The question arises naturally:
“If the Lord is inside each of us, why can’t we see him?”
Without any doubts many of us accept the teachings of the Saints regarding the residence of God in us. But we feel very frustrated when all our efforts to discover it prove unsuccessful.
The key to this mystery is well in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, where Christ says: “The light of the body is the eye. If your eye is in good condition, your whole body will be enlightened. But if your eye is in bad shape, your whole body will be in darkness. If the light in You is darkness, how big is the darkness? “
Corroboration can be given from the writings of many other saints and mystics, but the Bible is generally more familiar to Western scholars, which explains its frequent use throughout this book.
Christ tells us that the inner light is contained in the “eye”, i.e. the single eye or the third eye of which all the Saints speak, it is a point halfway between the two eyes and slightly above. It is a subtle spiritual point that is not found in the physical body. It is at this subtle point that the mind and soul are knotted and at that same point we find the dispersion of consciousness in the waking state.
It is from this point down that the part of creation that we call the “physical World” is located.
It is perceived by and through the physical senses, all of which are located within the physical-material framework of man. Every time our consciousness acts below the center of the eye, we work in this physical world.
And, similarly, once we learn to gather our dispersed consciousness and bring it to the center of the eye, we rise above the physical plane of reality and enter the next region, the astral world, which is a vibratory plan of the Consciousness located just above it. Both worlds exist simultaneously, but the astral can only be penetrated when one has risen above the sensory apertures, his consciousness has been picked up in the center of the eye and it has passed inside.
Christ tells us that if we can make our eyes unique, that is, evacuate our consciousness of the body and place it in the center of the eye, we will see the splendor that is inside and we shall bask in that inner light. However, when we close our eyes, we find only darkness inside. Christ tells us that it is because we have evil in us, which serves as a barrier between the soul and the Lord. And what is this evil? All the downward (i.e. mundane) tendencies of our mind, as well as the karmas (actions) that we perform in this world, veil our consciousness so that the light inside is not experienced. All the Mystics have spoken of the mind as the essential barrier between men
And God. This mind, initially given to man so that he can function in this physical world, has swelled in importance and has taken over the soul. Now the soul must follow where the mind he wants to lead him.
The initial balance between the soul and the mind was that of the master and the servant. The soul, in its descent of the higher consciousness regions in the crude physical creation, assumed its mental as conscientious servant. The mind is needed to function in this world, much like a diving suit indispensable for a bottom diver. The mind, even as a servant, is a clutter (or cover) of the soul in the same way that the diver is entangled by the narrow suit he must wear to function in the foreign world of the sea.
The mind gets its impression of the physical world through the coarse senses. The senses themselves are slaves of the world of objects.
Thus, over a period of time, the mind learned to depend on the senses and eventually becomes their slave.
Passionate about pleasure, the mind began to run in the world of the senses to try to find satisfaction. Given that the soul is bound to the mind, the soul has had to accompany the mind in its endless odyssey in creation.
Having lost the memory of its origin in the regions of the higher consciousness, the mind is frantically traversing the world trying to find happiness by means of these sensual pleasures.
The poor mental suffering does not realise that it is not of this gross physical creation and that it is only by regaining the region of the universal mind (or universal consciousness) that it can achieve peace.
As long as the mind wanders in this physical creation, the soul will also be in excruciating pain, for it will never be free until it is separated from the mind; and this can only happen when the mind is persuaded to go “inside” and return to its own level of consciousness.
Just as the diver can get bored of the underwater sport but cannot abandon the diving suit before he has surfaced, so the soul cannot give up the mind on this plan of consciousness.