Jesus, The Easter Bunny, and the Real Renewal of Spring

At the time of the earliest stirrings of the philosophy that was to become Christianity there were numerous centers of nascent world religion, from the Gandhara region of India thru Asia Minor, Persia, and Greece, to Alexandria and Jerusalem – and other spots within and beyond the Roman Empire and the rest of the known, civilized world. To literate religious academics of the early Christian era, all of this knowledge was available. Christianity, like all religions, was not born in a vacuum.

You'll notice in the retellings of the Passion Play that Christians celebrate each spring, as well as throughout the New Testament, there are plenty of references to the Pharisee sect of Hebraism, the proletariat and middle-class Jews of the time. The Sadducees, the bourgeois, aristocratic sect get very little airtime comparatively – despite making up most of the temple priesthood. Edited out of the story completely are the Essenes, which were not actually a single sect but instead a collection of differing gnostic beliefs grouped together generically.

Beyond their numbers, which were significant throughout the middle east at the time, the Essenes were the original Christians, eschewing sacrifice and materiality, living simple lives based in practices of healing and service. They were dedicated to cleanliness, to communal, all-inclusive dining, to the practices of foot washing, vegetarianism, and holistic herbal healing. Their "inns" and white robes were the inspiration for our present-day hostels and hospitals, and doctors' white coats. It's likely that the Jesus of mainstream Christianity was drawn from this model. 

Most sects labeled "Essene" fully embraced a more personal, inward, mystical path to the realization of a divine simplicity, and so were the foundation of the esoteric forms of Gnosticism and Kabbalistic practice. In some groups, Buddhism was very influential, and in fact "Theraputae" Essenism was likely one in the same as the Buddhist community located near Lake Mareotis, outside of Alexandria (from Theraputta, sanskrit meaning "from the old ones"). Buddhism was alive throughout the region for hundreds of years prior to Christian mythology, and it's very important to note that the Buddha sat in the wilderness alone and was tempted by the devil, walked on water, fed the multitudes from a single basket, and drank at the well of an outsider (and more) 500 years before the Christ story came about.

It's very likely that the teacher Yeshua, whose philosophy – resurrected in the  discovery of very early pre-canonical scripture like The Gospel of Thomas – serves as the basis for the teachings of the Jesus of the canonical, Roman gospels.

The selectivity of Christian myth runs roughshod over much of what is actually known, as is the case with most inventions of organized religion. This is not limited only to religion, the same is true for organized historical dogma, organized cultural dogma, and organized social dogma. In a contemporary American context, for example, we have the assertion that Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union, or that John Kennedy was killed by a lone assassin; both nascent myths that aren't based in fact, but still canonized as historical truth by many. 

Likewise, American frontier identity was actually rooted in the genocide of the indigenous Americans, whose culture was, so to speak, crucified by "Rome." The positivity and popularity of much of contemporary American culture is based on the transcendent adaptations of African people held in slavery for hundreds of years. The implications of these truths are truly biblical, but not in the self-enhancing way traditional white male American historians would have us remember it.

So the suggestion that the Christian Passion Play is mythic, and was created in the centuries following the decline of Rome to serve political purposes by commandeering an authentically mystical path actually makes much more sense than the assumption of the canonical gospels as historical fact. The first big tip-off is the fact that the eventual authors of those gospels weren't actually named Mark, Matthew, Luke, or John – those were pseudonyms of journeymen writers of their day. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are you might want to duck.

More recently there are the examples of Mormonism, whose co-creator Joseph Smith is not hard to prove as a plagiarist, philanderer, arsonist, and possibly worse, but not at all proven to be a prophetic witness to an early ancient American Judaic civilization; Scientology, whose inventor was unquestionably a hard-drinking, womanizing, egomaniacal science fiction writer – but highly questionable as an enlightened channel of godlike alien entities; and, going back a little further, Islam, the transcendent, mystical heart of which is regularly betrayed (like the other Abrahamic religions) by random acts of violence. 

