Thursday, April 1, 2010

Sight and Vision



Close your eyes and imagine 'solar system' can you visualize all the planets moving around the sun in their own orbits? Open your eyes and look for all these planets with naked eyes.. can you see them all?



It is the difference between vision and sight. It is applicable to every aspects of our human life. It is dangerous to live by sight without vision.

Many people have been living by sight alone, and that's one reason they have all kinds of problems for example, health, professions, financial status, relationships, society etc., Living only by sight can kill us. Life is so full of depressing things that you need to learn to live by vision and see with the eyes of faith. One important factor to get rid of depression is to distinguish the difference between 'needs' and 'wants'. In the illusionary state every thing in the sight might appear 'needs' though they are 'wants'. The simple example is 'house' is the need 'white house' is the wants. Remember that sight is the ability to see things as they are, and vision is the ability to see things as they should be. we know that the discouraging things we see and hear are temporary, they still can distress and depress us. We must keep our visions constantly before us, however, because the visions in our hearts are greater than our environments.

I was inspired by the story told by Swami Vivekananda: [source]

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A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course, the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story’s sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.
“Where are you form?”
“I am from the sea.”
“The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?” and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.
“My friend,” said the frog of the sea, “how do you compare the sea with your little well?”
Then the frog took another leap and asked, “Is your sea so big?”
“What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!”
“Well, then,” said the frog of the well, “nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out.”

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Even today this story is applicable to modern life. Often we come across people who think what they knew is 'great' due to their limited exposure, experience, environment and expertise etc., If you try to tell the 'truth' or 'vision' it is often 'ignored' or 'rejected by the system'. Every one saw sky, 'One' asked the question why it is blue? Every one knows 'things are falling' and 'One' explained.

May be due to 'fear of being turned out from the system' many of us often keep our 'vision' secret helplessly. It requires tremendous courage, confidence and concentration to crystallize the vision and to see things as they should be.

Many times you will feel that people don't see you or recognize you at the peak or your career (middle), may be because you are 'too bright' to see.. it is exactly the same in our real life scenario where you can 'look' at the 'Sun' only in the dawn and dusk times, but not at 'noon' (mid-day). You need special glass or 'vision' to understand this. There are few people who enjoy the comfort of 'dawn & dusk' all times. Now you know the reason why? :)

Sight is important however, please go beyond what you can 'see' and create your own 'vision' for better life!

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