The Spiritual Eye: Journey to Christ-Consciousness
Nayaswami Jyotish shares this beautiful inspiration during his Sunday service at Ananda Village, December 19th 2021. You can find the complete talk here.
"This journey of the wise men, following the star is symbolic of the universal journey that all of us have to make. And in fact, it's the universal story of what life is all about and what the purpose of life is all about. And so what's going on inwardly, is that this the star represents the light which is seen at the spiritual eye. When we achieve Christ consciousness, we will achieve it at this point. So the spiritual eye which is inside it's, one might say the projection of the, it's the positive pole of the sixth chakra or it's the projection of light that resides in the spine. The shape of that spiritual eye is a golden halo with a deep blue field, and a five pointed white star in the middle of it so that's the spiritual eye, which will be seen clearly, in meditation when we become calm, enough. So following the star means that we're trying to get to the point where that star is we're trying to see that star.
Now it isn't a Christian symbol, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Jewish symbol, it's a universal reality. In Assisi, they wanted to have a beautiful representation of the spiritual eye made and because one of the members one of the leaders there Narya his family were in the glass making industry in Venice, where they make beautiful Venetian glass. And so he went to one of these really beautiful, wonderful, artisans to have him make out of glass a representation of that. And when he described it, the artist said what is that? Tell me what is that? I've been seeing that image since I was a young child. Tell me what that is. And so that universal outer symbol of the star, we all are going to see that we all do see it, although maybe it's just a little muddy. When we sit to meditate we lift up our eyes, because the consciousness follows the eyes. And we look into the light at the forehead. That is the journey of the wise men trying to make that journey toward the star. And so that arduous journey is again symbolic of our journey, in trying to with our consciousness with our life force, reach to and merge with that star. Simply the journey of the spiritual path is simply this to calm ourselves sufficiently to go into that great state.
I mentioned that it's the state of that cosmic consciousness that Yogananda talked about in that beautiful pivotal chapter. He ends the chapter by saying something very interesting. He said that as often as I was able to stop or calm the twin tumults of breath, and restless mind, I returned to that state. And so, one can say that the whole of the spiritual path is the journey to try to still the tumults of the breath, which represents the breath is our energy or our life force. And the reason that we breathe is because it's going outward. It's in, out, in out, it's rhythmical and it's dual. But when we stop that breath, we're still alive. Our life force is still alive, but it's now completely contained within the deep spine, within our own true self. And when that happens, the restless mind begins to calm down. And then we perceive that light, clearly. But just as Yogananda did, in that chapter, we don't look at the light. We perceive that we are that light, and in that light, that's when we even have a glimmer of that light. That's the birth of the baby, Christ consciousness within us, the searching for it. The yearning to go there the willingness to make that journey, however long however arduous it may seem, is the journey that every soul must ultimately make.
And you and I are deeply, deeply blessed, that we want to make that journey. And as Yogananda said, every desire has to be fulfilled. And so the desire to make that journey, the desire to ultimately unite with the Christ consciousness when that desire arises in our consciousness, the grand game is almost over. And you and I have that desire strongly. We wouldn't be here we wouldn't be watching this. Ultimately, that is the story of the journey of everyone. As the story of Christmas as the story of the Star of Bethlehem, as the story of the deep yearning, of the heart and soul of each of us. God bless you."
