There are two ways of seeing. These can be described as the first gaze and the second gaze. The first gaze is influenced by the false self. The second gaze comes out of the true self. Our task as we journey through life is to move from the first gaze to the second gaze.
Most of us tend to see with the first gaze most of the time. The first gaze is my default way of seeing myself and others. It is also the way the culture in which I live tends to see me. My first gaze is a reaction to my feelings of inadequacy. I feel I am not good enough. And if I am not good enough then others are not good enough either. It is my feelings of inadequacy that make me defensive and fearful and competitive and judgemental and controlling and anxious. Because of my low self-worth I need to accumulate and achieve in order to feel good about myself. I also constantly seek the approval of others. If I see myself in a negative way then I will see others in a negative way. I will also see the things that happen in the world in a negative way.
The second gaze is the way God sees. The second gaze sees me, other people and creation as good and loveable. In the second gaze I am always worthy of love and belonging. And so are others. When I know that I am worthy of love and belonging, I am open and trusting and cooperative and inclusive. I am also able to take the risk of standing ‘undefended.’
So how do we develop this second gaze? Well, one thing that can help us develop it is what we call contemplative practice. What is contemplative practice? Contemplative practice is a way of sitting in silence that allows me to listen, to receive, to let myself be loved as I am, to accept the gift of my belovedness which has, in fact, already been given to me. Contemplative practice enables me to see myself the way God see me – with love and tenderness. Perhaps the best fruit of contemplative practice is compassion. Through contemplative practice I am able to gaze on myself, others and the world with a compassionate heart.
Even though we long for the second gaze we tend to settle for the first one. This is because of the power of our wounds, especially the wound of conditional love. Moving from the first gaze to the second gaze involves facing up to my false self which was actually created by the wound of conditional love. This can be a difficult and demanding process. For many of us it takes a crisis, especially a mid-life crisis, to make us finally accept that we are finding our value in what we have, in what we do and in what other people think of us. At some point in our lives, we need to stop defining ourselves by our possessions, by our achievements, by our reputation but instead to find our value within, in our true self, in our belovedness. The truth is we are not going to move into the freedom of the second gaze unless and until we stop searching for happiness in the wrong places.