The Self in the Mirror

One of the delightful mysteries the saints refer to is that our soul is a mirror of the Lord. In mystic poetry, we read that when God looks at our soul, he sees himself. The saints say that when God made us in his image, he did so to display his beauty to us.

In the book The Face in Every Rose, the Sufi mystic Sheikh Fakhreddin Eraqi speaks first to himself:

My heart is a mirror
clean it well and polish it
so it may sparkle

Then he addresses the Lord, who looks into the soul of the disciple and sees himself:

You look in the mirror
to behold your beautiful reflection
You adorn me with your own being
so You may display to me your own beauty

God is love and love always wants to give. He creates us in his image – that is, his essence – to share his love and his beauty. Eraqi continues, saying that when our soul sees the wondrous image of the Master within, we worship him and mirror back his love.

Once the mirror of the lover’s heart is polished
he beholds the Beloved’s face there
Then the two worlds become mirrors
for the lover to witness and praise the Beloved’s splendor
When he thinks of the Friend
the mirror glows
When he harbors any thoughts of himself
the mirror darkens

For us to clean the mirror of our heart, we must free ourselves from our preoccupation with ourselves and allow our soul to regain its rightful seat as the overseer of our attention. Our soul, currently eclipsed by the powerful mind, exists in silent awareness, behind the noise, distractions, and deceptions of the mind, alive in the ever-flowing present, adorned with the love and virtues the Lord has given us.

Given the nature of our soul, Eraqi questions why we would want to hold on to our limited, egoistic self:

Why hang onto yourself?
You will hear from your Beloved
only when you forget about yourself
You will behold that Face
when from yourself you turn your face

How do we let go of the illusion of a unique and separate individual? How can we take control of a mind that resolutely supports a sense of its uniqueness, disconnected from the Lord and others? Letting go of our thoughts is a monumental struggle, the most difficult undertaking of our life. Not only is our mind continuously working, but also our thoughts steadfastly uphold our ego – the barrier to union with God.

Let’s look at some mental habits that feed the ego. During our brief lives, we have likely made many mistakes, both minor and grave. In the process, we absorb the lessons they present. Saints tell us that we should learn from our mistakes and move on. If we learn, we never have to look back.

This is not what the mind does; it lingers in the past. Rather than acknowledge a mistake, learn our lesson, and forget it, we hang on to the memory. By doing this, we focus on ourselves, while retaining and solidifying the memory. Not only does this sustain our ego and burden our mind with negativity, it also can create future problems.

We are trying to erase our karmas, but if we hang on to memories, regrets, and so forth, we may have to take another birth to clear those karmas. We have been told that when impressions arise in the mind, we should press the delete button so that, by the end of our life, our mind will be a blank slate.

Similarly, we need to delete unconscious impressions that arise in our dreams. The masters tell us that reliving past experiences in a dream state can help to clear the karma they created. But by recalling the events and analyzing them, we reinsert them into our conscious mind, creating a possible need for them to be cleared again.

Consciously letting go of mistakes, past actions, and even dreams is one way to chip away at our ego. Let’s consider a notion our mind steadfastly maintains – that we are a unique and separate self, apart from the Creator. What is that self? We define ourselves in physical terms, by our roles, experiences, personalities, abilities, desires, and accomplishments.

Here is what Maharaj Sawan Singh (Great Master) said about our physical form:

Outward beauty, loveliness of form, charm of personality, whether it is yours or possessed by another, is of no lasting worth. Be not allured by this false show. Be not deluded by these transitory qualities. Handsome or ugly, fair or dark, delicate or coarse, exquisite or plain in appearance, all the forms that you behold are born of dust. They are dolls of clay. They are fleeting forms that will soon vanish and be no more. They are exactly like garments that we have purchased at the vanity-fair of this world, but which have to be discarded before we depart. Your aim in life should be to transcend them.
_{Discourses on Sant Mat, Vol. I}

How does our concept of the self compare with the truth the saints teach us? The mystics say we have been here since the beginning of creation and will continue to live after we shed the mortal form. They say that throughout the ages, we have lived in countless different life forms. They tell us that even if we are born again in the human form, the persona we created in the last life died forever at the body’s death.

Yet our idea of who we are, the composite of personal traits and experiences that we think define us, applies only to our current life. Who were we in all our previous lives, and who will continue to exist after our current life ends?

The masters tell us we are eternal beings; our essence is pure consciousness that dwells behind thought, unanchored to the world and the changing roles we play. They say that our true identity is the spirit, which is pure, eternal, sacred, subtle, and sustained by the all-powerful energy of the Shabd. Yet the knowledge of who we are is lost in the material world. Immersed in the play of maya while lured by the pleasures of the senses, we have allowed our mind to run wild, leaving the soul imprisoned. But it is our duty as disciples to discipline the mind and make it once again a useful servant of the soul. Once the mind is brought under control, it will no longer bind us to the world. When its continuous activity is stilled, it rests in a reality beyond this world.

According to Buddhist teachings, the mind in its natural state is like the sky, hidden under layers of clouds. The pure nature of the mind is emptiness, lucidity, and intelligence.

How can we arrive at that emptiness and clarity? The masters tell us that can be done only through the power of the Shabd. Soami Ji Maharaj writes in Sar Bachan Poetry:

Listen to the melody of Shabd
and bring your wayward mind into line.
A million other methods will fail to tame it,
it will submit only by listening to that melody.

The mind and senses have induced our amnesia. Great Master, in Discourses on Sant Mat, Vol. I, describes their effect on the soul as a magic spell, and states that it is only by listening to the divine melody within that the soul can escape from this material world:

Without Nam the soul, completely sodden with carnal appetites, can never find escape from the snares of the mind. Its deep involvement in the phenomenal world, complete forgetfulness of its high Origin and utter indifference to the great purpose of human life are the direct result of the magic spell that the mind and the senses lay on it. Nam is the only charm that can break the spell and revive its consciousness of its supreme heritage.

While journeying endlessly through this world of deception, we have lost consciousness of our supreme heritage. Shabd is the charm that will break the spell and cleanse our mind of the dirt of ages. Meditation will awaken our soul to the divinity within.

Eraqi tells us that when we relinquish our self, the Lord will carry us back home.

By yourself you won’t reach There
but should you abandon yourself
on your inner wings you’ll be carried There
Once a wave from the Absolute lifts you
neither knowledge nor ignorance
neither union nor separation remains
Only He is
And of you there is no trace.
_{The Face in Every Rose}

The self we identified with will have fallen away. Only our essence will remain – the consciousness that belongs to the Beloved himself, reflecting his beauty, joy, and love.