Reflection 46

Welcome!


Magic Eye

I gave a workshop at home recently. One participant commented that Seeing was like looking at Magic Eye pictures. When you look at these arrangements of coloured dots there comes a moment – when you relax your focus - when suddenly you see a three dimensional image there that was previously hidden to you. As soon as you see it, it’s obvious. But if your focus changes, it’s gone.

It’s true, Seeing is a bit like that. Normally you’re just looking out at the world without noticing the space you are looking out from. To see the space, your attention has to shift – back towards yourself. And then, suddenly, you are consciously looking out of this boundless clarity into the world. And then, like with the Magic Eye pictures, you can just as suddenly overlook the clarity here. It is as if it has suddenly gone. It hasn’t really, of course, but you are no longer conscious of it. But then, in the next moment, you can shift attention again and suddenly you’re seeing the space again.

One difference between Seeing and the Magic Eye experience is that in the latter the change of focus means you discover a depth only there in the picture, whereas Seeing means you also discover a depth here in yourself. The depth there in the Magic Eye picture is limited and is restricted to what is within the picture frame, but the Depth here, that you are, has no end to it and contains and affects the whole world.

Another difference between these two experiences is that it can take a while before you can relax your focus and see the image in the Magic Eye picture. It can be difficult, sometimes, to find it. But Seeing your no-face? That’s easy to see – the easiest thing in the world. (Well, the easiest no-thing in the world, and the only no-thing in the world!)

One other thing - seeing the image in the Magic Eye picture is a fun thing that doesn’t challenge your deepest assumptions about yourself, whereas Seeing does. There’s no taboo about looking in the Magic Eye picture but there is a taboo against seeing who you really are. This Seeing is so thoroughly repressed in our society – world-wide – that, currently, hardly anyone does it. If Seeing is referred to, then it’s usually dismissed as a trick, an illusion, whereas in fact it’s imagining you have a face here that is the trick and the illusion! It is of course a necessary trick and illusion that you must submit to and take on board as you grow up - it enables you to make sense of and manage being a person in the world. But it’s not the whole story of what it is to be human, and if you think it is then you are overlooking and missing out on the very heart of that story, of what it is to be you. This blindness to the Light at the heart of your life can cause deep psychological problems because to see yourself as only human is, inevitably, to feel at times profoundly lonely, inadequate, poor, powerless, anxious, afraid…

But when you shift focus to living consciously from the Light at the heart of your life – living consciously from the Light, as the Light - you ease yourself down onto a ground that is the remedy for all your insecurities because this ground – the Ground of Being – though it is nothing but light, is infinitely stable, wise, loving, powerful, rich, peaceful...

This ground and light, so widely dismissed as an illusion, on inspection turns out to be absolutely, profoundly, wonderfully, beautifully real. Shift focus, then, and get real! Discover how useful and beautiful this ground and light can be in your life. It’s the greatest friend you have.

Each time you turn your gaze to this visible Light, each time you lower yourself down onto this rock-steady Ground, you strengthen a habit in your life – the habit of coming Home. It’s like exercising a muscle. Don’t lose it, use it! You also challenge and undermine a hidden but powerful world-wide taboo that forbids each of us to look HERE, that forbids each of us to live consciously from HERE. It’s a taboo whose days are numbered.

Warm regards,
Richard


Send your comments to Richard



back to top