Seeing Clearly with the Eyes of the Soul
True objectivity arises not from detachment, but from a heart that is stable enough to see clearly. It is the clarity that emerges when illusion fades, projection dissolves, and we meet reality as it is — without distortion, defence, or denial.
The third petal of the Heart Chakra invites us to transform moha (delusion) into tarka (objectivity). It is the movement from confusion to clarity, from fantasy to presence, from distortion to discernment. This transformation is not cold or cerebral — it is compassionate, spacious, and piercingly honest.
The heart sees most clearly when it is not trying to protect a story.
Affirmation: I see clearly, beyond illusion, with the eyes of the soul.
The Shadow: Moha (Delusion)
Delusion manifests as the refusal or inability to see things as they are. It can come from emotional overwhelm, denial, unhealed trauma, or simply the unconscious clinging to belief systems that feel safer than truth. In this state, perception becomes clouded — by fear, by hope, by projection.
Signs of this vritti include:
- – Believing in fantasy or illusion despite evidence
- – Idealising people or situations to avoid discomfort
- – Spiritual bypassing — using light to avoid (rather than discover, and integrate) the shadow
- – Difficulty discerning truth from narrative, emotion, fantasy, or conditioning
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” — Anaïs Nin
The Evolved Heart Quality: Tarka (Objectivity)
Objectivity is not the absence of feeling — it is the capacity to feel fully without being overwhelmed or deceived by feeling. It allows us to see things clearly, compassionately, and with a wide view. Objectivity is the heart’s sword of wisdom: it cuts through illusion, not with judgment, but with precision and grace.
Qualities of heart-centered objectivity include:
- – Clarity: Seeing what is, without exaggeration or minimization
- – Discernment: Knowing what to hold, and what to release
- – Emotional Intelligence: Feeling deeply without losing balance
- – Compassionate Truth-Telling: Speaking or seeing truth without aggression
“Clarity is the moment we see without opening our eyes.”
— Stephanie Banks
The Trajectory: From Projection to Perception
The movement from delusion to objectivity requires us to question the lenses through which we view life. It invites us to set aside comforting stories in order to see what’s real. This is not easy — but it is liberating. When we stop needing things to be other than they are, we begin to participate in life as it truly is.
This transformation involves:
- – Becoming aware of unconscious beliefs or assumptions
- – Taking responsibility for our projections
- – Noticing when our emotions distort our perception
- – Creating space between stimulus and response
This is the heart learning to see.
🧘The Silent Witness: Cultivating Non-Interference in Perception
In the contemplative traditions of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, clarity arises not through effortful analysis, but through contact with the silent witness — the unchanging presence within that simply observes. This witnessing awareness does not grasp, reject, interpret, or react. It sees thoughts arise and pass away, feelings surge and dissolve, images flicker and fade — without identifying with any of them.
“Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things.” — Ajahn Chah
In the context of Petal 3, the cultivation of this silent witness is a powerful antidote to delusion. Where the ego mind constructs narratives and clings to projections, the witness rests in neutrality. It neither fuses with experience nor dissociates from it, but holds space for truth to emerge. From this still point of awareness, perception begins to purify itself.
Objectivity, in this light, is not a distancing or cold detachment. It is a spacious, compassionate clarity — a way of seeing that allows reality to reveal itself without distortion. This is why so many meditative traditions emphasise the development of this witnessing capacity: because it is only when we can watch the mind without becoming it, that we begin to see through its illusions.
🧬 The Mind Speaks in Symbols: Clarifying the Language of Metaphor, Dream, and Archetype
The unconscious mind does not speak in facts — it speaks in metaphor, image, and pattern. It offers us dreams, synchronicities, and symbols not as literal truths, but as containers of meaning, shaped by personal history, collective archetypes, and the soul’s unique curriculum. Within the Petal 3 journey — from delusion to objectivity — one of the great challenges is learning to discern the symbolic from the literal, to recognize when the psyche is expressing something true in an unfamiliar tongue.
Dreams and spontaneous imagery often appear irrational or fantastical, but they are rarely meaningless. In transpersonal and depth psychology, such content is understood as a language of the soul — revealing unintegrated parts of the self, energetic shifts, or hidden inner truths. However, without discernment, these images can be misinterpreted, inflated, or used to reinforce existing delusions. When we cling to them as prophetic, or interpret them through the lens of egoic desire, metaphor becomes fantasy.
