the world mirror

Today I'm going to give you an opportunity. It's an opportunity that never stops giving. It's the most generous spiritual teaching in the world. It is the world. The world is the teaching. Not the world as an external situation, but the world as a mirror. Of you.

Whenever you notice something in the world, you are getting a reflection of yourself. That's precisely why you noticed it. You could have noticed absolutely anything, but you singled out one thing and you gave it attention. The one thing is always you.

More precisely, the one thing is always something unresolved in you. That's why you noticed it. That's why it compels you and commands your attention. You are looking in the mirror at something you need to work out in yourself. You projected it outside.

Do I need to pause here momentarily to explain that human beings are projectors and the world is their projection screen? Will that metaphor help? Does it clarify that the world's true essence is a simple pristine blankness? That the human mind is showing home movies? That mine is and yours is?

Those questions might appear too simplistic to some people. But I ask those people to look in the mirror of that evaluation. If you see too simplistic, you are seeing yourself. You could have seen many other things. But that's the thing you singled out.

Why? Because you have something to work out in regard to that quality. You do. Not the person you're pointing at about it. Not me. You. You have an unresolved issue about oversimplification and that's why you stopped there to fuss over it.

You could have stopped anywhere, or not stopped at all. You could have been into the idea. You could have been open to it. But if you balked at it, your balking is your reflection. The same is true if you loved it. Your loving is your reflection. It's always you.

For a while you may resist this teaching because a lot of what you notice in the world is how cruel and precarious it is. I don't blame you. It's difficult to look in that mirror and admit that you singled out those aspects because they operate in you.

It's even harder to look in that mirror if you tend to be critical of what you see. For instance, if you call people stupid now and then, if you blame them for your problems, if you pass judgment and think you know better. Better than what? Reflection!

But let's say you click with the opportunity side of things. Let's say, perhaps after the normal amount of denial and avoidance, you arrive at acceptance that the world is a mirror and you'd benefit from giving it a good honest look. How do you do it?

The good news is you can't not do it. It's all that you do. It's everything you see. The world mirror bears that title for a very good reason. The entire world is the mirror. There is nothing outside it. You can't side-step your reflection. Don't try.

Not trying is step one. Do not try to side-step your reflection. See it for what it is. See it as reflection. See what you see is yourself. You may not know what to do with it in that context, but permitting that context is step one. Repeat it many times.

Step one is enormous. It's where illusion gives way to truth. It's where wandering becomes homecoming. It's where spirituality becomes fact, not fancy. It's where all the gold waits, for anyone willing to embrace the tricky word "mine" in "gold mine".

What you observe about the world is yours. It's your reflection. It's material inside of you that you need to spend time with, investigate, look into, take responsibility for, own. Those are the subsequent steps after recognizing the world mirror.

When you do them, when you do them over and over, with each thing you see, the things you notice about the world will evolve and change, because you did. Otherwise, you'll see the same old things and a thick crust of cynicism will form.

Let your cynicism be a starting point. Are you cynical? Is everything always the same? Is that how you regard the world? If so, let the world mirror help you. It's trying to tell you that you are always the same, that you aren't changing for the better.

Now reckon with that reflection. Do the subsequent steps. Spend time with the trait, whatever it is. Peel open its layers. Look inside of it. Get to know what's at stake for you, about you, both positively and negatively. Only you can do it. No one else.

It's time to decide. Are you going to persist in your belief that the world is external, for you to observe at a distance with introspective immunity, or are you going to see your observations for what they are, perfect reflections from the world mirror?

I invite you to benefit from the second approach. It does what the first approach never can: it makes the world completely dependable. You can count on it absolutely. It is always reflecting exactly what you need to know for your next cycle of growth.