You are not the eyes. The eyes are just an instrument. Many times you can see, your eyes may be open but you are not seeing, not registering the scene you are seeing.

Innocence means having a clear understanding that whatever you see in the outer world is made of the same stuff out of which your dreams are made.

Just remember you are seeing through the eyes. If you look through the eyes, suddenly you will see you are witnessing everything. You are not the two ‘holes’ called the eyes. You are only seeing through the two holes called eyes.
If you feel you are the two eyes, you are caught in ego. In your dream, as long as the attention is on the objects, you will continue to dream. When your attention is turned towards yourself, that is from the seen to the seer, you will be awakened.

The moment you realize you are something beyond the eyes, your attention is turned to the seer. Then you realize that this world is made of the same stuff of which your dream is made. As long as you think you are seeing, the whole attention is on the seen. That is what I call ego. When you step back and realize you are seeing through the eyes, the whole attention is on the seer. That is what I call innocence.

Innocence means having a clear understanding that whatever you see in the outer world is made of the same stuff out of which your dreams are made.

These are the steps:

• the first is getting the idea that what you see is a dream.
• The next is having the shakti, the energy, to change the dream.
• The third is the buddhi, the intelligence to know it is a dream and so there is no need to change it!

An important truth you should know is that dreams are made of the same stuff of which this waking world is made. If you think dreams are ordinary, this world is also ordinary. If you think this world is some kind of reality for you, dreams are also reality.

Understanding this will give you the energy to make your dreams into reality and it will give you the intelligence to understand that whatever you think as reality is nothing but one more dream. To understand this powerful, life- transforming truth, we need to understand about this stuff of which the dream world and this world are made of. We need to know about prana, the life energy that sustains us.

Understand, the air you breathe is just a vehicle in which the prana comes in and goes out. Prana is the life force, the energy itself. Understand this one example. If a truck comes inside this campus and leaves something and goes out, the truck is like the air, the breath. The product that is delivered is prana. Constantly, the air is going in and leaving the prana inside and the air is coming out. Constantly, we are taking prana through air.

In India, if you attended Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering in the world attended by millions of people, you may have seen the yogis bury their heads totally in the earth for three days. They are able to do this because they know how to take the prana into their body directly from the cosmos without the help of air. As long as you take prana through air, you need to breathe through your nose. You need to inhale and exhale. But, when you can take the prana directly without the help of air, you don’t need to inhale or exhale through the nose. Your body can directly take the prana through the cosmos.

One more thing: as long as the incoming breath is bringing in more prana and going out as an empty vehicle, your life will be strengthened. If the reverse starts happening, if the air comes with less prana and goes out with more prana, it means death is nearing or the life energy is going towards death. When death nears, just the empty air will enter but when it goes out, it will go with the prana.

That is the reason all the great masters, such as Buddha, Shankara, Guru Nanak, and Mahavira, knew or could sense the prana and they could predict their death. Six months before their passing away, they were able to see very clearly the prana moving out of their body.

There is a beautiful concept in Ayurveda called as the ‘peak age’ which is based on this science of prana. Till a particular age, the person will be receiving more prana through the incoming breath and less prana will be going out through the outgoing breath. The moment the outgoing breath starts carrying more prana than the incoming breath, they know now the person is moving towards death.

source: Living Enlightenment