words, happiness allows us to see, remember, and understand more, expanding the size of the window through which we see the world.
When a patient’s view of life is bleak, their field of vision reflects it and is often reduced to tunnel vision, collapsing their awareness and their ability to perceive and respond to life. Perhaps that’s why the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “Use the light that dwells within you to regain your natural clarity of sight.”
As it turns out, the pupil is the body’s most sensitive barometer of activity in the autonomic nervous system, responding as much to light entering the eyes as it does to light exiting the eyes. But this is not a new idea. In the second century CE, the renowned Greek philosopher and physician Galen said that vision comes from the brain and out through the eyes. In addition, most Islamic scholars in the ninth century also believed that light emanates from the eyes. Perhaps the pupil is indeed the “window of the soul” in that it both receives the light without and projects the light within — the alignment I mentioned earlier.
Since pupillary changes occur without our knowledge, they reveal our deepest feelings. In The Human Animal, zoologist, ethologist, and human sociobiology expert Dr. Desmond Morris writes, “The pupils cannot lie because we have no conscious control over them.” This is why professional poker players frequently wear sunglasses while playing; they do not want to reveal how they feel about their cards.
The eyes not only reflect our innermost terrain, but they also reveal when we are truly connecting with another. In fact, Dr. Morris confirms that during “early stages of courtship the eyes transmit vital signals. Since the pupils expand slightly more than usual when they see something they like, we can tell whether we are ‘being liked’ or not. . . .If, on the other hand, the pupils shrink to pinpricks when we gaze closely at our companion’s face, we might as well give up.”
In a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, researchers found that when we are deeply involved in speaking and listening to each other our pupillary dilations synchronize, as if our two minds become one.
Such findings fueled my early work, confirming that our eyes dynamically reflect our physical, emotional, and spiritual development more vividly than any other part of the body. This was an epiphany for me because, aside from my experience with Dr. Streff, I had been taught that light’s interaction with the eyes was strictly a one-way street. As noted, a number of ancient philosophers, including Plato, Euclid, and Ptolemy, believed that light emanates from the eyes, rendering sight as much a projective process as a receptive one.
Trusting Life’s Guidance
The ease with which light traverses the human energy system is an indication of how much we trust our life’s guidance. If we trust life, we live in a state of effortless flow and our eyes and aura appear bright because no light is lost. If we do not trust life, however, we think ahead and try hard, losing the light naturally visible in our eyes. The light in our eyes is a reflection of our light content, a gauge of our congruence and coherence with life, which is a reflection of our state of consciousness. When our eyes appear dull or dim, they indicate a state of heaviness, stagnation, and a lack of life force. When our eyes appear bright, they indicate grace, flow, and vibrancy.
I also observed that our degree of connectedness with life is reflected in our breathing cycle. When our eyes are bright, our breathing is full and vice versa. Since breathing is one of the most fundamental indicators of physiological coherence, as well as a reflection of the rhythmic expansion and contraction associated with the very cadence of life, it would make sense that an inhibition of this flow would impact us on many levels. Yet most of us respire in a shallow, irregular manner. In his book Pathways to Peace, Swami Satchidananda confirms this fact when he asserts, “we use only one-seventh of our lungs in normal breathing.”
When I observed how thinking caused my patients to hold their breath, and that it reduced the light emanating from their eyes, I wondered why. I remembered being taught to “work hard” and “try my best” in school, neither of which led to my ultimate success. I eventually realized that working hard might not be the key to our creative breakthroughs, and that “thinking ahead” is often an attempt to combat our fear of the unknown, which can obscure the very answers we seek. Infants and young children do not “think ahead” or look for anything. In fact, they respond to whatever calls their attention, guided by a flow of knowledge available to us all.
So I began to encourage patients’ awareness of the subtle machinations they performed while facing tasks they deemed difficult. I helped them shine an inner light on the thoughts and concerns that arose, the strategies they employed to “succeed,” and most importantly, whether those strategies worked or not. In the process, they directly experienced how thinking ahead actually kept them behind.
For one of the exercises, I adapted a technique introduced to me by my dear friend and colleague Dr. Ray Gottlieb and originally developed by Dr. Robert Pepper as part of Pepper Stress Therapy. Using a chart with several rows of arrows, each pointing in a different direction, I asked patients to call out the direction of each arrow while simultaneously moving their arms in the opposite direction of what the arrow indicated. As you can imagine, this resulted in confusion (if not panic) — and the desire to “get it right” along with the tendency for them to hold their breath. However, when they discovered this and started breathing again, their brilliance emerged free of charge.
I remember a young woman who attended one of my workshops. I asked her to remove her thick glasses and stand as close to the arrow chart as she needed to see it clearly. Since the arrows were fairly large, she was able to see them from about three feet away. Every time she mastered an exercise, I asked her to take a deep breath and step a bit farther from the chart. Within twenty minutes she was twenty-five feet away and still able to see it clearly. I checked her eyesight after that experience and it had improved by 200 percent.
I have since used this exercise and others like it with thousands of individuals, including members of the US Olympic Team and world-class athletes. Time and time again it has led to significant improvements in attention, memory coordination, and sports performance, as well as speed, accuracy, and fluidity of response to complex situations. Most interesting was my observation that our systems seem naturally equipped to respond to life rather than direct it. This became the thrust of my later philosophical inquiry.
We excel when we stop thinking and start responding. When we try to anticipate and control what happens to us rather than responding to life as it presents itself, we tighten up and our performance drops. However, when we flow with life, following wherever it leads us, we meet life head-on with our eyes open. This experience allows us to discover a new level of ease and presence without any effort. Acknowledging that the intelligence of life always has the first move inspires an organic and balanced form of collaboration, as we follow life’s invitation toward our greatest potential.
The following story tells of my own “invitation” to explore my potential. In the spring of 1969 I was accepted to dental school under the condition that I complete three summer courses prior to fall enrollment. I contacted the only accredited university in Miami (where I would be spending the summer) and learned that two of the courses were being offered simultaneously, making it impossible to fulfill all three prerequisites before fall enrollment. This meant I would need to wait another year before starting school.
That afternoon, one of my fraternity brothers told me he was going to Memphis to visit his family and asked if I wanted to join. I said yes. After we arrived, my friend took me sightseeing. As we drove down one of the main roads, we passed a college of optometry and I felt compelled to stop there — odd, since I had never considered optometry as a career. “Turn around!” I yelled. He pulled over and I literally ran to the admissions office to ask for an application. Since most of the staff and students were on holiday break, the office was not busy and I received an appointment
