The Lens of Perception: A User’s Guide to Higher Consciousness
The Lens of Perception: A User's Guide to Higher Consciousness
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Product Description
The lens of perception--the part of human consciousness that experiences reality--is a core concept in virtually every spiritual and psychological tradition, from ancient Buddhism to Native American shamanism to Jungian psychology. Hal Zina Bennett proposes that if we can comprehend and harness this consciousness, we can shape our experiences and fulfill our greatest potential. By deconstructing the inner workings of the human mind, this skillfully written book unravels the Gordian knot of reality itself.
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This newly revised third edition of a classic is a clear path to capacities some of us may not even know we have. Hal Bennett offers a lot of wisdom and a sure hand born of extensive personal inquiry and an education that includes both academic understanding and practical experience. He takes us with him on some of his own journeys which were so exciting, I could not put the book down! He also offers numerous practical exercises and grounds his material in an extensive understanding of the shamanic, Jungian theory and many other disciplines. I highly recommend it. Anne Hillman, Author and Adult Educator, “The Dancing Animal Woman – A Celebration of Life.”
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I could not put this book down, this is book for people who are into the spiritual side of their existence and want to probe deeper. This book gives you a lot more detail into understanding a higher consciousness than say the popular film “What the Bleep Do We Know ?” in that it explains not only how to “see” the world but to understand your ultimate place in the grand scheme of things. It is not preachy or vague in any way, it is simply a guide. Well worth your time!
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Beginning with the premise that “we are all part of a reality that is not at all as we perceive it through our five senses,” Hal Zina Bennett weaves words that mesmerize, providing fleeting glimpses into his own “invisible sandbox.” Sometimes, he does this through chilling nightmares and hallucinations that feel real despite their grotesque landscapes. Sometimes, he tells personal stories that cannot be explained using science or reason. Still other times, by using language logically the way we are used to hearing it, he offers exercises to help the reader tap into his own subconscious. The chapter on Global Compassion is magnificent. Bennett shares some of his own inner struggles as he reaches the conclusion that “(h)ealing ourselves or our planet is not … an exact science, but an art, a way of life. At its best, it’s a spiritual discipline that makes full use of all that we know of the inner world and our relationship to what we perceive to be the physical world.”
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Hal became a friend over twenty years ago when he was writing the first drafts of The Lens of Perception. What my wife and I discovered in that friendship then has remained true and strong ever since: what Hal writes is what he has explored and lived. In Lens of Perception the reader gets a broad swept of Hal’s inner and outer life experiences along with detailed road maps that the reader can use to explore the terrain that Hal has deeply explored himself. As a successful writer of over 30 books of his own and having ghosted or stewarded over two hundred other books one feels his full writing power in this third addition. In this book Hal brings the subtle skill and grace of language, pacing and insight that leads the reader into their own discovery and understanding of their lens of perception. As he recounts his own experiences with inner guides, one tells him that his real gift is to “see beyond words.” However, it is his magic to use words to help us see beyond them and to be inspired to take this magical journey with our own guides, dreams and visions.
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I found this book by chance at a discount book store outside of Mesa, AZ. I was driving cross-country and was about to leave when I found the store in a mini-mall. I waltzed in and found a section dedicated to metaphysical books where I spent over an hour scouring the shelves. This was the last book I looked at before I left and after all that searching, it felt like the book had found me. I paid $4.50 that day. The ideas explored in this book are no less than what I’d been searching for. Certain things Hal explains verified my own thoughts and helped me discover new ways of employing my introspection and reason. The book went above and beyond in explaining how to see things more clearly and interact with my thoughts. There were certain strategies that I found holes in, but Hal explains that they may not work for everyone. I have read books that focus on meditation, which is one of the sure-fire ways to see things as they really are and to focus your positivity. Bennett’s method’s can be relied upon or combined with other methods to meditate effectively. It’s imperative that, while reading this book, you clearly understand what is going on. It is meant to be read thoroughly, and is sharp enough to keep you interested in the journey. I will definitely read this again.
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This book should be in high schools, in marriage council services, in life skill courses, in life planning and development courses, in retreats, in all sports lounges and arts colleges, galleries and arts supply stores. It would also be of great help to people trying to look for work, change career, deal with family or friend issues, change culture/home location, understand world news, understand political processes and to help you gain a very healthy sense of humor as you gain insight into the wide variety of ways humans operate in complex situations and either perform marvelously or screw up and then create or get caught in catastrophes.
It’s a nice overview of the “lens of perception”, it’s functions and its relationship to the “logos”, which is the combined collection of all the “lenses” out there, including the cosmos (I guess). The idea is truly core to most spiritual wisdom traditions who all try to deal with it, and Bennett lists four major ways that’s done.
To understand how all four ways work or don’t work I personally find highly rewarding, as even those spiritual traditions like Zen will appreciate the wider perspective; if you want to clear the lens, in the process of cleansing it, you discover what’s in it! If you want to discover what the lens is and how it operates in general or in your own life and then how you can work with it, cleansing it (zen) or having some objective assistance (science) can help both reveal it and cleanse it.
I’ve studied zen texts from a variety of authors, greatly appreciate Buddhist and Taoist authors and related, such as Alan Watts, Carlos Castaneda, Pema Chodron, Chogyam Trungpa, Suzuki, Lao-Tzu, Chuang-Tse, etc. Digging deep into these spiritual wisdom practices of east and west reveals a great core concern for the “lens of perception” and that dealing with it is not a simple of matter of either turning it off or fully on. It’s essentially “on” to some degree, so you both need to understand it and also have some capacity to objectively work with it while not getting totally controlled by it.
Bennett takes you through a good discussion of the “lens of perception”, then the “logos” and in the later chapters talks through various means used to discover how your own lens is operating and how you can use it in a healthy, productive way and not just be blindly subject to it.
I’m totally convinced, through other sources primarily, that you simply can’t learn much from the spiritual wisdom traditions if this issue isn’t clearly understood as BEING A CORE CONCERN! It would be hellish to try to build a healthy spiritual life if you didn’t understand this. Good teachers past and present soon state the case clearly (fortunately!). Poor teachers will NOT tell you what’s going on, and this is perhaps the prime difference between authentic spiritual wisdom and what goes for common “religion”. Religion has a tradition of NOT allowing YOU to understand anything and put blind faith in vague myths about desperado cult leaders from middle eastern deserts from 2000 years ago. YOU can do much better and YOU are free to do so.
Bennett also makes the crutial connection to TAKING ACTION! If you’ve read any Tony Robbins, you know that Robbins (and career coaches, sports coaches, arts training, etc.) has always focused on providing help that drives you to liberated, more healthy ACTIONS, as a better state of being, not as some kind of super-goal system that will never arrive. It’s about handling your constant state of reality, not separating yourself from it. Goals as your living process, not goals as whimsical or impossible dreams (so many young grads have outragiously unrealistic career and self-image dreams – they need to establish a constant process of living with reality to facilitate their good ideas and shed anything phony or that separates them from reality).
So I’m glad that Bennett drives forward to that point, of integrating the meditative, insightful, creative and honest (and even the sometimes self-deceiving) components of the “lens of perception” with a constantly cycling and evolving series of actions. The feedback loop must work both ways or no potential is built or results realized (hence, like a good songwriter, you wade into the process and have some adventures to talk about!). The actions and meditative/contemplative mind/body perception building and cleansing states are mixed with the real world constantly. Nothing in this book is about living in isolation or just skimming through texts academically.