Limited Perception

"It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive."
C.W. Leadbeater

We rely on our perceptions very much, particularly our sight and hearing. They are the only way that our brain has of determining what is going on around us. We react very quickly to our perceptions. If we touch a stove and feel great heat, we withdraw our hand very quickly. If we see a car coming, we get out of the way fast. This kind of quick reaction is necessary to our survival.

But our perceptions can be very deceiving. They can be altered by our previous experience or by what others have told us. If we find ourselves walking down a dark alley in the middle of the night and hear footsteps following us, we perceive a murderous criminal (because we expect dark alleys to be where murderous criminals hang out) and start running. But those footsteps could well belong to someone who isn't any more murderous than you are and only wants to talk to you, perhaps to ask for help.

Often we rely on our previous experience, or more accurately our perceptions of that experience, to tell us what do do in a similar experience. But that isn't always accurate either. Maybe the last time you were in a situation like this was unusual circumstances or was very situation dependant. We tend to generalize from one situation to another and that often gets us into trouble.

"It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive." Our perceptions do have limits. They are not the full picture of everything that is possible. So even if you perceive that there is no hope, no way out of a particular situation, you can have faith that there are more possibilities and more choices than you can see right now; and if you expect them and look out for them, they will eventually be revealed to you. Don't make the mistake of assuming that the world consists only of what you can perceive right now.