Third Eye

The Eye of Siva

The Third Eye (also known as the "Eye of Siva") in popular culture is proposed to be an invisible eye which provides perception beyond ordinary sight. In Hinduism, it refers to the ajna chakra. Mme Blavatsky said that the third eye is the partially dormant pineal gland, which resides between the two hemispheres of the brain. The third eye is often associated with religious visions, clairvoyance, precognition, spiritual intuition, etc.

General description

References to this eye can be found in the Greek legends of the giant one-eyed Cyclops, as well as in the mystical "Eye of Siva" represented in Hinduism as being on the forehead. The Hindu literature connects this eye with the ājñā chakra, which confers the faculty of clairvoyance to those who activate it. But the Theosophical view disagrees. It states that the third eye was a physical reality in early Root-Races, which in the course of evolution became the pineal gland, while the ājñā chakra was never a real eye. In regards to its position, Mme. Blavatsky affirmed that in the early Root-Races it was at the back of the head, its depiction on the forehead being an exoteric licence.

Theosophy, therefore, does not connect the powers of the third eye with those of the ājñā chakra, but rather with the faculty of spiritual intuition. This is explained by Mme. Blavatsky when commenting on "the 'Opened Eye' of the Dangma", mentioned in the Stanza I.8 of Cosmogenesis:

His “opened eye” is the inner spiritual eye of the seer, and the faculty which manifests through it is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men.

Its two front eyes look before them without seeing either past or future. But the “third eye” “embraces ETERNITY.”

Mme. Blavatsky connected the protuberance depicted at the top of the head of the Buddha (known as the "ushnisha", spelled by her as uchnîcha) with the third eye:

Originally an orb with the third eye in it, which degenerated later in the human race into a fleshy protuberance, to disappear gradually, leaving in its place but an occasional flame-coloured aura, perceived only through clairvoyance, and when the exuberance of spiritual energy causes the (now concealed) “third eye” to radiate its superfluous magnetic power. At this period of our racial development, it is of course the “Buddhas” or Initiates alone who enjoy in full the faculty of the “third eye”, as it is more or less atrophied in everyone else.

In early Root-Races

Representation of Siva with three eyes and four arms

According to Mme. Blavatsky, the references to the giant Cyclops and the Hindu gods endowed with four arms and an eye in the middle of the forehead are reminiscences of the appearance of early Root-Races, which had four arms and a third eye, but in the back of the head:

There were four-armed human creatures in those early days of the male-females (androgynes), with one head, yet three eyes. They could see before them and behind them.

But we can easily believe that the Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth (Atlantean) Race, and that all the subsequent legends and allegories found in the Hindu Purânas and the Greek Hesiod and Homer, were based on the hazy reminiscences of real Titans—men of a superhuman tremendous physical power, which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times—and of actual Cyclopes—three-eyed mortals.

During early human evolution this eye served not only as an organ for spiritual, but also for physical vision:

The third eye was primarily [in animals], as in man, the only seeing organ. The two physical front eyes developed later on in both brute and man. . . . While the “Cyclopean” eye was, and still is, in man the organ of spiritual sight, in the animal it was that of objective vision.

But given that these early Root-Races were on the descending arc of evolution, the third eye was gradually replaced by the two frontal ones, thus losing its physical function. Later on, as human beings became more and more material, personal, and sensual, it also lost its spiritual functions and retreated inside the skull:

This eye, having performed its function, was replaced, in the course of physical evolution from the simple to the complex, by two eyes, and thus was stored and laid aside by nature for further use in Æons to come.

The possession of a physical third eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of Third SUB-race of the Fourth Root-Race, when the consolidation and perfection of the human frame made it disappear from the outward anatomy of man. Psychically and spiritually, however, its mental and visual perceptions lasted till nearly the end of the Fourth Race, when its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of the Atlantean continent.

A KALPA later (after the separation of the sexes) men having fallen into matter their spiritual vision became dim; and coordinately the third eye commenced to lose its power. . . . The third eye likewise, getting gradually PETRIFIED, soon disappeared. The double-faced became the one-faced and the eye was drawn deep into the head and is now buried under the hair.

