The Eyes of The Soul
The Eyes of The Soul
THE EYES OF THE SOUL
8 Copyright 2018, John H. Davidson M.A. (Cantab)
John H. Davidson M.A. (Cantab)
Adapted from The Gospel of Jesus – In Search of His Original Teachings,
John Davidson, 2004.
Available from:
http://www.scienceofthesoul.org/product_p/en–176–0.htm
Many people speak of ‘seeing the light’, but is there really light within us?
Mystics say quite unreservedly that there is, but that it can only be seen by
the “eyes of the soul”.
There are many references in mystic and religious writings to the inner, spiritual light.
The soul has the natural faculty to perceive this light and the mind, too, when it rises up
to the single eye, passes through the inner door or “strait gate” (Matthew 7:13) lying
behind the two physical eyes and goes within, entering the heavenly realms of being.
Jesus makes many comments concerning this light, as in John 8:12:
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,
but shall have the Light of Life.
And in St Matthew, he speaks of the single eye by means of which this light can be
perceived (Matthew 6:22):
The light of the body is the eye:
if therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light.
In the mystic literature of Jesus’ era, this inner faculty or ‘eye’ has been called by a
number of names, in particular, the eye of the mind, the eye of the soul, the eye of the
heart, the eyes of light, the eye of understanding and so on. In the apocryphal Acts of
John, for instance, John thanks Jesus who
didst open the eyes of my mind.
But to open this inner eye and to hear spiritual sound with the inner ear, too, all attention
must be withdrawn from the bodily senses and be concentrated inside. When this is done
then, by degrees, all the inner mysteries are revealed. Hence, in the apocryphal Acts of
Peter, Peter says:
Separate your souls from every thing that is of the senses, from every
thing that appeareth, and does not exist in truth. Blind these (outer) eyes of
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yours, close these (outer) ears of yours, put away your doings that are
seen; and ye shall perceive that which concerneth Christ, and the whole
mystery of your salvation.
In the same text, Peter also says that when a person has firm faith in Christ, both the inner
seeing and hearing will be opened:
Then perceive in your mind that which ye see not with your eyes, and
though your ears are closed, yet let them be open in your mind within you.
Likewise, in the early Christian Doctrine of Addai, the unknown and possibly fictitious
Addai says:
By his true faith (in the Son) a man is able to acquire
the eye of the true mind.
Such firm faith is not a matter of emotion or intellect but of understanding, and can only
be acquired by controlling the mind in meditation. Otherwise, an uncontrolled mind that
is attracted to the world and tries to understand things through reasoning alone will
always remain skeptical and in doubt. Expanding upon this theme, Addai continues:
Let not the secret eye of your mind from the Height above be closed....
Be ye not judges concerning the words of the Prophets. Remember and
consider that by the Spirit of God they are said; and he who accuses the
Prophets, accuses and judges the Spirit of God. May this be far from you!
Because the ways of the Lord are straight, and the righteous walk in them
without stumbling; but the infidels stumble in them, because that they
have not the secret eye of the secret mind, which has no need of questions
in which there is no profit, but loss.
Those whose “secret eye of the secret mind” is open will never question what the
Masters – the “Prophets” – say, for they have come to realize just who a Master is. But
“infidels”, those who follow the ways of the mind, have no real understanding; they pass
judgement and ask questions which are useless and even injurious to themselves. To this,
the writer of the early Christian Clementine Homilies adds that the perfect Master, the
“faultless Prophet” – in this case Jesus – sees and knows all things through this
“boundless eye of his soul”:
For, being a faultless Prophet, and looking upon all things with the
boundless eye of his soul, he knows hidden things.
Likewise, in the early Christian revelational text, the Ascension of Isaiah, speaking of his
inner ascent, ‘Isaiah’ says:
The eyes of my spirit were open and I saw the Great Glory.
Similarly, the writer of the gnostic Apocryphon of James speaks of the inner ascent as
“sending our mind(s) further upwards”, where angelic sights are seen and heard:
And when we had passed beyond that place, we sent our mind(s) farther
upwards and saw with our eyes and heard with our ears hymns and angelic
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benedictions and angelic rejoicing. And heavenly majesties were singing
praise, and we too rejoiced.
The Manichaean-Christian writers (whose psalms relate back to the time of the third-
century Iranian mystic, Mani) spoke of the same faculty. There is a psalm, for instance,
where the “eyes of my soul” are related to the practice of “thy holy Wisdom” – to mystic
contact with the “holy Wisdom” of God. Wisdom is the same as the Creative Word, also
called the Logos, the primary creative emanation or Power of God which is commonly
said by mystics to have formed and to continually sustain the creation:
Jesus my Light, whom I have loved, take me in unto thee....
