Drop the Mirror

When we look into the mirror we see an image and because of memory we identify with that image as ourselves. With just a little bit of self-awareness we know that the image that we see is not our real self but just a reflection.

It is the same with the images of thought and feelings. We perceive those images and identify thus creating ME. We then hold these images in memory and thus the ego is born. Thereafter when we look out into the world we first look through that collection of memory known as ME. It passes through the prism of collected past impressions.

But if we carefully examine the situation we understand that those thoughts and feelings are just images on a screen and with self-awareness we experience the perceiving and know that I am not that which is being perceived. Now the ME has begun to lose its grip. Of course the grip that the ME has is only what we give. It has no power of its own. It is inanimate.

Just as we do not walk around holding the mirror in front of us and relating to the world we can also drop the mirror of ME. Now the world is That which Is.

-purushottama

This post is from a collection of essays, stories, insights and poems that have occurred to me along the Way titled Here to Now and Behind.