The “third eye” was once a physiological organ, and that later on, owing to the gradual disappearance of spirituality and increase of materiality (Spiritual nature being extinguished by the physical), it became an atrophied organ.

It was an active organ, we say, at that stage of evolution when the spiritual element in man reigned supreme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psychic elements. And, as the cycle ran down toward that point when the physiological senses were developed by, and went pari passu with, the growth and consolidation of the physical man . . . that median “eye” ended by atrophying along with the early spiritual and purely psychic characteristics in man.

The "eye of Siva" did not become entirely atrophied before the close of the Fourth Race. When spirituality and all the divine powers and attributes of the deva-man of the Third had been made the hand-maidens of the newly-awakened physiological and psychic passions of the physical man, instead of the reverse, the eye lost its powers. But such was the law of Evolution, and it was, in strict accuracy, no FALL. The sin was not in using those newly-developed powers, but in misusing them; in making of the tabernacle, designed to contain a god, the fane of every spiritual iniquity. And if we say “sin” it is merely that everyone should understand our meaning; as the term Karma would be the right one to use in this case.

Pineal gland

Pineal and Pituitary Glands

Mme. Blavatsky identified the now inactive third eye with the pineal gland:

The “odd eye” has been gradually transformed into a simple gland, after the physical Fall of those we have agreed to call the “Lemurians.”

The third eye is dead, and acts no longer; but it has left behind a witness to its existence. This witness is now the PINEAL GLAND.

The first written record of the pineal gland was by Greek physician Herophilus in the third century B.C.E. The name comes from the Latin pineus, meaning that it is shaped like a pinecone. This organ, the size of a grain of rice, lies deep within the human brain at its geometrical center, and has been a mystery for nearly two thousand years. Interestingly, it is the only part of the brain that isn’t divided into two hemispheres. Awareness of the pineal gland grew when Rene Descartes, in the seventeenth century, proposed that the only singleton organ in the brain was responsible for generating thoughts. He also postulated a direct connection between the pineal gland and our eyes, claiming that the pineal was the chief interpreter of vision. Descartes proposed that the pineal was the "seat of the soul" and was the meeting place of the physical and spiritual. The human pineal gland is not actually part of the brain. It develops from specialized tissues in the roof of the fetal mouth. From there it migrates to the center of the brain where it has the easiest contact with the brain’s perceptual and emotional centers.

Mme. Blavatsky described this gland in the following way:

The Pineal Gland, or Conarium, is a rounded, oblong body, from three to four lines long, of a deep reddish grey, connected with the posterior part of the third ventricle of the brain. It is attached at its base by two thin medullary cords, which diverge forward to the Optic Thalami (or the posterior cerebral ganglia). Remember that the latter are found by the best physiologists to be the organs of reception and condensation of the most sensitive and sensorial incitations from the periphery of the body (according to Occultism, from the periphery of the Auric Egg, which is our point of communication with the higher, universal Planes). We are further told that the “two bands of the Optic Thalami, which are inflected to meet each other, unite on the median line, where they become the two Peduncles of the Pineal Gland.”

Blavatsky's claim that the pineal gland was the organ of vision in animals which became inactive is today accepted by modern Science:

In the beginning, every class and family of living species was hermaphrodite and objectively one-eyed. In the animal, whose form was as ethereal (astrally) as that of man, before the bodies of both began to evolve their coats of skin, viz., to evolve from within without the thick coating of physical substance or matter with its internal physiological mechanism—the third eye was primarily, as in man, the only seeing organ. The two physical front eyes developed later on in both brute and man, whose organ of physical sight was, at the commencement of the Third Race, in the same position as that of some of the blind vertebrata, in our day, i.e., beneath an opaque skin. Only the stages of the odd, or primeval eye, in man and brute, are now inverted, as the former has already passed that animal non-rational stage in the Third Round, and is ahead of mere brute creation by a whole plane of consciousness. Therefore, while the “Cyclopean” eye was, and still is, in man the organ of spiritual sight, in the animal it was that of objective vision. And this eye, having performed its function, was replaced, in the course of physical evolution from the simple to the complex, by two eyes, and thus was stored and laid aside by nature for further use in Æons to come.

