If the Eye of the Heart is generally thought of as being hidden in man and looking at God, although strictly speaking such a manner of expression is contradictory, this same Eye, as we have said, is also and even above all the eye of God that looks at man; or, in other words, it is that of the Divine Principle which encompasses manifestation in Its Omniscience.

 

The Eye of the Heart is the Eye of manifestation seeing the Principle, and on the other hand that it is the Eye of the Principle.

 

Thus God may be conceived in accordance with four great visions, that is to say as « self-realizing » Himself in HisAll-Knowledge in four ways :

 

     - First of all, God sees Himself in Himself, in His Essence.

 

     - Secondly, He sees Himself through Creation, which is none other than His vision of Himself

       by virtue of the realization of the negative, hence limiting possibility included in His All 

       Possibility.

 

     - Thirdly, he sees Himself through His creatures which see Him in Creation.

 

     - Fourthly, He sees Himself through His creatures which see Him through the Eye of the Heart.

 

The first of these visions is beyond all duality; the second is effected through the Eye of the Heart; the third function, through the bodily eye which signifies the individual as such; the fourth again emanates from the Eyes of the Heart, in this case in the usual meaning of the symbolism, namely that of the « inward » vision which the Intellect has of God.

 

God’s vision proceeds from Him and ends in Him, like a circle which originates and closes upon itself.

                                                                      Frithjof SCHUON