Theories

and Practices of Cognition

Sense Perception and Metaphysical Integration
in
Western, Asian, Islamic and African Thought

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju


Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems
Compcros
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in Search of Knowledge"

Abstract

Sense perception enables both pleasure and knowledge by revealing the variety
of the world, as the Greek philosopher Aristotle insightfully states.
Could perception of the variety of the world through the senses facilitate an
understanding of cosmic unity?
Aristotle's presentation of this question frames this comparisons of the manner
in which the Hindu school of Sri Vidya, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant,
Yoruba and Igbo philosophy and the Western esoteric thinker Dion Fortune
respond to this abiding theme of reflective encounter with the cosmos.
The essay begins by placing this discussion in the context of my inter-cultural
exploration of theories of perception.


Contents

1. Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Correlations
Western Thought : From Aristotle to Lakoff
Asian Thought : Tantra and Zen Buddhism
African Thought : Yoruba and Igbo Philosophies
Theory and Experience
Exploring Dion Fortune
Yoruba Theory of Perception
as Foundational Interpretive and Integrative Template
2. Sensory Cognition and Metaphysical Integration
Aristotle and Sri Vidya
Immanuel Kant
Correlating Space and Time in Terms of the Celestial Bodies
and the Human Mind

Correlating the Sublime in Nature and the Character of the Human
Mind
Correlating the Sublime in Terrestrial and Celestial Nature and
the Constitution of the Human Mind
Forms of the Sublime and the Relationship of Inner and Outer
Cosmos
Correlating Aristotle, Kant and Srividya
3. Moving from Theory to Experience
4. Moving from Experience to Theory


1. Introduction: Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Correlations
This essay is part of a series, presented in my Facebook Notes and on Blogger,
academia.edu and Scribd, and listed at the bottom of this essay, that begins with
aphoristic summations on Yoruba theories of perception and continues with a
chart visualising relationships between Yoruba, Igbo, Hindu Srividya and Trika
thought and a number of Western thinkers and schools of thought.
These relationships are centred in an understanding of the senses as platforms
for pursuing an integrated perception of existence.
Correlations between sensory perception and metaphysical integration have
been developed at length, in different ways, in Western, Asian, African and
Islamic thought, these being four major cultural systems I am acquainted with at
different levels of depth and breadth.
Western Thought
In Western thought, integration of sense perception and metaphysical unity is
demonstrated in a temporal sequence of thinkers from ancient Greece to the
present.
Some of the more prominent of such thinkers are Aristotle, Plotinus, Immanuel
Kant, the English Romantics and George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.
Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle (384322 B.C.E) develops
relationships between sense perception and abstract reflection, pursuing
knowledge of the principle underlying the variety of phenomena perceived by
the senses.
The Egyptian philosopher Plotinus (204/5 270 C.E.), whose work deeply
influenced the Western tradition, but did not impact African thinkers outside
the cosmopolitan culture of his time, describes sense perception of the
beautiful as enabling a ladder leading to apprehension of beauty as a
metaphysical foundation of existence.
The English Romantics (18th to 19th centuries) depict beauty as a stimulus to
sensitivity to the essence of being.
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant ( 1724 1804 ) describes the Sublime
as catalysing an appreciation of the simultaneous minuteness of human being
within the spatial and temporal scope of the cosmos and an expansion of self
inspired by the ability to contemplate such grandeur.
The philosophy of embodied cognition, as represented by the work of US
cognitive linguist George Lakoff (b. 1941) and US philosopher Mark Johnson

(b.1949) describes human embodiment as shaping the character of human

though
Asian Thought
Relationships between sense perception and metaphysical unity in Asian
thought may be summed up in terms of the techniques of immersion and
withdrawal.
Immersion involves indulgence in the pleasure enabled by the senses.
Withdrawal is demonstrated in withdrawing attention from sensory stimuli
while recreating the effects of such stimuli through the imagination.
Through immersion, one aspires to penetrate to the reality underlying the form
that stimulates the sensory response.
In withdrawing from sense perception into imaginative recreation of sensory
effects, an imaginative universe evocative of the reality understood to underlie
what is perceived by the senses is constructed by the mind.
Immersion and withdrawal may both be employed in the same context.
Both immersion and withdrawal are used in order to arrive at the realities
underlying the phenomena that stimulate sensory responses.
A central body of ideas and practices building on the senses as paths to
perception of the reality underlying the phenomena that stimulate the senses is
Tantra, emerging in India from the 5th century AD.
Tantra describes the human body as a microcosm of the metaphysical structure
of the cosmos.
Another is Zen Buddhism, emerging in China from the 6th century, which
describes sense perception, in conjunction with meditation, as a trigger for
awakening insight into the ultimate meaning of existence.
Islamic Thought
The movement from sense perception to perception of the unity of being in
Islamic thought may be described in terms of the two poles represented by the
understanding of ultimate reality in terms of geometric abstraction and in terms
of the human form.
Geometric evocations of cosmic unity are central shaping devices in Islamic
visual and architectural art, magnificently described by Titus Burckhardt in The
Arts of Islam: Language and Meaning (1976), a remarkable presentation in spite
of limitations it might demonstrate as indicated by Oleg Grabar's review of the

