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Concepts

Concepts are Needed for Remembering
In the process of conceptualizing and naming the world, we forget that these elements didn’t exist for us until we differentiated from them, separated them, isolated them, and named them. We don’t remember what happened before that, because there wasn’t enough conceptual capacity to remember things before that. What we remember is the notions we have developed. We cannot remember things that had no concepts associated with them.
Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 232   •  discuss »
When Old Concepts Inhibit Transformation
No matter how much psychological insight we have, how many inner spiritual experiences we have, how many times we see angels or talk with God, if our experience occurs still within the old concepts, no actual transformation of ourselves and our world will happen.
Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 239   •  discuss »
Concepts Evoke Emotional Associations
Our experience of what is happening is not of what is actually happening. Actually when you perceive, the impressions, sounds, sights, or sensations are new – they’re one hundred percent new as they happen. But we don’t see them in their newness, we see them through our concepts about the various kinds of impressions. Not only do we see them through those concepts, those concepts automatically evoke emotional associations and feeling tones. So our experience is not a pure perception, but the thoughts, feelings, and memories that our concepts bring in. We have an experience only in the present moment, but that experience is not really an experience of the moment. Your experience is already your own interpretation of the moment. This happens every second. We never, or rarely, allow ourselves simply to perceive.
Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 281   •  discuss »
Response at the Moment of Perception
At the moment of perception our minds grasp and interpret sensory information, and supply us with prepackaged concepts that have specific associations and emotional tones based on past experience.
Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 281   •  discuss »
You Do Not Know What You are Looking At
We need to see that fact in a very deep and fundamental way. You need to see that when you look at the table you do not know what you are looking at. What you know is a word, the concept of the table. You do not know what you are looking at. And the moment you really see through the word, you see that the reality that you are seeing around you is a mystery; that we live in complete, pure mystery; that the world around us that is old, drab, and normal is actually a wonder, a mystery. It is a mystery that defies our minds that defies our best efforts.
Diamond Heart Book IV, p. 262   •  discuss »
Needing to be Free of Conceptual Boxes
In doing our work it is important that we do not develop some kind of religion or belief system. We want to be free from all conceptual boxes. Ultimately, the point is not to become a Buddhist, a Christian, or a Jew but to be a true human being, to realize the truth, whatever the truth is. When we start on the path we do not know what we will realize. Our work emphasizes love of the truth, wherever that may lead. I do not say we are trying to find enlightenment, or God, or a true self. These terms are sometimes useful to illustrate certain points, but the love of the truth is what fuels the work. If there is God you will find out, if there is enlightenment you will find out, if there is a true self you will find out.
Diamond Heart Book V, p. 67   •  discuss »

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