Action – The Eyes Have it!

“I have noticed that if you look carefully at people’s eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away.”

The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd

It is said that more can be told in a glance than in a thousand words. Our eyes often starkly reveal our internal emotional condition. Visionaries, prophets, and saints express their deep love and passion consciously through their eyes, which is why being with them is more powerful than reading their teachings.

This brings us to one very amazing power of the eyes, the ability to transmit love and safety wordlessly. Because the eyes have the mysterious ability to transmit what we are feeling, they can be used for one of the most remarkable actions we can take to affect the emotional climate in the world around us. We can practice giving darshan.

Masters and gurus are said to be able to gaze at us with divine love. Often the teacher will sit in front of the sangha and pour out his loving gaze. This gaze is called the darshan. The darshan is sometimes called, “Meeting the Master face to face.” It is a wonderful experience.  So above, so below. Thus we can learn and use this loving practice even if we are not a guru!

In order for us to give darshan, it is necessary to remove all our judgments and fear and to connect our eyes directly with our hearts. Because we are unconscious so much of the time, a state of unconditional love is not constant, but we can access this state in the moments we choose the darshan. Darshan is a practice of placing ourselves in this state. When we do this, we become (for a moment) ambassadors of love in the world, creating change silently wherever we go. When this happens we are actually “in” love: Love is flowing through us, we are the agent of love, and since the world is a sea of fear, we become a point of relief. The effect of our darshan is profound and usually instantaneous, quite visible, if often only for a moment.

What are some of the requirements of giving darshan?

1. 1. We need to feel love for ourselves and to shower mercy and kindness on ourselves. As we have seen, this is a pre-requisite for manifesting true compassion for others. The biggest difficulty in giving darshan, the most common obstacle, is our ready judgment. Since this judgment so often stems from self-judgment, we have to deal with self-judgment using mercy for ourselves.
   2. If we are unfamiliar with the power of our eyes, we will need to practice awareness in this area and begin to experience how our eyes work as messengers of truth and a source of personal insight. We can practice the action of learning from our own eyes in a mirror but it is fine to just begin in the world.

The mechanics of giving darshan are simple. All we do is look at a person with complete love and acceptance of them. This can be anyone; someone making change for us for instance or someone in line at the store; someone we are passing on the sidewalk: angry people, sad people, happy people, anyone. We remember that darshan is looking at someone with the eyes fully connected with the heart. Again, our eyes must be totally free of judgment, a reflection of our opened heart.

Because the darshan is unusual, if given for too long it can seem intrusive rather than loving. It can cause discomfort. It can trigger the recipient’s undeserving and suspicious nature. As a part of our program of love as a subversive activity, it will be more effective if we make our darshan into a brief glance, a short burst. Our sensitivity to the recipient’s level of comfort is an important part of this action. We do not want to frighten anyone. It is a sad commentary on our world, but nonetheless true, that love is often more frightening than judgment because love is the more unusual energy.

Be aware that one way the ego subverts this practice is to have us judge ourselves when we find ourselves going to judgment instead of love. Don’t fall into this trap. Ignore this voice and go straight back to your connection of heart to eyes. We are all forgetful.

You will find that this practice is wonderful in keeping your heart open when it wants to close, probably the most important spiritual work there is! In addition, you will be bringing love into the world in a soft and sublime manner, and spreading it every time you you remember to give darshan!