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Perception of Body
tion, memory, conception and dream, is perceptionperception and nothing but perception, uncontaminated pure perception.
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What is pleasure? What is pain, misery or suffering? One has to get the deeper meaning of these common terms. Both are perceptual awareness of different classes of sensations. One has to grasp the remarkable distinction between perception and sensation. While sensation signals are the unprocessed inputs of awareness, perception is the finished product processed by the brain. The processing will depend upon the mood, expectations and many other complicated variations. In the case of pain, for example, sensation-signals of the same intensity (say from a toothache) affect each person differently. Each person's suffering is his perception and this varies immensely from person to person. It is, therefore, possible to reduce the element of suffering (or that of pleasure) from each perception or even to make it devoid of either emotion. In sarira preksa one practises to achieve pure perception.
Perception of body is an exercise for para-perceptionperception that is bereft of emotions of likes or dislikes when there is no attachment or aversion. It is the total awareness of the self-one's conscious self Normally one's perception is coupled with likes or dislikes, i.e., either it is pleasant or unpleasant, either one enjoys or suffers. It is difficult to visualise without emotion. But unless one learns to transcend the duality of likes and dislikes, one cannot reach higher levels of consciousness. Perception of body initiates transcendental outlook. Awareness of the Present Moment
One of the basic features of perception of body is the awareness of the present moment. It shows one the way to be keenly aware of what constitutes the present moment. In other words: what is the present state of the body? What chemical reactions are taking place? What is being synthesized? What is being torn apart? What bio-chemical changes are taking place? What is the rate of the heartbeat? How are the electric impulses conducted along the nerve-paths? To become aware of all these metabolic and other processes is to perceive the present moment. The
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