The Spirituality of the Gaze 

The Light of Being in the Gaze is simply the easiest and most open doorway to             Self Realization & Peace

WHY? Because we are infinitely more that physical beings. We are a constantly vacillating continuum between Human and Divine. When we identify entirely with our bodies and thoughts we remove ourselves from our divine nature and suffer. Our divine nature is luminous  and brightly intelligent—some call it Source or the Absolute. This luminosity is most easily accessible through our Gaze—the light of Seeing. But without any religious belief whatsoever, you can experience the beauty, peace and truth of your existence directly without words or concepts. Paradoxically, when we begin to find our true nature as Light Beings, we begin to find ourselves more at home as human beings in a body. 

Bodies that are entirely ignorant of the Light of Being are very likely to be easily confused about who they are and their place on the planet. Without some measure of Self Realization, we make ourselves strangers in a hostile world. KNOW THYSELF!

“The Original Pure Essence of the subtle Luminosity of Fundamental Awareness." 

The Buddha in The Heroic Progress Sutra 

As Buddha, Jesus and countless mystics tell us, we are, in essence, nothing less than the Original Light of Being that gave birth to the universe. In repose, or in meditation, if one enters calmly but deeply into one’s Gaze in such a way as to engage the whole body in the glow of Seeing, we will gradually sense WHAT sees. We Are That! It's as if a subtler organ of perception, not merely physical, yet manifesting through and in the physical organ, opens up behind the eyes and we realize our true nature as Light. 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” seems to invite every cell in the body to join in the Seeing. 

"He sits,  permeating the body with a pure, bright awareness. There is no part of the body which is not suffused with clear, bright awareness.” —The Buddha

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.  

“…without the cells in your body, the “seeing” would be impossible for the eyes. So when the eyes see, the whole body is participating in the act of seeing.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

What the above quote from that beloved master is saying is, the entire body is involved in “seeing”. But we don't experience that totality, we are captured by WHAT we see and totally miss HOW we see. When we enter the Gaze as the Light of the whole body, we will experience as Jesus and dozens of masters have promised;

“If thine eye be single, thy whole body will be full of light.” —Jesus

“When you see with your inner eye, you realize you are God and not different from Him.”   Sai Baba

Immediate Experience of the Light of Pure Awareness

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.  

That which shines in the Gaze is the light of spirit, but we are mesmerized by what it shines upon. This is like a trance which obscures our true nature as the light of being. In other words, what we are concerned with here in the Gaze is not the objects of sight or even one’s ability to be extraordinarily “perceptive”, but rather that inner light by which we see at all. Here are some similes to focus us on this truth, the truth of;

The Light of Seeing—The Light of the Gaze—The Light of existence—The Light of Being

The Light of presence—The Light of Self—The Glow of awareness—The Radiance of Being

The Light in the eyes—The Light of sight—The sight of sight—The Luminosity of Awareness

The Radiance of Consciousness—The Radiance of Spirit—The Awareness of awareness

With proper guidance, the insights listed above, can become a deep reality for you.

Contact me here to study the Gaze with me in my Studio or on Zoom

The Luminosity of Consciousness
If you know me you will know I have written so much about the Gaze that I am at grave risk of repeating myself endlessly. But the experience is so profound and so simple that I keep hoping that I can find an expression of it to help others. Within this Gaze, as I speak of it, something happens in the way that the eyes, mind and body, open to the visual field, in such a diffused way which is not involved in categorizing or even perceiving the objects of sight. What can happen here depends on how open one’s heart is to a spiritual reality beyond ordinary perception. But when we release the mildly defensive energy in  the way that we normally use our eyes, we can enter into the radiance of what it is by which we see.
The luminosity of our consciousness can then suffuse the whole body and mind with the light of recognition of what awareness is. For certainly, as neuroscience tells us, consciousness is the only thing which we can be absolutely sure off. So therefore, consciousness is the only reality which is not removed from our actual being—we ARE IT. The feeling of awakening to this reality brings about is most familiar joy and bliss.
Find the True Rest inside Radiant Awareness.
Because it is soporific and dull, ordinary rest, sleep and non-activity will not take us to this divine state . In vital contrast, the rest inside our true nature of radiant awareness is vibrantly alive in the rejuvenation from our divine energy source which is limitless. This is not merely a nice intellect idea, it is an actual, vibrant awakeness, enervating and liberating. “Ordinary” awakeness can bring a feeling of “I must do something,” a call to duty, but the awakening to our true nature is a self-effulgent, self-sustaining, self-fulfilling completeness that bids us rest within ourselves in profound “no-need.”
This state does not entail a denial of our human need to respond to life at large. From this realization, our “duties” can be approached, not by a compulsive, stressful and exhausting drivenness, but a joyful response to the call of learning to be a human being. Great purpose, clarity and connectedness to life’s dancing play is a natural consequence of awakening to the radiance of our true nature as the free light of pure awareness. Contact me here to study the Gaze with me in my Studio or on Zoom

Objectless Seeing

I and others have experienced a profound opening, an unhooking, a releasing in the viscera when the Gaze is entered into in a specific way. Firstly, by some grace of undoing, the eyes can lose their fixated, external focus, and a more inner-fixed mode of seeing can take one’s visual centers. This is another dimension of seeing, an objectless one, which one intuits to be a sacred state, nearer to reality than the ordinary object-oriented seeing. It is as if eyes see seeing as opposed to eyes seeing an object.(This can happen with any sense organ, ears can hear hearing, taste can taste tasting etc.) 

Reclamation of lost essence

It is almost impossible to think discursively, or linearly in this state as the mentation required for associative thought is fully engaged and taken over by a startlingly, focused clarity, revealing the pure mind which is prior to, and background to, all thought; The Beatitude of one’s own luminous, unwavering presence. It’s not an exaggeration to call this experience of oneself a rebirth or to understand it as a reclamation of lost essence. For simultaneous to the luminous clarity of Being is a vital awakening in every cell in the body. The ordinary defensive, fistedness of one’s viscera—the gut, the Dantian, the lower organs, abdominal and pelvic floor muscles and sphincters—all seem to suddenly release their gripping protection, because here in this beatitude of our true nature, it is recognized that the “normal” tight, defensive armoring, so ingrained by the everyday threats –imagined or not—is no longer needed. 

Release in the vagus nerve

In fact, the dropping or unhooking from these gripping fingers of defensive armoring is not a decision one makes, it is simultaneous with the release in the Gaze. For the ordinary gaze holds within it a mild—or not so mild—shielding mechanism which grips and keeps the nervous system in a sympathetic, fight or flight disposition. In other words, a profound release in the Gaze brings about a correspondingly profound release in the vagus nerve and the lower organs of the body. From the Ajna chakra in the gaze to the Muladhara chakra at the base of the spine, a vital sentience, normally buried in everyday stress, (a sparkling vibrancy, electrifyingly vital, fundamentally essential, crucially enervating, primally sublime and restorative)  awakens to its nature as luminous, blissful awareness.

Contact me here to study the Gaze with me in my Studio or on Zoom