like the individual's grasp of language.

When I said, "Some of the squared legs equals the square of the hippopotamus." That was nonsense to you until I explained it. It was the grasp of language that translated what went in, to what was recognized. From the mike (my words), through an amplifier (language/perception), to the tape deck (cognition).³⁰ "Oh, I get it." Click! One facilitates a flow of electrons; the other facilitates a flow of ideas.

That is only one parallel to this mike/amplifier/recorder array. It is possible to have many other parallels. Perception. How is perception like this? Because it is a transmitter?

Yes, and an amplifier. Because it takes what has been said before, adds to it, gives it a boost, to be perceived as something else.

Good, you are getting the idea. As we just did, go for comprehensive generalities, things that tend to be all encompassing: Life, God, humanity, growth, etc. The more inclusive, the better. This exercise will help facilitate the 'ring'³¹ necessary for part of the first homework assignment -- the mine box. Through this exercise, you can be generating that 'ring' inside you.

The truth matrix.

Yes, through the student's truth matrix. The 'ringing' is facilitated as the student begins assembling the truths perceived, and applying them. A metaphysical student's goal should be making their truth matrix similar to the Absolute Truth Matrix, rebuilding their human matrix. Or, more accurately, reprogramming their existing human matrix so it is similar to the Absolute Truth Matrix. Having their matrix store absolutes they perceive facilitates this.

In terms of this homework assignment, this is what I would ask people to do. Do one truth a day and enter it in the notebook. Perhaps, with each truth, a small notation of what was the original object. Within a class format, I would have the class discuss some of these truths perceived.

When I learned this exercise in Mr. Zehren's English class, we had to do one truth a day and put it down in our notebook. Being lazy, I seldom did mine until I got to class. I must have gotten over thirty truths looking at or through the classroom windows.

So you select an object, and you examine it for what, where, when, how and maybe why.

And, the sequencing of events that determine its use. Just examine for the facts that you see in it.

Okay. So I've got a container (a plastic one-liter container with a snap top) and it holds water right now, but it can hold other things. It's made of plastic; has a removable top.

It can hold other things, but what is it essentially made for?

Liquid.

Liquid for what purpose? Consumption?

That's probably arguable, but maybe. Liquid for use, anyway.

Well, you are getting the idea. Assuming the liquid is for human consumption, the liquid -- no matter what it is -- has water in it. The liquid in the container could be plain water as it is now, juice with water and other nutrients in it, or wine. One way or another, whether it's water or juice or whatever, the container is holding a liquid with a life-giving element (water).

The exercise is to look at it, determine whatever it is for, and in the end, jump parallels into your perception of life. What, in the human system, is life giving or is a vessel for life giving?

In the human system?

Something necessary for peoples -- as a whole, something we need within us, outside us, for our learning or growth. What else is like this vessel of water? This -- the water -- is something that's absolutely necessary whereas the vessel can hold a liquid that is not absolutely necessary, like wine. So, what in our lives is as a vessel that can be used for something we absolutely need, or just to hold something that we use and do not need?

I thought of knowledge.

There you go. In one way, knowledge based on Absolute Truths is essential for survival, and we cannot do without it. Otherwise, we would not be able to walk, talk, eat, and survive. Yet there is knowledge that's based on Absolute Truths -- essential -- and knowledge that is based on relative truths -- not essential. We can take both in. The fantasy book sitting over there, or playing with computers on the Internet. These are not essential for survival within a human system, but it's knowledge that we take in.

Like in this case, to know how much water is in here is not essential. To know to drink it is essential.

Right. To consume it is essential. The numbers are not essential.

But the knowledge that this is good for my body and to put it into my body...

That is right. With this exercise, you can see how you can take anything, jump into parallels, and you see something way beyond a mere jug of water.

Now, as to storage and categorizing of the truths that you pick up from these parallels: you will notice some parallels that apply to all or everybody. And, you will see other parallels will apply to some and not to others. The determining factors will be according to your individual perceptions and what knowledge you have stored already.

For this exercise, set up some categories. The categories may be: "absolute", "maybe", or "relative". The absolute category is when the parallel applies to all. The relative category is when you see it applying to some. The maybe category is when you are not sure.

If you find one exception to a truth in the absolute category, it becomes a relative truth. Use the geometric postulate analogy: if you find one exception to a postulate, it ceases to be a postulate.

However, exceptions must be examined just as carefully as the original truth. What may be an exception in one way may not be an exception when perceived in another way. For example: what you may see as an exception may be due to how you are perceiving. The changing of your perception can cause the exception to disappear.

How do you use this exercise? Sherlock Holmes first meets Watson in a story, A Study in Scarlet.³² Watson and Holmes are students together at the University. Watson finds out that Sherlock Holmes is equivalent to a genius, and is very much learned in a number of different subjects: chemistry, forensics, ballistics, etc. He also learns Holmes is totally ignorant on other subjects like astronomy. This is in an antithesis of the popular concept of the times (the enlightened man).

The enlightened man had to know a little bit of everything; 'a bloody know-it-all', in other words. Watson asked Holmes, how is it that he could be so learned in one field and completely ignorant of another. To paraphrase Holmes' response: "I look at my mind like an attic. Most people store anything they can find, throw it in their attic, and their attic becomes one big clutter. I choose to store only specific things in my attic. I don't want my attic cluttered."