book in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Oct.,
1977), pp. 204-205.
Cyrus Ali Zargar argues in Sufi Aesthetics: Beauty, Love, and the Human Form in
the Writings of Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi (2011), that the work of these thinkers
represents a view in which "divine beauty and human beauty are seen as one
reality".
African Thought: Yoruba and Igbo Philosophies
The most explicit correlation between sense perception and insight into cosmic
unity known to me in African thought is by Anenechukwu Umeh on Igbo
philosophy of perception as evident in the esoteric discipline Afa, described in
his After God is Dibia.Vols 1 and 2 (1998).
Umeh describes Igbo theory of perception as based on the relationship
between ose naabo, the eyes with which the material world is perceived, and ose
ora, the eye with which both the material world and the world of spirit are
perceived in an integrative vision.
The perceptual capacity of ose ora reaches a climax in the perception of the unity
of being within the ambit of eternity.
Umeh presents this conception of vision in basic terms which he does not
elaborate upon.
The possibilities of elaboration he does not develop may be seen as provided in
the similarities between the ideas he presents and Babatunde Lawal's
description of Yoruba theory of perception in wrn: Representing the Self
and Its Metaphysical Other in Yoruba Art(2001).
Lawal describes this in terms of the distinction between oju lasan, "the ordinary
eye" or basic visual perception, consisting of rudimentary interpretation of the
significance of visual phenomena, and oju inu, "the inward eye", a penetrative
grasp of the meaning of visual forms, a cognitive continuum ranging from the
most elementary forms of sense perception to include, among other possibilities,
critical thinking, imagination and extra-sensory perception.
Correlating the similarities between the accounts of Igbo and Yoruba theories of
visual perception by Umeh and Lawal, one may understand Lawal's account as
providing a perceptual sequence that may eventuate in the perception of cosmic
unity described by Umeh as the climatic point of knowledge.
This possibility in relation to Yoruba theory of perception is demonstrated by the
Yoruba expression by an unnamed babalawo, adept in the esoteric knowledge
of Ifa, the Yoruba knowledge system, "Aiku pari iwa" quoted by Wande
Abimbola in "Iwapele: The Concept of Good Character in Ifa Literary Corpus" (
1975, 393) , and which may be translated as "deathlessness or immortality
consummates [essential ] being or existence", suggesting a transcendence of the

spatio-temporal limitations of material existence in terms of eternity, a quality

central to Umeh's description of the climax of vision in Igbo Afa thought.
This idea in relation to Yoruba thought is reinforced by Susanne
Wenger's (1915-2009) aesthetics, grounded in Yoruba thought, on appreciation
of nature as enabling a participation in a mode of being that is both primal and
timeless, as described in Rolf Brockmann and Gerd Htter's Adunni : A Portrait
of Susanne Wenger ( 1994).
The correlative insights represented by Yoruba and Igbo theories of perception
are particularly helpful in integrating ideas from various schools of thought on
relationships between sense perception and metaphysical integration.
This integrative quality emerges from the specificity of reference of the Yoruba
and Igbo theories to human biology and the correlation between this biological
template to a continuum of perception, from the most basic to the most
integrative in metaphysical terms.
Yoruba and Igbo theories of perception, taken together, may be seen as
encompassing all possibilities of perception represented by various theories of
perception across time and space.
I also find the Yoruba and Igbo theories of perception priceless in exploring my
own aesthetic experiences because these experiences involve a movement from
visual perception, which is the focus of the Yoruba and Igbo theories, to a range
of perceptual activities involving various aesthetic forms, activities represented
by the perceptual continuum these theories describe.
Theory and Experience
The exploration of theories of perception represented by the sequence of essays
of which this is a part takes its departure from a theoretical and an experiential
base.
This correlation of theory and experience is anchored in my exploration of
methods of explaining my relationships with aesthetic forms.
These relationships with the aesthetic are represented by my experiences with
the beauty of nature and with works of art.
Central to these engagements with nature and with art is the experience of
transformative perception, which these aesthetic forms stimulate.
Exploring Dion Fortune
These transformative perceptions first emerged with my practical application of
the theory of perception described by Western esoteric thinker Dion Fortune
(1890 1946) in her The Training and Work of an Initiate (1930).


