A number of years ago I discovered The Master and His Emissary. This book, written by British psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, explores the right and left sides of the human brain.
While this book is very complicated and technical, one thing stood out. At one point McGilchrist wrote something like: “The reality a person perceives is the reality they experience.”
When McGilchrist wrote this, he was discussing how disabling part of a person’s brain affects their perceptions. For example, when the right brain was disabled (meaning a person was using only their left brain), a person’s perceptions were distorted and fragmented.
However, when a person’s left brain was disabled (meaning they were using only their right brain), their perceptions were similar to those of people with normal brains. These right brain perceptions lacked only some specific details perceived by people with normal brains.
McGilchrist therefore concluded: people who emphasize only the left brain or the right brain perceive and experience reality very differently from those who consistently use both sides of their brains. The reality a person perceives is the reality they experience.
“The reality a person perceives is the reality they experience.”
Iain McGilchrist
What does all this mean for spiritual and religious health?
In a previous post I wrote about how Truth can never be fully captured by human thought. I’ve also written about how Truth can be experienced. Given spirituality and religion concern Truth with a capital “T”, perception, spirituality, and religion must be very closely connected–they all concern Truth!
But if perceptions define a person’s reality, is it possible ever to know Truth?
Yes and no.
Several religious traditions have practices and teachings for purifying a person’s perception. Often these include meditation, prayer, fasting, rituals, and numerous other spiritual tools. The goal is to expand a person’s perception so they can have a purer experience of Truth.
However, there is also an acknowledgement that any person’s experience always remains their experience.
It is only in conversation that a person can learn whether others have had experiences similar to their own. In conversation, people can share their experiences of Truth, so they can build a shared understanding of Truth.
Over time, these shared understandings can become a tradition. Ideally, a tradition is distilled wisdom regarding Truth. However, if a tradition’s members are committed only to maintaining its purity, problems can emerge.
“Traditions must be open to experience if they are to remain alive.”
As I previously wrote, traditions must be open to experience to remain alive. Tradition gives tools for interpreting experience. But it cannot say what experiences are True and which are not. Experience is True in a way tradition is not.
Tradition can assist in understanding experience. But, experience always comes before tradition. As a result, tradition must always be open to the Truth experience reveals.
Unfortunately, many people’s encounters with religion show how traditions are often not open to experience. This can result in deep hurt, religious or spiritual harm, if not religious or spiritual death.
I believe this is one reason why millions are leaving organized religion in many western countries.
So, to return to perception, spirituality, religion, and Truth:
If our perceptions are defined solely by what tradition says, or is thought to say, many experiences will be excluded from our understanding of Truth.
However, if our perceptions exclude what specific traditions might say about our experiences, we will potentially miss new or surprising insights.
As a result, Truth must hold our experiences and the meanings we assign them. An experience’s possible meanings must be tested against the experience itself. Similarly, an experience must be assigned some meaning for it to be understood. If either is missing, no one will know what the Truth of an experience is, or might be.
Therefore, Truth isn’t Truth unless it’s experienced. A statement cannot be True unless it accurately expresses our experience. Neither can we share the Truth of our experience unless we can somehow express it.
All this is said knowing that experience and Truth are always bigger than what can be put into language. Truth and experience are always greater than what traditions can say about them. Language and tradition are merely how we bring our experiences and their Truth into community.
Here are six considerations you can use to expand your perceptions of Truth:
- Consider from where your perceptions come. How have your family, culture, and community formed how you view life and your experiences?
- Consider from where others’ perceptions come. How have their families, cultures, and communities formed how they view life and their experiences?
- Consider how your perceptions were formed similarly to, or differently from, others’. How were these formations similar? How were they different?
- Consider why some people are your friends or close acquaintances. Why do you choose to share relationships with them, and not others?
- Consider why other people have specific friends and acquaintances. Why do they choose to share relationships with some, and not others?
- Reflect on what is True about all these considerations. How do these considerations change your perceptions of Truth, if at all? How do your perceptions remain the same, if at all?
Truth isn’t Truth unless it’s experienced. So, if your experiences are limited by your perceptions, what would happen if you expanded your perceptions so you could more fully experience Truth?
This question encapsulates the work needed to build spiritual and religious health. Grow your capacity to experience Truth. See what happens; see how your life and world change as a result.
References
Bibby, R.W. (2017). Resilient gods: Being pro-religious, low religious, or no religious in Canada. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
Habermas, J. (2008). Between naturalism and religion. Translated by Ciaran Cronin. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Harman, G. (2018). Object-oriented ontology: A new theory of everything. London, UK: Penguin Random House.
McGilchrist, I. (2009). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the making of the western world. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wilber, K. (2017). The religion of tomorrow: A vision for the future of the great traditions–more inclusive, more comprehensive, more complete. Boulder, CO: Shambhala
Disclaimer: The advice and suggestions offered on this site are not substitutes for consultation with qualified mental or spiritual health professionals. The perspectives offered here are those of the author, not of those professionals with whom readers might have relationships as clients or patients. In crisis situations, readers are encouraged to contact these professionals for appropriate support and treatment if needed.
Reflective Life 
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