Seeing As An Exchange

Seeing is an exchange of knowledge. Understanding this is understanding that there is a spiritual element behind the process of seeing. When we look at an object, there is more going on than the eye’s ability to scan the size or color of the object. There is an actual exchange taking place that goes beyond the sense of seeing as we ordinarily understand it.

People can feel the gaze of another person without seeing it happen. You can have your back turned and yet know when someone is watching you. This is not superstition. You can prove it yourself simply by walking down the street, noticing when you feel a gaze behind you, and turning to see if it is true. How can we feel someone seeing us?

Reductionist science does not have an answer for this question, but spiritual science does. The human gaze is not simply taking in information; it is also projecting outward. An exchange takes place that works on multiple levels when we use the faculty of sight. This exchange, in fact, goes beyond the physical, as Rudolf Steiner explained in his lecture Spiritual Relation in the Configuration of the Human Organism:

“For a superficial observation it might look as if the effect on the physical organism is that which comes about from seeing the surrounding. Yet it is not so. We do have, when we are seeing, the physical eye, but everything that goes on in the physical eye is only something mediating. In reality, what happens first is a play of processes in the ego and the astral organism.”

A transaction—a spiritual transaction—actually takes place when we look at something. This is truly an incredible thought, and the key to understanding it is simple: try it yourself. From this perspective, it is possible that what we look at is, to some degree, what we become, and that we have that same influence on the things that receive our gaze. When you look deeply at something, that thing enters into you, and you into it. Everything in the universe has a consciousness of some level.

So look at the stars.

Stare at them. Watch the light around them. Watch how they glow. The starlight reaches down to us from many ages past. There is, perhaps, no higher seeing exchange for mankind. Truly seeing the stars opens your mind to the ancient formative powers contained within starlight. When you exchange with these powers, you can perhaps, even to a small degree, become a part of them. The more you learn to truly look, the more possibilities can come to life.