“Thus a word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. It has a wider ‘unconscious’ aspect that is never precisely defined or fully explained… As the mind explores the symbols, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.” — Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
The Petal 3 movement teaches us to honour symbolic content without being captured by it. Objectivity here means not the dismissal of the imaginal, but its integration — holding dream images, visions, and archetypes lightly, and allowing their deeper truths to reveal themselves through reflection, pattern recognition, and intuitive discernment. Just as the Small Intestine filters pure from impure, so too we must learn to filter the essential message from the symbolic form.
In this way, the metaphorical mind becomes not a source of confusion, but a sacred instrument of insight — and imagination becomes a bridge, not a barrier, to higher knowing.
✴️ Delusion and the Landscape of Inner Content: A Transpersonal Psychology View
From a transpersonal psychology perspective, delusion is not merely a cognitive error — it is a spiritual misalignment, often rooted in unintegrated psychological material. Much of what clouds our perception originates not in the external world, but in the terrain of our inner life: unacknowledged emotional wounds, unconscious beliefs, and unresolved shadow aspects of the psyche. These inner fragments, when unexamined, do not stay quiet — they project themselves outward, shaping how we interpret people, events, and even spiritual teachings. In this way, what we have not made conscious becomes the lens through which we see the world.
This is where delusion gains traction. The mind, seeking coherence, weaves narratives around these projections, often mistaking them for insight or intuition. In more spiritually inclined individuals, this can express as spiritual bypass — the use of transcendental language, altered states, or metaphysical frameworks to avoid deeper emotional reckoning. Instead of facing what is within, we deflect it outward, reinforcing illusion while believing we’re gaining clarity.
The removing of the ‘tangles’ is a process of liberation from our complexes and illusions and from the way in which we identify with the roles we play in life, with the masks within us and with our idols, etc. It is a ‘release’ according to the etymology of the word, a liberation and awakening of hidden potential. – Roberto Assagioli, Transpersonal Development: The Dimension Beyond Psychosynthesis
True objectivity begins with radical self-honesty. It asks us to pause and turn inward — to cultivate what transpersonal psychology refers to as the witness or observing self: a dispassionate awareness that can hold space for all inner content without being entangled in it. This capacity allows us to perceive thought patterns, emotional reactivity, and psychic projections as energetic material arising within a larger field of consciousness — not as absolute truth. Practices such as mindfulness, psychosynthesis, Focusing, or somatic inquiry strengthen this witnessing faculty and gently bring shadow material into the light of awareness.
As projection dissolves, what remains is not emptiness, but noetic clarity — a quality of inner knowing that arises when the soul is unobstructed. Noesis is not analytical; it is direct and luminous. It is the clarity that comes when the waters of the psyche are still, and truth can reflect itself without distortion. In this way, the journey from delusion to objectivity is not about cultivating clinical detachment, but inner integration. It is about clearing the perceptual field of interference, so that one may perceive from wholeness — from the heart of being.
Authentic spirituality is revolutionary. It does not legitimate the world, it breaks the world; it does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone. — Ken Wilber, Integral Psychology
🧠 Lessons from cellular biology
As Bruce Lipton explains in The Biology of Belief, the true “brain” of the cell is not the nucleus — which stores genetic material — but the cell membrane. It is the membrane that receives signals from the environment, interprets them, and regulates cellular behavior. In this way, the cell’s response to its world is entirely shaped by perception. What the cell believes is happening on the outside determines what it becomes on the inside: perception becomes the primary driver of biological change.
Much like the cell membrane our minds are continuously filtering, interpreting, and assigning meaning to incoming stimuli, influencing experience, health, and behaviours. When our perceptions are distorted (by trauma, environmental conditioning, or unresolved emotional patterns), we create a false version of reality. This is the essence of projection. We are not seeing what is — we are seeing what we believe.
To reclaim clarity, we must refine our perceptual filters. As Lipton writes:
“It is not the genes that control life. It is the perceptions we hold about life that control our biology.” — Bruce H. Lipton, The Biology of Belief
This reframes the journey of the heart from one of passive reception to active discernment. Objectivity doesn’t mean cold detachment — it means choosing to see with clarity rather than distortion. When we shift perception, we shift our biology, our emotional state, and our capacity to live truthfully.