Her ideas are animistic, on gaining contact with consciousness in nature by
contemplating the beauty of nature.
They also represent nature mysticism, on experiencing unity of the self with the
source of being through sensitivity to nature's beauty.
I applied these ideas to exploring, through visual contemplation, the beauty of
nature, particularly trees, and experienced an extension of my perceptual
capacities beyond the conventional.
Applying Fortune's ideas in contemplating the beauty of nature led to
experiences of seeing beyond the conventionally perceived character of aesthetic
forms.
Such expanded perception continued with random unusual encounters with
works of art.
These experiences with art suggest the physical form of a work of art as a
doorway to unconventional expansion of cognitive ability.
Yoruba Theory of Perception as Foundational
Interpretive and Integrative Template

Yoruba theory of perception operates as a foundational interpretive scheme I
use in order to better understand my experiences in the practical application of
the ideas of Dion Fortune.
Her theory of perception, further developed in Esoteric Philosophy of Love and
Marriage and The Mystical Qabalah, may be understood in terms of a
continuum of possibilities of perception, from sensate cognition to the most
abstract and transcendental awareness, an understanding of perceptual
possibility that bears strong resemblance to Yoruba and Igbo theories of
perception, as summed up by Babatunde Lawal and Anenechukwu Umeh.
In this series of essays of theories of perception, I am exploring the implications
of these experiences by correlating ideas from various schools of thought, in
various cultures, developing these into an aesthetic theory and relating this
theory to the study of art, exemplified by the works of particular artists.
This essay discusses processes of motion from sensory perception to an
integrative understanding of existence in Aristotelian, Sri Vidya and Kantian
thought.

My engagement with Yoruba, Igbo, Aristotelian, Srividya and Kantian thought

takes its departure from my quest to arrive at an integrative understanding of
existence through adapting the ideas of Dion Fortune on penetrating to the
presence of consciousness in nature and the essence of being through
contemplation of nature's beauty.
I find Yoruba theory of perception most helpful in interpreting the experience I
gained in this practical exploration because Yoruba theory of perception is
centred in visual perception as a template for a range of cognitive possibilities
that represent the scope of my experience.
Igbo theory of perception is helpful in depicting my ultimate goal in this quest
because of its grounding in visual perception in relation to a grasp of the unity of
being.
The visual focus of Yoruba theory of perception is demonstrated in terms of a
relationship between oju inu-the inward eye or inward perception, and oju lasan-
the ordinary eye or basic perception.
Oju inu may be understood as an aspect of ori inu-the inner head, metaphorically
speaking, or inward consciousness.
Oju lasan may be seen as an aspect of ori ode-the basic cognitive template of the
self.
Oju inu represents a penetrative continuum into the qualities of phenomena.
Oju inu may be seen as a demonstration of the metaphorically named ori inu-the
inner head, the ultimate interiority of consciousness understood as the timeless
core of the self and its centre of ultimate possibility.
Oju lasan may be understood as an expression of ori ode-the basic cognitive
template of the self, its temporal aspect through which the contexts of embodied
existence are navigated.
Ori inu is described as existing in dialogue with ori ode, a dialogical relationship,
that, when operating smoothly, enables the actualisation of human potential in
the contexts of the opportunities and challenges of life.
2. Sensory Cognition and Metaphysical Integration
Aristotle and Sri Vidya
"All men by nature desire to know" declares the ancient Greek philosopher
Aristotle in the first line of his Metaphysics.

