The Camera Pointed the Wrong Way

Now, you see, we have a very peculiar situation in this human game. We have been built, or perhaps I should say “engineered” by the cosmic process, with a set of windows that only open in one direction. If you look at the way a human being is constructed, our eyes are like little cameras focused perpetually on the horizon. Our ears are like microphones tuned to the vibrations of the wind and the voices of others. Our skin, our tongue, our nose – they are all scouts, sent out into the world to report back on what is “out there.”

There is an ancient wisdom that tells us the Supreme Being, in a moment of what you might call divine mischief, “destroyed” the senses by projecting them outward. And because of this, we are all under the magnificent hallucination that the “real world” is something you find by looking through a telescope or scrolling through a newsfeed. We are constantly asking, “What’s happening in the city? What’s happening in the country? Why did the universe begin?” But we almost never stop to ask the most embarrassing question of all: Who is asking?

The Biological Prank

You see, looking inward is not “natural” to the biological organism. It feels like trying to turn your eyeballs around to look at your own brain. It’s a heroic effort, a kind of spiritual gymnastics that most people would rather avoid. They follow the path of least resistance, which is to simply drift downstream with the “outgoing” current. They get “muddied” in the insanity of the world, and then they wonder why they feel stressed, anxious, and fearful.

But why is the word “destroyed” used for this outward tendency? Because when you are completely identified with the “out there,” you lose your center. You become a fragment in a fragmented world. You are like a person who is so engrossed in a television show that they have forgotten they are sitting in a chair. You are so busy reacting to the “objective” world that you’ve forgotten the Subject – the one who is doing the experiencing.

We have a clue to our true nature every single night. When you go into deep, dreamless sleep, the windows are shuttered. The mind and the senses are withdrawn. And what happens? The stress vanishes. The fear vanishes. The hatred vanishes. In that state, you are perfectly at peace, not because you’ve “solved” the world’s problems, but because you’ve stopped looking at them. Now, we can’t stay in deep sleep forever – that would be a bit dull, wouldn’t it? The game requires us to be awake. But the great secret is: is it possible to be wide awake in the middle of the marketplace and still have the peace of the deep sleep?

The Fish with Wings

The answer, as the great teachers tell us, is a resounding “Yes!” But it requires a radical shift in perspective. You have to look at everything “subjectively.” Now, don’t misunderstand me. This doesn’t mean you become selfish or narcissistic. It means you realize that the world you see is a reflection of the one who sees it. Imagine a little fish in the water, surrounded by enemies. The fish wants to escape. It could try to change the water, or fight every enemy, but it would eventually fail. Instead, the fish evolves wings and becomes a bird. It doesn’t change the water; it changes itself. This is the ultimate principle: The subjective world rules the objective. If you change the viewer, the view is bound to change. If you purify the “subject,” the world is purified.

We Vedantists – and by that, I mean those of us who see the unity of existence – should always ask: “Why do I see that?” If I see evil and misery, I must look at the lens I am using. If I am immune to anger, I can never “see” an angry world. If I am immune to hatred, the world cannot hate me. We have no power to be injured by the universe unless we first allow ourselves to be injured from within.

The Vanishing Mirror

When you begin to look out while looking in, the labels “inside” and “outside” start to feel a bit silly. You realize that the “Great Illusion” – that mischievous veil that twists our thinking – is not something “out there” in the world. It’s a process happening in your own mind. It’s your own mindless actions and selfish relationships that create the darkness.

As you persist in this practice, it becomes impossible to hate anyone. You realize that when you saw a “bad person,” you were actually just making a optical mistake. You were seeing a limited human being where you should have seen the divine light. It was your mistake, not theirs! This doesn’t mean you let people walk all over you, but it changes your attitude. You become calmer, less judgmental. You realize that if they are making mistakes, well, you’ve made plenty of those yourself, haven’t you?

Suddenly, there is more compassion and less irritation. You start to appreciate the joy in others because you’ve found the source of joy in yourself. And as this practice reaches perfection, the “exile” is over. You realize that the Inner Self – the true you – is not a little ghost sitting inside your head. It is the reality that is below, above, behind, in front, to the south, and to the north. The Inner Self is all this. You aren’t “in” the world; the world is “in” you. And that, my friends, is the only place where true, eternal freedom can ever be found.