How Do You See? Options

I was curious as to how members here see things such as auras and other things that the normal person does not see. Like me i noticed that i see sylphs really easy when i asked few of my family and friends they said they had no clue they had never seen anything like that. I also can see auras somewhat ok every now and then when im just spaced out i admit im not the best at seeing them as i have not practiced that much. So how do you see? I have always found it intriguing to here how others view the world. I also have something with my eyes have had it my whole life i have very good vision but at any time at will i can make everything blurry but not like i cannot see it's almost like it disperses light. and makes everything closer but like even a little red dot looks like a fire work of light. No one else i have ever talked to can do this. Not sure exactly what it even is i sometimes do it whenever i get nerveous seems to calm me down. But nevertheless getting of topic so how do others here see the world around you?

Normally I don't work by seeing energy or people's auras. I work by feeling energy. Occasionally I will begin seeing energy but it isn't something I can do at will or consistently. It generally seems to occur when I'm at another level of consciousness. Probably I happen to reach the particular level of consciousness that enables me to see energy rather like tuning on a particular radio station.

I know people who can see auras easily and consistently, while I can feel auras easily and consistently. I also work sometimes by hearing energy, the tones and volume and clarity. Generally you are good at one but not the others, I tend to be a tactile kinaesthetic person so it seems natural that I work easiest at feeling energy.

Seeing things like sylphs is another sort of phenomena. That would maybe lie more in the shamanic end of things.

Normally I don't work by seeing energy or people's auras. I work by feeling energy. Occasionally I will begin seeing energy but it isn't something I can do at will or consistently. It generally seems to occur when I'm at another level of consciousness. Probably I happen to reach the particular level of consciousness that enables me to see energy rather like tuning on a particular radio station.

I know people who can see auras easily and consistently, while I can feel auras easily and consistently. I also work sometimes by hearing energy, the tones and volume and clarity. Generally you are good at one but not the others, I tend to be a tactile kinaesthetic person so it seems natural that I work easiest at feeling energy.

Seeing things like sylphs is another sort of phenomena. That would maybe lie more in the shamanic end of things.

I experience energy in a similar manner, for me there is no visual component. I perceive texture, heat and cold, and you could say vibration. With my work I sometimes also perceive a kind of structural element as well, tactile but in a 3-dimensional awareness of 'shape' rather than the way one feels a single 'plane' of texture against the skin. I have smelled energies as well.

It's like beating a dead horse at this point, but my take on it has for a long time been that the part of your senses that perceives subtle energy is independent of the senses all together - seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting energy all amount to sensory analogs employed by this sense in order to communicate information within the scope of our common experiential 'parlance'. It is possible to perceive energy without these analogous representations, but there is no specific vocabulary describing it, to my knowledge. We can say, "looks like..." and "smells like..." because these are common experiences and are present in our language. There really ought to be better vocabulary for it (chinese chi kung practitioners might actually have something like that, I don't know for sure, but the chinese ideograms are meant to convey complex associative information, which seems just abstract enough to convey experiences of that nature). But for that to be the case, there has to be more of a discussion about it, and more of a common experience. Right now we are mostly all tied up in our five physical senses. The perception of energy with it's own sense organ, however, is faster and more accurate and less prone to subjective 'smudging' of the information.

The thing with the eyes is a minute flexion of the very fine eye muscles. use a webcam to film your eyes as you do this and you will see what I mean - the pupils shift and there is a slight vibration of the eye. Every muscle in your body is capable of being influenced directly by your will, but most people either don't understand the vocabulary for some of the actions, or simply have never considered trying to have an influence - many possibly aren't even aware there are muscles involved. If you engage these muscles for too long at a sitting they will spasm and cause a migraine, so be careful with that. Otherwise, the action you are doing with them is included in a series of eye exercises practiced in some forms of yoga. It is quite advanced, but I think that is not because of it's difficulty so much as the difficulty in showing someone how to do it. Supposedly these exercises can both improve and maintain eyesight throughout life.

peace

It is possible to perceive energy without these analogous representations, but there is no specific vocabulary describing it, to my knowledge. We can say, "looks like..." and "smells like..." because these are common experiences and are present in our language. There really ought to be better vocabulary for it (chinese chi kung practitioners might actually have something like that, I don't know for sure, but the chinese ideograms are meant to convey complex associative information, which seems just abstract enough to convey experiences of that nature).

