The Third Eye (Spiritual Eye)

[Nikolai1]

The third eye is always open in all people and it never closes, but it flickers.

 

The measure of the flicker is how much light we see. When it is open wide we have much light. We call this vision the ‘present moment’.

 

When the third eye flickers the light is dim and almost veiled. Things are seem only dimly, like shadows. We call this vision ‘thought.’ Time and space exist nowhere except as thoughts.

 

Time and space are illusions created by the flickering of the third eye. We imagine that our thoughts are about things in another time in another place – but this is the illusion. There is no time and space – only a flickering third eye. The light is now bright and effulgent, now dim and shadowy. But light is the only thing there is.

 

Spiritual cultivation reduces the flicker. The purpose of it is to help live more with the light. The light of the present gets brighter…the shadowy thoughts also get brighter.

 

A person with a steady third eye literally and actually sees more light. Everything is brighter and more vivid. The reflection of an object in a puddle of water is as vivid and captivating as the object itself. The Zen proverb states that ‘the fish swim in the trees, and the birds fly in the ocean.’ This is the vision of a person with a steady third eye.

 

As our perception of light increases we see directly all we need to know – perception and subjective understanding are united. Thought and thinking represents our need to veil the brightness in order to see the subjective meaning apart, in isolation. As our third eye grows steady we can take it all in a glance. It no longer needs to flicker.

 

You no longer think, and your behaviour shows you that you understand. You utter words spontaneously, based on your vision alone, and people say “how did you know that?” You answer: “I don’t know it, I just say it.”

 

The person with a steady spiritual eye perceives, and then acts. Because you perceive well, you act well. Everyone else is managing to do their intricate tasks, but the light is low and errors are made. You seem to be the only one wearing a head torch.

 

Techniques

 

Where our awareness is, there our light is. As our awareness prolongs, the light brightens. If the light gets too bright we must blink, or think. We can measure our tolerance for the light by the frequency of our thoughts and blinking. A person in deep meditation has no need to blink or think.

 

Some people prefer to brighten further the bright of the present. These people live spontaneously in the moment and are capable of beautiful, flowing, effective action.

 

Some people prefer to shed light on the shadows. These people are thinkers and they are capable of making their subjective conceptions of time and space so good that they nearly blend with reality.

 

Both these techniques are good, but the aim is to blend them together. The spontaneous actor must learn to understand, the wise thinker must learn to act.

 

The person with an unmovable, steady third eye has blended thoughts and perceptions into one vision. Life flows smoothly and well, and it is familiar and understood. Life is therefore loved and the source of deep joy.

[Nikolai1]

Hi Cat,

 

 

Is this something to do with that thing where one closes ones eyes at night to sleep, and doesnt see dark, theres still light.

 

Yes, that's the third eye! Such a beautiful feeling, when you realise there's a light that is always with you. You switch off the lamp and it's still there. You close your eyes and it's there. You close your eyes, and cover them with your hands then bury your face in the pillow...and it's still there, completely unchanged. So beautiful, so comforting.

 

The third eye is related to all sorts of wonderful visions, but for me the way it transforms everyday vision is a true spiritual gift. I think that artists are born with this third eye open. They see a beauty, and realise that others aren't seeing the same thing, and so they try to recreate it for them. Artists want people to see their paintings and that's not vanity, it's charity.

 

Is the reduction in flickering concommitant with cultivation of virtue integrity.

 

All spiritual practice reduces the flicker, as the flicker IS the distinction between the present moment and time. And all the dualities of self and other, birth and death good and bad etc are based on time and space.

 

Virtue, as in the de is the state of being when we find it easy to live without causing harm and distress. We find it easy to forego certain aims if we see that they create discord. We find it easy because we are aware of our true untouchable, always joyful self and no longer need to chase joy on the outside. So, yes, being virtuous and having a steady spiritual eye are the same thing.

 

Cultivation of virtue, which is a spiritual technique, is about deliberately depriving yourself of what you consider to be good, sacrificing their own needs for others etc. People need to do this when they haven't yet realised that the true good is always shining within : ie their third eye flickers. They truly believe in external 'goods' and it is because of this belief that they think it is worthwhile to deprive themselves of them in order to transcend them.

