HOW TO ENTER THE SPIRITUAL EYE
CHAPTER 3 – EDEN – YOGA AND MEDITATION – PART 2
All over the world as I have travelled I have been asked this question, “How do I enter the spiritual eye?”
It would seem that above all else we crave the divine, because we know that in seeking and finding God or Source or Being within us, all other questions are answered.
My own experiences of cosmic consciousness came in multiple ways, through Jesus, through Yogananda and Babaji, through Swami Shyam and through the Buddha and Guan Yin. The picture posted here is as close as I could find to my own experience.
They were all deep, profound experiences of the Light, all arrived at slightly differently yet all gave the same extraordinary experience of bliss and knowing we are all looked after in the Divine Plan.
What I endeavor to do below is to give you a series of techniques and practices that you can use to open and enter the spiritual eye.
Please note that the techniques below are primarily Yogananda’s descriptions. I prefer you to have His words on the practices as they are direct from Source.
And that is what they are. Practices that require practice.
I would deeply appreciate your feedback as to what works for you and what you experience. I have practiced all these in various forms morning and night overt the years and I am always learning. As I continue to travel it is a deeply humbling experience knowing that your wisdom informs my wisdom and all is by nature of the One True Self an experience of the One Shared Heart.
ONE – OUTER LIGHT
The first is a technique I was taught in both Tibet and India, to develop an unblinking steady gaze. Yogananda in fact tells us: “Restless and constantly blinking eyes indicate a restless mind; quiet, unblinking eyes, a calm mind. God is not visible, not recognizable to the ordinary restless eyes of mortal man. By fixing the eyes at one point induces the mind to grow calm and concentrated.”
Fixing the eyes on one point is a classical yoga practice, called tratak. It consists in gazing at an object, often a candle, which is placed a little higher than the eyes, at a short distance. Fix that object, never looking away, remaining steady with your gaze, unblinking, even if the eyes start producing tears.
TWO – INNER LIGHT
Yogananda taught another technique to stimulate our vision of the spiritual eye, using an outer light, a lamp. He explains: “Look at a light and close your eyes. Forget the darkness around you and watch the blood red color within your eyelids. Try to look intently into that violet red color before you. Meditate on it and imagine that it is becoming bigger and bigger. Behold around you a dimly shining sea of violet light. You are a wave of light, a ripple of peace floating on the surface of the sea.”
THREE – INNER LIGHT VISUALIZATION
Yogananda teaches visualization as a powerful technique to develop inner concentration. It even leads to the siddhi (power) of materialization:
“I can keep looking at this room and concentrating upon it until, when I close my eyes, I can still see the room exactly as it is. This is the first step in deep concentration, but most people haven’t the patience to practice it. I had the patience. As you continue to practice visualization you will find that your thoughts become materialized. The cosmic law will so arrange it that whatsoever you are thinking of will be produced in actuality, if you command it to be so. Suppose I am thinking of an apple, and the apple appears in my hand. That would be a demonstration of the highest power of concentration.
Try it. Experiment with it. Practice it: intensely look at an apple (or any object in your room) for some time. Imprint the image in your mind. Then close your eyes, looking at the point between the eyebrows. Inwardly try to see that object as clearly as you can.”
FOUR – SPIRITUAL EYE MEDITATION TECHNIQUE
“Concentrate at the point between the eyebrows. Visualize there a tunnel of golden light. Mentally enter that tunnel, and feel yourself surrounded by a glorious sense of happiness and freedom. As you move through the tunnel, feel yourself bathed by the light until all worldly thoughts disappear.
After soaring through the tunnel as long as you feel to do so, visualize before you a curtain of deep violet-blue light. Pass through that curtain into another tunnel of deep, violet-blue light. Feel the light surrounding you. Slowly, the tunnel walls disappear in blue light. Expand your consciousness into that light – into infinite freedom and bliss. Now there is no tunnel. There is only the all-encompassing blueness and bliss of infinity.
At last, visualize before you a silvery-white, five-pointed star of light. Surrender every thought, every feeling into this star of absolute, ever-existing bliss.
Mentally affirm: “I awake in Thy Light, I awake in Thy Light, I am joyful, I am free, I awake in Thy Light!”
FIVE – SURRENDER
When you meditate, the intense gaze at the spiritual eye has its proper moment. During the time of practicing any technique, the eyes are upturned to the spiritual eye, yes, but our concentration is not on that point, but on the technique itself: while practicing Hong-Sau or any mantra technique we concentrate on the breath and the mantra; during Kriya Yoga we concentrate on the inner currents in the astral spine; during the AUM technique we focus on the inner sounds.
The time for fully concentrating on the spiritual eye comes after the technique, during the last part of meditation. At that moment fully concentrate your gaze and attention on the “Christ Center,” the space between the eyebrows – the seat of ecstasy in the body – with devotion, looking toward God. Surrender everything to Source. Let nothing take your gaze away from your spiritual eye, which leads you to ecstasy.
SIX – THE PROCESS
Here is Yogananda’s description of the spiritual eye
“When the yogi concentrates long enough with half-open eyes at the point between the eyebrows, and when the gaze is without any restless motion, he will be able to see a steady light surrounded by other, but flickering, lights. He should not be diverted by this glimmering halo of the spiritual eye, but should steadfastly look at the center of the eye until he feels his mind completely absorbed within it. In time, he will see the perfect formation of the spiritual eye: a dark opal-blue globe within a quivering ring of flame. Gradually, by deep concentration, an extremely brilliant white star occasionally glimmers in the center of the blue. The star is the gateway through which the consciousness must pass to attain oneness with Spirit. It requires time and calm practice to steady the light of the intuitive astral eye. It takes deeper and longer practice to see the star. It requires greater realization to hold the perception of the star. And it takes mastery in meditation to march the consciousness, valiantly triumphant, through the starry gate of light. After the devotee is able at will to see his astral eye of light and intuition with either closed or open eyes, and to hold it steady indefinitely, he will eventually attain the power to look through it into Eternity; and through the starry gateway he will sail into Omnipresence. Progression through the spiritual eye, experienced by advancing yogis, unfolds first the wondrous perceptions of superconsciousness, the region of rays of light out of which all matter evolves. The creative cosmic rays hide like veils the presence of the immanent universal Christ or Krishna Consciousness, the Lord omnipresent in creation. By deeper concentration and meditation, the spiritual eye of intuition opens, and through the wisdom star the yogi becomes united to the Christ-Krishna Omnipresence; and thence, in deepest ecstasy, he reaches the Cosmic Consciousness of Spirit.”
SEVEN – LOVE
Yogananda told us that when he first came to Sri Yukteswar’s ashram, he would keep his mind and gaze focused at the point between the eyebrows as much as possible. “If you want to make very rapid progress on the spiritual path,” he used to tell us, “keep your mind always centered there.” This practice must be joined to, however, and supported by the heart’s devotion. For concentration at the spiritual eye, which is known as the ajna chakra, develops great will power, but it can also make one ruthless if it isn’t combined with the heart’s love. When will power is combined with love, great joy is the consequence.
Love and blessings
Altair and Mother