Is observation merely a survival skill, or is it the prime directive of human consciousness? From everyday seeing to meditation, deep contemplation, and the heart’s luminous unveiling, we trace the path of observation as it evolves into revelation.
Q: Could “observation” truly be the prime directive of human beings?
Yes—this possibility resonates across spiritual, scientific, and evolutionary perspectives. Observation may be the hidden root of consciousness itself.
- In spiritual traditions: Awakening is often described as a shift into pure observation—the witness or sakshi—which perceives reality without distortion.
- In science: Physics shows us that observation changes outcomes at the quantum level, suggesting consciousness plays a central role in how reality unfolds.
- In evolution: Keen observation once kept humans alive, guiding us to read the environment, track movement, and sense danger or opportunity.
- In destiny: If the universe seeks to know itself, then through us—as observers—it does. Observation is not passive; it is creative, a bridge between Being and Becoming.
Observation, then, is the soil out of which action, love, and creation grow. When we see clearly, we align our lives with truth.
Q: How is observation related to meditation?
Observation is the seed, meditation the flowering. Ordinary observation is outward and functional, while meditative observation deepens inward and expands.
- Everyday observation skims surfaces: traffic lights, conversations, movements of life.
- Meditative observation penetrates beneath surfaces, turning inward toward thought, breath, and the spacious awareness that contains them.
What deepens in meditation?
- Depth of field – We begin to sense the ocean beneath the wave.
- Clarity – Observation without bias reveals raw being.
- Stability – Attention stabilizes into continuity.
- Witnessing awareness – The observer itself is revealed as presence, unchanged by what it sees.
Meditation thus transforms observation from survival into transformation.
Q: And what about deep contemplation—how is it different from meditation?
Deep contemplation is observation transfigured.
- Meditation stabilizes attention so thoughts can be observed without clinging.
- Deep contemplation carries us beyond even this. Thought dissolves into silence. Subject and object collapse. Observation abides without a center.
Here, awareness recognizes itself not as an “I observing” but as pure observing—vast, timeless, unbounded. This is why it feels like an entirely different level.
Q: At what point in deep contemplation does the soul reveal itself?
The soul reveals itself not by arriving, but by becoming noticeable once the noise of mind subsides. Its presence emerges from silence itself.
The soul may disclose itself as:
- A soundless sound—the inner current or nada.
- A fragrance of being—the recognition of a luminous presence always here.
- A shift in identity—from “I observe” to “I am being observed.”
- A radiant warmth—love without an object.
The soul speaks not in words but in whole, immediate knowing. It does not appear as an object to be seen but as the very subject who has always been looking.
Q: So what is the culmination of this journey?
It is not an answer but an all-encompassing knowing. The questions and answers themselves drift away like fog, leaving only full awareness of what is.
This knowing is not about gathering facts but about abiding in the source from which all knowing arises. In this abiding, nothing is missing and nothing is elsewhere. It is the soul unveiled as the ground of awareness itself.
Q: And what about the heart? Can awakening unfold solely through the heart center?
Yes—the heart is not secondary but another royal gate. Where meditation dissolves thought, the heart dissolves separation through love.
- When the heart fully opens, love ceases to have an object.
- Compassion flows without boundary.
- Unity is revealed through intimacy rather than silence.
Mystics across traditions—Sufi, Bhakti, Christian—affirm that the heart alone can carry the seeker to union. Where the mind quiets into stillness, the heart floods into radiance. Both lead to the unveiling of the soul’s presence.
The Unfolding of Observation Into Soul-Revelation
- Everyday Observation – Functional
- Outward, fragmented, tied to survival and thought.
- The observer feels like a separate “me.”
- Meditation – Witnessing
- Observation becomes intentional and steady.
- Thoughts and feelings are seen as passing events.
- The witness begins to emerge.
- Deep Contemplation – Dissolving
- Thought dissolves into silence.
- Subject and object collapse.
- Observation remains, but without a fixed center.
- Soul-Revelation – Unveiling
- The soul reveals itself as the deeper “I.”
- Presence is felt as soundless sound, radiant love, or direct knowing.
- Identity shifts: awareness is no longer observing something; it is being itself.
Addendum
Observation begins as a simple act of seeing, yet it carries the hidden destiny of unveiling the soul. Through the stillness of meditation or the radiance of the heart, the prime directive of human beings is fulfilled—not in gathering more answers, but in dissolving into the all-encompassing knowing that was always here.
References:
- Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Consciousness Without an Object
- Sri Ramana Maharshi, Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
- Rumi, The Essential Rumi (trans. Coleman Barks)
- Meister Eckhart, Sermons
- Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy
Numinous Waves 