Is There Such A Thing As An Evil Eye?
By Vincent Tarantola
In order to answer such a question, we have to look at the saying of Jesus from which this concept has been taken out of context: "If thine eye be evil, thy body will be full of darkness. But if thine eye be single, thy body will be full of light." [Matthew 7:23]
If you take the time to really think about these words, you will easily see that they have nothing to do with putting a curse on people, or with what the Italians call Il Malocchio, the evil eye. Unfortunately, this is the kind of fate that has befallen so many of the Biblical sayings, which have a much deeper meaning and significance than the superficial evaluation that has been given to them.
So let us attempt to bring a modern and more accurate interpretation to this extraordinary saying of Christ. What the Master is saying is that if your perception, your inner vision, is truthful or whole, your entire organism will be filled with light, in the sense that you will feel intensely alive and buoyant. Since perception is the cause of our conclusions and actions, if you perceived your mother as being unloving when
you were a child, you may have unconsciously concluded that all women are unloving or rejecting. Perhaps you can imagine the consequences of such a false conclusion and generalization. This would represent the evil eye, an evaluation based on erroneous perception. The trouble with the human eye is that our view is false because we interpret the fragment we see as being the whole. For example, if a person has been mugged by an individual belonging to a certain race, he may conclude that all such people are bad and therefore to be defended against. The person with such an evil eye will walk around full of fear, anxiety, and rage. If a person belonging to that particular race even looks at him in a certain way or steps on his foot accidentally, he is liable to turn against him and, out of his pent-up rage and defensiveness, shoot him or stab him or try to hurt him in some way.
Thus we can say that the evil eye is a symbolism for man's distorted view of man, of life, of God, of creation, and of others as they really are. We do not see the reality but the illusion, what we imagine it to be. Perception is the ability to experience oneself and others realistically. truthfully. The eye is evil when one's perception is so unrealistic, so untruthful that one's vision of life, of God, of oneself, and others is distorted. Such an inner state, that all of us have to some degree, results in the inability to see things the way they really are. When that is the case, not only our body but our life will be filled with darkness, the blindness of unawareness, of ignorance, of prejudice, of hatred, of loneliness, It is certainly not a state that is conducive to happiness, freedom, and joy.
Conversely, the ability to perceive things and people realistically, as they truly are, results in feeling good about ourselves, others, life and God. We know that people are not really out to get us, that they are just as afraid of us as we are of them. We know that life is not as bad as so many of us think it is. We know that God is not against us, but rather on our side if only we stop running and try to listen to His ongoing voice that is soft and gentle, a murmur that you can hear if you but listen silently to your heart.
The two key words in this saying are evil and single. They reflect two opposite states of mind, unity and duality. The evil eye sees something as either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. The single eye see things as they really are, neither black nor white, but both; neither good nor bad, but both; neither right nor wrong, but both. For that is the way human beings are in their present state of development, made up of faults and qualities, of pettiness and greatness, of selfishness and goodness, of fear and courage, of love and hatred. We cannot deny our present reality. If we accept it, we shall have a single eye and our interpretation of what we see will be honest and accurate, and thus your whole body will be filled with light, the light of life, the truth of God.
The choice is up to you. You can continue to cling to the evil-minded way of seeing life, others, and yourself, or you can begin to change your way of seeing reality and thus open up to the light that shines permanenently within you, until gradually your whole inner vision is so clear that you can even see the face of God, and you will perceive this beautiful face in everyone you see, including you.