Before I begin I wish to call attention to the term God which I use in this article frequently. In my own understanding I equate God with the Supreme Being, and this Supreme Being I regard as timelessly existing at all times and at all places simultaneously. In my understanding God isn’t some character out there, an entity living somewhere else in the universe or somewhere beyond the universe, but rather THE presence in here, in you. For a more secular approach, one could use the words awareness or consciousness instead of God. Therefore atheists and agnostics shouldn’t be alarmed nor discouraged by the language use in this series on spiritual pointings and especially in this chapter, with that said, let us proceed:
“The one you are looking for is the one who is looking.”
St Francis of Assisi
God cannot be seen. God is the seer of all things. He is there prior to every object that appears. Who or what could stand apart from God to objectively see her? Can there be a subject apart from the ultimate subjective presence of God? Whatever you do or think of cannot exist independent of your subjective experience of that seeing. If this is so, then what is your seeing made of? Do you stand apart from God’s ultimate subjectivity and sight, and furthermore can you indeed find this ultimate perceiver within yourself at this very moment?
These are the questions that have given birth to the greatest realizations and teachings of the worlds mystics and Buddhas. These are meditative and contemplative pathways that have the power to lead you back to your home, which is that indescribable ultimate placeless place of seeing.
This powerful teaching proclaims that, an absolute subjective perspective is the presence of god itself. Since we are all beings with an inevitable subjectivity, the question arises for the seeker, the question of how far back you can trace this subjectivity in your own immediate experience. Where does our biological and psychological subjectivity have its limit and where doth the presence of God begin so to say? Can we in fact find God’s immaculate vision within ourselves at this very moment or are we only playing meaningless games in our own minds as usual.
Again can we find God’s awareness within since we are in fact beings that are aware and according to this teaching awareness in its essential form is God itself. This is a powerful question to contemplate; perhaps it is this very question that can bring you closer to the gates of the supreme, Nirvana, than any other.
Since we are sentient beings, and supreme sentience is the mark of God, can we find the traces of this supreme sentience within ourselves?
God’s eye can’t be seen, and when you truly dive deep into your own reality, you will inevitably come to the place where you know that you in your purest essence also cannot be seen. This begs the question, are you in your purest form identical with the eye of God?
Seeing isn’t limited to the senses or even the minds eye, but ones entire sentient existence can be seen as an eye looking out into the world that it finds itself in.
Contemplate, meditate and discover for yourself!
Quotations and Excerpts
“I cannot show you God or enable you to see God because God is not an object that can be seen. God is the subject. He is the seer. Don’t concern yourself with objects that can be seen. Find out who the seer is. You alone are God.”
Ramana Maharshi
”The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.”
Meister Eckhart
“You are the Solitary Witness of All That Is, forever free. Your only bondage is not seeing This.”
Ashtavakra Gita
“It is as though you have an eye
That sees all forms
But does not see itself.
This is how your mind is.
Its light penetrates everywhere
And engulfs everything, So why does it not know itself?”
Foyan
”Know then, that both this visible world and that
Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,
Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.
And yet, alas! by how few is He seen,
Blind are men’s eyes, though all resplendent shines
The world by Deity’s own light illumined.”
Attar
« Spiritual Pointing III: Everything is One
Spiritual Pointing IV: All Things Change »
Daniel Seeker is a wandering dervish and lifelong student of the past, present and future. He realized that he was made of immaculate and timeless consciousness when meditating in his hermit cave on the island of Gotland. His writings are mostly a reflection of that realizaton. Daniel currently studies history, philosophy, egyptology and western esotericism at Uppsala Universitet. He’s also currently writing his B.A. thesis in history which explores how Buddhist and Hindu texts were first properly translated and introduced to the western world in the late 18th and 19th century.