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Living Oneness Foundation
A 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Non-Profit Public Charity
Project of the International Humanities Center
FEIN 33-0767921
Post Office Box 7431
Van Nuys, CA 91409-7431, USA
Fax (413) 431-3704 E-mail
Liberating Love by Seeing Our Reflection in the Mirrors
© by Ron Van Dyke, September 17-21, 2006
Six and a half BILLION mirrors! … And that’s just “other” human beings and human news reflecting the issues that have faced us from the beginning of our journey. Other issues are reflected in the environment, nature, and the Earth itself.
“What are those issues?” you ask.
How deep would you like to explore it? It’s like peeling the layers of an onion. Each level reveals deeper truths.
I have some personal history in such exploration, having, it seems, been on a lifelong spiritual quest. From my background as a fundamentalist-charismatic Christian to the exploration of many other spiritual traditions, I became a local leader/servant in the metaphysical community. For five years, from 1996-2001, I published Paradox Magazine. These words were on every cover, “ A Purposely Provocative Publication…A Catalyst for Growing People. Like God, humans are enigmatic beings. Scaling our heights and plumbing our depths is the final and most important frontier. Our awesome task is to explore and make peace with the paradox.” I often referred to myself as “An equal-opportunity sacred cow kicker” in those pages.
That task, kicking cows, is morphing into something more: Liberating Love. Unfortunately, since we are so stubborn and so stuck as humans, we often need some serious prodding to release the delusions that block the Love deep inside of every one of us. Plus, we need to be freed from the conditioning that limits us in our journey towards wholeness.
Superficially, the issues are things that appear on the News, of which I have little expertise since I don’t waste my time watching it. The Internet is my news source. However, I can guess from what I have seen in the past and know about our culture that the news is mostly bad, mostly fear-based, and mostly controlled. It’s in your face, or at least the face of those who look in that mirror. The current buzzword seems to be TERRORISM; because our so-called leaders want us to be afraid, very afraid.
What will we see when we look into that mirror? Those who do not see fear are likely deluding themselves or are simply out of touch with their feelings. Of course it is fearful from the human perspective, and from human experience. Who, after all, likes war and killing and destroying and deception? Only those who profit from it! That leaves most of us out. Still, we can also profit by looking into the mirror. The reflection we see reveals the truth, our truth, if we are willing to admit it.
The human experience has been a fear-based series of events and lifetimes. Everyone ends up dying. When we do not know who we are, that is very frightening…and we have all forgotten. Some have called it collective unconsciousness or created amnesia. That’s why the leaders can hold up the mirror of terror and generate the fear they desire. It’s easy—except among those who are starting to remember, a number that is increasing exponentially, by the way.
What is it that WE are remembering? As we peer more deeply into out own fear of mortality, images fade in and out of view. These recollected images reveal something beyond the fear, or perhaps even hidden deep within it. They are images of immortality, images indicating that we are more than mere finite beings having a human experience. We are Spirit. However, unless you are able to sense those images in some manner and accept that they are revealing deeper reality, you won’t get it. You’re stuck in the surface layers, which offer little hope. That hope comes in the deeper layers, which everyone who is willing can access. In fact, Life keeps on presenting us with mirrors until we become willing. That’s called Love, believe it or not. Life Loves life! That’s its job. It loves us so much that it never quits; it never gives up on us. We are all Children of Life whose destiny is to rediscover that we are all Masters of Love, too.
In that discovery, the world will be transformed. It will not be done, however, because of wishful thinking or because we wave some magic wand. It can only be accomplished by looking in the mirrors and recognizing that we have some parts of us that we not only have been unwilling to love, but have actually despised and hated. The biggest reflection must be our own ignorance. Oh, it’s so easy to see ignorance in others, and judge them for it. How difficult it is to see that every one of us, even the most pridefully aware, sees only a fraction of what needs to be seen. Though it is increasing for many, we still use less than a quarter of our capacity (some say ten percent). Why? I contend it is because, despite all scientific evidence to the contrary, we still hang onto our separation consciousness for dear life. We still insist in polarizing our day-to-day reality. I find that I do it myself. So, what’s my reaction?
In the past, whenever I would see myself falling short of some ideal, I would judge myself…often harshly. This would never make it better though, only worse. It would actually strengthen my sense of separation and alienation. That’s not liberating love. It’s not healing my woundedness. It is, however, my natural tendency, natural because of constant repetition…habitual describes it even better.
So, how can I break the habit? Do I not need to get to the root? When I change the premise upon which I base my assumptions and judgments, will not my new reality produce a corresponding change? I think it will; it must.
God knows how much I’ve fought for my individuality; yet the message Spirit keeps on giving to me is that there is only one of us here. Six-and-half billion pieces of ONE! Am I willing to believe that? What are the consequences if I do? Am I willing to surrender my ego-created separateness in favor of making my interconnectedness and interdependence dominant? This is perhaps even more of a challenge for Americans and others in the western world where we seem to place a high premium on independence, which is a lie. Every one of us is dependent. That’s reality. Think for a moment. How would your life be if you were truly not dependent on anyone else for anything? A virtually impossible construct, would you not agree?