🔬 From Observer to Participant: A Quantum View of Perception
In quantum physics, the observer effect describes a phenomenon where the act of observation influences the behavior of particles. Electrons, for instance, behave like waves — until they are observed, at which point they collapse into particles. This isn’t merely about vision, but about interaction with consciousness. The observer is not neutral. Their presence, attention, and method of observation change what is observed.
“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.”— Werner Heisenberg
Our inner state shapes how reality appears. The image we receive is not reality, but our own interference pattern. To move toward objectivity is not to remove the observer, but to refine the quality of attention — to observe from stillness, clarity, and alignment. When the inner lens is clean, we no longer collapse truth into distortion. We meet reality as it is: fluid, participatory, and co-emergent with consciousness.
🧿 Anthroposophical View:
In Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science, the movement from delusion to objectivity reflects the transformation of the astral body and the development of spiritual organs of perception. Ordinary sense-bound thinking, says Steiner, is steeped in maya — illusion born of attachment to surface phenomena. True objectivity arises not through detached analysis, but through the moral purification of the soul. As the soul becomes inwardly still, honest, and devoted to truth, the lotus flowers or chakras begin to unfold in their higher function.
The six-petalled lotus at the brow (corresponding to the Ajna chakra) awakens not only clairvoyance, but a higher discernment — what Steiner calls “imaginative cognition.” This is not fantasy, but the capacity to perceive the living archetypes behind the world of appearances. To reach this state, one must pass through the temptations of illusion: projection, self-flattery, spiritual pride. The journey is a schooling of the soul.
Thus, Petal 3 calls us to refine the mirror of the soul, so that it may reflect the truth without distortion. As illusion gives way, objectivity becomes participation — a direct seeing into the essence of things, born not of cool intellect, but of purified inner life.
🪞 Practical Projection/Reflection Exercise:
Think of someone you greatly admire – a personal hero, living or dead, fictional or real.
Bring this figure forward clearly in your awareness
Name the values, virtues, conduct and qualities that they represent to you – what is it that you truely admire? Write this down.
Now take your time, and go through each of these qualities, and find the resonance of them in yourself.
Sit with each, in turn. Stake a claim, and fully take ownership of them. Consider how you can nurture these positive aspects in your life.
Now repeat this process – but for a figure that you dislike – that brings you an emotional charge, that you reject, or despise.
Own up to the ways in which you’ve exhibited these qualities in yourself, even in subtle ways.
Forgive yourself, reconcile, and make good.
👁️ A Pranic Healing Lens
As we move from delusion to objectivity, we are essentially refining our energetic lens of perception. This journey requires not only introspection, but pranic hygiene — a clearing of the subtle fog that skews how we interpret reality.
From the perspective of Pranic Healing, delusion arises when the Ajna chakra — the energetic centre of perception and discernment — becomes clouded by congested thought-forms or external psychic influences. This chakra governs our ability to see clearly, both inwardly and outwardly. When its energy is distorted, intuition becomes unreliable, and perception is coloured by projection, fantasy, or false certainty.
Healing the Ajna involves not only mental clarity, but energetic purification: cleansing the chakra with fresh prana, releasing accumulated distortion, and restoring its alignment with the higher centres. As the Ajna becomes luminous and refined, we begin to perceive without distortion — not through analysis, but through radiant knowing. This is the essence of objectivity: clear inner sight grounded in energetic purity, a radiant clarity, a state where perception is free, precise, and in harmony with the soul’s higher knowing.
🦋 Dreaming of Butterflies
“Once Zhuang Zhou (Chang Tzu) dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.
He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou.
But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou.
Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly there must be some distinction!
This is called the Transformation of Things.”
— Zhuangzi, Chapter 2: The Equality of Things
🫀 A Chinese Medicine View
Delusion distorts the Shen — the spirit of the Heart — making it difficult to anchor in reality.
In Daoist and Chinese Medicine terms, this often reflects a Heart unmoored from the grounding wisdom of the Kidneys, leading to overactive imagination, emotional volatility, or spiritual disorientation. Again, this is the core energetics of the ShaoYin axis at play – a major focus in the Esoteric Acupuncture and Lightbody Activation work. When the Heart is calm and connected to the grounding essence of the Kidneys (Zhi, or will), objectivity arises naturally. We become capable of loving honesty — with ourselves and others.
