Page 9 - BECOMING AWARE

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we need to perceive at any given moment - an

individually meaningful, relevant pattern that

spontaneously separates itself from the

background - the presenting material world -

in response to the perceiver’s over-riding

psychic state. We look at flames, at passing

clouds, or at patterns tea-leaves make at the

bottom of a drained cup, and every one of us

will see different images in them. Our

perception, by its very nature, will scan the

presenting field in order to isolate a

foreground image that is personally

meaningful. Instead of perceiving the totality

of the world as it really is so that we can

respond to present actuality in an appropriate

way, our attention is focussed on scanning the

present field for patterns that relate to

unadmitted, internalised and therefore

unresolved feelings about the past –

‘unfinished business’ – that distort our

perception of what’s going on around us and

prevent us from presently seeing the world as