 

The flicker is reduced when they learn that they are able to live well and be joyful even in the absence of what they imagined to be good.

 

I should say though that nearly all people like this first fall into the trap of viewing their abstinence as a 'good thing'. They merely swap one set of external goods for another. It is when they realise that they don't need pleasures or their mortifications that they are truly aware of the good within.

 

maybe, Nikolai, you could write something about resistance to the sublime.

 

Firstly, all words like resistance belong to everyday human emotional life and don't really capture the automatic nature of it. We can call it resistance, because that is how it feels, but ignorance of the sublime would also work the same, as would inability to withstand the sublime.

 

I'm sure we've all had the feeling when confronted with the sublime of a certain bafflement, or fear, or something. We find that the experience abruptly ends, and it feels like we have something to do with it. But it is simply a matter of causality. When our spiritual eye is flickering our perceptions of the sublime are soon punctuated by thought - and we cannot help it!

 

Because we were loving the sublime, we try and rationalise why we would go and spoil the moment by reverting to thought. Hence the talk of fear, resistance etc.

 

But if our spiritual eye is not strong we have no choice but to veil the effulgence and work out the meaning and depth of that moment through thought. Thinking is like those heat-detecting cameras which work by filtering out all the competing wavelengths except for the infra-red. Yes, the image is hugely simplified but the light that gets through is easier to work with.

 

We are 'resisting the sublime' all the time, but only because we need to. As we become better at apprehending the beauty of the world, we resist it less - and then its easy to notice when we do resist. Needless to say, the sense of sublimity is extremely strong in these moments - for example when we look into the eyes of a woman we love.

 

Anyway, when we 'resist the sublime' we do so only to better grasp it. But until we can grasp the sublime directly and fully this resistance is going to leave us dissatisfied.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Nikolai1

[Nikolai1]

Hi Cat

So, the feeling of not being able to contain what one is experiencing, the feeling of certain imminent implosion .. and the subsequent step down into cloudiness.

 

What is the situation, the mistake in this, that can be rectified.

 

Whether you view this 'step down' as a mistake to be rectified is a matter of perspective.

 

I guess in this thread I've presented the step down as a simple flow of events. Just as night follows day, cloudiness follows light. The constant 'flicker' of the light is simply something to be observed passively - as we do the diurnal cycle.

 

Or, you can interpret the process agentically, where there is a need to act. This type of narrative will naturally posit things to do, and things not to do (mistakes). The mistake would be holding the belief that the third eye is just the physical eyes plus imagination . Concomitant with this belief might be the notion that the physical eyes need somehow to be first closed. This was the perspective I talked about a lot in The Philosopher's Tao thread, which was about dismantling our everyday earthly beliefs through scepticism.

 

I understand that this is confusing - but spiritual enlightenment doesn't fit into the normal narratives of action and passivity. It seems that you have to present both - and hope that the leap can be made. You can say a) that we need to enlighten ourselves or that we are all already fully enlightened. Both are legitimate arguments....

 

For the intellect Heaven and earth are one, and also separate - therefore neither one nor separate....

 

God, if I could make people truly disgusted with all this speculation about heaven and earth then my threads will be worth something.

 

 

Gurunath said, when he met Babaji "I could not contain his velocity"..so he lost consciousness.

 

 

This happens at lesser levels of velocity... where does the containing get done or does one need a different paradigm entirely, like transform self to water, to air, to ether...

 

For yourself you need and will get the different paradigm, on the inside - but you still need to say something to those who only understand the normal ones. This is such a frustrating problem. Jesus thought it best not to even use the normal: 'though seeing they do not see, though hearing they do not understand' so he spoke in deliberate parables. And then he gets angry "perverse, unbelieving generation - how long do I have to put up with you" (Matt 17:17)

 

Actually even the normal paradigms are parables, but because we believe in some of them as 'facts' we make no effort to interpret them. I think the new age movement created so many good fresh parables with which to reveal spiritual truths but they're already getting old. We're already starting to take them as real...

