The Mirror Effect

Last updated on: February 24, 2010 at 1:10 am by Dr. Denise Cooper-Clarke

The Mirror Effect 2010-02-24T01:10:15-06:00 Dr. Denise Cooper-Clarke

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When I look at people they all look wonderful. Some of them want food, some want shelter, some medicine, some want job, some attention, some education, some want love, some sex, some marriage, some kids, some redemption, some salvation and the list goes on. Everyone, every face is painted with a hope, a desire, a dismal look, a wrinkle of frustration on forehead, a smile, a shine of anticipation in the eyes, tolerance, attitude, a request, manipulation, persuasiveness in behavior, style, prestige, vanity, self esteem as they walk, talk or do any other thing.

What could be sweeter than to look at all those sweet variations of desire and hope? There is a quest for social or individual approval that is sometimes evident and many times too subconscious to be noticed by the individual itself. Everyone lives for the other because others are not just their yardsticks to measure themselves up but also mirrors to experience the relative reality called world. It can’t be experienced without the other. There has to be someone else watching, smiling, applauding, becoming happier or jealous, sad or competitive. People have different reasons that fall under the two shades of right or wrong that we as people have stereotyped.

A mirror to one another and many mirrors surrounding a mirror create the illusion called world or better called as a relative reality. If you look close enough, they are all the same. A pair of eyes, ears, a nose and a mouth, a body…they are all exactly the same on the outside. Even on the inside, at the deepest level, the desires are the same as the source of all desires is to know oneself: through appreciation by others, judgment by others, relationships with others, gaining from others, losing for others and much more. We in the world want to feel, see, observe our real nature, and live our reality, the timeless truth via two way mirrors that we are surrounded with.

One moment it can help us experience the reality in the relative terms or indirect way which is very beautiful but at the other moment and this other moment is the most predominant in everyone’s life, what this mirror effect does is to create illusion and confusion of mine and yours. It most often confuses the people and most of us get stuck at this apparent separation.

This keeps our sane world running while we last. But at times this sane world starts turning insane by a chance event, an introspection, presence of a Guru, knowledge and wisdom from great scriptures, spiritual practices or pure philosophical contemplation. When that happens, and suddenly the sane world starts to vanish like a cloud and insane world manifests it can be overwhelming in the beginning.

One starts to behave odd or go into highs and lows of moods and emotions. To fathom the depths of real existence, to comprehend this vastness and to bear something beyond explanation needs much centeredness and grounding. While it all starts to balance out, a human being appears as a mere conduit of God in his grand manifestation plan, the mirrors appear just as mirrors and not fool us anymore unlike a small child that often is fooled by objects and events that adults know are not real. One might lose interest in the world and its activities or more correctly, it might not seem very important as it used to be before.

At the extreme level of balance though, if you fix your attention on love, you can see that all those images that these mirrors create are your own and so much full of love. That all those minds together think about similar things, the desires spring from the same source just appearing different according to the type and size of the mirror. Beautiful chandelier effect we produce together, laughing, smiling, joking, crying, weeping, dying and being born. If we get centered in love, the mirror effect becomes highly vivid and beautiful expression of the formless love.

If we try to center ourselves in the relativity, then every time when even one thing moves only an inch, the total scene changes, devastating our idea of reality, notions of love, sometimes breaking our heart, trust and depressing us. When we scuttle from this unsure position that keeps changing to the position of a seeker in the quest of the unchanging, we first do not believe it as it cannot be put on an appropriate place in our relative world, then we start to get overwhelmed by its power, feel foolish about our ignorance and then slowly converge into an ever smiling, happy and joyful individual who can honestly laugh at the punishments and rewards of the world and love the illusion called creation.

Seeing oneself as so many forms can be really exciting as it makes one complete. There is no need for many lifetimes. Who says there are many lives and who can challenge there cannot be many lives? But definitely, one does not need to live all of them if they don’t want to, only if one can see that they in the present moment are living all of those possible combinations of reality. Wake up and see the mirrors that have cheated you for long and kept you in dream like state. Enjoy it in the light of awareness that they are just shadows.

Until now you have lived them like a child. Now grow up and live them as adults. I wonder what will happen if all of us together realize this at a given moment, only if that was possible.

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