Sadly for true believers, the historical references to the actual existence of the Jesus of the canons is still limited to the scant testimonies of Pliny, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Flavius Josephus, whose less-than-second-hand accounts came well after the fact, and were subject to powerful political and cultural influence, and countless subsequent rewritings. The most compelling testimony of Josephus has been known to be a forgery for a long time now, while Judeo-Roman historians contemporary to the times, like Philo, never mention the man or events, despite having every reason to. Josephus, in all his authenticated accounts in fact, mentions at least twenty different people named Jesus.

Then what should we really be resurrecting today? If the religious establishment now neatly sequesters the whole of the ancient Essene world into the austere walls of the community at Qumran, and the timeless teachings of philosophers like Gautama and Yeshua are respectively redefined as platitudes and tragic morality plays, rather than as the radically effective calls to action they truly are, then clearly what requires resurrecting is the spirit of divinely shared consciousness that Aldous Huxley called the "Perennial Philosophy." 

"The All came forth from me and the All came into me. Split the wood, and I am there. Turn over the stone, and there you will find me."

The Gospel of Thomas, Logion 77  

It's forgivable human nature to transmute certain realities into conveniently avoidable practices, or for people suffering from the fearful manifestations of low self worth, greed, and delusional self-centeredness to act out in our shrinking world, but what we really need is to rebirth the elemental compassionate unity, the eternal springtime of human spiritual evolution alive in each Easter every day, if possible. That is the message continuously carried by the spirit of Yeshua (not to mention the Buddha, Krishna, Gandhi, et al).

We can all "sit in the wilderness" – take the inward path to realization of our shared being; "walk on water" – rise above and make foundational our psychic afflictions;  "feed the multitudes" – know that we have plenty with what we always have;  and "share water from the well" – understand the eternal that unifies us, regardless of our outward labels. The Jesus of the Christian Easter is purely a symbol for the real power for transformation each of us carries within – all the time...not just every Spring.

"Whoever seeks will find; whoever knocks from inside, it will open to them."

"When you bring forth that within you, then that will save you."

"What you are waiting for has already come, but you do not see it."

"Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me and I will become them and what was hidden from them will be revealed."

The Gospel of Thomas, 94, 70, 51, 108

Since I believe that we all only die to this world, and so resurrection is a simple, personal realization that we will all get to experience, is it possible that the spirit of the Easter Bunny could actually be a better shepherd? The brand we want to revive each Spring? Could that be a better metaphor than the image of a good man suffering – the gentle lapine, the playful, prolific, vegan creature of the woods and meadows? Could a bunny be smart and wise enough to easily share that level of consciousness? For the answer to these, and possibly other questions, I invite you to watch this video:

 http://www.dogwork.com/buhr9

Happy Easter! 

[re-edited and reposted from an earlier time]

The latest book: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor from Llewellyn Worldwide can be ordered direct or online; and the first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for them it at your local bookstore!

Beatitude Adjustment – Our “Sermon on the Mount” Top Hits, Unplugged

“Materiality is a metaphoric manifestation of our ‘invisible’ spiritual nature.”

      Perhaps the biggest challenge that faces any theology is the tendency for its most fervent proponents to insist on literal interpretations of their basic scriptures, when really all ancient spiritual texts are intended as metaphors for spiritual conditions and approaches, meant to help you align yourself to the energy of Love in the Universe (to put it simply). 

      Translating those texts can be very important too, as certain translations may only be appropriate for very particular agendas; take for example the common Biblical translations for the terms “sin,” which comes from the Greek word amartia, and really means: to miss the mark; and “repentance,” from the Greek word metanoia, which actually transliterates as: beyond thought (transformational). You can see what a different spin those choices give to the pure meaning.

