Three Ways to View the Sunset



Photo by Treena Duncan

 From "The Naked Now" - Richard Rohr

Three men stood by the ocean, looking at the same sunset.
One mas saw the immense physical beauty and enjoyed the event in iteslf.  This man was the 'sensate' type who, like 80 percent of the world, deals with what he can see, feel, touch, move and fix.  This was enough reality for him, for he had little interest in larger ideas, intuitions, or the grand scheme of things.  He saw with his first eye, which was good. 
A second man saw the sunset.  he enjoyed all the beauty that the first man did.  Like all lovers of coherent thought, technology, and science, he also enjoyed his power to make sense of the universe and explain what he discovered.  he thought about the cyclical rotations of planets and stars.  Through imagination, intuition, and reason, he saw with his second eye, which was even better. 
The third man saw the sunset, knowing and enjoying all that the first and the second men did.  but in his ability to progress from seeing to explaining to "tasting", he also remained in awe before an underlying mystery, coherence, and spaciousness that connected him with everything else.  he used his third eye, which is the full goal of all seeing and all knowing.  This was the best.

Which eye do you view the world with? Are you ready to see and taste the full sunset now?