THE EYE OF THE CAT
“It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.”
(From Invictus, by William Ernest Henley)
One benefit of doing an early morning practice in the out-of-doors is witnessing our furred or feathered friends wake up and start their day. Because our family eat meals outside in Hawaii, the odds are I’ll first see the sparrows (and their attendant predator, the feral cat) as they swoop in to see what’s left of last night’s dinner. The cat, skinny and brindle-colored, is particularly stealthy, padding about with feline grace, and startled to see me sitting quietly on the sidelines of this morning’s performance. I could almost see its mental wheels spinning as it turned its mesmerizing eyes on me, debating if I was friend or foe, before haughtily gliding off as if to say “I knew you were there all along. So what?” This little episode prompted me to wonder just how and what a cat sees. This in turn led to the question of how and what a human sees.
But first, a few fast cat facts. From the Animal Eye Group website I learned that “cats have 20 degrees more peripheral vision than humans do, which is perfect for staying aware of their surroundings. They identify things by motion, so the ability to spot movement is very important”.
Further, I read that cats don’t see colour like we humans do. They pick up faint yellows and blues but otherwise are limited to indistinct shades of gray. They excel at night vision, though, with pupils that can expand to let in a maximum of light, which they need to hunt well after dark. During the day, their lack of focal acuity makes them quite near-sighted. It’s a good thing they can smell and hear so well — they rely on those two senses and use vision to confirm what they already know they’re smelling or hearing.
In humans, the sense of sight generally plays the more dominant role, though we too depend on our sense of smell and hearing, not to mention taste and touch, to navigate the world around us. Problems arise when any of the senses are compromised in some way, potentially giving us incorrect information. How do we discern what is actually happening from what any particular sense is telling us?
Though in this limited blog I can’t do justice to Swami Radha’s Kundalini Yoga for the West, I have learned from years of studying the kundalini system that I can be the master, or at the mercy of my senses — in this case, my sense of sight. In the chapter on the third (Manipūra) chakra Swami Radha asks many questions to stimulate our thoughts about sight:
“What would your life be if you had no sight? Have you taken sight for granted? Is there a difference between “I look” and “I see”? What is sight? Do the eyes record as efficiently as a photographic camera? Watch the process of seeing, then analyze it. When you “look,” do you “see”? When does awareness come in? Can sight be cultivated?
“In fact, all five senses have to be exercised to bring them to their highest potential. If seeing is a mental process as well as physical, then the question of “How do I see?” carries more importance. If the eyes register the visual impression and the mind interprets it, is “clear sight” really possible? When the mind interprets, what is the basis of the interpretation? What prevents clear sight?”
It’s not important that you have answers to all such questions as it is necessary to cultivate a healthy curiositym in order to increase awareness and advance mentally, emotionally or spiritually.
And now, my friends, I must sign off without completing these thoughts. We apparently have a swarm of termites that is attracted to the light of my iPad. Yikes.
A day later I’m compelled to finish what I started with the questions that Swami Radha poses regarding sight. The whole idea of posing open-ended questions is new to a lot of people. We’re uncomfortable without the security blanket of certainty, of guarantees. Thus my inquiries into sight led to an epiphany about the overarching need to be right.
Psychologist Mel Schwartz posted an insightful article in Psychology Today titled: “Why Is It So Important to Be Right?”
He posits that our education, as with most things in our upbringing, has been geared to memorizing information and producing the right answers on demand:
“Our educational [and therefore our societal] system is rooted in the construct of right and wrong. We are rewarded for what are deemed to be correct answers and the ensuing higher grades, which generally lead to more successful lives. Being right affirms and inflates our sense of self-worth. As students we learn to avoid as best we can the embarrassment of being wrong. Getting the right answer becomes the primary purpose of our education. Isn’t it regrettable that this may be inconsistent with actually learning?
“Can you imagine the generative and exciting learning environment that would result from a class that rewarded asking the best questions? If you think about it, the most intriguing questions are those that don’t offer simple answers. Even more, they drive our thinking into greater complexity and curiosity. This would be a most wonderful learning experience. No need to be cautious about a wrong answer. And everyone would be invited to safely participate in a generative and shared inquiry.”
I’ve often wondered why Swami Radha’s approach, congruent with the above article, was so appealing to me. Now I see what a relief it has been to not need to know everything, not provide the right answers all the time, but rather, let her questions stimulate my thinking about things I have taken for granted, or unearth incorrect beliefs that have gone unchallenged.
Socrates said something to the effect that “Wisdom begins when we realize that we don’t know what we think we know.” I vote for a world where everyone is encouraged to participate in a generative and shared inquiry about unknowns that effect all of our lives. Otherwise known as leading an examined life.