 

Back to Gurunath...he lost consciousness for the same reason and in the same way as we lose perception and revert to thought. But rational thought is too clumsy for Babaji, and luckily for Gurunath he had other faculties to employ. He was able to filter out everything including the infrared - objectively speaking he looked unconscious but of course he wasn't - unconsciousness is impossible.

 

Normal people think, and normal people dream. When we realise the limitation of thought we don't bother using it - the faculty atrophies, or is assimilated into perception. The same thing happens with the rather coarse tropes of the dreamworld - there comes a point when we don't need them and our sleep becomes deep and dreamless. But it's not a complete void, there are subtle levels of awareness that will be consciously perceived before long- abilities that were veiled by the effulgence of the dream.

 

We all occasionally have experience of this awareness, but it gets conflated with the dream and we do not realise they are separate. We say the dream was very vivid - but the images of the dream were juts normal - the vividity was provided by this obscure felt understanding that can be so strong that it changes our mood and perceptions the whole next day. The dream has the same lucidity that underlies all our waking experience in the present Light.

Edited October 8, 2013 by Nikolai1

[Nikolai1]

As your third eye brightens there is more light available for you. There is so much light that even a puddle of water - which normally gives a mere reflection - now gives a clear and vivid object. The fish really do swim amongst the branches.

 

When you close your eyes the light continues to shine. You can go for walk in the darkest forest on the darkest night and your eyes will show you the path - this is actually true.

 

The light you've gained is not some religious metaphor - it is real light to be used in the world.

 

With your spiritual practice you have literally lightened up the world - you yourself have brightened the sun!

 

This poses a question...

 

If I can create extra light, then is it not possible that I created all the light?

 

Is not the sun my crowning achievement? The moment I see the sun is the moment my light shines at its brightest. The sun does not illuminate me, it is I who illuminate the sun.

 

And the darkness of night, I now see, is my own flickering eye - my own time for thought. The moon and stars are those fragments of my own effulgence that light the papers at my desk. What I call the moon is nothing other than my own inner light, made macrocosmic.

 

To become aware of the light that shines behind closed eyes is the most significant moment in our growth. It is the moment when we realise that we are the source of all that we see.

 

When Buddha became enlightened he said:

 

"This threefold world is all my domain, and the living beings in it are all my children."

 

In Psalm 82 of the Old Testament we are told that "Ye are Gods, sons of the most high all of you". Jesus reminded his followers to think the same of themselves: "Is it not written in your law that you are Gods?" (John 10:34). He tells us that he is the 'light of the world" (John 8:12) and he means this most literally and that we can also be the light.

 

However subtle the first glimpses of the inner light are, when we see it shining for real within us, and actually brightening our world we are already as gods.

 

Jesus again:

 

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light" (Matt 6:22)

Edited October 9, 2013 by Nikolai1

[Nikolai1]

Hi cat

 

I saw this as being in harmony with nature, as the spirit of the place being amenable with me.

 

Like I said in the OP the spiritual eye is always open. There are moments, usually experienced as highly enjoyable when the flicker is hugely reduced - we are in the zone. The more we are in the zone the more our third eye opens - and we are capable or truly skilful, beautiful action. And yes, this can be interpreted as 'the spirit of the place'being with us. It doesn't matter how we explain it to ourselves - the point is the experience itself. You perhaps didn't think to notice, as you scrambled over the rocks, but had you stopped and covered your eyes with your hands - I think you would have seen the inner luminescence.

 

 

If we are already as gods.. how can we use this to be of benefit. I see myself jumping to the agentical.

It is its own benefit! To see the light is the end towards all good actions aim. Anyone with you on the rocks that night would have been privileged to witness you. There's nothing more to say or do - as you live by the light so too do others. And all the acts of deliberate kindness in the world are worth little unless they somehow help the recipient to see and to live in the light themselves.

 

Maybe one day I will be able to walk around in the dark and still see.

 

The light is always with us at various levels of consciousness. Usually we can't discern it directly but only through the prism of our external actions.

