Look: See With Heart

Body-minds (aka, persons) have a habit of seeing and judging. We do it so automatically that we’re often unaware that we’re doing it. We see–a person, object, or behaviour—and we label them as good or bad; right or wrong, pure or impure. And the more we judge, the more we notice “that” which we deem must be judged. Life could be right “if only” this were changed and that and that and that. We do this to apparent “others,” and we also do this to ourselves–often ruthlessly. By engaging judgment, we feed the internal “i” that is the opinion holder of the world. If we deem ourselves unworthy of love, we’ll spend a lifetime to become enough. And this, we call life. It is, in fact, hell. There is a much kinder and gentler way to live that’s based on the following passage from Mathew 7:7:

Ask, and it shall be given you;
Seek, and ye shall find;
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

When we deliberately place our attention on finding goodness in any situation, we find more goodness. When we look for what is right, we find more that is right. When we practice gratitude so often that it becomes our default way of being, we literally transform the quality of our days. We find glory where there was insignificance; harmony where there was conflict; beauty where there was ugliness.

The transformation of our world is an inner work. It begins and ends with us.

A passage from The Heart of Sufism, by Hazrat Inayat Khan, offers us more wise guidance: “There comes a time in the life of a man [woman] when he can see some good in the worst man [woman] in the world. And when he has reached that point, though the good were covered with a thousand covers, he would put his hand on what is good, because he looks for good and attracts what is good.”

Look: See with heart.