      The Beatitudes – everyone’s favorite list of righteous suggestions from “The Sermon on the Mount,” Matthew 5–7 (firmly based on the Old Testament Psalms) are no exception. Plugged into their institutional translations, they can be a little confusing, or subject to rote interpretations that overlook the underlying spiritual technology they describe. In fact, overlooking in a different way is the real meaning of “The Mount;” whether anyone ever spoke from on top of a hill or not isn’t the point – “The Mount” really only means to assume a spiritual point-of-view, where you can get a clear view of the hardships of being human. With all that in mind, allow me to try to Unplug the Beatitudes for you, and hopefully reveal their natural spiritual suggestions.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

      The idea of Heaven is always easy – it means being in alignment with the energy of Love in the Universe, it’s just “the poor in spirit” part that gets a little confusing. It seems to suggest that we’re talking about poor people, or that we’re talking about people who come up short in “the spiritual” department – yes to both. It is easier for people who don’t have lots of money, and all the demands and obsessions it brings, to be serenely connected to our Divine Source; and back in those days, the powerful leaders of organized religions were considered “rich in spirit” (the same could be said about today's Evangelical mega-preachers). Theirs was not “the kingdom.”      

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

      Sadness opens our hearts, and causes our energies to resonate with deeper structures of the Universe. It’s a call for connection, and that call is always answered by the Divine, which is absolutely indivisible. What we mourn is always alive—and we know it in our hearts.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

      A Zen sage once said, “Water finds its greatest power by seeking its lowest point,” and it’s true of the life of this planet. Humility grounds us in our most profoundly connected way, and the more dogmatic, the more egocentric, the more intellectually self-assured – the more willful – we are, the less chance we have of survival. The greatest chance for humans lies in our sincerest humility, because Earth will always default to the energy of the authentic, the most cooperatively adaptable.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

      The willingness to take part in the inner exploration – the deep need to discover that energy, that light within (our spiritual sustenance); and to reunite ourselves – to restore ourselves to that Divine energy, is absolutely essential. It’s only by opening up and digging-down (for sustenance and refreshment) that we can be repaired and re-filled by the energy of Love.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

      “Do no harm,” is the first precept of Buddhism, and it’s that absolute Golden Rule that informs not just the way we live life in each moment – with (and as a part of) the grace that compassionate consciousness grants us – but also aligns us with the energies of Love in the Universe. It creates our positive karma – as we respect the Divine in all living things, the Divine Love Energy of the Universe reflects that grace into our lives.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

      “The Kingdom of Heaven is spread across the Earth, but men don’t have eyes to see it,” said Yeshua, the Gnostic “Teacher of Righteousness,” meaning that it’s the misperceptions created in our minds that prevent us from aligning ourselves with the Field of Love. When we practice kindness, honesty, humility, forgiveness, compassion, and service, our cognitive hearts are cleared, and open to the intuitive intelligence available – the way to live with perspective, presence, and purpose. Then we can witness the Divine in every direction we look.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the Children of God.

      Really little kids are so innocent and gracious (when they’re not crying…), the ambitions and expectations of life haven’t painted them into any corners they need ‘to fight their way out of’ yet. Those judgements create the aggressive instincts to “get ahead” materially – what we want, what we think we need, what we must hold on to – that cause us to lash out, or try to forcibly control; that’s the painfulness our narrow, short-lived human desires create, not the eternal playfulness our authentic selves deserve.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

      People look at you funny when you purposefully and unashamedly pursue your spiritual path; they think you’re crazy (because they’re thinking with their heads, not their hearts). I survived three traumatic incidents, and three “Near Death Experiences” – so I had no choice in the matter, my spiritual beliefs are literally immaterial. Most folks try to navigate in a material world, grasping little pieces of serenity, wonder, and joy here and there; and if you turn that approach around 180º and live as a spirit in a world of arising matter, naturally you’ll be misunderstood a lot...

      ...but you’ll live in a world alive in the Field of Love, connected by a powerful, “unseen” spiritual technology that transforms you “beyond thought,” and lets you “hit the mark” – almost every time. It’ll give you a real experience of grace, serenity, joy, and wholeness like you’ve never known. In truth, it’ll put gratitude in your beatitude!

