Our eyes are among our most used and most relied sources of perception. To make sense of things and make decisions, we want to see things and mold our actions accordingly.
Yet these same eyes on which we rely so much can mislead us, as is encapsulated in sayings such as “all that glitters is not gold” or in metaphors of animals killing themselves by pursuing mirages. What such sources of wisdom convey is not that we reject our visual perception, but that we complement it, indeed, root it in our intelligence. It is our intelligence that enables us to see right in the sense that our intelligence helps us come to the right understanding based on our perceptions.
This principle of using our intelligence to make our sight right applies all the more so the spiritual arena wherein we can see nothing – neither our own spiritual essence, the soul; nor the immanent spiritual essence of everything, God. And even our intelligence on its own can’t make much headway in comprehending these spiritual realities. To grasp them, we need to not only root our sight in our intelligence, but also root our intelligence in scripture.
When we study scripture diligently and internalize the worldview taught therein, we infer unhesitatingly from visible material realities to underlying spiritual realities. The Bhagavad-gita (15.11) asserts that the deluded can’t perceive the soul, neither its transcendent nature nor its imprisonment in material existence. But the same verse concludes that those with the eyes of knowledge can see the soul.
To help us perceive thus, scripture offers us not just intellectual comprehension through its philosophy but also spiritual realization through its delineation of the process of yoga. Diligent yoga practice activates our latent spiritual perception, thereby enabling us to perceive and delight in spirit, thus making our sight eminently right.
Explanation of article:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aNs9eD6m80
Hare Krishna Prji, Amazing article! Thank you