Mme. Blavatsky related this organ with high states of consciousness and perception:

The special organ of consciousness is of course the brain, and is located in the aura of the pineal gland in the living man. During the process of mind or thought manifesting to consciousness, constant vibrations of light take place. If one could see clairvoyantly in the brain of a living man one could almost count (see with the eye) the seven shades of the successive scales of light, from the dullest to the brightest. . . . The septenary scale of states of consciousness is reflected in the heart, or rather its area, which vibrates and illumines the seven brains of the heart as it does the seven divisions or rays around the pineal gland.

Perception, brain perception, is located in the aura of the Pineal Gland, while the Pineal Gland itself, illuminated, corresponds with Divine Thought.

[The pineal gland] is in truth the very seat of the highest and divinest consciousness in man, his omniscient, spiritual and all-embracing mind. This seemingly useless appendage is the pendulum which, once the clock-work of the inner man is wound up, carries the spiritual vision of the EGO to the highest planes of perception, where the horizon open before it becomes almost infinite.

Relationship to other organs

There is an occult relationship between the pineal gland and other organs of the body. For example, its activity has an effect on the heart, as an organ of the spiritual consciousness:

The aura of the Pineal Gland vibrates during the activity of the Consciousness in the Brain, and shows the play of the seven colors. This septenary disturbance and play of light around the Pineal Gland are reflected in the Heart, or rather in the aura of the Heart, which is negative to the brain in the ordinary man. This aura then vibrates and illumines the seven brains of the Heart, as that of the Pineal Gland illumines the seven centres in the Brain. If the Heart could, in its turn, become positive and impress the Brain, the spiritual Consciousness would reach the lower Consciousness. . . . This is the “memory of the Heart”; and the capacity to impress it on the Brain, so that it becomes part of its Consciousness, is the “opening of the Third Eye.”

The activity of the pineal gland, in its turn, is affected by that of the brain as a whole, and in particular by the medulla oblongata:

Of course, the normal and abnormal state of the brain, and the degree of active work in the medulla oblongata, reacts powerfully on the pineal gland, for, owing to the number of “centres” in that region, which controls by far the greater majority of the physiological actions of the animal economy, and also owing to the close and intimate neighbourhood of the two, there must be exerted a very powerful “inductive” action by the medulla on the pineal gland.

Anatomically, the medulla oblongata connects the higher levels of the brain to the spinal cord. It is responsible for regulating several basic functions of the autonomic nervous system which include respiration, the cardiac center (sympathetic and parasympathetic system), the vasomotor center, and the reflex centers of vomiting, coughing, sneezing, and swallowing.

Other occult connections exist with the pituitary gland and the right eye:

The Pineal Gland is the focus of the spiritual, hence inorganic, sensorium. Its action has nothing to do with the circulation of the Blood, but it is concerned with the spiritual fiery emanation that proceeds from the Blood. Further: the Pineal Gland, at the upper pole of the human body, corresponds with the Uterus (in the female and its analogue in the male) at the lower pole; the peduncles of the Pineal Gland corresponding with the Fallopian Tubes of the Uterus. The Pituitary Body is only the servant of the Pineal Gland, its torch-bearer, like the servants carrying torches that run before the carriage of a princess.

The right eye is the “Eye of Wisdom,” i.e., it corresponds magnetically with that occult centre in the brain which we call the “Third Eye” while the left corresponds with the intellectual brain, or those cells which are the organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty.

