Easwaran at the end of the access road at Ramagiri.
Thank you all so much for your enthusiastic responses and encouraging comments about our upcoming Vishu worldwide shared practice day. It’s wonderful to look forward to gathering together in spirit!
Friends at Ramagiri Ashram will celebrate Vishu on Sunday, April 14 and invite us to join them from wherever we are in the world in a day of shared contemplative practice. There are suggested activities throughout the day providing us with many opportunities to connect with each other virtually. Have you had a chance to consider how you will participate? We’d love to hear what you are planning, and remember, no effort is too small.
Let’s continue preparing ourselves for Vishu by finishing Easwaran’s article from last week. This week Easwaran shares the symbolism of looking at one’s reflection in a mirror on Vishu. We’re reminded that to see our true beauty, we must clean the dust from past conditioning a little each day to break free from self-will.
What helps you clean the dust away from past conditioning so that you’re able to express your true beauty? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you!
This is Part 2 of Easwaran’s article “Bringing Heaven to Earth” in the 2008 Summer Blue Mountain Journal.
A little every day
When all is said and done, this is the glory of the human being: not technological marvels, but the capacity to remove everything that hides this imprisoned splendor in our consciousness.
This is not theory. This is not metaphysics. Ordinary men and women in every great religion have turned all their resources inwards to make this supreme discovery. When one of these great pioneers, the thirteenth-century German mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg, was asked how she did it, she replied simply, “My mirror is pure and I am his reflection.” That is a precious clue, for you and I can do the same.
The Bhagavad Gita uses the same image. Just as we cannot see our face in a mirror that is covered with dust, the Gita says, we cannot see the divine face in our consciousness because the dust from past conditioning has settled on it. In order to see the Lord within us, we have simply to cleanse our consciousness of the dust and grime that cover it.
In your home, you probably clean your mirror every day. Suppose you looked while you were putting on makeup and you couldn’t see your face. Wouldn’t you go and wipe the mirror clean? Similarly, the Gita says, all you have to do to see your real beauty is to extinguish self-will, fill your mind with peace and your heart with love, and spend your time working for the benefit of all.
This is something everyone can do. Of course, it is far from easy, but in my own life I have found ways to do a little bit each day. Just as an artist perfects a painting with little strokes, or a sculptor creates a statue with delicate touches from amorphous stone, you and I, little by little, can make our lives a work of art.
“Work on your statue”
How can we do this? In a famous passage, the third-century mystic Plotinus uses an image that I would have said he borrowed from me if he hadn’t anticipated me by so many centuries.
“What then is our course?” he asks. “We must shut our eyes and awaken another way of seeing, which everyone has but few use” – a perfect description of meditation.
“Then,” he continues, “withdraw into yourself and look” – look into the mirror of your heart. “And if you do not yet find yourself beautiful, then, just as someone making a beautiful statue cuts away here and polishes there, makes this line lighter and that place smoother, until a lovely face emerges, so you too must cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is dark, make the whole work glow with beauty, and never cease working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you and you see complete self-mastery enthroned within you.”
“Cut away here” – a little jealousy, a bit of malice, a good deal of self-will, a lot more anger, first within consciousness and then, of course, outside, in daily living. In other words, for perfecting this statue, it’s not enough to meditate regularly; we must also carry through in daily behavior. In all our relationships, instead of competing, we try to complete those around us. Instead of trying to get our own way, we try to put the other person first. Instead of always pursuing personal satisfactions, we gradually give more and more of our time to the welfare of the whole. And as we do this, we – and those we live and work with – gradually see a beautiful face emerge.
This is the purpose of my method of meditation. The inspirational passages we use in meditation give us the model – the magic mirror that shows us our true face. And my eight-point program provides the tools. Meditation on a passage is our internal instrument; the other skills are for working on your statue during the day.
For the words of these passages are not just poetry. When we meditate on them with one-pointed attention and an open heart, they stir a response within us. We glimpse in them a reflection of our own true Self. The wonderful potential latent in us begins to shine, as a possibility we can not only imagine but long for and begin to live by. Each passage is a mirror for helping us bring the lofty vision of the world’s great spiritual traditions into our daily lives.
Imagine beginning each day absorbed in meditation on passages like The Prayer of Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
Or this, from the Buddha:
Just as a mother with her own life protects her child, her only child, from harm,
So within yourself let grow a boundless love for all creatures. . .
Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
Your life will bring heaven to earth.
Then, when you step out into the workaday world, these words go with you. Gradually they become part of you, assimilated into your character and consciousness. In the stress and hurry of the day, they give examples to follow: patience, compassion, wisdom, courage, love. More than that, they become your friends. When you get caught up in the heat of the moment, the words come to you and tug at the sleeve of your mind: “An instrument of peace, remember? As a mother protects her only child?”
For if this original goodness is within you, it is within everyone else as well. The way to reveal the divinity in ourselves is to keep our eyes focused on it in those around us, treating everyone with respect, kindness, and compassion.
A little lamp
“Bring light to all that is dark,” Plotinus says. There are dark corners of consciousness where light has never penetrated, corners where negative emotions try to hide. That is why a person who has revealed the splendor within shines like a lamp in the dark, lighting the paths of others, throwing light on life. We don’t have to have a sticker on the back of our car saying “I am a lamp.” Our life – every word we say, every act we do – communicates this divine radiance to everybody.
When you live like this, the mirror of those passages gradually ceases to be a picture and becomes a window, a “magic casement” opening out onto the luminous world of reality. Then, very simply, we see ourselves as we are.
We see for ourselves who lives in our heart, and in the hearts of everyone around us. Complete in ourselves, we need nothing from anyone else, nothing from the world, nothing from life but the opportunity to give. Then, as the Buddha says, our lives will bring heaven to earth.