 

For example a few months after learning to drive we might notice that we are doing everything, all the controls, reading the traffic without having to think about it. We are always driving well when this is the case - the third eye is driving the car. But we are having to discern its actions at some remove. The moment we try and capture driving with our consciousness our driving performance suffers.

 

When the third eye appears as a fact of perception - as something we can actually consciously see then we are able to consciously choose to live by it. We are able to consciously drive with the same skill as we formerly could only so unconsciously. This is a very beautiful feeling. It is the feeling that you get in deep meditation, but is actually engaged in the world. Real things are transformed by it. You make things better, cook things better and with more enjoyment. People are beautiful, and respond to you and like you back. Even the girl at the checkout seem to respond to you well - all interactions go well when you are living in this frame of mind - in the light.

 

If you want to live more and more like this...just look for the light. Whenever you remember - just stop and look for evidence of the light. Relax your eyes, notice the light brighten and grow more intense - your mood will follow. Then do what you intended to do.

 

The link between the two physical eyes and the third eye

 

When our third eye flickers it means that perception is frequently punctuated by thought. This means that the objects of thought are meaningfully linked to the nature of our perceptions. As thought deals with discrete concepts, the eye is led to seek discrete objects. The gaze therefore becomes sharp and focussed. Such sharp scrutiny requires the light detecting cells on the retina to become concentrated in one small area. Its called the fovea and it is a dense cluster of cells absorbing the light (the fovea is not yet-developed in young infants - the cells migrate in the early years to where they are needed)

 

As flicker of the third eye reduces the physical eyes are less influenced by thoughts of discrete objects. The gaze becomes milder and and broader. You can observe this in anybody well-practiced in things like meditation. At the retina, the fovea becomes less concentrated - the light cells migrate back to where they are needed - which is across the whole visual field. This also means that less of the light is absorbed by the dense fovea behind the lens. Looking into the eyes of the person who sees this way is a different experience. The eyes have a lustre and sparkle which is due to increased reflectivity of the retina.

 

When the third eye is becoming more and more steady you experience many of the same symptoms as retinal detachment: intense flashing pinpricks of light, squiggles in the sky, strange floaters etc. It isn't retinal detachment, but just due to changes at the surface of the retina.

 

But in summary, a flickering third eye can be seen by absorbent physical eyes.

a steady third eye can be seen by reflective physical eyes.

 

I say all this because we shouldn't think that the third eye is actually a third eye - it is the eye that sees through eyes 1 and 2. Really first eye is a better word than third.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Nikolai1

[Brian]

<snip>

When our third eye flickers it means that perception is frequently punctuated by thought. This means that the objects of thought are meaningfully linked to the nature of our perceptions. As thought deals with discrete concepts, the eye is led to seek discrete objects. The gaze therefore becomes sharp and focussed. Such sharp scrutiny requires the light detecting cells on the retina to become concentrated in one small area. Its called the fovea and it is a dense cluster of cells absorbing the light (the fovea is not yet-developed in young infants - the cells migrate in the early years to where they are needed)

 

As flicker of the third eye reduces the physical eyes are less influenced by thoughts of discrete objects. The gaze becomes milder and and broader. You can observe this in anybody well-practiced in things like meditation. At the retina, the fovea becomes less concentrated - the light cells migrate back to where they are needed - which is across the whole visual field. This also means that less of the light is absorbed by the dense fovea behind the lens. Looking into the eyes of the person who sees this way is a different experience. The eyes have a lustre and sparkle which is due to increased reflectivity of the retina.

 

When the third eye is becoming more and more steady you experience many of the same symptoms as retinal detachment: intense flashing pinpricks of light, squiggles in the sky, strange floaters etc. It isn't retinal detachment, but just due to changes at the surface of the retina.

 

But in summary, a flickering third eye can be seen by absorbent physical eyes.

a steady third eye can be seen by reflective physical eyes.

 

I say all this because we shouldn't think that the third eye is actually a third eye - it is the eye that sees through eyes 1 and 2. Really first eye is a better word than third.

 

OMG! Thank you for sharing this, Nikolai1! You've helped me make sense of some things.