Suppose I gave my stomach independence, or one of my bones, or even my heart. Nonsense, right? Of course, but is it not equal nonsense to believe that as an individual I do not need anyone else? Yet many of us act exactly that way. If that happened in our body, we’d call it disease. What’s the difference? Does not our attempt to create separation in our life also produce disease? Are we not seeing a dis-eased culture all around us?
I think that, instead of making a declaration of independence, I need to make a declaration of interdependence. I need to look at every mirror around me and be thankful for my judgments of the reflections, knowing that they ARE reflections. What am I seeing? ME! Another part and expression of me, or perhaps of God!
I see the homeless man with his sign: WILL WORK FOR FOOD. Much stirs inside. I identify with feeling homeless in a world system that has alienated me. I identify with feeling hunger, hunger for recognition: SEE ME, HEAR ME, TOUCH ME, KNOW ME, HEAL ME. I identify with the need to work, to create, and recognize the need for direction: TELL ME WHAT TO DO. Feelings come up to consciousness: sadness, inadequacy, desperation, resentment, anger, and fear that I could end up experiencing that or worse. God forbid! Spiritually, I know the answers are inside of me, or so I’ve been told. Humanly, I have been trained to look outside of myself for affirmation that I am valuable—that I am worth something. I also feel compassion that is overruled by my own sense of lack and limitation. Then guilt sets in. How unenlightened of me to say NO to my brother because I lack trust in my own ability to produce what I may need in the future, fearful that the system may prevent me from creating the reality I really, really want to experience.
Then, I see the young mother in the grocery store with a child that is demanding something. She is frustrated and embarrassed at the public tantrum, and does her best to control the child. She reinforces what she has learned: YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT! She continues the same control factors that limit all of us to some degree or other. Again, I am saddened, knowing that even as an adult I cannot always get what I want. This depravation angers the child. I accept the limitation as the way it is. I have learned to rationalize; the child has not. Then, I recognize that the child in me has not learned it either; and never will. Why should I, or anyone, desire what we cannot have? Something screams, a silent scream for sure, yet audible if I listen closely: IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY!
Someone sends me an email railing on the Muslims, blaming them for the world’s ills. This really pisses me off as I see self-righteous ignorance at work. How many times have I been just as arrogant, scapegoating another individual or group and projecting my disdain? How often have I transferred my own negative feelings about myself onto someone else, as if they are responsible for my defectiveness and shortcomings? How often have I covered up my own negative feelings by creating a façade of propriety and piousness that was acceptable in our culture? How often have I hidden behind the hypocrisy of others so that I would not have to face and admit my own? It’s so easy be spiritual…much more difficult to be real. Yet I ask myself, is my spirituality just another façade? Oh, how well trained we have become in masking our deepest feelings. No wonder we do not heal. No wonder we are terrorized.
Illustrations could go on indefinitely. Each mirror reflects weakness, not strength. The ego, of course, denies those negative images. That’s its job. It projects only positive things, the gold and the glitter. It does not fulfill us. It cannot. It’s an empty shell.
From that emptiness, that void, comes another voice. It is the voice of Love. “It’s ok,” it reassures us, “you are not really broken. You chose these experiences. Embrace them. Accept them. Love them.”
The mind argues, “What do you mean? I want to get away from these things. I don’t like feeling bad. I…I…I…I…”
No one listens to the mental chatter. The mirrors keep popping up. Over and over we are shown reflections of what is going on inside of us. We try to hide from the images, to silence the screams. Faster and faster they appear. The cacophony reaches crescendo. We sink under the sheer weight of our own rejection of that which we have created. Knowing we are about to die, we surrender. “Ok, I admit it. This is my creation; and it really does not feel good. Help me. I am willing to learn. Make me receptive to Truth.”
Ah, the epiphany! As we surrender to the truth about our own creation, as we accept responsibility for everything we see in the mirrors, we liberate the Love that was there inside of us all along. Love then performs its magic, accomplishing the miracle of transformation. We see our creation that we thought was bringing us down, was actually lifting us higher. That, which we had always cursed, was actually a camouflaged blessing. By simply loving all that is as it is, everything changes. By resisting what we see and experience, nothing changes. What radical thinking!
Six and a half BILLION mirrors! Every one of them reflects the reality of the human drama. Every one of them echoes the same inner cry, “Love me!” Every one of them reveals the deep-seated resistance. Every one of them IS LOVE awaiting liberation.
Wait no more. It’s here now. The changes for which our hearts have longed are on the threshold today. As we look back on our human experience we say a genuine, “Thank you. I’m sorry. I love you.” As we look forward on our human transformation, words become inadequate. There is only joy! Oh, the marvelous power of Love that comes to us with such amazing grace. So be it now and forevermore. Namaste.