This is demonstrated by the delight people take in their senses, and, above all, in
the sense of sight, which gives pleasure by enabling people distinguish between
the variety of phenomena, he continues.
The Hindu school of Srividya depicts the senses as a bunch of arrows made of
flowers, as in the ritual the Sridevikadgamala Stotram.
The image of flowers suggests beauty and the pleasure afforded by the beauty of
flowers in terms of colour, texture and smell.
Aristotle proceeds to explore the question of how to move from the
enjoyment of the variety of phenomena to understanding the principle that
unifies these phenomena.
What is behind the unity of the world we perceive is the thrust of his
explorations in that book that has become one of the cornerstones of human
thought.
Aristotle may be understood as concluding that the human desire for knowledge
is intimately related to the intelligence responsible for the creation of the
universe and the order demonstrated by the variety within it.
How does Aristotle arrive at this conclusion?
Srividya makes a conclusion similar to Aristotle's in describing the flower arrows
of the senses as held by the Goddess Tripurasundari, the Beauty of the Three
Cities, and shot by her through her bow of sugar cane, the bow representing the
mind, which likes the sweet things of life.
The Goddess embodies the cosmos, her beauty the dynamic order of existence in
its delightful complexity, both perceptible to and ultimately beyond human
perception in its totality.
The three cities of her name integrate various levels of subtlety in sensory
perception with various triadic co-ordinates that encapsulate the nature of
being.
The three cities she embodies represent her various levels of sensory
manifestation in terms of ascending levels of subtlety- the physical, the sonic and
the geometric.
These sensory expressions are related to in terms of worship of her in her
physical form, silent repetition of her sonic form and contemplative worship of
her geometric form, developed in terms of "a systematic esoteric discipline that
combines elements of the yogas of knowledge, of devotion, and of ritual" as
summed up by Douglas Renfrew Brooks in Auspicious Wisdom: Texts and
Traditions of Srividya Sakta Tantrism in South India (1992).

10

 Tripurasundari, holding her four weapons of creation and enlightenment

visualized as cosmic dynamism emanating from the cosmic source in Shiva
supported by four deities possibly constituting aspects of the cosmos
by Ekabhumi Charles Ellik

11

These forms of veneration and enquiry, in turn, are described as facilitating a

realisation of her nature in terms of the three primary states of consciousness
waking, sleep, and cosmic consciousness.
They also aid understanding of the three primary qualities defining the
dynamism of being and becoming-the power of will, the power of knowledge and
the power of action.
These aspects of consciousness and of the dynamism of being represent
the triadic form of the Goddess as described in the Wikipedia entry "Tripura
Sundari", quoting Bhaskararaya's commentary of the Srividya scripture, the
Tripura Upanihad, as presented by Douglas Renfrew Brooks in The Secret of the
Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu Sakta Tantrism (1990).
The Goddess sugarcane bow may be seen as suggesting the capacity of the mind
to utilise the delight of the senses in apprehending the cosmic totality manifest
in the forms of the material universe that delight the senses.
From Srividya to the Trika of Abhinavagupta
Relationships between sense perception and metaphysical integration are
developed with particular concreteness in Srividya in terms of the primary
sensual experience represented by sexuality.
The sexual image is further transposed in terms of geometric abstraction
correlated with ideas demonstrating the metaphysical concepts embodied by the
sexual form.
Abhinavagupta's development of Trika thought, which shares fundamental
conceptions with Srividya as two forms of what may be described as a
philosophy of embodiment known as Tantra, actualises in vivid terms this erotic
cosmography, demonstrating, par excellence, the mobilisation of the senses in
quest of metaphysical integration.
Srividya and Abhinavaguptas Trika thought, taken together, dramatize this
correlation of sense perception and the quest for knowledge of the metaphysical
unity of the cosmos through a process involving all the senses.
Srividya geometric abstraction evokes the idea underlying the erotic conception,
projecting it subliminally to the viewer, even when the viewer is unaware of the
symbolism of the visual form.
This visual projection is achieved through a symmetry of intersections and
emanations which replicate, in abstract terms, the erotic ideas underlying the
geometric form.
The central cosmographic form of Srividya, the Sri Yantra geometric cosmogram,
is largely composed of four upward pointing triangles intersecting five
downward pointing triangles indicating the union of the God Siva and the female

