A Human Story
When I Look Into Your Eyes, Who Do I See?
I woke up this morning feeling anxious about the day ahead.
I sat down with my morning pages, thinking, oh well, another garble.
But instead, something quite unexpected came through. A reminder of something I had experienced years ago, and something that sits at the very heart of our Human Story.
The song 7 Seconds by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry came to mind.
And in particular, the line when she sings:
“What's in you is in me .”
And suddenly I remembered meditating in India, taking part in a breathwork course at Osho's.
After much jumping, crying, crawling, ridding ourselves of what was stuck in our nervous systems, and settling deep into the body, we were asked to really look into the eyes of our fellow participants — yogis or sannyasins (whatever the name — I am no fan of labels).
I must have been so exhausted, and so present in the moment — in the now — that when looking into the eyes of the other, I saw 'me' looking back at me.
So within our Human Story, I am asking you:
When I look into your eyes, who do I see? Is it you, or is it me?
Where do I end, and where do you begin?
We spend so much of our lives defining ourselves through our differences.
Our nationality. Our colour. Our religion. Our gender. Our experiences. Our beliefs.
But beneath those differences, is there something we recognise in one another?
When I see your suffering, why can I feel it?
When I see your joy, why can it become mine?
There is a spiritual understanding here: that we are not separate.
Is it spiritual, or also science? Or is it nature — walking in the woods and witnessing how everything is connected?
And perhaps this is where our sense of separation begins — with the stories we tell ourselves about who we are.
I am leaving you with one of my most favourite quotes by Krishnamurti:
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent.
Do you see why it is violent?
Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind.
When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.
— Jiddu Krishnamurti
I know it goes against the stories we have been told.
We are encouraged to label ourselves and group ourselves.
But really, just for a minute, feel it.
If I call myself this, and you call yourself that, we create the divide which causes friction.
That friction grows into… yes, the wars we see today.
Let's remember, we are you and you are me.
And yet we each carry our own unique human story.
Together, they create a beautiful tapestry of colours, sounds and movement.
And this is who we are.
We are creation, continuously creating the stories we tell.
