Yeshua Ben Yosef, Jesus, right, wrong, mirror, as within so without, enlightenment
I woke up at four a.m. this morning from a very intense dream in which I reminded myself over and over again, “I only exist in relationship. I only exist in the mirror. Relationship is the mirror.”
In the dream I “got” it, and was so awed by the profundity and what it said about life on planet Earth that it was impossible to go back to sleep without writing it down. Which meant getting up, turning on lights, finding a pen, reassuring blinking cats that, “No, it’s not time for breakfast.” By which time I was fully awake …
And figured I might as well rummage around in my psyche to try to find the words to explain what can and never will be explained in words.
The mirror
The whole spiritual schtick regarding mirrors—or at least how I once interpreted mirroring—was that what was “out there” mirrored me. If I saw a beautiful sunset, that was a mirror of my own natural beauty. If I saw an asshole kick a puppy, it was a reflection of my own assholehood and cruelty. If somebody in my life was intransigent and stubborn, I was intransigent and stubborn.
Once I got over my assholehood and stubbornness those mirrors would fade away.
Which meant I was always looking within for what I didn’t like seeing in the world around me. I was constantly tearing myself apart trying to “not be” this and “not be” that, filling in the holes with what I was programmed to think I should be instead. You know—nice, pleasant, happy, helpful, spiritual, giving, loving, and kind rather than cranky, glum, depressed, unhappy, lazy, jealous, judgmental, and catty.
Never mind this whole process was grounded in a fierce judgment of what is “right” and what is “wrong” and a self-punishing rectitude that turned me into the psychological equivalent of a high school hall monitor with a bad hangover and a whip. By God, I was on the road to self-improvement and would eradicate what was less than lovely within me if it was the last thing I ever did.
I was told that if I shifted some cumbersome attitude and changed my own wicked ways that I would see a change in the world outside. And sure enough. When I shifted some deeply-cemented belief like “Money is the root of all evil” and started making friends with money and appreciating it, the result was, indeed, more money in my life.
And I had friends who told me things like, “My mother-in-law was driving me nuts. But when I stopped judging her, suddenly she’s the sweetest person ever.” Or some such story.
But, for the most part, even though I tortured myself for decades trying to force myself into the mold of what I perceived to be happy enlightenment, I still had selfish lovers. Global politicians still kept on creating wars. Corrupt businessmen and women still raped and polluted the planet. Children still died of starvation. The world kept reflecting poverty, misery, mayhem, and confusion.
No matter what I did, no matter what I cleaned up, no matter how much I thought I evolved, the world—the mirror “out there”—remained the same.
Apparently, I was going nowhere fast.
Coming together
But let’s go back to that dreamtime message: “I only exist in relationship. I only exist in the mirror. Relationship is the mirror.”
The words reflect a seriously kinesthetic, body-based knowing that aligns with the discoveries of quantum physicists for the last 120 years: Everything is connected. No one thing is separate from any other “thing.” The universes exist as a unified whole. Which, of course, is an esoteric teaching as old as the universes themselves.
In my dream I understood completely that “I” and “everything” can’t be separated. As one body called existence, if everything disappears, so do I. We are inextricably combined.
“As within, so without.”
The old view would have it that the without changes because “I” —a separate person over here—change within and the world “out there” mirrors the change back to me. But no. The world changes as I change because I am the world and the world is me. The mirror changes because I am the mirror and the mirror is me.
We are one body.
Which is why the world I’ve perceived “out there” all this time hasn’t changed. Because as long as I judge and dislike myself, pick myself apart, perceiving and trying to change what’s wrong … the world does the same thing in a cycle of self-hatred and destruction that is never-ending.
The way out
Talk about changing horses in the middle of the stream. Instead of focusing on what’s “wrong” and “right” with me, trying to purge what’s “wrong” and cultivate what’s “right,” I’m delving deep to feel and appreciate the truth of who/what I am: a spirit being of pure love
I’m no longer searching for truth. As a spirit being of pure love I am the embodiment of truth.
I’m no longer striving to be better and “good.” I’m focused on feeling and being what/who I really am. Not thinking about it. Not trying to find it. Not chanting some mantra or following some teaching that will get me to some higher understanding about God. Not trying to become spiritual.
How can I become what I already am?
It’s an insane proposition. Right? How can I become what I already am? I can’t. But you know what I can do?
I can drive myself crazy trying to become some mental ideal that’s been put in my head. An ideal that’s deliberately posited as being the opposite of what I actually am, so that I continually tear myself apart getting nowhere, getting nowhere, getting nowhere … feeling guilty the whole time.
And I wonder why the world is crazy bonkers mad? It’s simply reflecting my own insane mindset. Add billions of other people just as programmed as me to the pot and talk about a dysfunctional matrix!
Two thousand years ago, Yeshua Ben Yosef aka Jesus, said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” That was his mindset. And he lived it. He shone it to the whole world. Not as the only son of God, but living as a spirit being of pure love lives.
No wonder people healed at his touch. No wonder the atoms in H2O responded by transforming themselves into wine, fulfilling his desire. No wonder loaves and fishes proliferated in his hands. He simply was what he was and the world responded in kind because they were one and the same.
Where rubber meets road
It’s easy focusing on trying to become “spiritual.” Unfulfilling, frustrating and ultimately fruitless, perhaps. But it’s an accepted, approved, and well-trod path. Being what/who I really am, on the other hand …
Is also easy. (I’m trying to convince myself!)
It’s a learning experience for sure. And a great uncovering. And my mind helps me very little, spending more time as a hindrance than anything else.
My body, on the other hand, is the golden ticket unlocking the turnstile to truth.
Feeling is the key. When I close my eyes and think, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” my body responds. It lights up. It buzzes. My generative center warms and tingles with energy—life energy—love. And it moves …
“I am a being of pure love.”
My body responds to the thought. It resonates to that frequency because this is the truth of what/who I am.
And the more I dwell in this feeling, the deeper I sink into my body—coincidentally the one place that has been demonized; the one place I have been told for thousands of years that I should not go because it is dirty and corrupt—the deeper I sink into my body and the truth of its and my purity, the more charged the signal of pure love becomes.
And I begin to feel the glow … the pulse of love and life emanating outwards. Or at least what appears to be outwards. And as body and mind hum as one, as the glow of love increases, it seems to be pushing out all that does not vibrate at this frequency.
Aches and pains, irrational emotions, pain and suffering, childhood traumas arise and then go. Unpleasant, conflict-oriented people are leaving my life of their own accord. I pay less and less attention to the agonized writhing of the world and its harebrained political doings, barely scanning headlines to keep abreast. That world … the old world locked in ignorance, self-hatred, self-improvement, and conflict … I don’t see that much of it anymore.
It’s not that I’m not still in this world.
It’s not that nothing affects me. If someone decided to nuke Maui and the rest of the Hawai’ian islands, it would very much affect me. But understanding the reality of the higher vibration rule of “like attracts like” versus the lower vibration rule of “opposites attract” that characterizes the consciousness of the Old World—it would be highly likely that “coincidentally” I’d be on the mainland or somewhere else safe if something like that ever happened.
The love vibration of life gathers, shields and protects it own. Swords are unnecessary once the fight is let go.
Where this new relationship, this new mirror, this new reality is going, I do not know. It is not a known and well-trod path. Frankly, it seems to be going “somewhere else” altogether. To which I can only say, “Yippee-skippee!” as I settle in for the ride.
Much love and aloha ~