12

divine principle, Sakti, their union representing the harmony of polarities that
gives birth to and constitute the structure and dynamism of the cosmos.
This symmetry of intersections is reinforced by symmetry of emanation
demonstrated by the organisation of all the elements of the yantra in a sequence
around a dot or bindu in the centre of the structure and in terms of successive
layers in relation to the centre. The yantra therefore projects both an image of
intersecting forms and a suggestion of forms emanating from a centre.
The idea of conjunction between intersecting forms, as in male/female sex and
the emergence of a child from that act, as evoked by the movement of forms from
the centre of the conjoined forms, thereby evokes the sexual metaphor most
powerfully in a way that sensitises the viewer to its underlying values even when
the precise symbolic meaning of the yantra is unknown to the viewer, projecting
a visual force that communicates subliminally to the uninformed and explicitly to
the informed, in both cases delivering an evocative force that transcends
ratiocinative understanding.
The contemplator on the yantra is enjoined in the Shaktisaddhana group's
version of the Srividya ritual the Sridevikadgamala Stotram to visualise
themselves as Siva and Sakti in erotic congress as they assume the identity of
Sakti in her form as Tripurasundari, the central deity of Srividya, all female
deities being understood as manifestations of Shakti.
The contemplator navigates the yantra through a ritual process involving
bringing alive in imagination through the use of all the senses, the cosmos as
seen from the perspective of the symbolic universe of the Sriyantra, a cosmic
journey culminating in the visualisation of the source of cosmic being in the
Goddess expressed in terms the flowery vagina, female genitalia evoked in terms
of visual and experiential delight and its capacity for procreation, culminating in
the absorption of the entire sequence of cosmographic forms in the Goddess
understood as the embodiment of and transcendence of all possibilities of being.
This uncompromising conjunction of sense perception and cosmography and of
the method for navigating this cosmography is complemented by
Abhinavagupta's summation in his Tantraloka ch. 29, in which developing the
Shiva/ Shakti dynamic he had introduced in chapter 1 as cosmic being expressed
in terms of relationship between fire and the heat of the flame, a mirror and its
reflection, consciousness and its awareness of itself, he describes how this
cosmographic anthropomorphism and correlative abstraction may be actualised
in erotic activity in which all the senses are mobilised as components of a ritual
process.

13

The Sri Yantra

14


Immanuel Kant
Correlating Space and Time in Terms of the Celestial Bodies
and the Human Mind
Immanuel Kant, in the Critique of Practical Reason, develops an observation
correlative with that of Aristotle and Srividya in his description of the sense of
awe and wonder emerging from his reflections on the motions of the celestial
bodies and of his own mind, as he reflects on the freedom of his mind to choose
between right and wrong.
His body, which has been animated by the vital force of life through a process
human beings don't understand, will one day return to the earth, he observes,
adapting a Biblical image of the human being as created from the earth, "dust
thou art and to dust thou shalt return", declares the Bible.
The human body dissolves into the earth in being laid to rest in the ground at the
conclusion of the life cycle.
The mind, while the body is still living, is able to observe relationships between
the majestic motions of the celestial bodies in vast sweeps of time, and its own
self, a speck on a small planet in the cosmos.
The mind reflects on the connection between itself and those celestial forms as
belonging in the same cosmos, though operating at different scales of space, of
size and of time, thus reaching beyond the limitations of the body to reach the
infinite.
Infinity, in what sense?
Correlating the Sublime in Nature and the Human Mind
The answer to that question may be found in Kants discussion of the Sublime in
his Critique of Judgement.
He describes the human mind as being both made aware of its smallness when
perceiving grand natural forms and also as feeling a sense of expansion in being
able to assimilate the image of those great forms.
The perceiver is both humbled and uplifted.

15

Correlating the Sublime in Terrestrial and Celestial Nature and the

Human Mind
The two discussions- of the contemplation of the celestial bodies in relation to
the human mind and of the perception of grand terrestrial natural forms, such as
mountains, in the context of the human mind, explore the relationship between
the external world and human consciousness.
This exploration describes the response of human consciousness to the
perception and contemplation of these external forms in terms of paradoxically
correlative experiences.
These experiences are demonstrated by the sense of ones diminutiveness in the
face of the vast spatial scope and temporal sweep of the revolutions of the
celestial bodies in contrast to both the smallness of the earth on which the even
smaller human being stands and the temporal limitations of the human lifespan.
This sense of spatial and temporal diminution is counterbalanced by a sense of
kinship with the awesomeness of the celestial forms, a kinship demonstrated by
the relationship between the capacity of the self to define and act in relation to
what it knows as right-the moral law.
The human mind is thus seen as operating in terms of a principle that transcends
the self, a principle of such permanent constancy of value, it can be equated with
the grandeur of the forces manifest in the motions of the celestial bodies,.
The motions of the celestial bodies operate within time but within such vast
spans of time they seem eternal in contrast with the little frames of time
presented by the span of human life.
Forms of the Sublime and the Relationship of Inner and Outer Cosmos
What may this summation that tries to grasp the logic of Kant's magnificent
reflections demonstrate about the character of the human mind in relation to
nature?
What is the reality of the understanding the mind reaches about the world
external to itself?
To what degree may the human mind understand itself?
How do the minds understanding of its own nature and its understanding of the
world external to itself correlate?
Is infinity as presented in this context a quality created by the human mind or a
quality existing outside the mind?

