Introduction

Gatekeeper: We have reached the eighth program of the third chapter. Let me remind you that in the previous session, we were guests and were confronted with a teacher who spoke with us about "Being"; now we must go to another party; another teacher is waiting for us. Come with me, but certainly raise your questions.

The Teacher's Discourse

Greetings to our esteemed guests, I am the host of this session. I asked your previous teacher what points he explained to you; I want to speak about "Perception in Human", what stages it has, generally, and I hope this subject can establish a good link with the previous program, so that you also ask combination questions. The first point about which we must speak is a phenomenon named "Impressibility". We have heard its cognate words very much; nature (tabī'at), "Impression" (Entibā'), and why not remember "publications/press" (matbū'āt)? Let us have a definition to get close to the meaning of this word, because it has an important role in the discussion of perception which is my objective. Let us begin from publications/press: why do they call these magazines and newspapers *matbū'āt*? This returns to the initial stages of technology used for printing; meaning you print signs on white sheets, build a copy; this printing we name "Impressibility" and because these magazines are subject to printing, they call them *matbū'āt*.

Human perception means that a human is placed before an object, before a phenomenon; the very thing that in the previous session was remembered as direct experience, without medium, empirical witnessing. When you are placed before an object, the event that happens is that you experience "Impression" (Entibā'); meaning due to the activation of the phenomenon of Ecstatic Reception (Wajd), the first stage is that in your mind a reception, a copy, of that object is created; this becomes the first stage, the sensory stage, meaning the influence of objects on the mind.

What is the next step? When Impression is in occurrence, the creation of "Ideas / Representations" (Tasavvorāt) occurs; meaning a copy, a version, of that Impression or that initial reception is built. Let us review once more: I was placed before an object, experienced Ecstatic Reception (Wajd); now we want to look inside ourselves; we say Impression occurred, meaning an influence of that object appeared in my mind and I linked it with myself, I do not want to let it go. What is that influence? In your mind an "Idea / Representation" (Tasavvor) appears which some name "idea"; meaning a version of what happened in the stage of confrontation with that object is shaped in your mind. So we can say our mind is full of these Ideas / Representations; our idea of seeing a flower, of a river, of a mountain, of the sky, or of touching the leaf of a plant; you yourselves can expand this subject.

There is also another interesting point: let us delete the external factor, meaning the same object. Now what? Can your mind continue its activity? Yes; where does it go? To those same Ideas / Representations. Suppose you are placed before a flower; we said an idea of that flower appears in your mind; if you change your place relative to the flower, touch it, smell it, meaning add the parameters of your Ecstatic Reception (Wajd), you complete your ideas. But if I delete the flower, do your hands become empty? No; your mind does not stop moving. While the flower no longer has external existence either, you can neither touch it, nor smell it, nor observe it, but you possess the ideas and can review them; this is the characteristic of the human mind; the very thing that in the previous session we named "Being-for-itself".

Meaning you collect a collection of these copies, these ideas; because it is from these very ideas that abstract receptions appear. When you say "the flower is beautiful," you have traversed this stage: you saw the flower, touched it, smelled it, and that copy was also taken beside it. Now another stage: a process occurs without you yourself realizing, which is as if it is being inspired to you; the previous discussion where we said from here an abstract thought comes out, an abstract reception named "beauty."

But another way also occurs in the mind which we call "reflective or contemplative reception" (contemplative reflection); meaning you cut your connection with the outside, you are no longer experiencing the surrounding environment, but rather you walk in that library of your own ideas. When the mind looks at these various ideas, a phenomenon named "Recall" (Farākhān) occurs; when these ideas are placed beside each other, reflections appear in the mind; meaning fresh ideas are obtained, or better to say, fresh abstract thoughts are issued. This continuous movement that occurs in the mind is the very thing we name "activities of the mind".

So let us remember that part of what is printed, impressed in the mind, in this stage is no longer because we establish connection with previous objects; no, we are working with copies, with ideas. It is here that for individuals with higher mental activity, their Being-for-itself depends on being able to have more contemplativeness (generativity) from the reflective aspect in their mind. If you wanted to research, you must go to "Association of Ideas" (Tadā'i-ye Tasavvorāt); it is an important word. Association means recall, means calling.

