Is it possible to see ‘Ourselves’ truly in a mirror?

Think about this. A person may look down and see only parts of the body, chest, arms, hands, torso, private parts, legs, and feet, but can a person ever really see themselves, their true self? When one looks into a mirror, a reflection is presented. It is a reflection of the light that hits the surface of the body, then the mirror and then our eyes. The image is reversed. It is not so easy to notice this, unless some writing is held up to the mirror and then it becomes obvious that the letters are backwards. So what are we really seeing when we look into a mirror?

When we engage with other people the same is true, our perception of what we say and do, how we act is to only see a reflection of ourselves, not necessarily our true nature and certainly not how others may see us. Others may react to our physical appearance, our personality, our spoken words, our aura or possibly a combination of these, but do they actually know us, the real essence of who we are, our true soul? Not likely, because in most cases we do not even know this ourselves. The reason is because it is ever changeable. Reality is fluid, in constant motion, and subject to interpretation. Any perception of reality is only a momentary snapshot of that instance taken by one’s particular conscious awareness from their point of view. It is fleeting, unreliable, and not necessarily true.

Our entire world, or at least our concept of it, is made up of these perceptual “snapshots” that are stitched together in a vast tapestry of our existence. We each make a model of reality and create conditioned fields within it, we also teach our children to see things the way we do. This is the source of separation within the whole, the way we define ourselves. We mentally make a circle to contain a group of thoughts, impressions and memories; then we artificially define this collection in our minds as a concept to give it some form of meaning. This is how we created nation states and made artificial boundary lines on the earth to separate one from the other; when the truth is that the entire earth is our home. We have created friends, families, dogma and religion out of this as well. The minute we define any part of our consciousness as separate from the whole, it gives it meaning, but it also creates a void between ourselves and others that are not included within our circle.

The key to a deeper understanding of reality is to question our concepts of reality. Consider this metaphor. If total perception is a field from floor to ceiling, then human perception is only a razor-thin slice of the total. This is very easy to prove, just look at the range of sounds that animals can hear that humans cannot. What’s more, sound is just one of the senses, some creatures use senses that people simply don’t have, many fish can sense electricity and birds and turtles are all thought to migrate using the Earth’s magnetic field.

Even more alien to our narrow field of perception: Consider the Monarch Butterfly. These large red-winged insects begin their lives in the forests of Mexico, then over three generations they fly north through America and into Canada with the 3rd generation making the flight all the way back to the same forests from where their grandparents were born, even though they themselves have never been there! Another example can be found in mating Pacific Salmon, these fish leave the oceans where they have lived their entire adult lives to swim back to land, they return to the very same place in the same exact river where they were born to lay their eggs for the next generation.

How these creatures make the journey and make it together as a species is completely unknown to us, yet they must sense something, something that guides them, something that we can’t sense.

We must embrace our limitations and recognize them.

It is also clear that the observer affects the perception. Scientific evidence has demonstrated that the observer’s effect on the outcome of that being observed is different for every person and its actual reality.

All those who know you, in a way are your reflections, meaning that if you do good, you will see only good in others. Similarly, if you think positively and project positivity to those you encounter in your life, you will not notice the negativity in others. Consider this, for those who have been through tough or difficult times in their lives, when the negativity in their world begins to enter their thoughts and control their minds then they probably remained in this same unpromising situation for a long period of time, it can be easy to spiral into depression in these circumstances and require help to get you out! Yet, when your thoughts begin to look brighter and you can feel positive about yourself and your future, that positivity multiplies and grows until it eventually replaces the negativity and you have, perhaps without noticing, turned your own situation around.

What have you done in the past to move away from the negative people who come into your life? Or do you just grin and bare it, put up with them in the hope that they will go away and leave you alone! Most people do in fact just put up with it and continue thinking of these negative people as friends, and every time they meet up with them they manage to bring their positivity down one more level, time after time they bring them down. The positive people and winners in our world spot negative people from a mile away and steer well clear of them and only surround themselves with positive creative and complementary people that will enhance their own positivity even further.

Inwardly your spiritual awareness and integrity determines who you really are, though outwardly this is noticed more by others than by ourselves. You can present a different face to other people than that of your true self, though this takes energy to do, what’s more you might be ham-stringing yourself by closing yourself off from the input of others as it’s an important part of building self-awareness to listen to how others see you and to use that input productively. It is only when you become aware, that your mind becomes conscious to experience and realize who and what you are and of course this will be noticed by others in small differences in how you move; hold yourself and even how you talk.

Having realized who you are and accepted your real self, your true nature, it is also very important to like yourself. There are many who really do not like themselves or are not happy with their present status. There are always comparisons, envy, demands, pressures and such trying to bring down your self-esteem; these external influences exert a negative pull on your inner self, on your positivity. Please do remember that you have a strong relationship with your external and inner personality, and the simple method is you need to spend time with yourself and love that solitude in order to enjoy your own company in solitude. It is only when you love your own self that you shall be able to love others.

Namaste with Love
Always
Mark