16

These questions are central to any discussion of the nature of reality and are
addressed by Kant in the foundational work of his most mature philosophy, his
Critique of Pure Reason.
Correlating Aristotle, Kant and Srividya
These bodies of thought, Aristotle, Sri Vidya and Immanuel Kant, may be said to
be all describing, in their distinctive ways, the possibility of transcending the
limitations of conventional human existence by conscious orientation to a cosmic
identity with which the human being is intimately related but is conventionally
unaware of.
The idea of identification with a transcendent and yet inclusive cosmic identity is
represented by Aristotle's description of the identity of the human quest for
knowledge with the divine source of existence, an identity that may be reached
through an intellectual quest for the unifying principle behind the variety of
phenomena that constitute existence.
It is also demonstrated in the description of the identity between the senses of
the human being and Tripurasundari, the Beauty of the Three Cities of Being and
Becoming, an identity demonstrated by the visualisation of the senses as her
arrows, her bow the human mind, the entire image pointing to the possibility of
penetrating to the core of what the senses perceive to realise one's identity with
the Goddess, embodiment of the cosmos.
It is realized in Kant's thought in terms of the correlation of human moral
judgement and the glorious form and majestic motions of the celestial bodies, in
the context of the infinite.
At the core of these diverse ideational systems is the understanding of human
perception in terms of both material concreteness, represented particularly by
sense perception, and transcendence, in terms of the capacity of perception to
reach beyond its concrete context to a unifying principle either explicitly
understood as the divine source of being or as with Kant, as demonstrating
qualities associated in other contexts with the divine.
3. Moving from Theory to Experience
Could these ideas have parallels in the experiences of people?
Yes.
I am exploring these ideas in order to better understand my own experiences.
Reading Kant's discussion of the Sublime from his Critique of Judgement at the
top floor of the University of Benin's Ugbowo campus library, in the final year of
my BA in 1989, I was mentally transported from the library. Returning to myself,
I was compelled to ask "Am I in the same space as my fellow users of this
library?"

17

 Seated in my house in Benin, about 2001, my eyes closed as I visualised the Ogba
forest in Benin where the Ogba river first breaks ground, reflecting on the
mystery of numinous aura of the forest, I found myself in a strange place where I
was welcomed by a woman with her hand on my head in benediction as I seemed
to kneel.
Having established that I was not dreaming, though not as alert as normal, and
that I was not under anyone's control, I opened my eyes to find myself back in
my house.
Glancing by chance at a Kamakala Yantra, a Hindu geometric cosmogram, a
depiction of the structure of the cosmos, in my house in London about 2005, I
experienced an integration of deeply buried ideas on scientific cosmology
coalescing in a wave of intense bliss, demonstrating the honeyed intensity of a
powerful orgasm, like the most potent honey streaming into me, evocative of the
Indian philosophical concept Sat-Chit-Ananda, translated as Being-
Consciousness-Bliss, understood as qualities of ultimate reality.
Rising from sleep, but with my eyes closed, in my house in Isleham, England, on a
day between 2009 and 2011, I visualised Victor Ekpuk's painting Children of the
Full Moon.
Enjoying its enigmatic beauty, I experienced the painting as palpitating with a
sense of power akin to the being of a deity, as I was slowly led to look, in my
imagination, into the back of what is a two dimensional structure, in order to
grasp this revelation of the being of this form in its fullness, until
my contemplation was interrupted.
4. Moving from Experience to Theoretical Reflection
What do these experiences demonstrate about the relationship between forms of
order, such as the magnificent passages by Kant, aesthetic forms, such as the
arboreal and aquatic forms of the Ogba forest and works of art, such as the
Kamakala Yantra and the Children of the Full Moon painting?
Do they not corroborate Yoruba theory of visual perception depicting a
continuum extending from visuality, to, among other possibilities, imagination,
extra-sensory perception and witchcraft,
as
described
by
Lawal, witchcraft being possibly understood in terms of the transposition of self
I experienced through contemplating the Ogba forest, a transposition akin to
accounts of witchcraft in Southern Nigeria?
Do they not suggest the possibility represented by Umeh's description of Igbo
theory of visual perception as both ocular and extra-sensory, demonstrated in
terms of the perception of both matter and spirit, and culminating in a
perception of the unity of being within a timeless context, as may be seen as
demonstrated by my experience with the Kamakala Yantra?