Chakras

Representation of the sahasrāra chakra

In Hinduism the ājñā chakra, the subtle center located at the eyebrow region, is traditionally considered as the Third Eye. However, neither its position nor its functions agree with the Theosophical view of the Third Eye. C. W. Leadbeater connected the "brow chakra" with the pituitary gland and not with the pineal, which he connected to the seventh chakra, called Sahasrāra in Hinduism. He described the latter as follows:

The seventh centre, the coronal, at the top of the head, is when stirred into full activity the most resplendent of all, full of indescribable chromatic, effects and vibrating with almost incon­ceivable rapidity. It seems to contain all sorts of prismatic hues, but is on the whole predominantly violet. It is described in Indian books as thousand-petalled, and really this is not very far from the truth, the number of the radiations of its primary force in the outer circle being nine hundred and sixty.

. . .

This chakra is usually the last to be awakened. In the beginning it is the same size as the others, but as the man progresses on the Path of spiritual advance­ment it increases steadily until it covers almost the whole top of the head. Another peculiarity attends its development. It is at first a depression in the etheric body, as are all the other, because through it, as through them, the divine force flows in from without; but when the man realizes his position as a king of the divine light, dispensing largesse to all around him, this chakra reverses itself, turning as it were inside out; it is no longer a channel of reception but of radiation, no longer a depression but a promi­nence, standing out from the head as a dome, a veritable crown of glory.

The Voice of the Silence says: "Then from the heart that power shall rise into the sixth, the middle region, the place between thine eyes, when it becomes the breath of the One-Soul, the voice which filleth all, thy Master’s voice." Commenting on this, C. W. Leadbeater said:

The special mention of the place between the eyes in our text has reference to the pineal gland and the pituitary body. The forces from both the sixth and seventh astral centres (which are between the eyebrows and on top of the head) usually converge on the pituitary body, when the etheric centre is aroused, and then vivify it and act through it. But there is a certain type of people (who are being addressed in our text) in whom the seventh astral chakra vivifies the pineal gland instead of the pituitary body, and it in that case forms a line of communication directly with the lower mental plane, without apparently passing through the astral plane in the ordinary way. Through that channel come for them the communications from within, while for the other type of people they come through the pituitary body.

Regarding its function, he wrote:

When the seventh centre is quickened, the man is able by passing through it to leave his body in full consciousness, and also to return to it without the usual break, so that his consciousness will be continuous through night and day. When the fire has been passed through all these centres in a certain order (which varies for different types of people) the con­sciousness becomes continuous up to the entry into the heaven-world at the end of the life on the astral plane, no difference being made by either the temporary separation from the physical body during sleep or the permanent division at death.

Awakening

According to Mme. Blavatsky, "In deep sleep the Third Eye opens, but it does not remain open". She adds that "Such opening is good for Manas, who profits by it, even though the Lower Man is not then reached and therefore cannot remember.

The third eye is active when the person is in a spiritual state of consciousness:

During the activity of the inner man (during trances and spiritual visions) the eye swells and expands. The Arhat sees and feels it and regulates his action accordingly.

In the Yogi, the “principles” of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red-Violet nor the Auric Blue of the Body are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden-hued Prâna principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards from the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminating in a point.

We begin with the mastery of that organ which is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and called by Western anatomists the Pituitary Body. In the series of the objective cranial organs, corresponding to the subjective Tattvic principles, it stands to the “Third Eye” (Pineal Gland) as Manas stands to Buddhi; the arousing and awakening of the Third Eye must be performed by that vascular organ, that insignificant little body, of which, once again, physiology knows nothing at all. The one is the Energizer of WILL, the other that of Clairvoyant Perception.

