“Just as a lens can be polished and ground into another shape, so can your beliefs”
A look at your reflection may be had in a mirror or in a person. Is this not true, to some extent? Mirrors show you what other people do not so often see, while other people will demonstrate what they see in you, often without much refinement. Mirrors are, in fact, quite powerful crystals, and thus can hold a lot of information. In time, you will begin to fully appreciate what that means, but for now, know that it is a peculiar property of crystals to encode with the vibratory profile of light.
This is to some extent true for the synthetic creation of a mirror. Some traditions maintain the practice of covering mirrors in the home of a dying person, lest some part of the light energy of the soul become trapped within its strange shiny surface. Countless tales tell of magic mirrors, programmed crystals that reflect certain frequencies of light, according to intentional incantations and such. It is not so far from the truth, really, to say that such things exist. As you choose to set your focus, there will you see. A mirror is a tool to help you shift your focus by presenting you with a reflection of yourself you cannot quite recognize. It is in trying to bring such actions as saying “You are not me” into your awareness that a mirror is useful. Such a statement spoken to a mirror is, of course, completely false, right? Well, yes and no. Your reflection is merely light bounced back to your eyes. But it is what you project from within that you see reflected, so in fact, it is you, and yet it is not. It is a paradox.
In the hall of mirrors you inhabit, you see nothing but reflections everywhere. In other people, you see the reflection of your beliefs about yourself. In trees and plants and rivers and all of nature, you see the reflection of your beliefs about the intelligence of God. In your own reflection in a mirror, you see the reflection of your beliefs about God’s existence in your reality. Do you doubt the truth? Look more closely. Everything you see is a reflection of light hitting the apparatus of your eyes. Everything you understand is a function of the light as well. A simple thought is generated from light and is a specific encodement of light. Understanding is decodement. The code-reader is the mind, but when the mind is composed of beliefs in powerlessness, the understanding is shaped and bound by them. So, for example, a mind which on an individual level is shaped by beliefs in the form of “I am not good enough” or “I am not loveable” will act as a lens focusing the light of any thought it encounters. Thus, understanding of the thought “It’s a beautiful day”, when focused through the lens of “I do not deserve to be happy”, may result in ugliness entering into the scene of your reality. Left unchecked, such a lens can crystallize into such rigid beliefs that one can find oneself trapped in a hall of mirrors in the landscape of the mind.
Just as a lens can be polished and ground into another shape, so can your beliefs. A bit of self-reflection can lead your awareness to specifics about your beliefs in such a way that you can recognize yourself in them, connect with them with the intention to love yourself as you see yourself reflected, and in loving your perceived imperfections change them. This is not to say that you accept that which you do not wish to be true about yourself, but that you acknowledge with love all that you see and so allow the lenses of belief to re-shape themselves in a more opalescent manner – in which all things are possible, but where you focus your awareness is what light passes through to become your experience. Thus love becomes not only what grinds and polishes and transforms, but it also becomes, potentially, the lens of awareness itself. It is merely a matter of choosing. Can you see the sport in that? And so, the game of hide-and-seek that love plays gets more interesting.
