As we watch a movie, emotions can sometimes fly high-if its a suspense thriller for example or a well-directed comedy that makes you laugh. And yet if we pause to consider for a moment-what are we really laughing at-mere projections of light and sound patterns on the screen and speaker-diaphragms? There is no actor, no action, no motion actually happening on the screen, and yet the mind can perceive it as being there-and if it is in say IMAX 3D-you may even get jolted by a drop coming right at you in a snap!
What we perceive as being an object out there-what is it really? Every school boy can tell you today that yes it is a bunch of atoms and molecules-but what does that really mean? As you touch your smart phone screen, just a light tap is enough to send thousands of signals scurrying around and waves up and down the interweb to get you the information that you call for-perhaps thats how you landed up on this page in the first place.
Yet, what you are reading on this page-these shapes, are they really present? At each instant there are thousands of light rays/photons being scattered of long polymers twisted around in different patterns-none of them knowing anything about how the others are oriented and yet all of them at once appear to give the illusion of a font or a smiley or a depiction of NYC skyline for example- yet in reality you are just looking at a bunch of liquid crystals contorting in different shapes.
And then take the fascinating physics of color-something that is not really perceived fully in the eye but only post processed by the brain using the rods and cones in the eyes. In the figure here, there are as many as a million colors that the human eye can distinguish and yet color is just a subjective sensation in the human brain. Ofcourse there are hoards of visual illusions out there to re-inforce the fact that the world that we perceive out there may not be as colourful or even "just as colorful" as it may seem.
Take sunlight for example-what is the color of sunlight-yellow? But it is the same sunlight that gives the rainbows after fresh rains if the angles are right-and if you see a very tiny section of sunlight it appears to hold a wide spectrum of wavelengths corresponding to different colors. Why does it then appear to be yellow? Because our eyes are most sensitive to detecting yellow and if all colors are equally present - it fixates on the yellow! So the color of the sun is not what it seems!
Or take the apparent size of the sun or moon at sunrise or sunset-in case of moon, it actually is smaller in its perceptual optical size, even though it seems to be magnified. Aristotle taught his students that this was due to refraction by the earth's atmosphere-however only now with the sophisticated photography equipment have we figured out that the moon is NOT magnified by the earth's atmosphere and in fact is apparently smaller at horizon. What makes it look bigger then? There are several possible explanations however it is evident that it is a post-synthesis perception in the brain that is responsible for this illusion, just as several others like the Ebbinghaus illusion-which of the two central circles is bigger?
What is the point? The point is-what appears may be far from what actually is! It is important to pause and wonder foe a moment-that thought, tht worry, that scenario which seems real enough to be paralyzing-could it not be just one of the myriad illusions of the mind owing to the way it has been conditioned?
What we perceive as being an object out there-what is it really? Every school boy can tell you today that yes it is a bunch of atoms and molecules-but what does that really mean? As you touch your smart phone screen, just a light tap is enough to send thousands of signals scurrying around and waves up and down the interweb to get you the information that you call for-perhaps thats how you landed up on this page in the first place.
And then take the fascinating physics of color-something that is not really perceived fully in the eye but only post processed by the brain using the rods and cones in the eyes. In the figure here, there are as many as a million colors that the human eye can distinguish and yet color is just a subjective sensation in the human brain. Ofcourse there are hoards of visual illusions out there to re-inforce the fact that the world that we perceive out there may not be as colourful or even "just as colorful" as it may seem.
Take sunlight for example-what is the color of sunlight-yellow? But it is the same sunlight that gives the rainbows after fresh rains if the angles are right-and if you see a very tiny section of sunlight it appears to hold a wide spectrum of wavelengths corresponding to different colors. Why does it then appear to be yellow? Because our eyes are most sensitive to detecting yellow and if all colors are equally present - it fixates on the yellow! So the color of the sun is not what it seems!
Or take the apparent size of the sun or moon at sunrise or sunset-in case of moon, it actually is smaller in its perceptual optical size, even though it seems to be magnified. Aristotle taught his students that this was due to refraction by the earth's atmosphere-however only now with the sophisticated photography equipment have we figured out that the moon is NOT magnified by the earth's atmosphere and in fact is apparently smaller at horizon. What makes it look bigger then? There are several possible explanations however it is evident that it is a post-synthesis perception in the brain that is responsible for this illusion, just as several others like the Ebbinghaus illusion-which of the two central circles is bigger?What is the point? The point is-what appears may be far from what actually is! It is important to pause and wonder foe a moment-that thought, tht worry, that scenario which seems real enough to be paralyzing-could it not be just one of the myriad illusions of the mind owing to the way it has been conditioned?
There is a joy in this recognition. A joy that has been immortalized by the phrase Eureka for example! A joy that belongs to knowing, to a glimpse of truth, of the nature of nature and illusoriness of illusion! This joy of realisation, of humble witnessing of what goes on beneath the veils of the illusion-the so called Maya is what drives the physicist or for that matter any seeker of natural science to toil day and night in the lab!
As Sage Ashtavakra, an enlightened yogi from seven thousand year ago says in his discourse to King Janaka,
yatra visvam idam bhati kalpitam rajju-sarpavat
ananda-paramanandah sa bodhas tvam sukham cara ..(1.10)
Just as twilight makes rope appear to be snake
such is the apparition of this world and its space-time attributes,
Recognize the illusion, repose in the wonder of you, move blissfully!
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