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Can anyone engage practices leading toward development of the eye of contemplation? I believe so. I believe enough have, over time and culture, to claim that the eye of contemplation is an innate, biological, and genetic potential, even as the eye of flesh and the eye of mind is so. The eye of flesh and the eye of mind are universal potentials, for they cut across much else that has divided human from human: race, ethnicity, politics, gender, sexual orientation, economics, religion, … Therefore, it is no different with the eye of contemplation. This eye of contemplation, to be a consistent development, must be, likewise, a capacity that cuts across the same differences that divide us. That is one reason I respect the great saints of faiths other than my own, because I have no evidence to indicate that even as they see with the eye of flesh and eye of mind, as do I a Christian, that they cannot see with the eye of contemplation. Not to honor that would be to dishonor the God who created us all, and with the same Good potentials.
The mystics, or contemplatives, are persons who have accessed an innate potential, and, thus, that potential must be what I have said: innate. If it is innate, then, it is part of Nature, manifesting the Will of God, and must be assigned as a universal potential.
Why are more persons not accessing this eye of contemplation? Our larger culture and the religious systems have not encouraged it. For example, if most of the Christian leadership of the Christian Communions were located, principally, at the eye of flesh, then, how would they be able to lead others to the eye of reason?
So, there has not been a fair value placed on the eye of contemplation among religious and cultural leadership, even though until the Middle Ages this eye of contemplation was seen as the natural culmination of spiritual formation and was to be the aim of all Christians. Wow! How things have changed, while many leaders who champion the patristic values seem to have no insight into the contemplative vision of that era of Church history.
At best, even though there is a reemergence of contemplation in Christianity, it is still a minority path and not accepted by most Christian leadership, it seems. Or, it might be better to say, such potential is not even recognized by most Christian leadership.
In science, there is a basic process of enacting the experiment to arrive at conclusions. Spiritual development from the eye of flesh to the eye of mind to the eye of contemplation is the same process. You engage practices that are contemplative in nature, and you will become a contemplative, and you will see contemplatively.
However, you need to ask: “Do I want to see differently?” Just imagine waking up one morning and seeing a world you have never seen. The eye of flesh, the eye of reason, and the eye of contemplation give three different worlds of meaning, even among those who share the same signifiers. While we are equal in God, we do not all see equally; in fact, we do not, in a sense, leave in the same world.
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