Unbroken Gaze

The doorbell rang and there was my usual delivery person from grocery delivery service (Swiggy). he handed over the packet to me and I got a sense that he is looking at me, waiting for me to look at him and acknowledge his presence. I looked at him, we locked eyes for a second greeting each other and our eyes exchange a smile.

As I closed the door an epiphany dawned on me. Often, in the autopilot mode we do exchange pleasantries, greet each other, and stay polite in conversations, but we hardly ever look at each other.

Its intriguing.

 We humans have the innate ability to really look into the soul of another being and reach to its center just by staring and locking eyes, yet we hardly do that.

What are we afraid of?

Sure! lovers lock eyes, but it comes from a place of yearning and desire, being someone else’s something.  But we do not spend enough moments locking eyes with strangers, by passers, acquaintances and even friends and family.

May be there is deep hidden fear of being seen and known. Revealing the person behind the mask of personality, being ourselves, the vulnerable, the beautiful yet flawed individual behind all the pretense, beyond all the relations and connections. May be all that is too scary.

Who would take the risk to reveal that being??

And we look away, look superficially or look at the other person but never look at eyes.

Only if we all knew how beautiful it is to look into another individual’s eyes for a moment, acknowledge the presence of their humanness and not the roles they play in our lives.

All these latent thoughts too me back to a now little jaded and faded time of past. Couple of years ago, life pulled the rug off my feet and everything that I defined as stability was taken away. I was little numb but there was fearlessness trying to peak and come out. This was period of hibernation for me, I wasn’t meeting anyone, friends, family and even myself. This aloneness came out of a choice, and it was a time of reflection for me.

 And one day I saw an FB post, it was rather an unconventional post about an intimacy workshop, despite the self-isolation that I had put myself into, I had the intense urge for meaningful connection not the ones that leads to MIST ( Mundane Information Sharing Talks) but the ones where words fall short and there is just depth so, I told myself “see stars are aligned, you came across this ad at the right moment’, go plunge into the world of ‘Know thy self n connect with others in the process”.

Somewhere in my heart, I already braced myself for the experience, guarding my ego and my identity. so, I wore a beautiful red saree, put kohl in my eyes and to claim my power and to hide that streak of vulnerability, I wore my stilettos, higher the better, heels have a way of elevating your power, your sense of self.

Clinging to my sense of ‘I’, I reached the location. One of my favorites in Bangalore, my safe haven, Lahe, lahe... The receptionist asked me to go to the terrace.

As soon as I entered the tiny room in the terrace, I sensed safety. it was full moon night, there were floor cushions thrown all around, few oil lamps were kept in the corners.  The hues of yellow light were complimenting the white light of the moon. Fragrance of jasmine incense filling the room creating the calming atmosphere.

There were at least ten people in the room all had the same skepticism and curiosity in their eyes like me.

Then my eyes gazed at the teacher, he looked radiant, a tall British guy wearing a red color wrap around his waist, bare chested just wearing a shawl like cloth around his shoulders... the whole persona was a standout in an odd way.

I will be honest here, to me, he looked a typical white hippie from the west, charming, flirtatious, and very handsome. But there was more to him than what I saw, there was presence, eyes that sparkled like stars, heart and body in the moment. I asked him several questions before the ceremony started, all coming from my mind and not heart. Is it okay to attend a session on intimacy without a partner? Is there lot of physical intimacy involved n so on n so forth, I was verbalizing the anxieties of my monkey mind.

He looked at me n said, “There are so many kinds of intimacy, beyond body and touch” have you ever looked into someone’s eyes and soaked in the vulnerability you see?” I hesitated and said, oh... like that “in reality, I understood nothing.  In my mind, I did the classic eye rolling and said to myself “another guy with spiritual ego and zero “knowledge “

Little did I know, knowledge only drives our life, but “knowing” transforms it to a beautiful journey of existence.

We started with the ceremony with a simple process, I had to sit face to face with a stranger, look into her eyes and feed her, in our case, I was to feed her slices of cucumber, while she talks about something really vulnerable and intimate experience of hers and then we take turns. I scoffed in my mind again but something in me really wanted to go all out and experience this.

There is a strong psychological aspect to this entire process, getting fed by another human can really take us back to our childhood, and connect with our inner child, it opens the doors of vulnerability and brings out a beautiful presence. Throughout the process, our eyes were locked, and we conversed much more than just those events she narrated. Our eyes had a heart-to-heart chat about everything that she could not put in words, everything she did not know that existed.

N then came my turn; I don’t remember being so unguarded and open ever before or even after that moment. We both transformed together, we both got “intimate” not only with each other but with a part in us that we never knew existed, also the part we had discarded long ago. That day, I experienced transformation in a different way, later I got to know this whole process was part of tantra techniques of relating.

I learnt a lesson of life that day which will always stay with me, eyes are truly the window to the soul and key to our heart. It can open our heart to new ways of being.

There is a definite power in locking eyes. Even for a moment, even with a stranger just acknowledging the presence of other person’s soul existence that is beyond his identity of name, religion cast or place, is so powerful.

We all are just travelers in this world walking each other home, the path gets clearer when we see each other beyond what our habitual mind makes as see... when we experience the light in each other.