When a man is in his normal condition, the introspective Adept can see the golden Aura pulsating in both the glands, a pulsation, like that of the heart, never ceasing throughout life. This motion, however, under the abnormal condition of effort to develop clairvoyant faculties, becomes intensified, and the Aura takes on a stronger vibratory and pulsating or swinging action. The arc (of the Pituitary Gland) mounts upward, more and more, toward the Pineal Gland, until finally the current striking it, just as when the electric current strikes some solid object, the dormant organ is awakened and set all aglowing with the pure Âkâsic Fire. This is the psycho-physiological illustration of two organs on the physical plane, which are the concrete symbols of, and represent respectively, the metaphysical concepts called Manas and Buddhi. The latter, in order to become conscious on this plane, needs the more differentiated fire of Manas; but once the sixth sense has awakened the seventh, the light which radiates from it illuminates the fields of infinitude: for a brief space of time, man becomes omniscient; the Past and the Future, Space and Time, disappear and become for him the Present. If an Adept, he will store that knowledge he thus gains, in his physical memory and nothing––save the crime of indulging in Black Magic––can obliterate the remembrance of it. If only a Chela, portions alone of the whole truth will impress themselves on his memory, and he will have to repeat the process for years, never allowing one speck of impurity to stain him mentally or physically, before he becomes a fully initiated Adept.

There are not many specific references about the awakening of the third eye, in its spiritual function, probably because it cannot be done by following a mere technique. One suggestion is that it can be awakened by means of purification, as well as the lessening of the influence of the activity of physical senses on consciousness:

The Pineal Gland is that which the Eastern Occultist calls Devaksha, the “Divine Eye,” or the “Third Eye.” To this day, it is the chief and foremost organ of spirituality in the human brain, the seat of genius, the magical Sesame uttered by the purified Will of the mystic, which opens all the avenues of truth for him who knows how to use it.

The undefiled Lanoo (disciple, chela) need fear no danger; he who keeps himself not in purity (who is not chaste) will receive no help from the 'deva eye'.

This throws also a light on the mystery—incomprehensible to some—of the connection between abnormal, or Spiritual Seership, and the physiological purity of the Seer. The question is often asked, "Why should celibacy and chastity be a sine quâ non rule and condition of regular chelaship, or the development of psychic and occult powers?" . . . During human life the greatest impediment in the way of spiritual development, and especially to the acquirement of Yoga powers, is the activity of our physiological senses. Sexual action being closely connected, by interaction, with the spinal cord and the grey matter of the brain, it is useless to give any longer explanation.

Another reference can be found in relation to prāṇayama, though not as cessation of the breath but of the mental activity:

The science of the five breaths––the moist, the fiery, the airy, etc., etc.––has a twofold significance and two applications. By the Tântrikas it is accepted literally, as relating to the regulation of the vital, lung breath, but by the ancient Râja-Yogis as referring to the mental or “will” breath, which alone leads to the highest clairvoyant powers, to the function of the Third Eye and the acquisition of the true Râja-Yoga occult powers.

When the individual consciousness is turned inward a conjunction of Manas and Buddhi takes place. In the spiritually regenerated Man this conjunction is permanent, the Higher Manas clinging to Buddhi beyond the threshold of Devachan, and the Soul . . . is then said to have the “Single Eye.” Esoterically, in other words, the “Third Eye” is active.

Its activation is also related to the awakening of Kuṇḍalinī:

There are seven cavities in the Brain. . . . The sixth cavity is the Pineal Gland, also hollow and empty during life; the granules are precipitated after death. The Pineal Gland corresponds with Manas until it is touched by the vibrating light of Kuṇḍalinī, which proceeds from Buddhi, and then it becomes Buddhi-Manas. . . . The fires are always playing round the Pineal Gland; but when Kuṇḍalinī illuminates them for a brief instant, the whole universe is seen.

The consumption of drugs and alcohol are deleterious to the third eye:

The use of wine, spirits, liquors of any kind, or any narcotic or intoxicating drug, is strictly prohibited. If indulged in, all progress is hindered, and the efforts of teacher and pupil alike are rendered useless. All such substances have a directly pernicious action upon the brain, and especially upon the “third eye,” or pineal gland (vide “Secret Doctrine,” Vol. II, p. 288 [d] et seq.). They prevent absolutely the development of the third eye, called in the East “the Eye of Siva.”

