Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Eye in the Sky


So often when I visited Cao Dai temples in Vietnam the old Alan Parsons Project song kept running through my head. "I am the eye in the sky, looking at you-o-o, I can read your mind..."
For that is very much what the central worship image of Cao Dai is: an eye in the sky.
The all-seeing eye of God represents to Cao Dai devotees the universal nature of the deity. God's eye sees all and God belongs to all.
The old Cao Dai teacher who was my friend at the Phu Nhuan temple in Ho Chi Minh City explained it to me this way: "Gos is one - there can only be one God. There is no God for Catholics, another God for Protestants, another for Buddhists. What a foolish way to think! God sees all, loves all, and belongs to all. God needs only one eye, and that single eye represents the unified nature of all of humanity, regardless of religion or race."
You can see why I always find Cao Dai such a seductive religion.

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