What Does It Mean to See?

Have you ever thought of ‘seeing’ as something you could do without using your eyes? Close your eyes for a moment. What do you ‘see’ with your eyes closed? Use all your senses and beyond . . . Take a moment to experience this then read on . . .

What did you experience? What did you perceive or come to know? What was called upon or visited? How many of your five senses were engaged in response? Were you able to move intuitively beyond your five senses? These are questions that direct us beyond our surface observations. What I’m pointing to is that which moves us into a greater depth of perception, into deeper layers of awareness, into a ‘knowing’  beyond knowing. . .

Can you remember a time when you made a surface judgement about a person, place,  situation or thing to later find out that your assessment was only partially true or not true at all? Have you ever seen someone you were attracted to, engaged them and discovered a very unattractive person underneath the surface? Do you ever have disagreements between your head and your heart? What goes on here? How receptive are you to ‘seeing’ differently?

If you saw the hit movie Avatar that was released a few years back you’ll remember how the indigenous people would say, “I see you.” How clear was it to you what that meant? Did you have a sense it was about making a heart or soul connection that was beyond words? Did you recognize that it spoke of a certain vulnerability and transparency as well as an acceptance and sense of wholeness within the relationship? How much do you ‘see’ of this inner dimension?

For the past three decades I’ve been working with people on many levels of awareness. The majority of time the majority of us live and move and have our being on the surface of life. This leaves the many inner realms unattended and walled off which leads to all kinds of addictions and aversions. Eventually something breaks within which floods our consciousness. This means we can no longer hide, repress and deny our wounds, anxieties, and vulnerabilities.

When this happens, we ‘see’ what we don’t want to see and enter a ‘dark night of the senses’ which can last decades. This usually takes place in the second journey of our lives somewhere in our late thirties or forties. The awareness that’s necessary here is addressed by  Robert Frost who said: “The best way out is always through.” Here, the true nature of our Being can be discovered but it’s a gift that most don’t want to explore, embrace and move through.

What’s called for here is patience, humility, support and healing. It’s an opportunity to witness all that has not been seen and needs to be. It’s about seeing with new eyes that include not only the physical and mental worlds, but also the emotional and spiritual ones. Here we truly begin to see beyond the illusions we’ve been calling reality. Here we have the opportunity to get free of what holds us back and become who we’ve truly been created to be.

If the meaning of life is ‘to see’, we need to return to our Source, to our Essence and learn to embrace all the wounded, alienated and rejected parts within and without.  Learning to tap deeply into this river will also help us to recognize the amazing creative gifts we each have to be developed, appreciated and shared. What does it mean to see? A wholeness that lives within you and me. A divine connection that sets us free. A transparency that allows us to Be . . .