Yoga of Perfect Sight

The Eye and the Camera

The eye is an animate miniature photographic camera. It has a lens, iris (diaphragm) and a retina or film for receiving images. The normal eye never makes an effort to see.

The eye adjusts its focus from far to near just like the camera by lengthening itself through the action of the oblique muscles. This adjustment of the focus is called accommodation. So we can say that in accommodation the eyeball is lengthened. The lens has nothing to do with accommodation; it does not change its surface. Only by an effort can one prevent the eye from elongating at the near-point.

When the eye looks at 20 ft. or beyond without any effort or strain, no adjustment is necessary; then it is said that the eye is at rest. The shape of the eyeball cannot be altered during distant vision without strain.

But there is one great difference between the eye and the camera, and that difference is in the film. The film of the camera is equally sensitive in all its parts. but the retina of the eye has a point of maximum sensitiveness, which is called Central Spot or macula lutea. Due to this increased sensitiveness the eye sees best where it looks at, and this quality of the eye is called Central fixation.

The retina has a layer of rods and cones. The cones work in light, while the rods work in darkness. A cock's eye has only cones, a bat's eye has only rods, but in the higher animals or in man both rods and cones are present. The macula lutea is full of cones, there is no rod. The extreme end of the retina has only rods, there are no cones. In between both rods and cones are present.

The eye is a sensory organ and functions without effort like other sensory organs; as you hear or smell, so you see. When there is no effort to see, the function of the eye is normal and the eye has perfect eyesight, the image is focused correctly on the retina. But the moment the normal eye makes an effort to see, it ceases to be normal. So, there may be myopia, hypermetropia with or without astigmatism.