The Kutastha, Spiritual Eye or Stargate is one of the most astonishing visions that a meditator can witness. Its form and colors are uniform in reports going back more than a century.
It typically appears as a golden ring containing a field of brilliant blue, purple or deep black. In its center is a perfect, razor-sharp white five-pointed star. Seeing it engenders feelings of humility and wonder.
The meditator may observe parts of the Kutastha separately. The gold ring may be seen alone, like the circle around the astronomical object Fomalhaut. On close examination, the ring appears to be composed of thousands of five-pointed gold stars.
Or a blue or indigo disc or orb may dominate the visual field, with or without a white point in the middle, which may later materialize as a precise star. The meditator may sense a pulling or tingling between the eyebrows, an area called the bhrumadhya associated with the ajna and medulla centers of the brain.
“As Self-Realization students know, when your spiritual eye is open in meditation, you see the astral light of the spiritual eye as a ring of golden radiance encircling a sphere of opalescent blue, and at the center, a five-pointed silvery-white star beheld in the forehead, at the point between the eyebrows.” — Paramahansa Yogananda
What is this incredible sight? No conventional explanation accounts for the remarkable consistency of the Kutastha across individuals and cultures. Nor is it a mere hallucination or distraction. J.C. Stevens, in Kriya Secrets Revealed writes: “Kutastha is a spiritual form ... [which] appears as a pure white star surrounded by a field of blue and a ring of golden light. ... It is what we 'see' when we look back into our own consciousness.”
The Kutastha is in the logos of some Kriya Yoga lineages and even a line of surfboards.
The spiritual eye can be perceived by techniques such as Shambhavi Mudra or Yoni Mudra, Bhrumadhya Sadhana, Hong-Sau, Kriya Yoga, Shabd Yoga, Sant Mat and Jyoti Meditation.
Examples of these may be found in A Beginner's Meditation, the Complete Guide to the Spiritual Eye by Ananda, the book Hacking the Universe and this video, both by Forrest Knutson; and this video by Achalananda among many other sources.
“By pranayam and doing Yoni Mudra, a brilliant, effulgent golden sphere of light appears. Inside it, is bright white light and inside it, a silky black or purple, like the entrance of a tunnel appear. In the center of this is a shining white star. This star is known as the Supreme Navigator.” — Atmananda