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

What a Jumping Fish Can Teach You

        What is the best way to live? With a BMW, a big house, and a job with an important title? Of course those things may be great to have at times, but they only contribute to the real quality of your life in a certain way. Your true happiness—the way you really feel—has more to do with your understanding of Life and how you fit in it. When we completely identify ourselves with the material aspects of our being-in-the-world, we may come to feel insecure or ungrounded, because those things come and go. They're undependable, momentary, 
transient. 

        The other day while sitting on a rock by the river giving my mind a break, a fish suddenly surprised me by jumping clear out of the water right in front of me. Naturally, fish do that while pursuing bugs to eat, but there didn't seem to be any bugs around. This fish appeared to be jumping free of its watery medium for fun – or to make a kind of statement, like:

        "Here I am! I'm free of the water for this moment! I'm exposed to the air-world!" (of course, he may have been saying, "Hey buddy, you seen any bugs?" but for my purposes we'll stick with the first version).

        For a very brief moment (the image of which stays with me indefinitely) the fish was "a fish out of water," separated from the actual medium of his being – the water; but if you had blinked, you would have missed it.

        People say that about life too, don't they? You blink, and it's over.

        Water has always served as a great metaphor for the nature of Life as a medium – the depth of its mysteries; the ceaseless directional flow of it; the images and inevitabilities that it carries our way, that arise from it; the surprises that suddenly drop into it from out of nowhere. Those are the things that change, that come and go – but it's the medium it takes place in that I want you to think about. This is about the way you think about it. Let's think about it like we were fish (in a Buddhist way):

"As a fish taken from his watery home and thrown on dry ground, our thought trembles all over in order to escape the dominion of Mâra (the tempter)."

                          The Dhammapada, 3: 34

        Like that fish out of water, we're not entirely safe or secure exposed to this world of shifting material conditions, filled with destructive temptations. As an "Out-of-Body Near-Death Experiencer" myself, I can testify to you that we are clear, sweet spiritual (energy) beings, inhabiting the (sometimes unreliable) vehicles of this body we're in—and this tenuous world all around them. 

        No wonder we might feel insecure.

        Like that fish, humans are 90% water ourselves; and if we can remain aware of that medium that is our natural element (and our real ultimate home)—the true ocean of energy we swim in every moment—we can leap free of the demands and pressures of this difficult world, and "who we're supposed to be" in it. We can detach with compassion from all this messy stuff, and return to the true, secure medium of our being—which I like to simplify as Love.

        Have you ever heard of "The Gnostics?" They lived what we think of as Christian spiritual principles before Christianity was institutionalized, and they had a very interesting "fish-out-of-water" way of looking at life that I think fits the picture I'm drawing pretty perfectly. They saw themselves as brief visitors here, in a way:

        "The Gnostic ideal, simply put, is that you really are a displaced part of Heaven, but during this experience of human life, that knowledge eludes you. Momentarily, you’ve forgotten your true connection and the way to return, so you’ve actually come back into this life to rescue your authentic self, trapped in your limited perceptions of this world. Within a transformative moment of gnosis, you’ll remember who and what you really are, where you really come from, and how to take yourself back home.

        In Gnostic mythology, all of humanity is an expression of a divine light imprisoned on an imperfect plane of existence, enfolded in the beauty of earthly existence, yet victimized by the suffering that is such a big part of it all. Each of us contains a connecting spark of the Divine Light within called the pneuma (what the Hindus might call atman). Our fragment, imprisoned in this body, has fallen away from the radiant, infinite matrix of limitless potential, which is our Source called the pleroma. 

        Life's sadnesses inspire the longing to reunite our spark with the transcendent unifying power that we inherently know to be our loving origin—the effort to restore ourselves to our authentic nature. When gnosis takes place, we are restored as beings of light."

                    from How to Get to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying) 

        So whenever you're feeling uncomfortable, when you're experiencing that "fish-out-of-water" feeling, take a blink and give yourself a moment of "gnosis." Return to that medium of our solid, profound grounding – this ocean of Divine Energy we all come from, and all return to – and experience being enfolded in that Love that is the true nature and source of life on this beautiful Earth.

