How to Meditate with your Eyes Open

Meditate with your eyes open, I hear you gasp! It’s difficult enough to meditate with my eyes closed!

And yes, this meditation technique is somewhat advanced. Whether or not you’re a seasoned meditator, it’s important to meditate with as few distractions as possible. And once you get the feel for meditation, once you become familiar with how meditation makes you feel, in the moment, you can try to meditate with your eyes open. This can be very powerful and also a way to meditate when in a more public type of place, without anyone knowing, but only achievable once you’ve practised enough to easily get into that ‘groove’, that sense of connectedness and being in control of the moment.

The things you’ll need in order to meditate with your eyes open are :

1. A quiet place with as few distractions as possible. Phone preferably in another room on silent or switched off
2. A candle, a flower or some other simple object. This is optional but does help to hold your focus

Step 1
Select a quiet space that can be used on a regular basis. Remember that a part of your energy tends to remain in any given space even after you’ve left it. Sitting in the same space will strengthen the energy every time you sit there and help with the connection.

Step 2
Sit comfortably – make sure that you are dressed in comfortable clothing that won’t distract you by being too tight or creating itching and the like. If the lotus position is easy for you, that’s great. Otherwise, a straight-backed chair will work just as well. Since you’ll be keeping your eyes open, it’s not advisable for you to lay down, but if you feel that this works for you, go ahead and give it a try.

Step 3
Place an object on the floor or on a table in front of you. I suggest a lit candle or a flower. You don’t need to use any object at all, but it gives your eyes something to focus on and if you find yourself wondering, you can always bring your attention back to that particular object.

Step 4
Breathe naturally. Don’t try to control your breath, just allow it to flow into your lungs and out of your lungs.

Step 5
Let your sight rest on the object in front of you, or you can select a space in the room, say the window or a picture frame. Here’s the important part of this meditation: avoid thinking about the object. Avoid naming it. If it is a candle, avoid thinking about the flame, about the wick, about the colours in the flame. The longer you can rest your sight on an object without thinking about it, the better.

Step 6
Become very present in your surroundings, including the candle in your field of vision. Be aware of your peripheral vision without taking your eyes off the candle.

Step 7
Give yourself time to work through steps five and six above. You may now experience yourself moving backwards as if taking a few steps backwards inside your head, and peering out through the holes in your eyes. Just experience it, whatever it is. There is no right or wrong as long as you don’t think about things too much.

Step 8
Continue to meditate as usual, by concentrating on your breath, labeling thoughts, or by using a simple mantra. The fact that your eyes are open makes no difference whatsoever.

Step 9
Recognise that which appears to be “out there”, now that you have your eyes open, is in fact “in here.” Your senses bring impressions to your brain, but your experience is always in your mind. What seems to be ‘out there’ is still you. You are one with that which you see. That is you and you are that.

This last step in the process can take many years to achieve and in fact, deep completely connected and focused meditation can take a very long time to completely achieve. Don’t give up. Don’t allow yourself to believe that meditation is something that you as an individual, are unable to achieve. As with anything that we set our minds to, if we practise enough, we will become good at it. We are all able to meditate and meditating with your eyes open might just be the form of meditation that works for you.
However, if you never try, you’ll never know. Meditating with eyes open can be done within a group meditation or can be done on your own at home. Within a group, you would do exactly the same thing in terms of having a single object to focus on. So placing the object in the middle of the circle, would work. If the group is sitting in rows in a room with someone upfront guiding the meditation, I would recommend that everyone in the group, in that instance, bring along their own object to be placed in front of them and then everyone would be focusing on their own object, but still benefiting from sharing the energy in the room.

If you’d like to know more about meditation, you can contact me either through Spirit Connection website or you can email me glynis@spiritconnection.co.za