Inside Job

(you can skip this description or come back later, after going through the images below)

In a claypot, it is not as if a thing called clay has come in contact with another thing called the pot. In the gold bracelet and the necklace, it's the same gold that gets used and called and perceived differently. In the oceanic waves, the waves are an integral part of the ocean and emerge from it and aren't different.

These examples from Vedantic Meditations invite us to reflect on the many seeming distinctions between the form and the formless. In fact, it is also a move to invoke what is popularly known as apara vidya (lower knowledge) and para vidya (higher knowledge)…although i believe that what the original seers and thinkers would have meant: aparavidya as knowledge that has narrow contextuality and applicability) and paravidya as all-pervading or wider contextuality and applicability.

So, if this be the case, what do we do, how do we begin? Well! Each of us have our own rabbit holes. One could include the following as one of the many plural paths one may pursue.

We could cultivate a visual technique to humbly hold and carefully use the various labels and descriptions in our lives. There are several sub-techniques to this then. One of them is to bring to mind any object/concept, and then look at some of its features or properties (FP1). And then figure out FP2, i.e., its contradictory or complementary property or foreground-background distinctions in its use cases. And then merge or blend or imbibe FP1 and FP2 in an image. Doing this over a period of time, will enable an inside job in de-biasing and in epistemic humility and creativity, thus aiding in #MetaCognition and #MetaSenseMaking of the #MetaCrisis of our times.