Have you ever looked softly, yet deeply into the eyes of another person? And have you ever done it while holding yourself in a state of peace, joy and openness, which is really the state of love?
‘Peace Gazing’ is something that I invite people to engage in during certain meditation practices. For one minute, people sit in pairs, facing each other, gazing softly and deeply into each others’ eyes. Prior to this, I would have guided us into a more peaceful and open space, so that it is from this space that we engage in the Peace Gaze.
Sometimes, the Peace Gaze can be far from a peaceful experience. After all, most of us live in societies where prolonged eye contact is discouraged and considered threatening.
Have you noticed how we tend to avoid eye contact with strangers as well as friends and loved ones? We even act as if someone we are passing on the street or in a shopping mall or on our way to the living room or kitchen is not there.
Yes, we do acknowledge the physical presence of the person by either giving them space to move or allowing them to pass first but we don’t really acknowledge their spiritual presence in which the eyes play a significant role.
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect
G K Chesterton at thinkexist.com
It is not that we must make eye contact to be spiritually attuned with another. Not at all. In fact, the sense of connection and oneness is often most strongly felt when we close our eyes and allow our thoughts to settle.
However, in our waking and walking moments, our eyes offer us the means to experience the deep and profound spiritual communion we have with another. That contact, held in a soft, open gaze penetrates effortlessly, the layers of conditioning that our individualized personalities are built on, taking us directly and instantly to the seat of our very being – that open, expansive, lush, vibrant field of foreverness, of eternity, of endless lifetimes. That field, which Rumi says, is ‘beyond the concepts of rightfulness and wrongfulness’! In fact, let me give you the full quote:
Beyond the concepts of rightfulness and wrongfulness, there is a field. I will meet you there!
Jalal Ad-Din Rumi
When we gaze into the eyes of another, the ‘windows of the soul’, as the eyes are sometimes described, we gift ourselves and another, the wondrous experience of a few moments in eternity, in bliss, in the truth of who we are.
I have noticed on many, many occasions that by softly gazing into the eyes of another, agitated, fearful, nervous, defensive or even hostile behavior or words instantly cease. It is as if we are meeting for the first time in that place beyond judgment, beyond duality, beyond separation. We meet in the truth of who we are – One!
If you have never done it before, or never done it with certain (types of) people, do try it. It doesn’t even have to be a minute long. Neither do you have to be seated opposite the person. Instead, you might try it with your neighbor, your spouse or your child or the person at the check-out counter, the last of whom was one of the people I exchanged a gaze with yesterday!
For about three seconds, we gazed softly and deeply into each other’s eyes even as he was handing me my receipt. What a beautiful experience that was for me and I sensed it was for the young man too!
Meeting you, Lucy
For Online and Offline Mentoring/Meditation/Workshops/Retreats Contact lucy@lucylopez.net
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Looking into the eyes while talking shows sincerity.