What role does Vision/Sight play in awakening?

[QandC]

Whenever I have had awakening experiences, it's been very visual. I don't mean in a sense where I have hallucinated, but I mean that the "sight" is a big part of it. As if me 'seeing' that I become a part of everything. It's like a visual enlightenment.

But I don't know, does it play a big role or what is it? 

Edited August 18, 2020 by QandC

[Johnny5]

Not sure if I understand you correctly. To me the external senses are secondary, but maybe that's just me.

I think vision may actually be the most difficult one. So much of our usual sense of reality is informed by it.

 

[QandC]

@Johnny5 Alright but I mean, the 'experience' of or "understanding" of enlightenment, when you awaken or have an experience of it, for me and what I have experienced is that it is very visual. Like, there is an understanding to the degree of awakening because I see things differently. Like actually with my eyesight, things look the same but still the perception of it all has flipped

[Johnny5]

@QandC I had a time where the visual world seemed to lose much of its depth and definition somehow, if that's what you mean? That's probably how it became secondary, come to think of it...

What's actually going on there is the "mental overlay" thinning out. In other words, we assume that we're attending to the visual field, but usually we're actually attending to fleeting, barely noticable mental projections "in front of" the visual field, without even realizing it.

In fact that's what directs your eyes. They don't move towards something in the visual field, but towards our own mental projections in front of it.

In other words we tend to see only our own accumulated "knowledge" about things (i.e. the past) rather than the actual things themselves. And awakening will tend to involve a significant reduction in that.

Does that sound anything like what you mean?

 

[Johnny5]

23 minutes ago, QandC said:

things look the same but still the perception of it all has flipped

Oh you mean the visual perception of "the world" no longer seems external to yourself?

[QandC]

@Johnny5 Yes exactly. Good explanation.  Thank you

It's just something that has interested me for a while. I find it interesting, but people here rather wanna discuss if Jesus was real or not... jeez

[seeking_brilliance]

@QandC perhaps you dropped habitual labelling and finally saw for the first time with new eyes.  I can imagine that would be very profound

[Johnny5]

31 minutes ago, QandC said:

@Johnny5 Yes exactly. Good explanation.  Thank you

It's just something that has interested me for a while. I find it interesting, but people here rather wanna discuss if Jesus was real or not... jeez

 indeed, well then I'm glad to have found someone with similar interests.

[James123]

15 hours ago, QandC said:

Whenever I have had awakening experiences, it's been very visual. I don't mean in a sense where I have hallucinated, but I mean that the "sight" is a big part of it. As if me 'seeing' that I become a part of everything. It's like a visual enlightenment.

But I don't know, does it play a big role or what is it? 

If you didn’t realize that visuals, sensations, feelings, thoughts and senses are identical, it is aint awakening. 

[QandC]

@James123 I have realized that during my awakenings, you can read my last topic where I describe it

Edited August 19, 2020 by QandC