Wuji, the Zen kitten is the youngest inmate at our Zendo. It is Wuji’s practice to sit at my Window and listen through the Coaching conversations. No idea, what the kitten has found it so amusing to listen to coaching calls !  

Eyes are the mirrors into one's heart mind. Almost 25 years ago, after a visit to Aurobindo Ashram, the only "curio" I bought was a small picture of eyes… just the eyes of Mother @ Pondichery. There was something quite mystical about it. I think that small photo is still there… maybe a bit faded. Still those eyes sparkle with light.

The "curio" was never a souvenir. It was transmission. A point of contact with unknowable in this unknown world. As the Zen koan teaches the way is not in knowing or in not knowing.  Those eyes in a photograph are not merely biological—at that point of time, I felt they are darśana, windows into being. And those eyes have more glitter than that gold domed meditation chamber they were building at Auroville.  We still have that laminated photograph of eyes in Manthari.  Thara’s home. The fading of laminated paper only deepens the power. The sparkle of light is still untouched. I can feel it.

Carl Sagan in one of his documentaries, said that sometimes the stars we see in the sky have disappeared long ago… only the light they emitted still travels, looking for eyes to land in. The star is the saint. The Mother's earthly form is memory, history. Yet her gaze still travels. It landed in me 25 years ago, and lands again each time I look.

The eyes are the real telescope. Not just lenses, but mirrors of heartmind, kokoro. Light doesn't stop at the retina—it enters awareness. That photograph is a telescope, not aimed at galaxies, but at a state of grace.

Wuji is the medium. Limitless, primordial, void of infinite potential. The space through which all light travels. Wuji's eyes— Zendo kitten,  c, ordinary, fragile and feline, yet the medium of limitless presence. The Mother's eyes, the starlight, Wuji the small Zen kitten’s eyes—all vessels of the same formless ground.

And then the eyes of Manu and Rishi… My right eye and left eye.  They were small when they pushed me off the meditation mat, claiming it for themselves. Rishi was looking at with some disbelief; how can one waste one’s time without doing anything and Manu had expressions with his eyes closed. Their expression of that living moment  was playful, innocent, yet luminous in their own way. Not faded, not distant, but immediate. Transmission through laughter, through ordinariness. Their then gaze in that photograph, now reminds me that Dharma is not confined to mats or postures—it arrives in the push, the smile, the sparkle of childhood.

The same goes with Krishnamurti's eyes, too, were spoken of as intense, luminous, compassionate. One could not not notice it in those countless videos of his dialogue. And those who were present in person for his talks vouched for that. A gaze that pierced through thought, dissolving the walls of convention. Observers felt his eyes were darśana, a living transmission, selfless and direct.

And then there is Fr. AMA's eyes. My Zen master. His eyes are a bit of a paradox. Kind and stern. Compassionate and matter of fact. Forgiving and correcting at the same time. He taught me that human beings are paradoxical self. Where finitude meets infinitude, eternal with temporal. And his eyes reflect that. They don't choose one side or the other. They hold both. In one gaze, you feel completely accepted as you are. In the same gaze, you know you are being asked to go further. There is no gap between the kindness and the sternness. They are the same thing, looking at you from different angles. His eyes are the teaching. Not just windows into his being, but mirrors showing you your own paradox. That you too are finite and infinite, temporal and eternal, perfectly imperfect and called to awaken all at once.

So the mandala widens:

The Mother's eyes—promise that light never ceases.

The stars' eyes—light traveling across time, seeking witness.

Wuji's eyes—ordinary, yet the medium of limitless presence.

Manu and Rishi's eyes—innocence, ordinariness, playful Dharma.

Krishnamurti's eyes—penetrating, luminous, compassionate, telescopes of awareness.

Fr. AMA's eyes—paradox embodied. Kind and stern. Forgiving and correcting. The gaze that holds both sides of being human.

And then there was my maternal grandfather. He had moved on the rainbow world more than 35 years ago.  While he was alive (and still i think ), he was respected deeply by all those who met him. One who lived and walked on this earth with a lot of wisdom, compassion, kindness and generosity. And what I still recall in my innermind is the way he used to talk to us , his grandchildren. Especially he was in one of those wise sage mood.   Whenever he had to say something very profound to us, his grandchildren, he would close his eyes.

As I said, he was respected deeply by all who met him. Of course. Because respect is not earned by what we project outward, but by what we contain. His closed eyes told us grandchildren: I am not looking at you right now. I am going somewhere else first. I am consulting the darkness. I am listening to the space behind my own eyes. And what I bring back from there—that is what I will give you.

All the other eyes in this mandala are outward facing. Beacons. Light seeking landing places. Transmission through gaze. But my grandfather—he closed his eyes. This is the other half of the teaching. The inward turn. The wisdom that knows: before light can be received, there must be stillness. Before transmission, there must be silence. Before the profound can be spoken, the eyes must stop seeking and simply be.

While my children's eyes pushed me off the meditation mat. My grandfather’s eyes pulled me inward.

Pondichéry Mother's eyes travelled across time to land in my heart. Wuji is the formless ground from which all light emerges. But Wuji is also the darkness behind closed eyelids. The primordial. The unmanifest. The silence before the word. Krishnamurti's gaze pierced through walls. Fr. AMA's gaze holds the paradox of walls and openness, self and no-self. My grandfather's closed eyes dissolved the walls entirely—not by looking through, but by looking away, into the source.

The first six are variations on light seeking eyes. The last is eyes seeking light—not outward, but inward. Into the darkness where all light is born.

When he closed his eyes, he wasn't shutting us out. He was taking us with him. Into the place where words come from. Into the Wuji behind the eyes.

And then he opened them and spoke.

That pause, that closing, that inward descent—that was the transmission. The words were just its echo.

Light seeks eyes. Eyes seek light. What my eyes saw was a promise: that light, whether from a star, a saint, a cat, a child, a sage, a Zen master whose gaze holds all our paradox, or a grandfather closing his eyes to speak truth to his grandchildren, does not cease. It travels. It waits. And it finds us—if we have the eyes to receive it.

My grandfather's gaze, too, still travels. Still lands. Every time I close my own eyes, I complete his journey.

Together, that journey form a complete mandala of seeing light seeking eyes, eyes seeking light, and finally eyes closing to return to the source.