[Olorin_TLA]

The Eye isn't that simple: Frodo sees one, like a red star, in Rivendell; he sees somehting like one in Cirith Ungol (certainly not Sauron, as his atention is said by the Orks there to be wholly on the Gondor front of the War, not at home) , and of course in Barad-dur there's the same flame and presence.
On Amon Hen in fact his gaze is descirbed as a finger. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]
And then the Captains of the West refer to keeping his Eye fixed on them; obviously not in a literal sense, as ther wasn't a huge Eye at the Black Gates. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Sauron is a Maia...his powers are vast. Gollum clearly states that one of his hands is missing a finger (the one Isildur cut off...when a Maia rebuilds their form they can't get rid of injuries (for instance, when wounded Wolf Sauron changes shapes a few times, the final Vampire form still has bleeding neck wounds) ) , and the above Legolas quote from Tolkien proves firther that he had a physical form, like a large (not gigantic) man.

But what about the Eye? Well, like I said, Sauron's powers are vast. It's my opinion that the Eye was a "manifestation," for alck of a better word here, (not incarnate) of his Will, of the Ever-Present searching malice of Saruon, sometimes shown, as in Rivendell, as an omnipresent threat, soemtimes, as in Amon Hen, as where he's actually desperately concentrating.

So in short, I think that's what the eye is, as opposed to a body for Sauron.

As Em said, this omni-present evil will works wonders as a villain. [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]