10 Spirituality Studies 11-1 Spring 2025 intelligence. Measurement is connected to the projection and encompassing of all dimensions of space, but it is also insight into the very structure of the universe. “The eye is truth (Sa. satyam)”, is identified with the very essence of reality, Brahma satyam. That which radiates in the eye is none other than the purusha [7], which is the essential selfhood, “dwelling in the heart of man”. The meaning of the term purusha varies in Hinduism, as it may refer to the Divine Self, to the primordial cosmic Man, or to the active and spiritual principle as in Sāmkhya [38]. On all levels of consideration, however, the purusha implies active, cognizant consciousness, and “adequation” (Lat. adaequatio). The purusha, residing in the eye of the heart, proceeds to all things and knows all objects with certainty. The divine eye is here a symbol of creation, control, and knowledge: the world is projected and encompassed by it. The eye is a marker of certainty and omniscience; it means universal adaequatio. This adaequatio of the eye is a paradigm for all adequate forms of knowledge, like the theôria, contemplation/vision of the Forms in Plato’s epistemology, to which Socrates refers as the function of the “eye of the soul” (Cf. Phaedo 99c, Gorgias 523d, and Republic 518; Planas 2004, 205–224). 4 The Inward Eye and the Unifying Vision Despite important differences noted, across all the traditions discussed, it is hopefully also now apparent that the mystical gaze is primarily inward: it aims at uncovering deeper layers of selfhood, and ultimately the “virgin point”, to use Louis Massignon’s expression, where the Divine touches upon the human (Cutsinger 2002, 3). Mystics are masters at opening their eyes upon the marvels of creation, but they tend to make of the inward gaze a prerequisite for any recognition of the transcendent within the field of immanence. We find the same at play within the thought of Plato. 4.1 Plato’s Self-Seeing Eye Socrates: ‘And have you observed that the face of the person who looks in another’s eye is shown in the optic confronting him, as in a mirror, and we call this the pupil, for in a sort it is an image of the person looking? Then if an eye is to see itself, it must look at an eye, and at that region of the eye in which the virtue of an eye is found to occur; and this, I presume, is sight… And if the soul too, my dear Alcibiades, is to know herself, she must surely look at a soul, and especially at that region of it in which occurs the virtue of a soul – wisdom, and at any other part of a soul which resembles this? And can we find any part of the soul that we can call more divine than this, which is the seat of knowledge and thought? Then this part of her resembles God, and whoever looks at this, and comes to know all that is divine, will gain thereby the best knowledge of himself’ (Plato 2005, 211). In the Alcibiades, Socrates engages Alcibiades in a quest for self-knowledge [9]. The matter lies in moving beyond the appearances with which human beings, like Alcibiades himself, identify; this leads Socrates to the conclusion that the human being is neither body nor combination of body and soul, but only the soul (Plato 2005, 201). Yet the quest does not stop there; like in Advaita Vedānta, it delves further into the very essence of selfhood. It is at this stage that the symbol of the eye becomes operative as indicated in the above quoted passage. Here the function of the other becomes central in that it is only in the other person’s pupil that we can see our own eye, and this pupil is the very locus of sight. An analogy is therefore drawn between sight and wisdom or self-knowledge, whereby we can only see what we truly are in “the region of it [note: the soul] in which occurs the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUwMDU5Ng==