Yatha Drishti Tatha Srishti: As You See, So You Create

दृष्टिः क्षुधा भवेद्यदि, सुवर्णः सृष्टिदर्शनम्

Drishti kshudha bhavedyadi, suvarna srishti darshanam

"If your gaze becomes hungry, you will see creation as gold."

Note on the verse: While this particular formulation appears in contemporary contexts, it resonates deeply with the classical Advaita Vedanta concept of Drishti-Srishti-Vada (दृष्टिसृष्टिवाद)—the philosophical doctrine that perception creates reality. The closely related traditional saying "Yatha Drishti Tatha Srishti" (यथा दृष्टि तथा सृष्टि)—"as is one's vision, so is one's creation/experience"—expresses a similar truth: that the quality of our perception determines the quality of our experienced reality. This wisdom teaches that our consciousness doesn't merely observe the world but participates in shaping our experience of it.

The Alchemy of Attention

There's an ancient Sanskrit wisdom that speaks of a peculiar kind of hunger—not of the body, but of the eyes. A hunger that transforms everything it touches. When your gaze becomes truly hungry, the world reveals itself as gold. Standing before a field at dawn, I witnessed this alchemy firsthand. What began as a humble dandelion's spark, born from sleep's dark embrace, unfurled into a golden sun. Storm whispers traced the sky above, their gray breath painting contrast against the amber light. Each dawn, I realized, is a story etched in light and cloud—a celestial ballet spun precisely where heaven kisses earth.

The Cosmos in the Commonplace

We spend our lives searching for extraordinary moments, booking flights to distant lands, chasing sunsets in exotic locations. Yet here, amidst blades of grass and weathered stone, the cosmos dances. The same sun that illuminates ancient temples and sacred mountains pours its liquid gold across these wild dandelions.

The shift required is not in our circumstances, but in our seeing.

When your gaze becomes hungry—truly hungry—it doesn't skim across surfaces. It doesn't scroll past moments. It settles, it savors, it drinks deeply. This hunger is born of wonder, fed by curiosity, sustained by presence.

The Art of Hungry Seeing

What does it mean to cultivate this hunger of vision?

It means pausing long enough to notice how morning light transforms common weeds into torches of fire. It means recognizing that contrails cutting across the sky are temporary calligraphy, cosmic poetry written in condensation and wind. It means understanding that a gray stone cradled in grass holds entire geological epochs within its weight.

The hungry gaze sees layers. It perceives the extraordinary patience of rocks, the mathematics of cloud formation, the silent explosion of color that occurs when sun meets horizon. It witnesses the ordinary igniting.

Gold Everywhere

Creation doesn't withhold its gold. We simply forget to look for it.

The dandelion doesn't need to be a rose to capture light magnificently. The field doesn't need to be a formal garden to host the drama of dawn. The stone doesn't need to be polished marble to anchor a composition of natural beauty.

Everything is already gold. We need only the hunger to see it.

Cultivating the Hunger

So how do we develop this alchemical vision? How do we train our eyes to transform the ordinary into gold?

Perhaps it begins with slowing down. With putting down the phone and picking up presence. With choosing to witness one sunrise rather than scrolling past a hundred photographs of someone else's.

Perhaps it's about asking different questions. Not "What spectacular thing can I find?" but "What quiet miracle am I standing in the middle of right now?"

Perhaps it's remembering that the same forces that sculpted galaxies are at work in the curl of grass around stone, in the gradient of dawn's color, in the patient unfurling of wildflowers.

The Invitation

The field waits. The dandelions hold their small suns. The sky rehearses its daily masterpiece. Creation extends its eternal invitation: Come with hungry eyes. See me as I am—gold, always gold.

The question isn't whether beauty exists. The question is whether we're hungry enough to see it.

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Let your gaze become hungry.Let the ordinary ignite.Let creation reveal its gold.

What once seemed mundane may yet prove cosmic. The shift in perspective costs nothing but attention, and rewards everything with wonder.