The Gaze
Beauty as the Union of Seeing & Feeling
A Chapter intro from my poetry book
“The Garments of Affection”
“If thine eye be single, thy whole body will be filled with light.” Jesus of Nazareth.
“Even if only one of the five senses becomes steady… all others immediately follow suit - they all become steady… then all the pleasure that is usually derived through the outer object, one is now able to enjoy within himself.” Sadguru Upasani Baba Maharaja.
“And in this light one becomes seeing…when we Gaze thus into our super-essence, we possess God utterly.” Jon Ruysbroeck, 13th century Christian Mystic.
Although all senses can be a portal to Self-Knowledge, possibly the most accessible gateway is hidden in “plain sight”—inside of Seeing. Wondrously, it is the luminosity of Being which sees—not merely the physical eyes. Ultimate Reality reveals Itself here as Pure Perception. Ordinarily focused on external objects, Purest Knowing, as the light of perception, when focused between the eyes, can turn back upon Itself; evoking the simple bliss of self-realization. Transfixed by the light by which we see, we are born again to what we Are.
In repose, or in meditation, if one enters deeply into one’s Gaze in such a way as to sense WHAT sees, it’s as if a subtler organ of perception, not physical, yet manifesting through and in the physical organ, opens up behind the eyes. In my own experience, and from reading those of mystics and sages, these non-physical eyes are connected to a non-physical heart/mind the union of which is deepest comprehension and insight. This “Seeing of Feltness” and “Feltness of Seeing” (see Chapter 16) seems to invite every cell in the body to join in the Seeing. Like a laser, but completely without fixation, we can penetrate into the very essence of consciousness and become absolutely certain of who we are and our place in the universe as Pure Presence.
In an instant we can catch a “glimpse” of what mystics have told us from time immemorial; we are the ever-free light of pure awareness, the incorruptible Presence of Knowing. Usually, when we “look,” we are mildly fixated on the objects of sight: a book, a map, a person, or a computer screen. We become less fixated on the objects of vision when we are outdoors, especially on a mountaintop, gazing in rapture, absorbed in the beauty below.
In those moments, we may intuit the truth of ourselves in the sublime aspect of our Gaze which can become ever more deeply immersive. Without any effort whatsoever, we can enter a state of bliss which is recognized as our most natural disposition. This retreat into the essence of the visionary aspect of being has been used and taught by mystics for millennia to purify the mind, vitalize the body and experience the bliss and freedom of our true nature. All beauty reveals itself as your own when you See that you can See. In the eye of the beholder is, literally, the beauty of the beheld.
Buddhists call this illuminating Gaze “sky-gazing,” or “Tögal.” Hindus practice it as Shambhavi Mudra—a steady, unblinking Gaze. Taoists call it, “Turning the light around,” the mirroring recognition of I AM: Not a light one sees but the light by which one sees. This is also called third eye, or Ajna chakra opening. The Sanskrit term for the space that opens when we lock-look into our third eye is Kutastha; direct, instantaneous—however temporary it may be—entrance into our Buddha nature or Christ Consciousness. Dzogchen Buddhists call the Gaze the Far-Reaching Watery Lamp. That makes me smile.
