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Sri Adi Shankaracharya, some 1,200 years ago, composed Sri Dakshinamurthy Stotra comprising of 10 shlokas. In the very first one, he has compared our mind to a mirror where the external world is nothing else but a reflection.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” upon questioned by the evil queen, replied “Snow White!” Such stories in this phenomenal world reflects the brewing of jealousy, and the cause for many vices.
The metaphor is for the eternal Consciousness (or awareness) reflected in the faculty called Buddhi, otherwise a function of the mind giving it sentience that is then extended to other functions of the mind, then the body, and to the external world. This reflected consciousness is termed Chidabhasa.
An actual mirror that has accumulated dirt on its surface or develops blemishes, distorts the reflected image. Any amount of cleaning its surface will not help improve the quality of the image.
Our minds too have dirt and blemishes in the form of vasanas and samskaras, causing the original unblemished untainted Consciousness to reflect in a manner resulting in multiplicity – what the human mind views and imagines as an external world. These blemishes too are illumined by the light of awareness.
A few mental purification practices include techniques such as dhyana-meditation, karma yoga-desireless action, japa-chanting of shlokas, upasana-devotional worship, and others. The blemishes cleaned up thus prepares buddhi to absorb the Knowledge of the Self through sravana (listening), manana (reflection), and nidhidhyasana (contemplation). Such an unblemished mirror – our mind, causes Consciousness to be reflected as-is, in full brightness.
This is a state of realisation where the objects in the external world are viewed as projections during the time they are seen by our eyes. With external world obliterated in a realised being, the reflection is as bright as the original, i.e., the image is as clear as the object in front.
The question “Mirror, mirror….” is itself relegated to a moot question, good only for a story. Everything is Consciousness now viewed as perfect reflection, with a conviction that everything seen is only a projection. An inward ‘Who Am I’ journey is
when this question stands tall, the destination where the identity is forged with ‘the Self.’
Next time I stand in front of a mirror I shall remember this, would you?