        ...and remember what every fish knows by heart:

"Everything that changes, isn't real."

                    Nisargadatta Maharaj

        "Reduce your needs to the simplest level of intelligence and

practicality. Live lightly and respectfully on the surface of Mother Earth!"

                    from 20 Tips for Getting to Heaven; How to Get to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Llewellyn Books, 2018.

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

Taking it Easy in the Isn't-Matter-World

The ocean pours through a jar, and you might say

It swims inside the fish!

This mystery gives peace to your longing,

and makes the road home

become home.

                                                   Rumi

Yep, sometimes it’s a challenge just to take it easy.  This world does assault us. This world makes a lot of demands on us. But then, which world is it that asks so much and gives so little, and which world is it that really gives us everything (and maybe even more, if we let it)?

Any major Buddhist will tell you that the world of material attachments is an illusion, composed of a constantly changing—constantly coming and going—surface “reality.” What we think we need often turns out to be not what we thought we needed at all, and it’s all because of what we’re thinking. It’s because we’re usually making things up.

So, okay, it’s not really real…but then it is real, isn’t it? It just isn’t always too reliable, and a lot of it doesn’t come when we want it, or stay as long as we’d like.

This world is a made-up world. It’s made up of outside appearances, of important occasions, of accelerating schedules, of stuff you have to have and stuff you have to do. But all of that stuff comes and goes, and often it’s just fine when you realize that you forgot all about it, until it was too late. Oops! I missed it!...and it doesn’t even matter that I did.

That’s the world we usually think really matters—the world of matter. That’s the world that’s so alluring, so demanding, so unforgiving. The “matter-world.” The world that you usually forget about (the one you take for granted) is the one that’s always there, but always sort of underneath everything. That’s the world where everything of real importance actually comes from. It’s the (often invisible) world that doesn’t change. 

It’s the Isn’t-Matter-World.

The Isn’t-Matter-World is the world of beautiful ideas that never go away, that stick with you until maybe you bring them into the material world, if you really want them there. It’s the world of Love, which is the deepest fundamental connection and motivation we have for everything of real value that arises in this life. It’s the world of miracles (like this miracle we’re all participating in, in every single instant).

The deep river water under the ice is the real, unchanging world of Love, of Art, of wonderful ideas and miraculous synchronicities—like meeting each other, or doing something really nice for someone else. It’s a world of elemental innocence, of compassionate connectedness, and of the awesome power of true humility that flows through everything of real value and beauty.

Skate lightly on the material surface, and know the deep river water-world is running through you. Live in that world, showing up (with an open heart) for the easy-does-it demands of the ever-changing surfaces. Then, the Isn’t-Matter-World will carry you in it’s flow.

Rumi by way of Coleman Barks

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

Creating Your Landscape with Karma, Intention, and Ego

...let's dance

"Everything...is made by mind. If one speaks or acts with with a pure mind, happiness will follow..." 

 Buddha, The Dhammapada

In the course of our time here as our path takes us towards what some call self-realization, there is a kind of leveling of the landscape of our life, so to speak, as we get more and more accustomed to simply being alive and getting along. That which didn't kill us has not killed us – yet. When we look back at the past, the rough features of that daily existence, which at the time seemed so difficult to maneuver, the power of all those dramas we took part in unconsciously diminish and the landscape our road has taken us over seems to smooth out into a calm, even plain of being. Of what once was, back then. Just as the future arises unpredictably out of nothingness, the past simply returns to the uncreated, only popping up occasionally like a whack-a-mole when we need to re-learn the same lessons we've forgotten. 

 The landmarks left standing behind us are just the ruins of those "great dramas" that shaped us, that changed us. Their matter and mass blow away like sand castles in time-lapse photography. We intuitively understand our quantum reality, the way it builds and deconstructs – packets of energy and information that become real when they react with our consciousness, and one another. Nothing is actually solid. 