If a person uses this concept with the Absolute Truth and starts storing in their 'attic' only Absolute Truth, this lesson will start producing results over a period of time. If a metaphysics student really learns this lesson -- how to jump parallels from a simple common object to something all encompassing -- there is nowhere they need to go to learn the Truth. Everything they need to know is right there in front of them. The students of mysticism or metaphysics need only be aware and have their eyes open.

When we use these parallels between metaphysical and physical, we begin to generate an inclusive mind through Truth. We input Absolute Truth into our human matrix. The more absolutes we input and connect together, our human matrix becomes similar to the Truth Matrix.³³ The Truth in our minds will have an affect by aligning itself with the Truth Matrix. This is the core of, "Know the truth and the truth will set you free." As you start incorporating Absolute Truths into your being, you become aligned to the Absolute Truth Matrix.

I am going to relate a personal antidote as an example. In the 10th grade, I learned the Truth lesson, and in 9th grade, I learned geometry. At the same time, I was reading Sherlock Holmes example about storage of what you want inside your mind. So, I started putting Absolute Truths together (from the English class), using a concept of geometry and postulate (from math classes). If I could find no exception to a truth from the English class, it would be categorized as a postulate, axiom, or absolute. Then, I would store it.

After high school (while in the army), I found once I accumulated truths, and I started putting various Absolute Truths together with other Absolute truths (this Absolute Truth together with this Absolute Truth together with this Absolute Truth), that a 'whirrr click' occurred inside me. The 'whirrr click' was an instant change of my mental/emotional state. This change of state gave me a quiet peace and an understanding of things based on Absolute Truth. In the end, I was starting to program my truth matrix with Absolute Truth through my cognitive input.³⁴ I was starting to align myself with the Absolute Truth Matrix (even though, at the time, I did not know such a concept existed).

After this had happened a number of times, I found if I start putting one quiet understanding together, with another quiet understanding, with another quiet understanding, and this other quiet understanding; the 'whirrr click' is going to be God. Because, God is the source of Absolute Truth. In the end, I was just following the Truth to its source.³⁵ So, if you keep on working on Absolute Truth within an honest framework of mind, you are going to end up with God no matter what, because God is the source of the Absolute Truth. This will occur if you believe in God or not.

When you say an honest framework of mind, does that mean without the ego?

By being open and not shutting anything out, observing. Being honest with yourself more than anything else because some truths you may not want to believe, or do not even want to recognize. We can recognize and not want to believe it. But, we must recognize it at least. (Recognized -- re-cognized -- or not, the Truth still exists.) That's what I mean by honest frame of mind, dispassionately. If we refuse to re-know the Truth, it will not do us any good. We must re-know it, at least recognize its existence, if not believe it. This is one of the ways cognitive input programs our knowledge.³⁶ Later on, we will show that belief is not that critical.

Again, you were saying be open.

Be open.

Get rid of your preconceived notions.

Right. Cause when you start assembling Absolute Truths together, you get these peaceful points of knowledge, which -- when joined together -- bring you to God whether you believe in God or not. Belief is not that important to the process.

Be aware of the fair witness concept, presented in Stranger in a Strange Land.³⁷ When the woman Ann, who was a fair witness, was asked the color of the house on the hill, she turned to Jubal and said, "It's white on this side, Jubal." Be very objective. See what you see on this one side of the house. Then look around to the other side, it might be black.

24 ounces, 700 milligrams (markings on the plastic container).

There you go. A change in perspective gives a change in perception. On one side is metric and it says 700 milliliters, which is speaking one language. Look on the other side, it says 24 ounces -- which is speaking another language, and both languages have to do with volume. Two symbol systems: one is from Napoleon and the other from English, and yet, the two symbol systems are talking about the same thing -- quantity.

This exercise addresses a number of things. One is, it expands your perceptual window on things. You can see beyond the object at hand, as you begin thinking in parallels. This is relatively important because if you look at all the phenomena around us, things start to become increasingly complicated. Things become weirder and weirder and weirder. With so many variables, it can boggle the brain. However, once you begin thinking in parallels, things can get simpler instead of more complicated.

Cause they get more similar.

Precisely, they get more similar. Things become simpler as you start thinking in parallels. You begin to generate a more inclusive mind or a mind with Love in it. Again, you are starting to put your human matrix to work and reprogramming it according to the lines of the Absolute Truth Matrix. As the mind becomes increasingly inclusive, the student begins to see more and more. This effect makes it possible to relate all this information into reoccurring themes.

An old spiritual axiom is: accept where you are and look. There is nowhere you need to go. Everything you need to know is right in front of you in common everyday objects. You just have to look at the object, learn to jump in parallels, and everything you need to know is available to you. Lab #3 works best when you make no judgments as the objective observer. Be aware of your ignorance because your ignorance is going to be part of the lab.

Summary: The homework assignment for this class is:

1. Choose any object and ask the who, what, when, where, why, how, sequencing of relationships, etc., about that object and make a list. (Be careful with whys.) Do this with several objects each week.
2. Begin listing at least three truths a week in your notebook for the next ten weeks. In addition, five slashes are required in the cover for the "mine" category.³⁸
3. Make your list of truths into a table with three columns: one column is labled "absolute; one "relative"; and one "maybe. Choose which category your truth would go under, and test your conclusions.