The closest I have ever come to seeing an aura is to notice vague "shadowy currents" around some people. Sometimes I will feel a change in myself when I interact with someone and that will tip me off but I have not per se felt energy like Goibniu does. If it is something I have been exposed to enough i will simply be aware of it and what it is.

Not so sure about chigong proper, but in alchemy there exists a sort of language for articulating non-physical experiences but it deals mostly with the body as far as I know. The teacher has a student do an exercise and the student feels something and the teacher says that is such and such. The density of energy, where the energy is going and what it is doing all get piled on to of each other. This makes some of the prettiest and impenetrable descriptions. Sometimes an energy or location will have more than one name depending on the context further complicating maters. The Mysterious female, Mud Ball cavity and Pure Mercury can mean the same or different things depending on context.

The bagua are also used to describe energy but they require a very detailed knowledge of I-ching and related symbolism.
Both systems require that you have felt that energy do that particular thing before you can appreciate it.

It might not be too important to focus on the way you experience energy - or subtle reality in general. Instead focusing in awareness of them. Unless seeing auras or discerning sylphs is impotent step to your goals.

I also have something with my eyes have had it my whole life i have very good vision but at any time at will i can make everything blurry but not like i cannot see it's almost like it disperses light. and makes everything closer but like even a little red dot looks like a fire work of light.

Aside from the looking closer part, it sounds very close to something I did years ago to focus on the energy I was working with. Its like you bring the physical world slightly out of focus and bring the subtle world into sharper focus. It was helpful in that I could work with energy more directly but superimpose a visualization if the energy and my awareness of it ever became confused. If I remember correctly I also be came very aware of myself when I did this.

This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Jun 18 2012, 05:42 AM

Sometimes an energy or location will have more than one name depending on the context further complicating maters. The Mysterious female, Mud Ball cavity and Pure Mercury can mean the same or different things depending on context.

The bagua are also used to describe energy but they require a very detailed knowledge of I-ching and related symbolism.
Both systems require that you have felt that energy do that particular thing before you can appreciate it.

It might not be too impotent to focus on the way you experience energy - or subtle reality in general. Instead focusing in awareness of them. Unless seeing auras or discerning sylphs is impotent step to your goals.

I'm curious to see the chinese names written down in characters - I suspect there could be a clue to why those names are called as they are. I can't for the life of me remember where I read the article, but I read something a little while ago discussing the origins of chinese written language which discussed the most basic strokes and their philosophical combinations which lead to the thousands of ideograms currently in use. It was a fascinating read which indicated that although there are many dialects of the chinese spoken language, the ideograms are recognized universally and are constructed in such a way that for a chinese native (who understands the philosophy of chinese culture) puzzling out the abstract meaning of a symbol is possible even if it is entirely new to the individual. Thus chinese writing has transcended their spoken language and bridged history, remaining essentially unchanged for thousands of years even though the spoken language has changed as any spoken language does.

The bagua are something I have been putting off for a long time, you recommended some good books on working with them in another thread, perhaps I will explore them sooner than later. Interestingly it seems I recall that there are 8 primary kinds of strokes involved in writing all chinese characters, and have wondered about a philosophical connection between each kind of stroke and the meaning of the eight trigrams.

Did you meant 'important' instead of 'impotent' - both words seems to fit but imply different contextual meaning. I'll assume you meant important.

But I agree - the way you experience it is less important than the awareness itself whatever form it takes. It is difficult to work with something that you cannot perceive, though not impossible; I believe it will not become an integrated skill until that awareness is awakened.

peace