The Hun, Liver spirit, or ethereal/incorporeal soul, plays a critical role here. This aspect governs vision, foresight, and the capacity to dream and plan. When distorted or imbalanced, it can contribute to fantasy, projection, or self-deception. The Liver sits between the Heart and Kidney on the vertical axis, acting as a mediator of vision between spirit (Shen) and essence (Jing). Without the anchoring of Jing and the clarity of Shen, the Hun may wander untethered, and perception becomes clouded. The healing in this petal involves restoring the triadic integrity of Heart, Liver, and Kidney — so the soul can see clearly, dream wisely, and act with rooted discernment.
The Role of the Hun in Altered States
In the expanded perceptual field of spiritual practices and (psychedelic or shamanic) medicine work, the Hun (associated with vision, imagination, and spiritual insight) becomes highly activated. Without structural integrity and harmony of the shaoyin axis – grounding of Jing (Kidney essence) and the stabilising clarity of Shen (Heart spirit) – the visions accessed can become unmoored from discernment. This may lead to beautiful but illusory narratives, spiritual inflation, or confusion between symbolic truth and literal reality.
In integration work then, it becomes crucial to reestablish the ShaoYin channel — the Heart–Kidney axis — so that what the Hun perceives is filtered through both wisdom (Kidney) and conscious presence (Heart). Grounding practices, inner inquiry, and skilled reflection help bring these ethereal impressions into embodied understanding. In Daoist terms, the goal is not to dissolve into vision, but to anchor the vision into the Way — discerning what serves truth, what reveals distortion, and what calls for transformation.
Hexagram 20 – 觀 (Guān) – Contemplation / Viewing
Core Meaning:
“Through contemplation, the sage perceives the movements of Heaven, and aligns with the Mandate of Heaven. True clarity arises not from action, but from silent observation.”
Filtering Reality: The Small Intestine and the Return to Clarity
In Chinese medicine, the Small Intestine is described as the organ that “separates the pure from the impure.” Though often understood physiologically, this function operates just as profoundly on the mental and spiritual planes. As the yang external-partner to the Heart, the Small Intestine acts as a subtle gatekeeper of perception. It filters what the Heart receives, discerning what is nourishing truth and what is distortion, projection, or psychic residue.
When this organ’s energy is muddled, we lose the ability to distinguish reality from illusion. We take in falsehoods, misread signs, or become swayed by seductive appearances. But when its qi is strong and aligned, the Small Intestine performs a sacred function: it refines perception itself. This isn’t rational analysis, but a kind of energetic discrimination — an intuitive clarity that allows us to see what is, free from the overlays of desire, fear, or fantasy. In this way, the Small Intestine becomes an ally in the return to objectivity. It helps restore inner coherence by filtering out the noise, so the Shen can rest in truth.
The New Encoding Patterns that include Extended Indigo Triangle, utilise the Gateways at Tian Rong SI17 “Heavenly Appearance”, located in the hollow below the ear, behind the corner of the jaw, in front of the big sternocleidomastoid muscle. Being near the ear, it is a place of listening and receptivity. Of the quality of listening to your own inner guidance, and the voices of others. Being near the jaw, it is a place where we can ‘chew things over’, and discuss or consider things at length. It is the place where the innate decision making responses of ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘Maybe’, and has a distinct clarity and inner authority.
New Encoding Patterns as Energetic Preparation
In addition to inducing expanded states themselves, working with the New Encoding Patterns from Esoteric Acupuncture as a kind of energetic “preloading” or sacred orientation can help protect and align the inner landscape before entering expanded states – for example to accelerate your qi practice, meditation, remote viewing/astral travel, or journey work.
These patterns — complex, multidimensional arrangements of points and intention — activate the vertical alignment of the ShaoYin axis, anchoring the Shen in the Heart while calling up the wisdom of the Kidneys. At the same time, they balance the Hun by clarifying purpose, focusing vision, and creating a sacred geometrical field that protects against fragmentation.
