of the eyes as two cameras mounted on the face, but in reality they are elaborate and complex extensions of the brain, and each of these extensions is designed to both absorb and emit light. Each eye contains 126 million photoreceptors. Approximately 95 percent of these receptors (called rods) are distributed spaciously throughout the retina. The other 5 percent (called cones) are primarily compacted into a tiny area called the macula. Rods are extremely sensitive, functioning under low-level light conditions and responding to motion. Cones are less sensitive, adapted to color perception and high-resolution vision.
Based on their design, rods seem to be able to sense things before our conscious mind registers their form. In fact, researchers from Rockefeller University and the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Austria recently demonstrated that the human eye can detect a single photon of light. Since a photon is the smallest undividable unit of energy, this discovery clearly confirms that our eyes are designed to operate at the quantum level of reality, and our vision has been honed by evolution to function at its maximum potential.
Yet photons are technically invisible. They do not create an image that the brain can see, yet this minute amount of light still “calls” the eye, giving new meaning to eighteenth-century essayist Jonathan Swift’s statement, “Real vision is the ability to see the invisible.” In response to this infinitesimally subtle invitation, the eye reflexively moves toward that which is calling it, and it does this without our conscious awareness. According to Alipasha Vaziri, the study’s lead researcher, “The most amazing thing is that it’s not like seeing light. It’s almost a feeling, at the threshold of imagination.”
Cones inspect things carefully when the situation demands it but require significantly brighter light to do so. So when your optometrist asks you which is better, number one or number two, your cones allow you to know the difference. As you can see, vision is primarily a global process that continuously aligns us with the greater whole and zeros in on details only when necessary. Our life experiences are primarily the result of the ongoing interaction that links our eyes with light.
The process of vision — our response to what we see — begins within a few quadrillionths of a second after light enters the eye, enabling the information encoded in light to be transmitted to, and interpreted by, the brain and all systems connected to it at light speed. We might think, “Look at that car.” In reality, light bounced off the car, attracted our eye, entered our brain, and sent signals down various nerve endings long before the thought “Look at that” surfaced. Hence the wisdom behind the expression “It caught my eye.” Yet rarely do we ask what the “it” is to which we are referring. My sense is that this “it” is the same light the Bible refers to as “God,” and quantum physicists describe as the formless bedrock of consciousness guiding every step of our lives — the intelligence of life.
Light guides more than just our eyesight. It also guides our breathing, our heartbeat, our sleep-wake cycle, and much more. The eye contains nonvisual, light-sensing cells that are developed and functioning long before the rods and cones that process light into vision are operative. In fact, these cells may be present at birth, confirming that light entering the eyes directs our body’s homeodynamic process from the earliest stages of life.
When light enters the eyes, the entire brain lights up because the light does not just travel to the brain’s visual cortex, enabling us to see. It travels along several different routes that involve the entire brain, significantly affecting all our life-sustaining functions as well as our emotions, balance, and coordination, to name a few. For example, light entering the eyes goes to the “brain’s brain,” the hypothalamus, which regulates the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system, as well as our reaction and adaptation to stress. Using light-activated information, the hypothalamus communicates with the body’s true “master gland,” the pineal. The pineal is the same structure that allows humpback whales to use light during their annual migrations.
Referred to as the “third eye” by Indian mystics and the “seat of the soul” by seventeenth-century mathematician and philosopher Descartes, the pineal gland, the body’s “regulator of regulators,” shares information about environmental light changes and the earth’s electromagnetic field with every cell of the body at the same instance of time. In doing so, each cell effortlessly upgrades and synchronizes its function with Mother Nature, bringing us to our natural state of oneness with no effort or thinking required.
So when light contacts the body’s energy field, it resonates first with the pineal. The pineal, acting as the conductor of the endocrine symphony, then entrains the pituitary, thyroid, thymus, pancreas, gonads, and adrenals, translating light energy into electricity, magnetism, and eventually to chemical energy itself. It has now been confirmed that the order of endocrine entrainment in the human body correlates completely with ancient medical systems that describe the workings of the body’s major energy centers or chakras.
In addition to the visual and nonvisual effects of light by way of the eyes, light also guides the trillions of cells in our body via a process called photobiomodulation, catalyzing a cascade of events that stimulate and/or inhibit cellular activity down to the DNA. This process reveals that when the cell’s powerhouse, the mitochondria, absorbs light, it significantly impacts the production of adenosine triphosphate. This is the energy used by cells to power the metabolic processes that create DNA, ribonucleic acid, proteins, and enzymes, as well as other biological materials required to repair or regenerate cellular components, nurture cell division, and restore homeostasis.
All biological life is composed of, and dependent on, light. The term solar system means “of or derived from the sun.” In fact, 98 percent of the sun’s light enters the body through the eyes, and the other 2 percent enters by way of the skin. Thus, light is the primal nourishment for life. The body is a biological light receptor, the eyes are transparent biological windows designed to receive and emit light, and all physiological functions are light dependent. For example, routine exposure to sunlight reduces resting heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, while increasing energy, strength, endurance, stress tolerance, and the ability of the blood to absorb and carry oxygen.
After forty-five years of investigating light and its therapeutic applications, I have concluded that the intelligence of life summons us through light, guiding and illuminating our entire life’s journey. Light and life are inseparable.
Each one of you has a priceless treasure: there is light emanating from your eyes, which illuminates mountains, rivers, and the great earth.
— ZEN MASTER CHANGQING DA’AN
Our eyes not only absorb light, but they also reflect and emit it, causing our eyes to literally light up under certain conditions and appear dim under others. Think of the last time you interacted with a baby. Perhaps after you made some cooing sounds or funny faces, you focused on the baby’s eyes and noticed their sparkle. Yet when you look at someone who is in distress or is not feeling well, their eyes seem to have lost their luster. What’s behind this phenomenon? As is often attributed to Shakespeare, the eyes are the windows of the soul.
In chapter 1, we saw that many creatures take part in extraordinary journeys guided by something outside them that is inseparably aligned with something inside them. Our life journey is also guided in the same way by light. When this alignment happens, a state of oneness known as presence arises within us; our eyes light up and the next step of