Let me give an example: when beauty is spoken of in a place, suddenly you see that without you yourself realizing, your mind takes those very ideas and places them before you, you remember the flower again, while you were not thinking of the flower at all. In subsequent cases, when beauty is spoken of, different ideas and examples come to your mind; this depends on what you have worked on more. So the recall of ideas causes the creation of reflection or contemplative impression. Among other important subjects is "Intellection" (Taaqqul), or "Ratiocination" (Tafakkur), or "Imagination" (Takhayyul); all of these have different degrees and you can work on them, but what is their common aspect? When you want to perform Intellection, Ratiocination, Imagination, the recall or Association of Ideas must certainly occur. Interestingly, when these various ideas and representations are placed beside each other, the mind experiences "Understanding" (Fahm); it goes one stage higher, experiences "Unveiling / Unfolding" (Inkishāf), why? Because it reaches "Acquired Knowledge" (Elm-e Hasūlī) from Presential Knowledge (Elm-e Hozūrī); meaning by using the power that is in the mind and recalls ideas and places them beside each other, suddenly results appear: it says these are similar to each other (Resemblance / Mushābehat), these are close to each other (Contiguity / Taqāron, which we have both temporal and spatial), or the discussion of "Causality" (Elliyyat); your mind, because it has this power of pondering, places an idea as the base and foundation of another idea; here causality occurs, and the discussion of "Necessity" (Zarūrat), meaning something is the obligation of another thing.

If you yourselves sit and ponder, you can see many mental activities; for example, the same thing you said about time in the previous sessions; who identifies and even creates time in your mind? It is the discussion of sequence, the discussion of necessity; that something is before another thing, from where do you know? Because your mind knows a picture that it saw before another picture and strives to see whether this can be a reason for the existence of the subsequent idea, or they are considered unrelated to each other. Pay attention to contiguities, sequences, and necessities.

Imagination too is clear; once again it is based on association and recall, those same ideas that you obtained in your presential knowledge, but how do you give them wings and assemble various ideas together to obtain such results? This too comes from the imaginative mind of human; once again shows human can live for themselves. Let me summarize: we saw passivity in human, in the shape of the impressionable *tab'* (impressibility); we saw understanding and Unveiling/Unfolding (inkishāf), meaning the manifestation of sequence, contiguity, resemblance, causality, necessity; and the next point you can ponder is that it also takes your mind toward "Speech / Discourse" (Kalām), which itself is a separate topic, about language and speech; I only made a reference.

A friend said so we can consider two arcs: the "Ascending Arc" (Arc of Ascent / Ghous-e So'ūd) and "Descending Arc" (Arc of Descent / Ghous-e Nozūl). It is a very appropriate talk; in fact, we must consider two parts. When I am placed before an object and those stages I said occur—I witness, my knowledge is presential, an idea appears, and I consider a place of ideas, those abstract receptions and thoughts I obtain—these all relate to our "Ascending Arc"; I went and now something has been created, Ecstatic Reception (Wajd) has occurred; this is a kind of loftiness, because before this stage you had no Ecstatic Reception (Wajd) and when you experience Ecstatic Reception (Wajd), you go up, from the mental aspect you performed an activity.

But there is also the "Descending Arc", along with a kind of descent/fall; why do we say descent? Due to those concepts I obtained, those ideas that are now in my mind and now I want to express them. Here as if Being-for-itself has two wings and the other wing is seen more flourishing here; why? Because I want to express, to utter those unveiling/unfoldings, those receptions, those understandings I obtained, for other humans. This becomes the topic of language; that in the mold of language, I must give a reduction to my thoughts, because I must give it a mold, I must imprison some things in the chains of speech/discourse; these themselves are concepts if we want to pay them attention. But this arc is the Descending Arc; I as if return from that meeting I made and that unveiling/unfolding that occurred in me and want to put the results at the disposal of others.

This becomes the very discussion of dialogue; the connection of two people, several people. It is here that by using the limitations of language, I come and raise the materials I obtained, the ideas I have, I want to declare being and apply what I obtained. But another point appears: I see other humans also raise cases that are not identical to my ideas; in places similar, close; as if we took identical results; and in some places no, very far from each other. In our social life, another reduction occurs; to be able to continue our works and help each other, a society appears and it is interesting that we assemble ideas from our own mind, as if in another library; this becomes the "Collective Library", which they also call "Intersubjective". We delete nothing, we register all in the library, but in the stage of execution, we must think minimally; meaning with the minimum agreement that is among us and registered, we go forward; and we may be able to make this overlap of beliefs and opinions more and better.

This session also came to an end. I wish you success and hope in the two subsequent sessions you can also examine the important and basic cases.

Footnote: In light of the material covered in this session and the preceding one, you are encouraged to watch the feature films "What Dreams May Come" and "Waking Life" and identify and analyze relevant examples of these concepts in each film.