43. Look Out!

Imagine you are at the beach. If you look straight ahead you see the horizon. If you look down you see your toes. If you look up you see the sky.

If you look straight ahead you are in the present and observing what is happening. If you look up you are seeking enlightenment of some kind. If you are looking down you are rehashing the past (and 'hearing' it too).

Whether you have your eyes open or closed it is beneficial to look straight ahead, not down (especially not down) and not up although you automatically look up when you are searching for answers. I know this sounds crazy but there is some semi-solid science behind it with a name that I can't remember*. It doesn't matter what the name is because you have to see for yourself if it works.

The best way to see if this works is to try it. When you are looking down and mostly to the left you are "hearing" voices from the past. Past warnings, admonitions, etc. are "stored" down in your lower left. The future is "stored" in your upper right and this is so pronounced in most people that many a religion makes a big deal about "keeping your eyes focused on the Lord", or Heaven or Nirvana.

I walk my Chihuahua dogs nightly and I find that if I look down I don't feel so sprightly. I thought, being nighttime, that looking down was just good sense. But I find that if I look straight ahead and just occasionally drop my eyes (not my head) I see everything I have to and I feel a helluva lot better. Continued self-observation has proven to me that every time I don't feel so hot I'm looking down. Even with my eyes closed, as in going to sleep or meditation I feel much better "looking" straight ahead.

So where you look determines to a marked degree how you think. And the opposite is also true: how you think determines to a marked degree where your gaze is. You can prove this out rather easily on yourself. And by carefully observing others you can make some shrewd guesses about their thinking.

Let me know how this goes for you. I'm interested.

* The name, I think, is Neuro-Linguistic Programming started by Richard Bandler.