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The Secret to Manifesting: Look in the Mirror

Namaste,
Welcome back to my exploration of creating your reality. Last week we looked at the difference between subjective reality and absolute Reality, and the gift of recognizing that we are not the doers. Instead, we learn to surrender to an infinitely intelligent whole far greater than our personal will.
Since we are to ultimately rest in an absolute Reality that is beyond condition, you may be wondering how we manage items in our lives that are temporal, such as our passing moods, things we like or don’t like, the emotional fluctuation triggered by painful and joyful situations. Are they just not real and not important? What are they and why are they in even our lives at all?
It is my belief that literally all of life – the good, the bad and the ugly – provides us with an opportunity to grow. Everything in our lives serves our evolution in some way.
Life is like a mirror. We see and experience life through the lens of our mind, which is the accumulation of past memories and future desires. The events and experiences of our life reflect what we think, hope, fear, want, dream and remember.
This mirror is our greatest spiritual tool and ally. It provides us with an inescapable and perfectly clear way to see our thoughts and tendencies. You may ask, why would we want to see our thoughts? So we may learn not to take them too seriously and ultimately, let them go.
No one is perfect. We all see through the lens of our ego, until we no longer let the ego be in charge of our life. Before we become enlightened, we see what we want to see, we believe what we want to believe, we love what we think will make us happy, and we want what we feel we lack. This is the human condition. We each have our own version of these wants, beliefs and desires.
Look at what is in your life right now, and you will see an exact reflection of the thoughts and tendencies you have been carrying. If you want the picture to change, you have that power! You need to learn to go within and manage your consciousness accordingly.
Life is in constant support of your evolution, no matter what happens. The mirror that life is holding up to you is your classroom in the school of your soul’s journey. If you are experiencing difficulty, no problem! Life is simply showing you where you may still have limiting beliefs, where you may need to grow, things you may need to release. For a sincere spiritual seeker, this is great news! You now have a moment-to-moment teacher and road map to your evolution: this moment. You have exactly what you need in each moment to evolve, to learn to love and to grow.
It is my belief that we are here on this planet, like diamonds in the rough, being polished by life so that we may shine. Sometimes life moves smoothly, sometimes life feels rough. If we are open, ready and willing, we will have the humility to see that this moment is showing us the summation of who we are up until this moment. We may like it. We may not. Either way, it does not really matter, because all our likes and dislikes will pass. What we love one day, we may despise the next. Instead, by welcoming this moment as a gift that reflects our selves, we are able to see the limitations of our beliefs, thoughts and ego and eventually move beyond them so that we may merge into the universal field that connects us all.
That said, I don’t believe that a life of riches, or a life that runs super smoothly, or a life full of worldly recognition, or a life with the success of lavish projects, is a direct indicator of spiritual evolution or prowess. It may simply mean that someone is not being challenged in that way at this time. Some wealthy, respected and “accomplished” people may actually be quite lost. They may look at the reality “they” created and think they are doing great. However, they may actually be further from pure consciousness than before these “successes”. As such they would be further from freedom, joy and enlightenment than the simple janitor who sweeps their floors at night. Other people may be experiencing one challenge after another, while humbly open and aligned to their soul purpose. They could be going through a “karmic fast forward”, governed by a force beyond the limits of their or our understanding.
It is no different for “spiritual” people who may have acquired skills or be connected with prominent spiritual masters. Blessed by grace with spiritually optimal circumstances, if they feel proud of what “they” have achieved, they may be no further along on their journey than the quiet homemaker who doesn’t know much about spirituality, but feels moved to help out at a local soup kitchen twice a week.
The goal of spirituality is to love, to cultivate humility, and to serve. If we are lacking these qualities in our life, no amount of philosophy, spiritual or material accolades will quell the inner sense of lack from being off path. We may feel temporarily pleased with what “we” have created, but eventually our castle in the air will collapse. That which we feel “we” do is bound by subjective reality and not in service to absolute Reality.
Because we cannot see the whole universal picture, it is unwise to believe we create our reality. We do not have the power to assess where we are on our spiritual path. What we do know is that each moment reflects our beliefs and karmic tendencies. When we meet it with humility and receptivity, we welcome the lessons a wise and compassionate universe is giving us right now. As such, we tap into the infinite abundance and possibilities each moment brings.
If we strive to be the doers creating a subjective reality, we will eventually suffer. Nothing temporal lasts. It is only when we realize that we are not the doers, when we focus on the release of the ego and learn to humbly see ourselves, both our shadow and our glory, with honesty and humility, that we will begin to “create the reality” that will bring lasting joy.
In order to evolve, we must learn to not become entangled in our thoughts, and lessen our attachment to our ego. The mirror of life gives us a wonderful, humbling opportunity to do just that. When we understand that what we experience is a result of our thoughts and perceptions, we can grow and make changes in the classroom of our life, so that it becomes more fulfilling and joyful.
As our minds become more pure and clear, eventually we rest in the only Reality that we are love. Then, love is all we see. Once we have completely released our identification with our ego, class is dismissed: our life continues, but the notion of life as a mirror is no longer needed. It dissolves as we see that we are literally one with all that is.
We are part of a much greater, intelligent whole. It is so essential, yet most of us forget it. We get caught up in the micro-importance of our lives, and lose the big picture of perfect interconnection. We get lost in defending our ego either by trying to prove our worth with “got to get it right”, or by slathering on the goop of “I am so great” or “I am so lowly”, that we forget to keep our focus on the Reality beyond all these.
When we remember that we are part of a magnificent whole guiding us, we lessen our identification with the perceived importance of “me” and start to flow with pure consciousness. We let go of our defensive attachment to subjective reality and start serving and merging with absolute Reality.
In this place of non-attachment, we realize that we are a part of it all. We see that the notion of separation was always an illusion. We fully understand that we are not creating anything, but rest in the perfection of creation. We have been learning to get out of the way and love. We reach yoga, a state of union, a place of absolute clarity where the mirror is no longer a separate reflection of our disconnected thoughts, but a perfect merging and a return to the One.
May each one of us remember our true nature and swiftly merge with Reality by humbly opening to and serving the moment that is right before us.
Until next time,
Love yourself.
Love others.
Love our world.
We are one Earth family.
Namaste,
Parvati