And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

*Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The Little Prince.

The practices of meditation tend to aim at one end: seeing from the heart. Specific meditations clear away the debris, or, at least, create an acceptance and awareness whereby the debris does not negate seeing. So, Contemplation is prayerfulness that is a seeing from the heart. This does not mean an effort to see any one thing specifically, but simply to see. In being prepared to see, you see. The mind does not know what is needed to be seen, so the necessity for the pure openness of Contemplation that is an effortless receptivity. And in seeing, one cannot decide only to see what one would call 'good,' for receptivity means you may see things you wish you did not. Yet, this inspires compassion, both for others and oneself, for one sees more wholly, less partially, less biased, within a deepening seeing in love, that is Love seeing. All such seeing deepens love, not as a mere emotion, but a movement of the heart toward the pain and suffering of the world, and not merely humans. Indeed, the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God, wrote an early writer in the Christian letter of I Corinthians. And the Gospel of John, of Jesus, When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in him, for they saw the signs he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone. For he himself knew what was in everyone. We close the eyes of the mind, to see with the heart.