 Ahead, the landscape likewise appears even and smooth – except for potential obstacles arising that will only show up as difficult life-events if we invest them with too much of the wrong kind of energy, and turn them into monuments of future drama, future suffering. There are those inevitable sorrows and losses of life – the death of a pet; the loss of a romance; a career disappointment; the passing of a parent. But as we go on, we learn that we can avoid a lot of the difficulty in those obstacles by approaching them a different way, maybe with love this time. We can climb to the top of those monuments to past or potential dramas and put them into perspective. We can energize their becoming real with positivity.

Look out over the views behind and ahead of you, and notice that the landmarks on the geography of your past are the same shape and made of the same stuff as the potential obstacles that lay ahead. Become a geographical detective. What do those patterns mean, and where do they come from? Why are they always so familiar? You know you have built those forms out of potential energies, and going forward you know that you can strongly influence the way something comes about by focusing your energies on it. That's "The Secret."

Once you determine your patterns, you can build your life landscape based on the three great life factors: Karma, Intention, and Ego:

Karma is practically self-explanatory at this point, the average person's consciousness now being evolved enough to almost automatically understand that each soul labors towards it's inherent completion, and the cause and effect generated by one's life or lives determines what's needed to complete the lessons. There are things you need to fix, and things you need to build. Life is the result of cause and effect. You have to do something because you have to learn that. Your life sets itself up with certain conditions, the luck of the draw and the seeds that you plant, so to speak. Life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. It's evidence of the spiritual evolution of our species that this formerly esoteric Eastern concept is now pretty well part of the global mainstream of thought. What goes around gets around.

Intention refers to the fact that we live in that thoroughly plastic, quantum world, where whatever you set the focus of your intention on, and follow the event stream of your life diligently and with passion, you can manifest out of the potentially limitless material field of being. The trick is that you have to show up, keep trying, and believe. There are greater powers at work than meet the eye, and they are quite capable of producing your wildest dream, just as you are quite capable of preventing it by your own resistance and negativity. Which leads to the last of the three, Ego.

Ego is simply the mechanism by which one remains fictitiously attached to the visible, superficial, material aspects of the world. It fears the underlying change, which is life. It's the false self that keeps you out of alignment with The Divine by convincing you that you're separate from it, often because you "don't deserve it," when you naturally deserve to manifest your dreams as much as anyone. If you can put this Ego (judgment and comparison) aside, you'll immediately develop insight to being. Using this insight, life will show you your karma; and then when you focus your intention on following your life, you can take short-cuts along your karma path simply because your soul is learning the lessons it requires for completion. Jung called it Individuation. Some of us tree-huggers call it finding yourself.

"Samsara, the transmigration of life, takes place in one's mind. Let one therefore keep the mind pure, for what a man thinks that he becomes."

 Maitri Upanishad 6. 24

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

How "Polishing the Mirror" Helps You Reflect the Miraculous

Although I'm an avowedly non-violent kind of guy, it's not beyond me to ruthlessly torture a metaphor along with the best (or worst) of 'em, and seeing as this is a session that requires lots of spiritual elbow grease–nearly everyday–you have my permission to cover your eyes. You won't need them to look into this mirror.

"Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think."

                    Buddha, The Dhammapada 1:1

In Zen Buddhism, where meditation is called sitting zazen, they use this marvelous housecleaning metaphor of "polishing the mirror" when they talk about how to think about not–thinking. It's like this: If the way we think is just an incomplete reflection of a greater, more blissful consciousness (based on how healthy our connection to it), then the best way to perceive more of that blissful Source is to do some housecleaning, so to speak—starting with the "inner mirror" that serves as our doorway into the limitless potential of Life.

That mirror stands for the surface of something unfathomably deep that we can only reach by entering our imaginations. In the reflection of Life that we are, we see ourself only on its surface. We'd like to feel more a part of it—to become more a part of it—and sometimes we can momentarily reach into that depth, but we, ourselves, are what's reflecting that profound reality so poorly. All of the fogginess and flaws are a result of own misperceptions; our conscious and subconscious designs. The obscurities are all of our own making.

