The Looking Glass

A child is lifted up and its mother says, into the mirror, “That’s you honey,” and the child takes that information in, relative to itself and its mom. But is that image really the child? Are you what you think that you see in the mirror and what someone tells you that you are? Is that image in the mirror the you that you have chosen or the one that was given to you? Do you question it or do you just believe it?

I don’t believe in anything, not in me or the reflection that I am seeing. The mirror is a representation, an image, an illusion of light. In “the Light,” we are told that we are all one; we are reflections of the divine. Many (not all) who deal in this New Age movement and religion spout rhetoric about love, light and gods that isn’t their words at all. As a matter of fact, most of what they say isn’t even their personal experience but simply repeated phrases. Beliefs. People speak about free will and free thought all of the time, yet they are slaves to what they believe and have faith (or fear) in.

What if I said that the bible and books like it are fiction – age-old mythology or comic books for adults? How would you feel? What if we are not reflections of god? What if god is a projection of us, of archetypal human values? Do you identify with this information? Do you reflect it? Do you think that something is the truth because you read it or hear it? Do you question what you see or hear or do you have blind faith in what people say is the truth?

We are told that the world is a reflection of us. What if it is a surface that we are projecting onto and, when you stop, you have the opportunity to see what is really there? Words are representations. Yet, we are not trained to understand or even experience what they represent. So much of humanity stays on the reflective surface of the construct that perpetuates it.

I hear people speak about what they believe and I see how they have become trapped by their own fears and self-imposed limitations. I have been a believer in the past and I experienced the joy and love of it…only to realize later that it was me who put the emotion there. I know now that I created that love and joy and it was not god, or my faith, or anything external. In fact, beliefs get in the way of us simply living, loving, and playing together.

Before you tell children who they are, they all simply play together. So what the hell are we doing? I say shatter the mirror and let it be what it actually is…fragmented, a collection of lies that we tell ourselves, the holder of masks. It’s true that the blind can truly see, for those with eyes are trained to see lies about themselves and others. These lies are often presented in the guise of religion and new age philosophy.

I am tempted to tell so-called spiritual people to shut up when they start spewing rhetoric about what they believe. I find “regular people” refreshing to talk to because I don’t have to hear the myriad of things that uphold the hope and faith-based realities of many involved in religion and spirituality.

I understand that my position is strong. That is my intent, so that those who want to break free of the mirror can, so that they may see beyond the reflection given to them by culture, society, religion, government and so on.

I understand that I am going against the grain of religious, spiritual and cultural protocol, but I should be able to look into the eyes of a child, or a neighbor, or a Muslim woman from halfway around the world, and say “Hello sister” and see myself and not difference. Because there is a common ground. It is not what you believe in. It is not who you’ve been told you are. It is not what you spend time thinking about. It is the look in a child’s eyes just before she laughs or in the leaves of a tree just before the wind blows or in the kiss of an animal or the breath in the air just before the rain falls.

It’s being.

I am this stone, this tree, this blade of grass, the first and last breath that anyone takes…not the reflection, but the thing itself.