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to the college clinic because she was failing in school and was a bit clumsy. Her parents assumed poor eyesight was to blame. Like Dr. Streff before me, I used a retinoscope to peer into the young girl’s eyes. I watched her eyes as I put different strength lenses in front of them. The eyes of most patients usually reflexively change as different strength lenses change the appearance of the eye chart in front of them, but the eyes of this young girl were nearly static. Her eye reflexes were dull, and her eyes appeared dark, as if no light was getting in or out. She could not see, but there was no biological reason for her poor eyesight. No matter what prescription I tried, her eyes did not respond. It was as if nothing could touch her, and I began to wonder if she might have suffered a trauma that was clouding her eyesight.

      Although I was just beginning my third year of optometry school, I had read in one of my textbooks that emotional issues could, at times, produce a temporary loss of vision termed hysterical blindness. It became clear to me that glasses were not going to help her, so I removed my white clinic jacket, sat on the floor, and did something I had never done.

      “Do you know your letters and numbers?” I asked.

      She said that she did.

      “Great, then let’s play a game! I am going to use my finger to write a number on your back. I want you to tell me the number, okay?”

      Lightly, with my index finger, I drew a number one. She seemed confused.

      I turned around. “How about you do it to me? Draw a letter or a number on my back and see if I can guess what it is.”

      By the end of that session I could already see a change. It was as if she opened a door and allowed me into her world. She trusted me because I helped her discover that she could see via her feelings rather than just her eyes. Her eyes seemed brighter, and she was already starting to guess the right letters and numbers. For a few weeks I continued to work with her in this way. By the end of the tenth session, I could draw three-letter words and double-digit numbers on her back, and she could guess correctly most of the time. She could track a ball with her eyes, walk on a balance beam, and see with 20/20 vision. It was obvious that she was seeing the world differently and so was I.

      Later during my career, I began asking patients to complete different tasks as I watched their eyes. The patients read. They did math in their heads. They imagined. Initially, as expected, I noticed that the pupil would dilate and constrict in response to light, as if it was actually breathing. Here is what was not expected: I found that whenever people were exerting effort, their pupils shrunk and the light in their eyes became dull. It was as if “trying hard” induced tunnel vision and murkiness. When their efforts stopped, suddenly their pupils expanded and filled with light. It was dramatic, and it happened instantaneously because the pupil also responds to any sensory, emotional, or mental change occurring in the autonomic nervous system.

      Having had difficulties with reading my entire life and continually being told to “try harder,” this discovery helped me see that we are designed to function with little or no effort. I was beginning to realize that our potential as human beings hinged on the subtle balance between striving and thriving. The photos below, taken within seconds of each other, illustrate the real-time changes observed in one child’s eyes.

      Pupillary reflex during retinoscopy illustrates the difference between exertion and ease

      Perhaps this is why the German word for eyesight is Augenlicht — literally, “eye light” — and why in Greek, the expressions “I’m losing my light” and “I’m losing my sight” are synonymous.

      Having had the opportunity to work with that six-year-old girl allowed me to discover that a person’s emotional state is intricately linked to their eyes. Good feelings cause pupils to expand, allowing a greater amount of light to enter and exit the eyes. The light expands our view, allowing our brains to receive and absorb more information. In other words, happiness allows us to see, remember, and understand more, expanding the size of the window through which we see the world.

      When a patient’s view of life is bleak, their field of vision reflects it and is often reduced to tunnel vision, collapsing their awareness and their ability to perceive and respond to life. Perhaps that’s why the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “Use the light that dwells within you to regain your natural clarity of sight.”

      As it turns out, the pupil is the body’s most sensitive barometer of activity in the autonomic nervous system, responding as much to light entering the eyes as it does to light exiting the eyes. But this is not a new idea. In the second century CE, the renowned Greek philosopher and physician Galen said that vision comes from the brain and out through the eyes. In addition, most Islamic scholars in the ninth century also believed that light emanates from the eyes. Perhaps the pupil is indeed the “window of the soul” in that it both receives the light without and projects the light within — the alignment I mentioned earlier.

      Since pupillary changes occur without our knowledge, they reveal our deepest feelings. In The Human Animal, zoologist, ethologist, and human sociobiology expert Dr. Desmond Morris writes, “The pupils cannot lie because we have no conscious control over them.” This is why professional poker players frequently wear sunglasses while playing; they do not want to reveal how they feel about their cards.

      The eyes not only reflect our innermost terrain, but they also reveal when we are truly connecting with another. In fact, Dr. Morris confirms that during “early stages of courtship the eyes transmit vital signals. Since the pupils expand slightly more than usual when they see something they like, we can tell whether we are ‘being liked’ or not. . . .If, on the other hand, the pupils shrink to pinpricks when we gaze closely at our companion’s face, we might as well give up.”

      In a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, researchers found that when we are deeply involved in speaking and listening to each other our pupillary dilations synchronize, as if our two minds become one.

      Such findings fueled my early work, confirming that our eyes dynamically reflect our physical, emotional, and spiritual development more vividly than any other part of the body. This was an epiphany for me because, aside from my experience with Dr. Streff, I had been taught that light’s interaction with the eyes was strictly a one-way street. As noted, a number of ancient philosophers, including Plato, Euclid, and Ptolemy, believed that light emanates from the eyes, rendering sight as much a projective process as a receptive one.

      Trusting Life’s Guidance

      The ease with which light traverses the human energy system is an indication of how much we trust our life’s guidance. If we trust life, we live in a state of effortless flow and our eyes and aura appear bright because no light is lost. If we do not trust life, however, we think ahead and try hard, losing the light naturally visible in our eyes. The light in our eyes is a reflection of our light content, a gauge of our congruence and coherence with life, which is a reflection of our state of consciousness. When our eyes appear dull or dim, they indicate a state of heaviness, stagnation, and a lack of life force. When our eyes appear bright, they indicate grace, flow, and vibrancy.

      I also observed that our degree of connectedness with life is reflected in our breathing cycle. When our eyes are bright, our breathing is full and vice versa. Since breathing is one of the most fundamental indicators of physiological coherence, as well as a reflection of the rhythmic expansion and contraction associated with the very cadence of life, it would make sense that an inhibition of this flow would impact us on many levels. Yet most of us respire in a shallow, irregular manner. In his book Pathways to Peace, Swami Satchidananda confirms this fact when he asserts, “we use only one-seventh of our lungs in normal breathing.”

      When I observed how thinking caused my patients to hold their breath, and that it reduced the light emanating from their eyes, I wondered why. I remembered being taught to “work hard” and “try my best” in school, neither of which led to my ultimate success.