Animals have two ways of using their senses, focused and
panoramic.Panoramic is a far better descriptive word than peripheral.
They need to use both perspectives in order to survive.

Modern day humans only train and develop their focusing abilities. We are neglecting something which every other animal does to survive.

WELCOME TO THE PANORAMA

Focused sensing is always selective, it focuses on specific small areas. Its primary use is to do all the things which animals need or want.

A robin alternating between focused and panoramic perception.Panoramic sensing is a receptive all-round awareness. It's a state of being open, ready and waiting. Its primary use is to guard against danger – it makes life safe.

Most birds have a sensitivity to ultraviolet light; a quick panoramic glance enables them to A weasel on the lookout.detect any threatening life forms.

Land animals watch, listen, and smell, for short periods of time to detect movements or changes.

Animals coordinate or alternate almost all of their focused activities with panoramic awareness. This is a balance. Their survival depends on it.

Panoramic Perception

Life started panoramically. Every amoeba has chemoreceptors (for 'smelling and tasting') and a generalised sensitivity to light and vibration.

Panoramic awareness evolved and developed because it was the most efficient way of connecting us directly with our entire local surroundings.

Animals use panoramic awareness in a pre-emptive way. chipmunk on the lookoutWhat happens in this pre-emptive state, is that the background becomes insignificant; we notice only the anomalies, the life signs, the changes and movements here: in the immediate environment – and now: in the present moment.

It is the natural way to be completely here and now. The pleasure involved in being completely here and now is probably only experienced by animals when they are dozing.

For animals the primary concern is staying alive, and this is connected with fear. Humans have the advantage that we don't need to run away whenever we see a cat or a dog. We could simply continue to be pre-emptively aware, here and now.

Mindfulness

Though related, this is not 'mindfulness'. It could be called 'sensefulness'.

Mindfulness exercises usually last for at least 20 minutes and typically practice focusing on breath or body, the aim is some sort of self realisation. Panoramic awareness can be successfully practiced for only ten seconds, and it is inherently a selfless state of being.

A Common Everyday Sense

Panoramic awareness is a very simple, everyday, and ordinary way of sensing. It knows no ideas, no choices, no cause and effect, no truth or lies.

A squirrel stops on the grass and checks it's safe.Throughout evolution, it has been the natural way to switch off, stop doing or wanting anything, and be actively receptive for a moment.

Sensing in the panoramic way is a different way of experiencing how life actually happens. It's a feeling of being with all we're sensing.

The senses are usually seen as the door between us and the world outside us. In the panoramic reality, our senses connect us with the world. The feeling is : we are the door.

And we will keep slipping in and out of the doorway, but that's normal, vulnerable animals usually only experience this state for a few seconds at a time. That's all they need to check they feel safe.

Whereas vulnerable animals usually alternate panoramic and focused sensing, predators combine the two. And whereas vulnerable animals are open to any and every signal, predators watch over a panoramic area with the intention of finding specific prey. The predatory usage is governed by focusing.

The Human Animal

Humans secured their survival by developing these focusing abilities. Unlike all other animals, we learnt how to survive without actively using our panorama senses.

We developed an astounding ability to think – to focus on memories and learn. We learnt how to shape flint tools, to make fire, and wheels, then cars, planes, and internet. Focusing can be amazingly clever and creative, and it gets things done. And gradually our modern civilisation developed.

Until nowadays, when our modern early education of focused sensing and thinking, Cat and dog focus on the TV.undermines our panoramic abilities before they even start to develop.

And we don't even bother to recognise that all we do, think, and want, is because of focusing, everyone does it, it's normal. We hardly remember that there is another way of experiencing life.

After an amazing million-year long history of focusing for our survival, our one-sided strategy has now led us to a point of critical overload. We are overfocusing – closed-minded, greedy, and self-centred.

Animals would become extinct if they overfocused.

Panoramic awareness is the natural counterbalance to focusing, and the cure for overfocusing.

Our Animal Gurus

Human children are born with this way of being in touch with and sensing the world.

We must balance our increasing stimulation and early education of focused reading, writing, and thinking, with an early education and encouragement of the panorama mode.

A hedgehog senses the breeze.Don't listen to me! Animals are the experts. They've been using it for billions of years – it is clearly part of a successful survival strategy.

Empathising with animals is how i learnt, and animals are more reliable as a source of information than any human teacher. They are the living example and proof that it works. They deserve our respect, even reverence as gurus.

Clear Sensing

From the way we sense and the way we use our senses, we create the world we feel.

We are not using all our basic and natural sensory abilities to experience the world and our lives; we have a limited experience of life.

Panoramic awareness is an innate potential which we have collectively learnt to ignore, it is probably the only natural resource which humans don't exploit.

This is the easiest, most direct and natural way to get a sense of wholeness and safety in our everyday lives – for anyone and everyone, no matter which culture or special beliefs.

Please continue with Going On The Lookout

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