Isaac said,
Consider the world is a mirror to you. We have spoken before about this mirror.
Whatever is within you is on display outside of you. For instance, when you’re angry, the outer world gives you more of that vibration, and things are tough. When you’re lighthearted, the world reflects the same back to you. The world smiles with you.
Each of us lives in a mirror world.
Do you feel alone when you look into a mirror?
Dogs would not feel alone. They would bark at “that other dog.” That other form.
But you know that person in the mirror is you.
You’re alone. Just you there. Both forms are you.
It’s tricky to remember this mirror display, because the physical world gives you a delayed response. For instance you grumble when you wake up, dragging your feet on today’s task. Then an hour later in the slow traffic jam you get a flat tire. Both the traffic and the tire match up with your dragging vibration. But you may not see the connection.
The inner gives rise to the outer with a delayed response.
Imagine you’re standing in front of that mirror again. You comb your hair.
Ten minutes later your image combs its hair.
Suddenly you say, “Hey there!” You think it’s not you, it must be somebody different.
This is the illusion we fall under, in this world of delayed response.
Virtually all of us experience the delayed mirror effect. Whatever we set into motion takes a while to happen. This makes it easier for us to believe in separation.
Our default is to think nothing is connected to anything else.
We think everyone and everything is different.
None of that is “us.”
We each feel unique in our particular form.
For a tzaddik (holy person), the mirror is quite fast, almost instantaneous. Whatever he (she) does in the mirror happens right away, so he recognizes it as himself, not as anybody else.
He clearly sees his own projections.
Eventually it becomes obvious that everything is you. You are one with it all.
One, and alone.
The tzaddik with the fast mirror is almost ready to dissolve the personal self.
It’s not like you lose the personal self entirely.
Rather, your awareness rests in the reality that you are One, Alone, yet you are also a specific person with a form.
Your awareness includes both, if you are so blessed to reach that broad view.
This teaching from Isaac is excerpted from Chapter 3 of Volume 3, Walking The Bridge: The Art of All-Is-Well
(Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for this self-reflecting monkey.)
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