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 Victor Ekpuk's Children of the Full Moon

19

Kamakala Yantra
Designed by Frank Mahood from the classical template
From Tantra in Practice. ed. David Gordon White

20

Did I experience the idea represented by the yantra, without knowing what the
yantra meant, since I am only, at this time of writing, looking up the meaning of
the yantra, as evoking the erotic union of masculine and feminine forms that
constitute the cosmos?
At the centre of the yantra stands an erect lingam or phallus representing the
cosmic creativity that is the God Shiva.
Around it is constellated a structure of triangles, the triangular shapes
suggesting vulvas, depicting the yoni, the term in Sanskrit, the classical language
of Hinduism, for female sexual and procreative spaces understood as expressing
cosmic creativity.
The yonis themselves depict Mahakamakalesvari, another name for
Tripurasundari, the Beauty Who Embodies the Cosmos, and her various feminine
constellations, manifestations of Shakti, the feminine personality demonstrated
in the transformations of being, as described in David Gordon White's
"Transformations in the Art of Love: Kmakal Practices in Hindu Tantric and
Kaula Traditions".
The Kamakala Yantra as depicting an understanding of the cosmos as a
manifestation of erotic creativity is concretised by the Silpa Prakasa, translated
by Michael D. Rabe in "Secret Yantras and Erotic Display for Hindu Temples",
describing the erotic force known as kama, dramatized in the union of Shiva and
Shakti as "the root of the world's existence", and the motive force of its
consummation in ceasing to be at the end of a cosmic cycle.
This creative erotic force is depicted as concentrated in a drop of bliss, the
bindu, that radiates outwards to constitute the dynamic manifestation of the
cosmos and withdraws inward to assimilate the cosmos back to its source at the
conclusion of a cosmic cycle, like waves flowing outwards to the shore,
represented by the material universe, and flowing back towards their point of
origination, symbolising here the source of existence in the bindu, as described
by White, quoting Amrtananda's Dipika.
This image of a drop of blissful, orgasmic energy is correlative with my
experience of intense pleasure, akin to concentrated orgasmic force focused in
the mind, flowing into me as a cosmological vision derived from memories of
reading about the scientific cosmology of Albert Einstein began to coalesce in my
mind, on glancing by chance at the Kamakala Yantra.
Could my encounter not be described, then, as an experience of penetration,
through looking at the yantra, to what it represents, this represented reality
taking shape in terms of the contents of my own mind, utilising this content to
give shape to the vision the yantra embodies?
This interpretation is correlative with a school of mystical theory, methods of
explaining ideas about encounter with ultimate reality, that holds that the
content's of the mind of the mystic represents the primary organising material of

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the mystical experience, as summed up by the mystic Aleister Crowley in his

Autohagiography of Aleister Crowley, and, in a different context, by the scholar
Steven Katz, this idea being the organising principle of his edited anthology
comprising mystical texts from various cultures, Comparative Mysticism : An
Anthology of Original Sources.
I could be described, then, as experiencing the significance of the flower arrows
of Tripurasundari, shot through her sugarcane bow, these imagistic evocations of
visual, gustatory and olfactory delight suggesting the possibility of penetrating
through the pleasure afforded the senses to the reality that underlies the forms
that stimulate them, a metaphysical integration of being suggested by the
cosmological vision I experienced within a flow of profound bliss.
These experiences involve both immersion in the senses, and withdrawal from
sense perception, contemplative practices dominant in Asian thought, practices I
engaged in by visualising the Ogba forest and the Ekpuk painting, and a
consequent experience of a reality enabled by that visualisation, an expanded
perception of these aesthetic forms beyond what is conventionally perceptible.
What is the significance of the serendipitous correlation, emerging as I composed
this essay, between the understanding of the Kamakala Yantra as evoking cosmic
emergence and reabsorption, and Evelyne Huet's description in response to my
posting of a picture of a painting by Victor Ekpuk, of Ekpuk's art as going "far
back to the very primitive origins of the human species, both in his circular
geometric shapes that speak of humanity's genesis, in the contents of these
shapes that recall the placenta, and of course in the writings that carry us to the
very early ages of the world's knowledge", suggesting, from one view, that this
art may be seen as exploring the primordiality of humanity, the
interrelationship of humanity's cognitive and expressive origins, within the
context of the eternal, as evoked by Ekpuk's circular forms suggesting the
womb and his enigmatically compelling scripts, dramatizing mysterious
cognitive possibilities?
Circles of convergence enabled by the similarities of human thought across time
and space, especially as shaped by related artistic and philosophical discourses
that influence people in different ways in various cultures?
Or a pointer to a unifying reality which these works of art operating in different
cultural contexts point to?
In reflecting on these experiences, I am engaging in the critical component of
perception described by Lawal as part of the cognitive continuum comprising
Yoruba theory of perception.
Could I be said, therefore, to be in the process of arriving at comprehensive
theory and practice of perception, integrating ideas and practices from various
cultures, demonstrating how they cohere to give a unified understanding of
human perceptual capacity?

