The Reflection of God

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." -- The Bible

"Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward." -- A Course in Miracles

"Whenever you are not joyous... in every case you are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass." -- A Course in Miracles

"You are afraid of God's Will because you have used your own mind, which He created in the likeness of His Own, to miscreate. The mind can miscreate only when it believes it is not free." -- A Course in Miracles

So here we are once again, reflecting (pardon the pun) on the myth of Narcissus. Narcissus is the story of a beautiful youth who fell in love with his own reflection, and gazed at it in the water until he died. The perennial fascination with the reflection of an image that has no substance. As A Course in Miracles puts it: "Behold, the great projection."

Today we are going to attempt to simplify and cut to the chase. Whenever we say "I am" we are projecting an image. Whenever we say "you are" or "they are" or "it is" we are also projecting, and it is always an inverted image, projected from the part of our mind that thinks it is separate from God and caught in its own reflection, mesmerized by the image of a separated self and its serial adventures.

Now we see through this darkened glass, and the mesmeric nature of the reflections we see here keeps us endlessly fascinated, horrified, or entertained. There is really no difference. It is the willingness to step back from all reflections, to be willing to question what we are doing whenever we say "I am" or "you are" or "it is." Because these statements are really all the same. They are statements of image-making. None of the images is real... in other words, they are thought-forms, mental constructs. Only by keeping our images constantly in serial adventures with one another do they maintain any sense of reality at all. The turning wheel of samsara is the illusion generator. Story after story after story.

What if, just for today, you told no stories, to yourself or anyone else? No stories about you, past, present, or future. No stories about your world, past, present, or future. No stories about those that seem to populate your world, past, present, or future. What if, just for today, you dropped all stories? Who would you be? As ACIM says, "Leave a clean and open space within your mind." And will you try and fill this clean and open space with new stories, new episodes, new and fascinating ideas? Or will you resist the temptation, and wait patiently for the Light of Truth to shine away all darkness and error in your mind?

Like Narcissus, we can continue to tell ourselves who we are and believe that the image we see is true. But honestly, what has that ever gotten us? Are we happy and at peace in such a pseudo-existence? Or we can forgive and release all our self-generated stories and images, and ask the Light of God to reveal the Truth to us. After all, when everything is silent, what remains? Only what is True and Eternal. Only what is our True Self. And in that Truth, we are as free as God.

“Reflections are seen in Light. In darkness they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves. The reflection of God needs no interpretation. It is clear. Clean but the mirror, and the message that shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, no one can fail to understand… Could you but realize for a single instant the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in you, can bring to all the world, you could not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean to receive the image of the holiness that heals the world.” – A Course in Miracles