Looking in the Mirror

What a surprise it is when we realise that the world is simply the mirror of our own minds. In this light all the trials and tribulations that seem so cruel to us are then seen as self-induced, as storms in a teacup and the acting out of dramas based on illusory perceptions. To a large extent we tend to get what we deserve and have wanted to believe about the nature of the world and ourselves.

The mind can only operate through polarization, identifying at one moment as good and the next as bad, black and white, warm and cold. It is essentially dualistic, reflective and bi-polar and only exists when there is a subject and an object. Our greatest and only sin, in fact our ignorance, in that we are subjects but identify with the objects of our perception. The person who can say that yes, they are both the sinner and the saint is beginning to see the true picture. There is One Life playing many roles, now the aggressor and now the victim; now the son and now the parent and so on. But all those roles are illusory appearances within the substance of the non-self. The Self is always Real and Whole. 

Whether we speak of bodily sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, desires or any of the many modifications of the mind, they are all objects that exist in consciousness and therefore we can observe them. Even our smaller self, our ego identity, is an object and it is when we can observe it, that it then falls away and we experience the emergence of the Self, the Reality or Absolute. Before this can happen we need to look at our own unconscious to find the denied parts that we project onto others. Until we withdraw those projections, the Self will remain veiled behind the illusory modifications and defences that protect us from unpleasant truths about our personality lives.  So the more we defend against the denied parts, the more we project them onto others. You may notice that realised Souls don’t feel the need to defend anything.

In relationships and particularly in some form of marriage or partnership it is easy to project the denied aspects of our selves onto the other person. This is the cause of the majority of divorces. We look into the mirror and don’t like what we see. This despite our tendency to be attracted to the very people who carry the qualities that we have in our own unconscious, but deny to ourselves. For instance, the complete introvert marries the complete extrovert and spends his time wondering why he could have gotten together with such a lightweight.

And the extrovert wonders how she could have married such a bore! He doesn't’t realise that his own choice of acting as an introvert, possibly over lifetimes, has demanded a re balancing of that polarization, through linking up with someone who will reflect his denied part and demand its resolution. The Self is constantly seeking from within to express greater wholeness in its many centres of expression and so it is the urge towards synthesis that explains the existence of conflict within us and in our relationships. 

The secret to resolving the inner conflict is to move more towards the centre and to allow the qualities of both introversion and extroversion to express them selves through our body-mind complex.

On a societal level consider the Jews and the Palestinians. Both are semitic races, so they are brothers in a very real sense, but they continue to feud over the generations because they look in the mirror and don’t like what they see. When will someone emerge who can help them withdraw their projections? Then they will see just how similar they are to each other and be able to embrace. 

So from the point of view of the mind everyone else looks different and there is only diversity. From the point of view of the undivided Self all is unity and the One Life. To return to the unitive vision of life, the mind must be silenced, the ego must be seen and understood and allowed to fall away. The dissolution of the ego is not a distressing thing unless we are clinging to it. Its dissolution into the Absolute is as beautiful and delightful as the dewdrop slipping into the shining sea. It is only from the illusory ego's point of view that it could be distressing, but then the ego being borne of separation is all about fear. Where there is fear there can be no understanding.