Perception, Recognition, Acknowledgment, Understanding

   The conscious state of being present is not just a uninvolved blank observing or witnessing of whatever seems to be going on either externally in the world or internally in the mind.  Understanding the way things actually exist cannot be just a watching or witnessing; there has to be understanding also.  To be liberated from the ego-notion, from all attraction and repulsion, from preference and prejudice, from all attachment, from all superimposed mental filters, and from all judgmental obscurations, there has to be observation with understanding. This understanding need not be conceptually constructed; it is actually transcendent of all conceptuality. Conceptual constructs usually overlay our perceptions; there is always something of the mind added to what is being perceived – such as preference or prejudice, and this is conceptual construction impressed in mind by our cultural conditioning and social programming.    Along with all these layers of perceptual obscuration is added also our inheritance of tendencies and predispositions and karmic propensities. Perception, recognition, acknowledgment, understanding, is the sequence through which things are known as they really are. Conceptualizing in word terms is not needed when simple karmic process is perceived, recognized, acknowledged, and understood. Then there can be a non-attached observation of actuality.   It’s all process.