The Eye of God

The Eye of God symbolizes divine omniscience. The single Mystic Eye of God sees spiritually to know and contemplate everything at once. It is the highest degree of spiritual vision in man, a soul virtue and a faculty.

The Eye of God, together with Simplicity and Sincerity, forms the third lesser trinity of Via Christa Degrees, whose keynote is Balance.

Edna Lister on the Eye of God

The soul uses the body's equipment. For example, spiritual vision uses the physical eyes and their nerves. Here's how that works:

Thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves from the right and left sides of the body carry information to and from the brain: eight pairs are cervical, twelve pairs are thoracic, five pairs are lumbar, five pairs are sacral, and one pair is the coccygeal nerves. The spinal nerve tracts cross over from the left and right side of the spine at the base of the skull (at the pyramidal decussation), through the pons of the medulla oblongata into the midbrain (part of the brainstem), forming the seat of the soul's records of its entire existence.

These nerves then extend from the midbrain up through the convolutions of the brain becoming nerve centers in the brain [directly involved with the cascades of neurotransmitters]. To spiritual sight, each has a phosphorescent tip that bursts into a flame of glory when touched by the white Light of the Christ, forming the flaming petals of the thousand-petaled lotus in the atomic mental body, which we call a halo.

Two groups of nerves, from the right and left occipital lobes, each form a band through which the optic nerves cross from the right to the left side of the brain, directly under the windows of the soul, the pineal body, and pituitary gland. The crossover point is the optic chiasma of the thalamus, the seat of the all-seeing or mystic eye. The white Light of the Christ descends from above, illumines the optic chiasma, and shines through your eyes and forehead into the etheric substance about you. This Light is the "Spirit of the Lord" — "And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed." – Deuteronomy 31:8. – Edna Lister, December 9, 1946.

To open the mystic eye, cross your hands, right over left, over your breast, with the middle fingertips just brushing the lower edge of your collarbones. Do this at night as you pray, and to hold a high mental point. – Edna Lister, July 5, 1948.

Until you raise the creative fire to the crown center, the mystic eye will not open. With open spiritual eyes and ears you can see with the midbrain neurons, which fill the convolutions of the brain. Inside each neuron is a record of a past life. When you open the nerves of the midbrain, light strikes the optic thalamus and you see them. – Edna Lister, July 30, 1951.

"The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." – Matthew 6:22. The single eye opens when both your eyes focus as one on the Light of God. Then your whole body is full of Light and you see as with the eye of God. Light moves in as you peer through the mists of matter and you penetrate through them.

When the eye is single and the body full of Light, you know the truth, and become what you know. Then you see only the Christ in the other, and could not bear to hurt or offend another. The Light of the mystic eye is also the light of the body's physical eyes. Anything that isn't Light is dark — not love, but hate. When you do not see in Light, truth is darkened by a veil that hides it from your view. To let the Light in transcends and transmutes everything life can produce. – Edna Lister, February 5, 1958.

Take the mystic eye to the grocery store with you and you will see what not to buy. Seeing with mystic vision is just natural when you live by the laws of God. The mystic eye returns you to the original substance in any physical thing — cells, molecules, atoms and electronic charges. It is invisible but I (Edna Miriam) have taken you there. You have seen with the mystic eye. When your imagination is turned upward to soul vision, you see with the mystic eye.

You see all the pain and disease with the physical eye. Look beyond the pain or the object with your mystical eye. Direct your soul vision to see what God can do about it if you stand steadfastly on His truth. You look at someone and may see horns and a tail, but look beyond this and see them as perfect. Look behind the mask they are wearing to see their soul's beauty and the love. The world will accuse you of wearing rose-colored glasses because the mystic eye is the promise of all romance. There is no romance without the use of mystic eyes. The Oversoul looks through the mystic eye. Physical eyes see only the detriments. – Edna Lister, February 17, 1958.

Anything of the little self fogs your heavenly vision and you can't see with the mystic eye. – Edna Lister, October 21, 1958.

The all-seeing Eye of God, represents the pure Shekinah glory pouring out, descending to redeem the soul. As the mystic eye, the optic chiasm of the physical thalamus, begins to open to the Light to become the Eye of God. At first, the person sees only the other fellow's faults, and the laws he breaks. Pray for the one who picks and criticizes. This is the first step in opening the mystic eye and his first recognition of law, not for himself, but for others.

The Eye of God is the symbol of the opened soul records. The Light descending opens the memory records in the neurons of the midbrain. When you dream of an eye, the Oversoul, your contact with the Source, speaks through your conscience, saying, "Come up." At this point, you can be certain the optic thalamus really is opening. – Edna Lister, The 33 Degrees of Soul Conquering, October 20, 1959.

New Testament on the Eye of God

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. – Matthew 5:29.

The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! – Matthew 6:22-23.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. – Matthew 7:2-5.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. – Luke 6:41-42.

No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light. The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light. – Luke 11:33-36.

He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. 1 John 2:9-11.

Old Testament on the Eye of God

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. – Psalm 19:8.

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. – Proverbs 15:3.

The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart. – Proverbs 15:30.

The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. – Proverbs 20:12.

The poor and the deceitful man meet together: the Lord lighteneth both their eyes. – Proverbs 29:13.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. – Proverbs 29:18.

The Eye of God in Other Sacred Writings

Good for the man who will return and awaken, and blessed is he who has opened the eyes of the blind. – The Gospel of Truth, Codex I, 3 and XII, 2.

When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the Kingdom]. – Gospel of Thomas, Codex II, 2.

When you cast the beam out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to cast the mote from your brother's eye. – Gospel of Thomas, Codex II, 2.

When the pearl is cast down into the mud, it becomes greatly despised, but it always has value in the eyes of its owner. Compare the Sons of God: wherever they may be, they still have value in the eyes of their Father. – Gospel of Philip, Codex II, 3.

The superiority of man is not obvious to the eye, but lies in what is hidden from view. Consequently, he has mastery over the animals which are stronger than he is and great in terms of the obvious and the hidden. – Gospel of Philip, Codex II, 3.

The Word of the Lord searches out all things, both the invisible and that which reveals His thought; for the eye sees His works, and the ear hears His thought. – Odes of Solomon 16:8-9.