process of perception.
This applies not only to seeing auras, but to any physical
perception such as hearing, smell.
At this point in time, in the daily life of most human beings the
first and third elements have been lost, meaning the consciousness
of the perceiver and of the process of perception. When seeing a
tree, for instance, there is a mental recognition of the tree, but
there is no awareness of who sees the tree, nor of the process
through which the tree is perceived. An assimilation takes place
with the object of perception. To become aware of seeingness
means to become aware of 3) the process of perception.
Our real purpose in this work is to find the Self, we are not using
techniques just to reach perception. We are using perception to
reach the Self.
If you have two oranges and a cherry in a basket, the cherry can
easily be hidden by the oranges. But if you take the two oranges
out of the basket, the cherry becomes conspicuous. One orange is
the object of perception, the other is the process of perception –
and the cherry is the Self-awareness of the perceiver. When you
separate the seeingness from the object of perception you achieve a
stage of discernment which is similar to removing the two oranges
from the basket. That is why you may have such big flashes of
inner awakening when you become aware of the seeingness –
sudden inner explosions in which the Self is revealed.
As you keep on practising our triple process of vision, your
seeingness will gradually develop. In the beginning it seems faint.
But as you exercise it, it turns into a more and more tangible
quality, becoming as clear and obvious as the perception of
warmth. One could also compare the seeingness to a muscle that
has not been used for a long time. Reactivating the muscle is likely
to be slow in the beginning: you hardly feel it, you don't even
know when it is contracting or not and its contraction is quite
weak. Once you have done the work, activating your seeingness
becomes as clear and tangible as contracting your biceps. Actually
this part of the process of inner alchemy is akin to body building
- not physical, but subtle body building.
Now, there is a paradox. When you want to become aware of
seeingness, what do you do? You make sure that you are not
looking at anything in particular, that the content of the image
does not matter to you. In other words, you take one of the two