Let us review and try to understand the benefits that result from
maintaining permanent awareness in the eye.
- Awareness
First and most important of all is the awareness itself, as discussed
above. Whoever is aware is sailing towards the Self. Whoever is
not, is wasting beautiful opportunities for growth. - Centredness
As shown by the simple experiences at the beginning of this
chapter, one of the direct results that comes from being in the
eye is a more centred state of consciousness. In the philosophy of
yoga (yoga-darśana) there is an important word - vikṣepa. Vikṣepa
refers to a scattered and spread-out condition of the mind. The
great seer Patañjali in his classical Yoga-Sūtras (aphorisms on yoga)
described vikṣepa as one of the major obstacles on the path towards
spiritual reintegration (Yoga-Sūtras 1:30-31). The more your eye
develops, the more you will find that you have the capacity to
maintain a still and silent state of mind at will. - An awareness beyond the discursive mind
The advantage of using the eye for the purpose of awareness is
that it leads to a vigilance that is beyond the common layer of the
discursive mind. One of the main pitfalls when you apply yourself
to a path of awareness is watching your mind with your mind.
Some people manage to reach a certain awareness of their
thoughts, but a purely mental one. In other words, each time they
have a thought, say about their friend Brünnhilde for instance,
another thought comes up: “I'm thinking of Brünnhilde”. And so
on. These people often get dissatisfied after some time. They have
the feeling they are doing all the right things, starting with
awareness, and yet nothing ever happens. They remain floored in
their usual mental consciousness. They never experience any real
breakthrough towards an expanded state of consciousness.
The reason is obvious. The true aim is the awareness of the Self,
and not only self-awareness! Manas, the layer of ordinary mental
consciousness, the one that goes on talking in your head all the
time, is the main veil between you and the Self. Therefore the
purpose is to emerge out of the manas-mind into the Self, and not
to get the manas-mind to mimic a higher awareness by adding
thoughts after thoughts.
So it is when you start to watch the mind from outside the mind
that your awareness becomes spiritually rewarding. And that is