Drunkenness and fever cause disorderly motion in the Pituitary Body, and so produce illusions of sight, visions, hallucinations. This body is sometimes so affected by drunkenness that it is paralyzed, and the strict forbiddance of alcoholic liquids to all students of Occultism turns on this effect which alcohol produces on the Pituitary Body and Pineal.

According to A. Besant and C. W. Leadbeater

In the brain there are also the organs by means of which direct perception of things beyond the reach of the physical senses may be had. The pituitary body is a link between the physical body and the astral body, and so on. In the same hollow in the brain, but a little further back, lies the pineal gland, which is connected directly with the mental body, and serves to bring impressions down from the mental plane. Some people develop the pituitary body first, some the pineal gland – each must follow the method prescribed by his own guru.

This enlarging of waking-conscious­ness is accompanied with development in the atoms of the brain, as well as with the development of certain organs in the brain, and of the connexions between cells. For the inclusion of the astral Self­-consciousness, it is necessary that the pituitary body should be evolved beyond its present condition, and that the fourth set of spirillae in the atoms should be perfected. For the inclusion of the mental, the pineal gland must be ren­dered active, and the fifth set of spirillae brought into thorough working order. So long as these physical development remain unaccomplished, Self-conscious­ness may be evolved on the astral and mental planes, but it remains super­-consciousness and its workings do not express themselves through the brain, and thus become part of the waking-consciousness.

Thought transference

There are two methods for thought-transference, the first of which involves the pineal gland:

There is a small organ in the brain, the pineal gland. . . . It is a rudimentary organ in most people, but it is evolving, not retrograding, and it is possible to quicken its evolution into a condition in which it can perform its proper function, the function that, in the future, it will discharge in all. It is the organ for thought-transference, as much as the eye is the organ of vision or the ear of hearing.

If anyone thinks very intently on a single idea, with concentration and sustained attention, he will become conscious of a slight quiver or creeping feeling—it has been compared to the creeping of an ant—in the pineal gland. The quiver takes place in the ether which permeates the gland, and causes a slight magnetic current which gives rise to the creeping feeling in the dense molecules of the gland. If the thought be strong enough to cause the current, then the thinker knows that he has been successful in bringing his thought to a pointedness and a strength which render it capable of transmission.
That vibration in the ether of the pineal gland sets up waves in the surrounding ether, like waves of light, only much smaller and more rapid. These undulations pass out in all directions, setting the ether in motion, and these etheric waves, in turn, produce undulations in the ether of the pineal gland in another brain, and from that are transmitted to the astral and mental bodies in regular succession, thus reaching the consciousness. If this second pineal gland cannot reproduce these undulations, then the thought will pass unnoticed, making no impressions, any more than waves of light make an impression on the eye of a blind person.

In the second method of thought-transference, the thinker, having created a thought-form on his own plane, does not send it down to the brain, but directs it immediately to another thinker on the mental plane. The power to do this deliberately implies a far higher mental evolution than does the physical method of thought-transference, for the sender must be self-conscious on the mental plane in order to exercise knowingly this activity.

Waking consciousness on the mental plane

A person may be aware on the mental plane while the body is asleep, in meditation, or in trance, but may not be able to bring that awareness to the physical plane, to what is called "waking consciousness". The pineal gland is connected with the inclusion of the realities of the mental plane in our daily waking consciousness:

Waking-consciousness may then be defined as that part of the total conscious­ness which is functioning in the brain and nervous system. . . . This enlarging of waking-conscious­ness is accompanied with development in the atoms of the brain, as well as with the development of certain organs in the brain, and of the connexions between cells. . . . For the inclusion of the mental [plane], the pineal gland must be ren­dered active, and the fifth set of spirillae brought into thorough working order.

Online resources

Articles

• Pituitary Gland at Theosopedia
• The Eye of Shiva by the Avatar
• The Races with the “Third Eye.” by H. P. Blavatsky
• The Third Eye and Human Evolution by John Van Mater, Jr.
• Third Eye and Counting by Theosophy Watch
• Waking the Third Eye by Theosophy Watch

Videos

• Awakening the Third Eye by Felix Conradi