I have constantly practised in thy holy Wisdom,
which has opened the eyes of my soul
unto the light of thy glory and made me see
the things that are hidden and that are visible,
the things of the abyss (this world)
and the things of the Height.
In Manichaean-Christian writings from Chinese Turkestan, the disciple requests that his
“light-eyes” be opened so that he can perceive the “Law” or “Law Nature” (the Word):
Open my light-eyes of the Law Nature,
so that they may see without obstacle
the... [Law]-Body.
The same inner faculty is also described in the Mandaean writings, a gnostic sect which
miraculously survived in the marshlands of southern Iran and Iraq, from possibly pre-
Christian times down to the present century (A Pair of Nasoraean Commentaries):
The eyes of the heart shine secretly.
“Secretly” means that such inner vision is hidden from outer eyes. No one else need ever
know what the disciple has experienced within. It is a secret gift of the Master, granted
when the disciple is sufficiently prepared for it through the practice of meditation. This is
why it is said of Jesus in the mythological Story of St James:
And he enlightened the eyes of their hearts;
and shewed them all the just men
who have gone to their rest from Adam to John,
and they were shining in glittering raiment.
It is a true mystic who “enlightens the eyes of the heart”, while the “glittering raiment”
they acquire refers to the astral and higher garments of the soul, including the pure light
of the soul itself when freed from the mind. Naturally, after the opening of such vision,
the disciples thank their Master:
And when the disciples had seen this spiritual vision their hearts were
strengthened, and they were glad, and fell to the earth and worshipped,
saying: “We thank Thee, O our Lord and our Master, Jesus the Christ, for
the beauty of thy work to us poor men.”
The Master’s part in the opening of the inner eye is affirmed in all mystic writings. As in
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the Manichaean-Christian psalms:
O Jesus, the true hope,
whom I got for myself in knowledge,
aid me, my Lord, and save me....
Thou hast opened the eyes of my heart,
thou hast shut the eyes [of the body].
Likewise, in the Eastern-flavoured Manichaean-Christian writings of Chinese Turkestan,
the opening of inner vision is again attributed to the Master:
Through him (the great Saint) also, my Buddha-natured eyes
have been enlightened.
And in an allegorical Mandaean poem in which the Master is a merchant selling his
goods in this world, those who buy his wares have their eyes “filled with light”
(Mandaean Liturgies):
Many a one who bought my goods,
his eyes were filled with light.
His eyes were filled with light,
and he seeth the Great One
in the House of Perfection.
His inner eye is opened and he sees God, the “Great One”, in the eternal realm, the
“House of Perfection”. In another Mandaean poem, the Master describes himself as the
“Vine of Life”, a “Tree of Glory from whose Fragrance” or emanation everyone draws
their life. Those who come into contact with this Tree of the Word, says the poet, hear its
“Discourse” and are filled with the inner light:
A Vine am I, the Vine of Life,
a Tree whereupon there is no lie
(no untruth or illusion).
A Tree of Glory,
from whose Fragrance everyone is living.
Everyone who listeneth to its Discourse (Sound)
his eyes fill with light.
Not only is there light within, but also sound. In fact, the primary characteristic of the
Creative Word, the primal Vibration in creation, is that of Sound. Hence, the inner vision
of one who hears the mystic Sound is automatically awakened, for the Light comes from
the Sound. Demonstrating the close integration of these two faculties, after hearing a
description of the inner realms, Matthew says, in the mythological Acts of Matthew:
And when I had heard this from them, I longed to dwell in their country;
and my eyes were dazzled from hearing the sweetness of their speech.
And even more pointedly, in a passage from the Acts of John to which the translator has
deemed it necessary to add an apologetic footnote saying that the wording may look odd
but the lines appears as such in both his versions of the manuscript, the disciples say:
Let us bestow our labour,
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and let light shine in the ear
which the Evil One has blinded,
and let the father of lying (the Evil One)
be crushed beneath the feet of us all.
Again, in the gnostic text, the Dialogue of the Saviour, Jesus says to his disciples:
Have I not told you that by a Visible Voice
and flash of lightning
will the good be taken up to the Light?
While the devotee who wrote the early Christian Odes of Solomon says:
As the sun is a joy to those who seek its day,
so my joy is the Lord;
Because he is my sun, and his rays roused me,
And his light dispelled all the darkness from my face.
I obtained eyes by him, and saw his holy day:
Ears became mine, and I heard his Truth.
All of these writers and many many more from all times and all peoples bear witness to
the reality of the inner creation and the soul’s ability to experience it through mystic sight
and hearing whilst still living in the body. Yet, as Jesus said (John 3:12):
If I have told you earthly things,
and ye believe not, how shall ye believe,
if I tell you of heavenly things?
Man hardly believes in the spiritual wealth that lies within him.