 So, naturally it stands to reason that if we can improve the quality of the reflector, we'll improve the reflection.

To start that process, we need to sit in stillness and roll up our 'inner sleeves' to ready ourselves for housecleaning. Everything goes better when it's picked up a bit: straightened, inventoried, and organized. Most—if not all—of the mess on the surface of the mirror are simply all the stuff we're thinking about. Thoughts about who we are, about what we don't have, about what we think we should have, about what we think we need to be happy, and what we need to feel whole.

We need to stand back a bit, and clean up our streaky, smudgy thoughts.

"The deluded, imagining trivial things to be vital to life, follow their vain fantasies and never attain [bliss]; but the wise, knowing what is trivial and what is vital, set their thoughts on the goal, and attain [bliss]."

                     Buddha, The Dhammapada, 1:11, 12

In a recent article ("Sitting in the Wilderness," at The Mindful Word.org) I tried to simplify the three "temptations," met and overcome, by both Jesus and The Buddha as they sat and faced their 'devils'—temptations that can stand in quite nicely for the surface-obscuring stuff that clouds our internal mirrors. Simply put, they are:

1) The deep wish to control things to be just the way we want them to be.

2) The superficial, or material, or physical desires we desire to have gratified, and 

3) Our fears – usually having to do with numbers one and two.

 Our fears are the basic filmy schmutz (that's Yiddish) that "as through a glass darkly" obscure our ability to perceive our brightest potential—and they should be the easiest to simply wipe away, seeing as how most of our fears aren't even real. The shadows they cast over the way our daily life appears to us are largely the product of our own negative imaginations. Most of what we fear comes and goes with little or no real consequence, and even when it does impact on our life, it is still only Life, doing what it will do. Usually, we learn our greatest lessons that way, by facing our reflected fears.

Polishing that inner mirror puts us directly in touch with the surface of an ocean of underlying support and serenity. There's a quality of contact with the depth of all that potential that allows us to see through those simple fears to the calm sanity and intelligence that stands behind them, and beneath everything. You gain a purpose that lets you patiently wipe away the default negative inventions that obscure your underlying potential—those feelings that you some how don't measure up, or the resentments you get against others (who are simply doing their best to reflect consciousness too). Just a crumpled-up newspaper, and a little ammonia works wonders.

And then, as long as you're inventing things to think about, invent something wonderful—visualize the miraculous coming true for yourself and others. That ought to lighten up your life quite a bit, and allow you to reflect the sanity that lies at your true Source.

There, in the clarity of that improved reflection, we realize the funhouse mirror distortions our ego causes us to see—the illusion that we're much taller or wider, that our head is so much bigger than everyone else's (when really, we're all just about the same size). It's not the mirror that causes the distortions, it's only our distorted ego. Smooth that surface out flat with a calm, deliberate, repetitive circular motion, until the reflection invites you in— through and beyond your ego illusions. Feel the freedom of becoming that truth that lives beneath your fearful projections.

"To identify consciousness with that which merely reflects consciousness, this is egoism."

                      Patanjali, The Yoga Sutras, II.3

There will always be little surface smudges, and underlying distortions, but the more you experience the sense of transcendent being—that expansion of Consciousness into our deeper dimension of being that occurs when we lose "our self" in the act of polishing, the greater ease you'll experience in every other moment too, and the better you'll feel about reflecting your true potential—which is only limited by your imagination.

With the mirror cleaner, you need never obsess on the flaws again, because you'll see—clearly at last—that your reflection is something of unimaginably great beauty. You are a perfect expression of the greatest, deepest, and most beautiful mystery of all…a perfect expression of Life's Consciousness that all of this world will reflect back to you. 

Sit, and if you "polish the mirror" patiently, soon you'll be able to step right into it, and into a whole new world, where all you need is to simply be who, and what you really are—a remarkable reflection of the miraculous.  

  

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!