Energetically, this is like building a temple before entering a vision quest: it ensures coherence, integrity, and clarity. Psychologically, it primes the mind toward higher-order framing — compassion, non-attachment, cosmic perspective — reducing the likelihood of getting lost in personal illusion. With the field organised in this way, insights arising during the journey can more easily land in the body and be integrated into daily life with discernment and grace.
The Key New Encoding Patterns to work with are:
- Indigo Triangle / Extended Indigo Triangle (and the other patterns which contain these) – This third-eye activation powerfully shifts perceptions, and brings them in alignment with the Heart.
- Discern the Whisper – Powerfully quietens the mind, and facilitates a deeper sense of direct ‘knowing’, by heart.
- Antahkarana 3-6-1 Sequence (includes both the above)
- Pattern of Truth, or Clarity Patterns – Most suited for those new to inner plane work, wishing to harmonise their field.
- Wind Mansion – For advanced practitioners – Wind Mansion brings greater awareness and potency to the framing of ‘who am I being?‘, and a shift towards operating from the Higher Heart, with a guided, creative/manifesting vision.
An introduction to the Indigo Triangle New Encoding Pattern
Indigo Triangle comprises five points: four primary points, and one point in the centre that is not explicitly required to be needled, but is an implied activation due to the contrast with the outer grouping (a radial singularity). The encoding pathway goes from top (1) to right (2) to left (3) to bottom (4). This creates a ‘Z’ shape, and the vectoring suggests the direction of spin.
Including the activation of the central point (5) – the ‘bullseye’ or centre of the third eye (manus chakra), can give the geometry the sense of being like a pinwheel, or wind turbine, spinning around the central pivot. The pattern powerfully unfolds with the formation of pyramidal and octahedral structures from these gateways.
First note the basic, clear upward (Fire) and downward (Water) triangles here, representing the conscious and unconscious/subconscious perceptions and programming. Differentiate these clearly, and sense one and then the other, separately and together. Articulate each of the points (corners), connecting lines (edges) and the whole shape (insided-ness/outsided-ness), and encode each step with the Heart Frequencies you’re working with for this petal.
🌸 Simple Practices for Cultivating Objectivity
🔍 1. Projection Check-In
When emotions flare, pause.
Take a breath and ask: What am I assuming right now? What am I making this mean?
Then gently widen your lens: What else could be true? What might I not be seeing?
This is not about invalidating your feelings — it’s about creating space between the trigger and your interpretation.
Objectivity begins in the breath between stories.
🪞 2. Mirror Journaling
Choose a recent moment of emotional confusion.
Describe it in two layers: first, just the observable facts — no emotion, no interpretation.
Then, layer in your internal reaction: feelings, assumptions, fears.
Let the journal be your mirror.
Notice: What’s solid? What’s smoke?
This clarity is the beginning of liberation.
🌍 3. Reality Anchoring
When you feel swept up — by anger, confusion, sadness — return to the body.
Feel your feet against the Earth, the breath in your belly, the length of your spine.
Let the body be your tuning fork for truth.
Emotions distort time and space; the body lives in the now.
Clarity lives here too.
🤝 4. Compassionate Inquiry
With someone you trust — a therapist, a mentor, a soul friend — share a story you’re entangled in.
Ask them to gently question your narrative.
What are you defending? What aren’t you asking?
Let their kindness meet your vulnerability.
Truth often enters not through force — but through relational grace.
🗣️ 5. Daily Truth Practice
Each day, speak one truth you’ve been holding back.
It doesn’t need to be dramatic — just real.
Say it kindly. Say it clearly. Say it without needing to be right.
Truth aligns your inner and outer worlds.
It is the medicine that dispels delusion, one breath at a time.
🪞Reflection Questions for Journaling
• 👁️ Where in my life do I resist seeing things clearly?
• 🕸️ What illusions am I attached to — and what need do they serve?
• 🌤️ How does it feel in my body and heart when I see with true clarity?
• 🕯️ What fears arise when I consider letting go of a comforting narrative?
Closing Thought
Delusion is not a moral failing — it is a veil, often born of pain. To move toward objectivity is to reclaim our power to see clearly, to love what is, and to live in integrity. The third petal reminds us that truth is not harsh — it is liberating. When we remove the filters of fear, the heart becomes a clear mirror.
And in that mirror, we see the sacred — undistorted, undivided, and real.
I warmly invite you to follow along with this series,
and to share with fellow seekers on the path of the heart.