Seeing with our mind’s eyes leads us astray

Appearances deceive because they are appearances and not reality…Appearances can but deceive the mind that wants to be deceived. ~ A Course in Miracles

A few days ago I was walking along a quiet residential street in the neighborhood I live in. It was an unseasonably warm day for that time of year, the sun was shining, and I was in my glory! Out of the corner of my eye something caught my attention. I looked to the right and approximately 50 meters ahead of me on the other side of the street was a…are you ready for this…a small horse, or pony!!!

I stopped, looked away, shook my head, and looked back in the direction I was looking previously. Again, I saw a pony moving along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Don’t worry, I did question what I thought he was seeing.

I looked away for a second time. When I looked back in the same direction, I once again saw a pony walking along the street. Of course, I wondered how a pony could be walking the residential streets of downtown Ottawa without any apparent owner or handler to accompany it.

One more time, I looked away and looked back. This time the image of a pony in my mind earlier started to morph. As I looked more closely, two women started to come into focus. I was somewhat relieved. But as soon as I saw two women walking, the image of a pony started to come back. For a second, or two, what I was seeing changed back and forth between two women and a pony.

I looked away once again. When I turned back, what I now saw was two men walking along the street. I continued to focus my attention on the two men and my vision stabilized. I began to understand how the two men looked like a horse. A combination of factors—the size of the two men; the way they were walking; how they were walking in relation to one another; the angle I was looking at them, etc., etc., etc.—tricked my vision to send the message that what I was seeing was a pony, and then two women.

The experience recounted above was a sobering reminder that our body’s eyes can lead us astray sometimes. The experience above was a bit of an extreme example, but the experience was metaphorical for what happens more often that we may be willing to admit. How many times have you thought you saw something, but after a ‘double take,’ you realized it was something completely different than the first time you saw it?

What I began to ask myself as I continued my walk was: How often have I looked at something and really didn’t see what was there? How often have I made a judgement about something when I was not seeing it correctly? How often do my eyes let me down and show me something other than what is really there? How might I have reacted, behaved, responded, if I had seen something differently? What other ways are there to look at things, other than through my eyes?