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Hermann Kuhn
the first place.44 In contrast to this avagraha (apprehension) certainly perceives its objects, but passes it on to conscious processing only when the perception is lasting or is repeated several times.
An example illustrates this process: A pot of clay does not become wet by two or three drops of water. Only when we moisten it again and again, its wetness becomes apparent. In a similar way apprehension reacts to matter in its qualities of sound, smell, etc. During the first few moments we are unable to clearly determine what we have heard, felt or smelled. Yet when we perceive the event or object repeatedly, we can identify it.
Conscious apprehension (avagraha) therefore happens in two stages: 1 - We first perceive something indistinct. Our attention
is alerted peripherally, but does not focus fully onto
the experience. 2 - The perception happens again. Our attention engages,
the experience gets clearer and becomes ready for fur
ther (conscious) processing. As academic as this process might sound, as tangible and harsh do we experience it during daily life. The current marketing and advertisement techniques for example prefer to transmit certain impulses only subconsciously, - i.e. they like to keep these impulses on the level of indistinct perception (stage one).
But even the indistinct and vague perception we receive in stage one transmits the entire spectrum an object or event carries within (see sutra 17). So, if a vague feeling is
44 darshana is an experience that happens before our perception
process even starts. It mirrors all the concepts and patterns we maintain on our plane of mental structure (sthapana - see sutra 5).
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