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But blessed [fortunate, joyful] are your eyes because they see, ...
-Jesus, Gospel of Matthew 13.16
*Implied, some "eyes" are wide open and do not see. Cf. Revelation 3.22, "Let those with ears hear [i.e., perceive, understand] what the Spirit says to the assemblies."
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A rabbi was skilled in interpreting the Jerusalem Talmud. Someone asked him how he understood it so well. He answered, "Because I know the Source of the Jerusalem Talmud."
*Talmud, lit. "study, learning," the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law and legend; made of the Mishnah and the Gemara. There are two versions: the Babylonian and the earlier Palestinian or Jerusalem Talmud. Considered normative by traditional religious Jews.
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The meaning of sacred texts rests in the source of them. As says Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda), in The Gospel of Thomas for Awakening, regarding Jesus' teaching, "[To] find the meaning of Jesus' mystical sayings is to inwardly perceive the reality of their meaning and to attain the state of consciousness on which they are based."
As one draws close to the source, one begins to see what is written differently - sees all differently. One moves from a surface understanding gained from others to a direct sense of meeting - Burke's "inwardly perceive" - and often sees what conflicts with prior learning. One moves from experiencing texts as propositional and doctrinal to wisdom teaching.
In this seeing, one utilizes the mind, yet the seeing itself arises fresh, spontaneously. Clinging to intellectualizing precludes the seeing.
Others can lead us only so far. As the late poet Lew Welch wrote, "Somebody showed it to me and I found it by myself." Others cannot see spiritual wisdom for us anymore more than we can see an object through someone else's eyes or taste food through their tongue.
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We may name the source differently, but the source is the source. God. Consciousness. HaShem. Holy Spirit. Sat Guru. The Light.
To see spiritually - to see that-of-spirit - we become spirit-attuned. So, I Corinthians 2.14-15 reads:
Natural [unspiritual, carnal] persons do not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to them, and they are not able to understand [know, as know directly, intimately], for such is spiritually discerned. Now, those spiritual discern all, but they themselves are discerned by no one [that is, unspiritual ones cannot understand (know) spiritual ones anymore than spiritual teaching - hence, often oppose them or think them stupid, deceived, or heretical].
*All spiritual understanding is direct, intimate knowing, wholehearted meeting.
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Last, we create a relationship with the source and what we are looking at. You cannot pull spiritual meaning out of a text anymore than out of a rock. We let the insight come to us. So, Friedrich Nietzsche said, "If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Practice lingering. Keep looking until you see, for you will be shown. You will see what you need to see, for seeing will arise. You will become the seeing by seeing.
*(C) brian k. wilcox, 2025
*Welch and Nietzsche quotes from David Schiller. The Little Book of Zen.
