Seeing God, But Only His Back

The concept of darsan, or “seeing” the divine image, is fascinating to me. I often return to comparisons to Catholic practices and beliefs, not because I’m a practicing Catholic, but because it’s the environment that I was brought up in. I also found the reference to Western perceptions of idols and the references to Western attitudes toward pilgrimages interesting. The comparison jumps out to me because the role of images and the centrality of sight in Hindu tradition seems completely antithetical to what I learned in the context of Catholic tradition. In this tradition there was always a strong emphasis on having “faith.” Faith, by definition, requires a lack of tangible evidence. Of course there are images and objects such as crucifixes that are included in prayer, but they aren’t necessary for prayer. The call in Catholicism is to believe rather than to see. 

This also made me think of a few stories from Exodus that involve “seeing God.” The first is of course the burning bush, but the one that I am most interested in with relation to this discussion about sight is the story of God appearing to Moses and Moses seeing the back of God. This story in particular is interesting because it’s presented as a supreme privilege that Moses is able to witness “God’s glory,” yet Moses is still prohibited from seeing the face of God. “But you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. “Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.” It’s also interesting to consider that God appears to Moses after the ordeal with the golden calf, which was being worshiped as an idol. Darsan is kind of hard for me to grasp, I think because of my past experiences with traditions that preach both an emphasis on faith as well as faith and the sight of the divine as incompatible. 

One thing in Catholicism specifically that may actually be analogous to the concept of darsan is transubstantiation. Other denominations see this process as symbolic, but according to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic church, the Eucharist becomes the actual body of Christ during the mass. Eck quotes Agehananda Bharati who writes that there is absolutely no parallel to darsan in any religious act in the West. But in the way that I understand it, transubstantiation is at least in a similar arena. Eck writes, “The very expression is arresting, for ‘‘seeing” in this religious sense is not an act which is initiated by the worshiper.’ Rather, the deity presents itself to be seen in its image, or the sadhu gives himself to be seen by the villagers.” The Eucharist doesn’t involve “seeing” but it does involve the divine coming forth to be received through a physical medium.