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HERMANN KUHN
SUTRAS
our daily life. Without constantly applying Total Perception - pramana - we would hardly have chances to survive.
pramana is complete perception and understanding that with lightening speed evaluates multi-layered, interconnected and highly complicated situations for which an intellectual analysis of the many factors would be by far too slow. We handle this ability with dreamlike certainty, though we are almost never aware how complex this process really is.
One example: We want to cross a street. We see a car approaching whose course might collide with our intended path. In this brief moment - before we decide to either step onto the road or not - we comprehend the totality of the situation in all its complex diversity
We register the speed of the car, the width of the street and also the driver's capacity to avoid us. We take in visibility (day, night, clear, cloudy or foggy vision), nature and condition of the road (dry, wet, icy, asphalt, pebbles, sand) and the velocity of the car in relation to all these components. We check if other pedestrians intend to cross the street before us, thereby possibly causing the car to slow down. The shape of the car tells us that this make is preferred by young aggressive drivers. Some - however vague - notion arises that the driver might be pressed for time.
We assess our strength and constitution to safely reach the other side - and also our readiness and capability to speed up should we have misjudged. We consider if we have to cross the street before the car, i.e. how far we are pressed by time, - a contemplation that connects us to even more complex psychological dimensions.
All this and much more we completely take in in the fraction of a second, weigh it against each other and make our decision with lightning speed and dreamlike surety. Certainly - the accidentstatistics show that some get it wrong, but we succeeded in arriving here and now and this tells us how effectively we handle Total Perception.
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