The Invisible Eyes
Invisible eyes are those that see through the inner light that is the light of consciousness or more precisely light of the heart. Heart is also called the seat of imagination that enables the eyes to see what the brain cannot perceive/comprehend and what logic cannot grasp.
And, although, especially in modern culture where brain is celebrated as a seat of intelligence and creative ideas, it is believed that when we are thinking about any problem and its solution, we are really making use of our brain or mind’s capacity to arrive at a solution, but in the end thoughts are influenced by the heart. In other words, although, it is our mind that tells us what is right and what is wrong and often helps us in taking decisions, but, in some extra-ordinary situations, when mind no longer seems able to solve a problem, heart governs or dominates our mind and makes the impossible possible. Thus heart works like invisible eyes that are able to see even in the pitch darkness when the mind becomes helpless and we start losing hope. In simple words where mind’s limits end , limits of heart start or where sight ends, insight or intuition begins to show the path.
A wonderful real life story of a person who lost his eyes to cancer when he was just 13 months old and thus became completely blind is a telling example:
Writing in Washington Post (June 26, 2105), Rachel Feltman, an editor at Popular Science Magazine, reveals that, in spite of not having an eyesight that we can call normal in physiological sense, Daniel Kish neither lost hope nor courage and began to use the technique of Ecolocation. Eolocation is the the use of reflected sound waves to determine the position of an object by measuring how long it takes for an echo to return from the distant or invisible objects around. This technique is also used by bats, dolphins and other animals to help with orientation, obstacle avoidance, food acquisition, and in case of humans for social interactions and/or activities too.
Thus in the absence of his eyes, Kish as well as his fellow echolocators are actually seeing as the scans of their brain also proves. More simply, when Kish clicks his tongue to get around, the part of the brain that processes vision “lights up” much like in a sighted person. This ability to see through sounds is also called “Eco Vision.”
More precisely, as Helena Merrimanin also explains in one of his article for BBC News, Daniel would click his tongue against the roof of his mouth and the sounds would help him work out what was around him as after bouncing off surfaces all around, sound comes back with information — distances, locations, positions, contours, densities enabling Daniel to construct images from that information.” Ultimately, he was even able to ride a bike down the road, clicking to avoid people and cars. And as Merrimanin further states, when Neuroscientists carried out an experiment with him, they found that when he clicks, he’s activating the visual part of his brain. Thus he becomes able to make a perfect picture of the world in front of him using his ears instead of eyes.
What does this prove?
According to Washington Post story, If you have normal eyesight, you probably think of sight as the ability to take a perfect picture of the world in front of you using your eyes. But vision does not work this way. The images or things we “see” are also first produced inside our own brains. And in the absence of eyes, another part of our body can also collect the data used to create those inner pictures instead. In short, it is the brain/mind that is the basic or fundamental source of all perceptions or sensory experience of the world. It is through this experience that we gain information about the environment around us. Thus if we lose one sense, we are compensated proportionally as other senses will expand out of their usual locations in the brain and into the area of the missing sense.
Moreover, as some optometrists point out, even eyes do not give us a picture of what we are seeing, or what it means. Instead it’s left to the brain to give us that sort of “insight” by making sense of the electrochemical signals the eyes deliver to it via the optic nerve, and processing them into an understandable image. Thus brain plays very important role in giving us a sense or understanding of things that come into our notice through our senses.
However, what “I see” or “can see” has no meaning if it doesn’t lead to “I understand” and ultimately “I can do.” And if I don’t understand and thus can’t also do anything, it is useless to just see. And more than understanding is taking action or showing courage to solve the problem. Thus solution doesn’t just involve logic that is product of the brain, but also (and more importantly) emotions that are the product of our heart.
Story of Kish also supports this view that pure or cold logic is of no use if your heart’s desire is not stronger enough to overcome the challenge you face. Thus only formal logic fails to work in situations where things are complex to the point that they can’t be simplified into fundamental logical constructs. And, although, logic is representative and conceptional it doesn’t necessarily represent things in reality itself. When you know, like Daniel Kish, that the chances of your achieving your goal or fulfilling your desire are very bleak and that it could look very stupid or foolish to advance towards that direction but your heart cries out “What if you could do? What if you are not as helpless as you think yourself to be?” That is when logic fails and heart does it’s magic. The heart takes over and steers clear out of everything rational and throws you into finally taking that step you always wanted to but just did not trust your heart enough.
Ancient people too were more intrigued with the heart as the source of life and seat of the soul. For science, heart is a physical organ with function of pumping blood throughout the body, but for philosophers, it is also a metaphorical place of great depth and wisdom. To truly know something we must come to “know it by heart.”
So insight is the real eye or eye of the heart that not only remains invisible but also reveals and understands the invisible or inward to help us make bold and wiser decisions and not just logical. Purely logical thinking is based on cold data, so-called facts, and evidence. But then there are feelings or emotions such as, love, kindness, affection, caring, courage, etc. And if you ignore these feelings or emotions, you are just acting like computer making automated decisions solely analyzing large datasets. But you are not computer. You are first and foremost a human being who has emotions. For instance, sometimes parents put their own life in danger to save the life of their child that apparently seems illogical. There is also another example: Suppose there is a long plank of wood on the ground and you can walk its length a few times. It is not much difficult to do this. However, if this same plank of wood is placed many feet above the ground between two buildings, you will feel walking on it very risky as fear will overcome logic.
In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman also postulates that understanding emotions is more important to leading a successful life than relying on merely logic or intelligence.
And finally, you can never be altruist if you only believe in logic and calculations.
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References:
ii) https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-35550768
iii) https://byjus.com/question-answer/what-does-echolocation-mean/
