If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
– Matthew 6:22
This is one of the sayings (pointers) that makes immediate sense if it fits our experience, and – I imagine – can be very puzzling if it doesn’t.
I experience a “single eye” in the sense that anything in experience – what we often label as the wider world and myself as this human being – happens within/as what I am. Put a bit clumsily, as it often is, it all happens within/as awareness. It’s experienced as one. (Although since there is some identification with/as an I, that one is sometimes not recognized as part of that field.)
This single eye is of course what’s already here, whether it’s noticed or not. And we can notice it through headless experiments, the Big Mind process, or other forms of pointers and inquiry.
Note: If there is a strong identification as me, as this human self with two eyes, experience is filtered through that image of a me with two eyes. There is an experience of experiencing the visual world through two eyes. As this identification softens or is released, the field of experience is recognized as one seamless field. And this field includes even identifications and what’s identified with, such as me (human self) or I (an observer, doer).
Note 2: What about the light? This can probably be understood in many different ways. One is that this body is experienced as light. Whether my physical eyes are closed or open, this physical body appears as space, as sensations, as light. Sometimes, light is in the foreground and sometimes more in the background. Again, the immediate experience is of it as light. And that’s true for any experience – whether it’s labeled the wider world or this body. The scene at the end of The Matrix, where Neo experiences everything as light, fits my experience quite well (although the light is far more “subtle” in my experience). It’s all light, and – for me so far – golden light. And this light is, as any other experience, awareness. It happens within and as awareness.
Note 3: The single eye can also be interpreted as an analogy. When I find the genuine validity in both ends of a polarity – for instance “I am/I am not” – my “eye is single”. I can find the validity in both points of view, and also see both as stories and pointers. This is related to the more immediate experience of a “single eye” described above. When the eye is single in the more immediate sense, it seems to come with an embrace of polarities.
Note 4: The single eye can of course be related to the “third eye” as well. And this third eye relates to both of the ways of understanding the saying describe above. As the third eye opens, our identity may shift to awareness, and there is an embrace of the validity in any set of stories on the same topic (although we will of course chose some as practical guidelines for the situation we are in).