The third eye (ajna chakra) has to do with seeing auras, seeing into the future, seeing past lives, and such. Right?

Holding polarities: transcend and embrace

Well, maybe, but more simply, it has to do with holding polarities. It is the third eye that transcends and embraces the views from the two conventional eyes.

It transcends in that it sees and holds both, yet is inherently free from and is not identified with either.

It embraces, in that it includes and is informed by the conventional views.

So how can we develop or connect with the third eye?

How to develop the third eye: Big Mind process

One way is the Big Mind process. We explore the different voices at the personal level, and see that while all of them are very useful in our human life, none of them holds any absolute truth.

More specifically, we can explore polar opposite or complementary voices. We see see that they each have an important function, they each serve our human self in a very real way. Yet, they also hold apparently opposite views of the world.

So we can move beyond these two into the voice that sees both.

This voice is inherently free from and not identified with either.

Yet it embraces both. It can freely engage with either. It can bring either forth as needed in a situation. It can draw on information from both, integrating it into a fuller picture. It is the voice that holds and engages with the polarity.

How to develop the third eye: The Work

Another way to develop these aspects of the third eye is The Work.

We take a belief in a thought. Explore the consequences of holding onto this belief. Explore who or what we would be without attaching to the thought and seeing it as inherently true. And turn it around to its many opposite versions, and explore the grain of truth in each of these.

In this way, we see that any statement - any story, idea, thought, map, model, interpretation, is inherently free from any absolute truth.

They are all relative truths.

They can be very useful as practical guidelines, for helping our human self orient and function in the world.

Yet if there is an attachment to them, if they are seen as absolutely true, if there is a belief in them, it creates no end of drama, suffering and discomfort.

Through this form of inquiry, we find the space that is free from yet embraces all of the relative truths, in this case the initial statement and all of its turnarounds.

Labels: big mind process, relative and absolute