Inner eye: direct knowing

Dear Friends.  A quick reminder we will be hosting a contemplative worship service next Monday November 24 at 7.30pm. All are welcome.

On Monday we focused on Matthew 6.23-24.

Matthew 6:23-24

The lamplight in your being is the inner eye. If that eye is open and sound,then your whole being will be flooded with illumination. But if your inner eye is clouded, then your being will grow dark. If it is extinguished, how great will be your darkness!

As we have been weaving our way through the Sermon on the Mount, we have focused on the orientation to the practice of presence, especially the felt sense of the embodied now. What is the direct experience, the felt experience in the body now? In these words from Matthew we are moving towards direct knowing, or knowing through what he calls the inner eye. Over the last few weeks we have found that there are layers of obscuration-- judgements, beliefs, defense mechanisms, numbness and ultimately unconsciousness-- between "me and my experience". There seems to be a gap. This is the experience of living and experiencing through the lens of the separate self, otherwise known as ego. And this gap is the root cause of suffering.

Direct knowing, seeing through the inner eye is knowingness that rises up through presence, through the direct experience. It is immediate, spontaneous, flowing knowing. It is revelatory. Ordinary knowing, what we assume is the true way and only way to know--- is mediated through thinking, evaluating, comparing. It is knowing through the lens of ego, and so here too there is a sense of a gap, a separation.  Ordinary knowing is very useful if you are navigating through the Healthcare website!! But in the realm of presence ordinary knowing is veils us from deeper wisdom.

Direct knowing has access to memory and prior knowledge, but it is often experienced as a leap of insight, an ah ha moment. A moment when the dots line up. It is also quite ordinary. When you are in touch with presence you know the quality of presence. You know when it is warm love, and not still clarity. You don't have to figure it out. Presence knows itself. Its capacity to know directly is not separate from presence. So knowing as this kind of wisdom is the nature of presence itself. And it is available to us all the time. We just don't recognize it.

We ended with there are these wonderful lines from Matthew 5:15-16. Nor do you light a lamp then put it under some basket, but on a lamp stand where it can illuminate the whole house. So let your inner light shine before humanity, so that they may be able to witness your works of beauty and so worship the Beautiful One, your source in heavens.

Journal first impressions. What is your inner eye? What is illumination?

Turn me a way you distrust, ignore or avoid direct knowing.

Tell me a way you experience inner seeing/ direct knowing.

Explore the difference between ordinary, familiar knowing and knowing as revelation or illumination. How does the practice of presence help us discern between the two ways of knowing.

Stay warm!!! Alison