Have you ever felt an uncanny “knowing” about a situation or person that you couldn’t quite explain logically? Or noticed subtle energy shifts in a room that others didn’t seem to pick up on? If so, you’ve likely experienced glimpses of your innate spiritual perception.
While our physical senses take in information from the visible world, our subtle spiritual senses pick up on realms beyond the physical. By awakening and cultivating these innate capacities, we can begin to work with our intuition and extrasensory abilities for deeper self-knowledge and conscious living.
Defining Spiritual Eyesight and Intuition
Spiritual sight refers to our capacity to perceive subtle energies and dimensions that lie outside of ordinary physical awareness. Rather than just registering objects, forms, colors, and movement with our physical eyes, spiritual vision also picks up on invisible forces and flows – the vital energies animating all life.
Some traditions, like Indian yogic philosophy, describe an intuitive faculty called the “third eye.” While the two physical eyes absorb external sense data, the third eye turns inward to reveal our inner landscape – thoughts, emotions, memories, imagination, intuition, and soul wisdom. The subtle, inward-looking sense of “seeing” provided by the third eye is central to developing intuition and expanding consciousness beyond superficial awareness.
Characteristics of Spiritual Sight
How can you recognize the shift from ordinary physical sight to subtle spiritual seeing? Signs you may be tapping into extra-sensory perception include:
- Seeing energy fields or auras around people, plants, or objects
- Noticing movements or shifts in the energy patterns around you
- Having visions or meaningful imagery arise during meditation
- Receiving intuitive guidance through mental pictures or inner “knowing”
- Sensing spaces, people, or situations on an energetic level
- Feeling what others feel physically or emotionally
- Picking up information psychically about unknown situations
Types of Spiritual Eyesight
There are many expressions and types of extrasensory perception related to heightened intuition or “seeing” energy. Some include:
- Clairvoyance: Clear seeing. The ability to psychically perceive past, present or future events, people, symbols, etc. beyond the range of the physical eyes. May come as mental images, visions, or a sense of inner knowing.
- Clairsentience: Clear feeling. Having a deeply felt intuitive sense about a person or situation without logical explanation. You may just know something to be true or false based on subtle sensations in your body.
- Clairaudience: Clear hearing. Being able to receive auditory messages or guidance from spiritual realms. For example, hearing a name, keyword, or phrase repeated over and over during meditation.
- Claircognizance: Clear knowing. Having an inner certainty or wisdom about something without concrete proof. For example, you might suddenly know how to navigate a new city without maps or signs.
- Clairalience: Clear smelling. Being able to smell fragrances or substances that aren’t physically present. These scents may carry messages or meanings intuitive to the receiver.
Awakening Your Innate Spiritual Perception
While psychic abilities seem fascinating, focusing too much on “siddhis” (yogic supernatural powers) can become a distraction on the spiritual path. Rather than chasing visions or trying to develop skills like astral projection, the real work lies in purifying and awakening the vehicle of perception itself – our consciousness.
Rather than add complexity by seeking out new abilities, see if you can learn to access the deeper intuition you already have in a more clear, stable and compassionate way. Be wary of any supposed teachers who emphasize phenomena over inner wisdom and service.
That being said, with the right attitude and practice, you can nurture intuitive gifts to support your soul evolution and help uplift those around you. Powerful ways of opening your spiritual sight include:
Attune Through Meditation
The easiest way to tune into subtle realms is through regular meditation practice. As you become familiar with your interior landscape – patterns of thoughts, recurring emotions, blocks, fears, dreams, etc. – you grow adept at distinguishing true intuitive signals from mental noise. Meditation helps develop the focus and discernment to filter meaningful insights from wishful thinking or ego.
Try open awareness meditation for 15-20 minutes per day, observing thoughts/feelings without judgement before releasing them. Also reflect on dream symbols, synchronicities, deja vu experiences, and moments when you “just knew” something without logic. Keep a journal to track psychic hunches and verify their accuracy over time.
Heighten Sensory Awareness
Tune into your senses and environment in a new way. What energies do you notice around certain people or places? Get in the habit of scanning spaces and seeing if you detect temperature changes, scents, sounds, or density shifts that signal unseen forces at play. Suspend disbelief and analysis to let imagery and sensory input flow.
Practice Visualization
One way of flexing your spiritual sight is through creative visualization. For example, picture the “aura” or energy field surrounding your body in meditation, sensing hot and cold spots, colors, texture, movement. Or visualize a guiding light or celestial being and notice if symbols, messages, or insights emerge in interaction.
As you strengthen concentration and conscious control of your imagination, you can start directing intuitions and energies for specific goals like health, guidance, protection, or manifesting needs.
Developing Your Capacity for Subtle Seeing
Seeing through a spiritual lens takes practice but offers invaluable guidance. Some further tips for cultivating your extrasensory gifts include:
Study Spiritual Texts
Ancient wisdom traditions provide paradigm-shattering accounts of mystical visions and subtle perceptions across culture. The Upanishads, for example, detail transcendent experiences of yogic inner sight backed by millennia of verified testimony.
Reading first-hand accounts puts language and framework around phenomena you might experience intuitively in meditation. You gain courage knowing others have successfully tuned into subtle realms and harnessed intuitive forces for the benefit of all.
Find a Mentor
A great way to accelerate your spiritual eye development is through an attuned teacher or guide. They help clarify your path, point out unseen obstacles, verify inner experiences against eternal truth, distinguish true intuition from illusion or ego, and keep you aligned to higher purpose.
Be discerning in finding a mentor, checking their integrity and consciousness as well as mystical capabilities. Your ideal guide walks their talk through devoted service and flattened ego, not parlor tricks.
Observe Dreams
Dreams provide a portal into subtler worlds where the logical mind loosens its grip. Pay attention to dream symbols, characters, activities, and emotions for hidden guidance around life issues. Keep a journal to notice dream patterns over time.
You can also set an intention before sleep like, “Help me develop spiritual discernment.” See if dreams bring tutelary symbols, tests to interpret messages accurately, or new intuitive skills like seeing energy or aura reading.
Body Awareness
The body has innate intelligence and reflects energetic shifts long before the rational mind notices. Pay attention to signals like tingles up your spine, warmth in your solar plexus, constriction in your throat, or sudden fatigue as cues to subtle information.
Physical symptoms also mirrorareas needing energy healing. For example, tight shoulders might reflect carrying energetic burdens and unexpressed emotions needing release through journaling, movement, or massage.
Once you commit to awakening your subtle faculties, a world of supporting practices opens up including:
- Energy healing modalities like Reiki for aura cleansing and chakra balancing
- Tools like singing bowls, drums, rattles, prayer, or mantras to shift vibrational fields
- Flower essences and crystal grids for energy alignment
- Yoga postures, tai chi movements, or dance for freeing energy flow
- Time in nature for elemental balance and elevated consciousness download
- Pranayama breathing exercises to vitalize and sublimate life force
- Mindfulness training for sharpening attention, focus, and discernment amidst endless stimuli and distraction
Remember that intuition and spiritual abilities are expressions of an enlightened consciousness aligned to the good of all. Keep your practice focused on selfless service rather than preoccupation with phenomena or self-aggrandizement. With purity of intent and consistent tuning of your subtle instrument, the unseen world unveils in due time.
Dreams, spirit, growth – I explore them all. Laugh, learn, grow with me. Unlock your inner guru.
