Funny
Cosmic Giggles
I came across a paragraph in Maurice Merleau-Ponty's 1945 book, The Phenomenology of Perception
The Phenomenology of Perception:
"Would I perceive myself as 'surrounded by my body' if I were not in it as well as being in myself, if I did not myself conceive this spatial relationship as thus escape inherence at the very instant at which I conceive it? Would I know that I am caught up and situated in it? I should then merely be where I was, as a thing, and since I know where I am and see myself among things, it is because I am consciousness, a strange creature which resides nowhere and can be everywhere present in intention. Everything that exists exists as a thing or as a consciousness, and there is no half-way house. The thing is in a place but perception is nowhere, for if it were situated in a place it could not make other things exist for itself." - pg. 43-44
My thought:
Perception identifies with the embodied being that is the Self. Yet as the observer, perception has no physical location. In the process of ego dissolution, perception no longer identifies with the inherited body, but with all things. And being the observer of all things, perception tunes into a particular conscious experience in which the boundaries between bodies in space are one - and with it comes a feeling of returning to home.
I have been trying to understand what Merleau-Ponty is trying to describe. I find it particularly relevant to the experience ego dissolution. Do you also feel that "consciousness...resides nowhere and can be everywhere"?
The Phenomenology of Perception:
"Would I perceive myself as 'surrounded by my body' if I were not in it as well as being in myself, if I did not myself conceive this spatial relationship as thus escape inherence at the very instant at which I conceive it? Would I know that I am caught up and situated in it? I should then merely be where I was, as a thing, and since I know where I am and see myself among things, it is because I am consciousness, a strange creature which resides nowhere and can be everywhere present in intention. Everything that exists exists as a thing or as a consciousness, and there is no half-way house. The thing is in a place but perception is nowhere, for if it were situated in a place it could not make other things exist for itself." - pg. 43-44
My thought:
Perception identifies with the embodied being that is the Self. Yet as the observer, perception has no physical location. In the process of ego dissolution, perception no longer identifies with the inherited body, but with all things. And being the observer of all things, perception tunes into a particular conscious experience in which the boundaries between bodies in space are one - and with it comes a feeling of returning to home.
I have been trying to understand what Merleau-Ponty is trying to describe. I find it particularly relevant to the experience ego dissolution. Do you also feel that "consciousness...resides nowhere and can be everywhere"?