choo on this

I see both of my daughters as enlightened beings. In their different ways, each of them lives the yamas and niyamas, and teach me all the time. This morning I told my older daughter this, and she said, "Oh mom, that's just how you see me." As if I only see her that way because I'm her mother. Of course she is right. Although I believe with all my heart that I am seeing her as she truly is, I can't separate my love and perceptions from my vision.

In law school, we learned the famous property adage, "possession is 9/10ths of the law." We could just as easily say "perception is 9/10ths of our reality." Is there any such thing as an objective perception? The dictionary defines "objectively" as: not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased. Further definitions are: intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings, as a person or a book; being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject. But take a moment and try to think about something without your personal feelings coloring your thoughts. Just try to separate yourself (the thinking subject) from the object you are thinking about. Since the object does not, in and of itself, possess any language with which to describe it, the mere use of language alone infuses your thoughts with your personal feelings. You look at an object and your dog looks at an object. You think "shoe;" your dog thinks "chew toy." Who is right and who is wrong? The answer to that question utterly depends on "personal feelings, interpretations and prejudices." This is not to say the shoe (or chew toy - depending on your point of view) isn't really there. An object is there. (Yoga Sutra 4.16) But it can't be thought about, i.e., interpreted, apart from thinker. There is nothing that "belongs to the object of thought" separate from the "thinking subject."

Is there something wrong with our perceptions? Usually not. The problem comes when we insist that we are objective, and believe that how we see things is how they really are. In Through the Looking Glass, Alice has the following dialogue with the Red Queen:

`Where do you come from?' said the Red Queen. `And where are you going? Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time.'

Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she could, that she had lost her way.

`I don't know what you mean by your way,' said the Queen: `all the ways about here belong to me!"

We are all like the Red Queen. We believe that our way is "The Way." So I will always see my daughters as angels. I'm glad I have the karmic seeds to see them this way. Just try to dissuade me!