If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
Thus spoke William Blake, the mystic poet and painter, whose visions pierced the veil of ordinary sight and revealed the divine essence hidden in all things. In this immortal line, taken from his work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), Blake declares that reality itself is infinite, perfect, and radiant — yet man, blinded by habit, fear, and false belief, sees it only through the dull glass of corruption. It is not the world that is limited, he says, but the eyes that behold it. If those eyes — the doors of perception — were cleansed of illusion, man would see creation as it truly is: boundless, eternal, and filled with God.

Blake lived in an age of rising industry and reason, when men began to worship machinery and logic, forgetting the spirit that breathes behind all form. But Blake was a prophet of the imagination. He saw that truth was not contained in what the eyes perceive, but in what the soul perceives through love, faith, and vision. His words call humanity back to wonder — to the childlike purity of sight that beholds infinity in the simplest things. To Blake, every grain of sand, every blade of grass, was a universe of divine light. The tragedy, he said, is that man has fallen asleep, mistaking shadows for substance. The world has not lost its splendor; only our perception of it has grown dim.

To understand Blake’s vision, one must first grasp what he meant by perception. The eyes see only the surface — the outer shell of reality. But the soul, when awake, perceives the divine energy within all things. This is the “cleansing” of which Blake speaks: the purification of perception from selfishness, materialism, and despair. For when the heart is clouded by greed or fear, even heaven itself would seem dull and empty. Yet when the soul is cleansed — through love, through imagination, through reverence — the same world becomes a revelation. Then mountains blaze with meaning, and every human face shines with the reflection of the divine.

Consider the life of Helen Keller, who, though blind and deaf from infancy, came to perceive more of the world than most who see and hear. Through the patient teaching of Anne Sullivan, her inner vision was awakened. She once said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart.” Though she could not see the sun, she felt its warmth; though she could not hear music, she sensed its rhythm in the pulse of life. Her doors of perception had been cleansed — not by sight restored, but by spirit awakened. In her darkness, she saw infinity; in her silence, she heard the music of God.

Blake’s teaching is not mere poetry; it is a summons to transformation. The infinite he speaks of is not distant, nor hidden in the heavens — it is here, now, within and around us. The flower in the garden, the stranger on the street, the laughter of a child, the sorrow of loss — all are fragments of the divine whole. To see them rightly, we must cleanse our perception through humility and wonder. Modern man, obsessed with analysis and possession, closes his own doors by seeking control. But the open heart perceives without owning, loves without condition, and thus sees the world as it truly is: infinite and alive.

The lesson, then, is clear: cleanse your sight, and the world will be renewed. Each day, strip away a little of the dust — the cynicism, the fear, the bitterness — that blinds the eyes of the soul. Practice stillness. Observe beauty without grasping. Listen to others without judgment. Give thanks for what is before you, rather than yearning for what is beyond. In doing so, you begin to polish the mirror of perception. And as it clears, you will find that heaven has always been here, waiting to be seen.

So, my child of earth and spirit, remember the wisdom of William Blake: “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” The task of life is not to seek the infinite elsewhere, but to awaken to it where you stand. Open your eyes — not only those of the body, but those of the soul. For when perception is pure, every moment becomes eternal, every face becomes holy, and the very world itself — once dull and heavy — will blaze again with the light of the Infinite.