Deep thoughts about a typo in my new book

I'm eager to write about a newfound typo in my recently published book, "Break Free of Dogma," for a couple of reasons. One is that this gives me another chance to plug my book, which is prominently displayed at the top of the right sidebar. 

Also, I've got some deep thoughts about the typo that I just discovered in the book. It came to light today after I gave some copies of the book to my fellow Tai Chi students.

Handing a book to Jeremy, I told him that several of the mini-chapters refer to Tai Chi, such as the last one. I turned to that page, reading aloud the mention of how our Tai Chi instructor, Warren, reacted when I wore a t-shirt with the Chinese symbol for Wu, which indicates negation or nothing.

I was shocked to see that rather than saying I wore it to my Tai Chi class on Monday and today, in the book it says boon Monday and today.

Wow. The original blog post had "on," but when I copied the post content into a Pages file, autocorrect must have changed "on" to "boon." I then proceeded to proof read the manuscript at least three times, failing to see the typo each time.

This is common in human perception.

For example, our eyes don't faithfully reflect what is out there in the world, as a mirror would. Instead, the brain actively makes predictions about what it expects to see, filling in aspects of reality in surprising ways -- such as by eliminating the blind spot with surrounding images. 

Some process in our brains interpolates the blind spot based on surrounding detail and information from the other eye, so we do not normally perceive the blind spot.

I expected to read "on, in part because I'd written the blog post that became a chapter in my book. So my brain failed to recognize the "boon" typo.

The lesson is that we can't always trust what we believe we're perceiving, because the brain often fails to show us what is really there.

A classic experiment along this line is a video of a person in a gorilla suit walking through some people passing a basketball back and forth. When an onlooker is asked to count the number of times the basketball has been passed, typically they fail to notice the "gorilla."

Expectations play a large role in perception. This is one reason I'm deeply skeptical about tales of mystical experiences. Almost always these reflect whatever religious teaching the person embraces. Muslims rarely, if ever, have a vision of Jesus, but Christians do.

Likewise, followers of a guru will claim they had a vision of him or her, not a vision of the Buddha or Krishna.

Thus almost certainly mystical visions are produced by the mind of the person having the vision, since otherwise we'd have to accept that a supernatural realm is populated with every conceivable religious entity that has appeared to devotees of the thousands of world religions.

I came to recognize the typo in my book. But most religious believers never realize that they are creating their own inaccurate images of their chosen faith. 

So just as it makes sense to have several people proofread a book, something I chose not to do, claims of a mystical vision need to be examined extremely closely and skeptically, since chances are that vision has been fashioned by a human mind, not an actual divinity.

Comments

[s*]

Reading this..one can imagine that every single ''being''has their very own path of life or ''dream''..Nobody dreams life the same..,everybody has totaly different insights and experiences..
Life of every person is soo so so unique..
Unbelievable unique..
It's miraculous..wonder..
In fact.

[j]

Muslims sometimes do "see" Jesus. Perhaps not many, but some.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=muslim+sees+jesus

Another contrarian comment: Virtually all of us on this forum did not come from an RS cultural background. Yet we became enthralled with RS and its gurus. Was this not a "mystical" experience? Or if not mystical, our devotion to RS resists explanation as a product/projection of cultural upbringing.

[Amar]

Hi Brian. I found a comment left by Osho on Spencer's blog (Atheistnbeliever). I hope Osho doesn't mind me relaying it here. It was in response to what Dungeness had posted and his comments on it. Sometimes we need beliefs, and in our day to day lives, we function this way to survive. But we have been conditioned to living like this and sometimes fail to ask the necessary questions, to question our beliefs.

For example, I hear sounds like the flute, conch, buzzing, or sounds of horses galloping. I see the jyot (flame), or colored clouds/mist when I meditate. Now this is all interesting and, quite frankly pleasing and enjoyable. But beyond that, I don't attribute this to anything. I'm initiated by Gurinder Singh and followed Sant Mat since I was old enough to remember.

But I question everything. I do research and read books not related to Sant Mat. I want the alternative evaluation/critique/argument. Some of the reading I've done tells me it might be brain generated. It might be through vibrations internally when meditating that certain frequencies intermingle and get amplified which then excites part of the brain to "image" or project an experience. Not sure that's accurate or not either.

I really don't know what any of this really means. Do I really need to care what it means? I'm getting to the point that I keep an open mind and accept all arguments. These are all theories after all. I let things happen as they happen and enjoy it regardless, whether spiritually or in day to day life. Not always easy trying to take the bad things like the good, but in the end, there is no good or bad.

By the way, I had these "inner experiences" much earlier than being initiated and continue to have them. So it wasn't via the RSSB meditation that these started happening. I don't see orbs or magical scenes. great if you can, but what's the point in analyzing these or anything for that matter? We have no proof that these experiences will happen as they are happening now when the brain begins to shut down upon our death. Maybe the brain, under meditative practices, goes through a death sequence and mingles our memories in with it to create a "story" for us. Who knows definitively?

Here's what Osho wrote in response to Dungeness' comments:

"These are all beliefs:
1. Beliefs shouldn't run our life.
2. The pursuit of truth should.
3. The mystic would argue we don't know what reality is because we don't look inside.
4. We should look inside to find it, not outside.
5. We expect it to be treacherous outside.
6. The exit ramp is via consciousness itself.
7. The way out is in.

definition of a belief:

An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
Do you KNOW (have proof) that the above statements are true?
If you do, please explain HOW
if you don't, then it is a belief
beliefs held strongly appear to be fact - but are not"
Posted by: Osho Robbins | 12/26/2018 at 05:27 AM

...apologies for the long post folks!

[Sonya]

Brian, congrats on your new book release. Can’t wait to read it.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Communism as it relates to the CCP and have recognized several similarities between RSSB and CCP. China might be a tad more enlightened, though.

Again, congratulations. It’s going to be a fun and thought provoking read... I have no doubt.