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Can these ideas be adapted to practice in various contexts?
These experiences and some of the theories through which I explore them
suggest the existence of a potential for human awareness beyond conventional
perception.
These perceptual capacities may be accessed through "deep seeing", or depth in
response to any sensory stimuli, a process of contemplative attention to
aesthetic forms that stimulates expansion of the mind's perceptual faculties.
This contemplative attention may be demonstrated, with visual forms, for
example, through gazing at the aesthetic form or through visualising it.
This attention enables a dialogue between the aesthetic form and the mind of the
person contemplating it, a dialogue that penetrates to increasingly deeper levels
of the mind the longer and more consistently the contemplation is continued,
facilitating both greater stimulation of the mind by the aesthetic form and the
mobilising of the mind's resources in response to the aesthetic form.
The process thus correlates versions of two metaphors described by M.H.
Abrams in The Mirror and the Lamp : Romantic Poetry and the Critical Tradition,
as defining Western theories of perception, the mind as a mirror of aesthetic
forms it engages with and the mind as a lamp shedding light on the aesthetic
forms, although the two metaphors could be quite simplistic if taken literally,
since aesthetic forms and the human mind are not fully understood phenomena.
A mirror can reflect with clarity only what conforms to its capacity for visual
reflection.
The character of the object must be such that it can be reflected on a surface such
as a mirror.
Similarly, for an object to be visible to ocular vision, its form must be such that
light may fall on it and be transmitted to the eye, which must be able to receive it.
The mirror and the object which it reflects, the eye and the form it perceives,
must conform for reflection and perception to take place.
The mind being more complex than a mirror, and aesthetic forms being more
than purely concrete forms, the correlation of mind and aesthetic forms becomes
more complex, as is demonstrated by the experiences I have described with
aesthetic forms.
A perfect correlation of the perception of audience and a humanly created
aesthetic form is impossible because no perfect conjunction can exist between
the details of one human mind and another, talk less a creative form shaped by
that mind, a form which the creator might not have composed in terms of a full

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grasp of the process through which they brought it into being and a complete
understanding of its nature and potential.
Natural aesthetic forms are even more inadequately understood because, even
though their physical qualities and biological characteristics may be understood,
my experiences with such forms, in their correlation with animistic conceptions
in various cultures, indicate there exists a dimension to nature that goes beyond
its physical appearance and its biological qualities within the ontological
frameworks represented by contemporary biology.
My encounters with humanly created aesthetic forms also suggest that they may
demonstrate qualities beyond the boundaries of conventional perception.
Encounters with these forms may demonstrate the forms taking over the
perceptive process, as it were, leading the mind in directions unusual for the
human mind.
These possibilities demonstrated by humanly created and natural aesthetic
forms suggest these forms may be best be understood in terms of a version of
animistic theory, in which they are seen as potentially demonstrating qualities
closer to sentience, to correlation with human consciousness in a manner that
suggests a degree of agency on the part of these forms.
This understanding may be restated for better clarity in terms of the concrete
grasp enabled by correlations between Yoruba, Igbo and Sri Vidya theories of
perception.
This understanding sums up relationships between aesthetic forms and the
perceiver of those forms.
It sums up the relationships between the consciousness of which the senses are a
part and the aesthetic forms the consciousness perceives and assimilates
through the senses.
It sums up the relationships between the subject, object and process of
perception.
It does this in terms of an interactive process that includes and goes beyond a
metaphorical understanding of interactivity.
Interactivity is understood, in this context, in terms of a continuum extending
from the metaphorical to increasing degrees of literalness, represented, for
example, by my encounter with Victor Ekpuk's Children of the Full Moon as
pulsating with divine power suggesting an entity far beyond human power and
conception, a deity, a form unfolding in terms of a totality of its being beyond the
two dimensionality of its visualization as a picture of an enigmatic but
compelling work of art.

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Earlier Compositions in This Series

1. "Mo Iwa Fun Oniwa: Individuality of Being in Classical Yoruba Thought"

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2. "Iwa lEwa : The Intersection of Aesthetics and Metaphysics in Classical
Yoruba Philosophy"

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3. "Aiku Pari Iwa: Consummation of Being in Classical Yoruba Philosophy"

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4. "Oju Inu: Penetration of Being in Classical Yoruba Epistemology"

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5. "A Quest for An Integral Understanding of Being Through Yoruba Philosophy"

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6. "Ose Naabo and Ose Ora : Theory and Practice in Relation to
Material/Corporeal and Spiritual Vision in Igbo Afa Thought"

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