Within the Eyes

Greetings all,

Here I am in lovely Baltimore amidst old friends after making several new ones this past week in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  My experience at the Monroe Institute is still so fresh in my mind I don't know that I can really interpret it fully.  I do know that it was the right choice for me in this time.

Guidelines was the program I attended.  It is focused on opening more deeply to our guidance.  This time back at the institute I experienced more during exercises.  I felt as if I could really open my mind and my eyes and see images.  I did see them clearly even if I didn't understand what they meant.  I call this progress.

Now I sit in the dining room of my dear friend Sherry Tuegel after a day of joint teaching.  We come from different traditions and yet our ways flowed into each other creating a deep synergy.  It is within the past year that I feel I really am relaxing into the role of teacher.  Knowledge needs a living mind or else it dies.  Teaching is way of wisdom for it grants knowledge a kind of immortality passing from mind to mind, and with each passing also a bit of the teacher moves on into the student. It is heartening to see the wisdom that I have treasured light up the eyes of another.

Today Sherry presented as part of her section of our class, eye gazing.  How often do we look directly into the eyes of another?  How often do our eyes slide over a person refusing to see them?  How often are we seen?  I remember years ago at an art fair I was shocked that one particular artist 'saw' me.  He looked right into me and I was recognized.  This frightened me.  For many years, I had protected myself by being unseen or mis/seen.  All the veils I had cast upon myself were ripped away in their gaze.  It is a startling thing to be seen.

Most times when we are seen by others they merely see a reflection of themselves or some aspect.  If they are generally at peace they will see their own good reflected back at them.  If they are unhappy with themselves they will see what they hate about themselves in us.  The illusion is that they think it is us that they find repulsive.  In actuality, it is themselves they cannot bear to look at.  To gaze deeply into another is to also to be gazed deeply into.  This is not comfortable for many.  I'll be honest I felt sorry for whomever drew me to gaze into.  People tell me I shape shift.  My eyes have done funny things in the past.  Once I glamoured them and someone looking at me saw me as if my eyes had gone all black with no whites or iris.  It only lasted a moment, and I have never been able to recreate that effect (I think spirit just wanted to show me it was possible).  At other times people have said that my eyes seem to look through them into their soul, and still others have seen their deepest fears reflected back at them.  I take no credit for that, I only reflect the energy that people bring.

After today's exercise my gazing partner told me they saw my eyes change.  The round pupil became a slit like the eye of a cat, or a jaguar.  Now I do have a spiritual relationship to the black jaguar.  He has been a guardian, friend, and giver of sound advice(sometimes I even follow it).  I felt honored that the jaguar would manifest visually through my eyes.  It also made a lot of sense of why some people could never meet my gaze, particularly if they'd been up to no good.

So why am I telling you all this?  Well they say eyes are the window to the soul.  After a week of exercising the visionary ability I am pondering the nature of seeing and being seen.  So many people come to me who want to open their third eye and become a seer.  I often say, "It's $50 to open your third eye...it's $500 to close it.  So basically I'll be making $550 today."  People want the benefits of perfect vision, but they don't want to look too deeply at things.  If they do they begin to see the cracks in the facade of the world.  How can we open our third eye if we refuse to really look with our physical eyes?  How can we learn to see with spiritual sight, if we cannot even look at one another?  Use your eyes, observe, really see what you are looking at.  Don't chase fantastical visions, but rather come awake to what is already before you.  You might be surprised at what your eyes can see.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle