The Mirror Principle by Alan Watts
Internet video produced by his foundation.
It appears that we are looking out into the world, as if we are watching the scenery go by through a train window. But who is doing the looking? Who or what is really on the inside? Who or what is really on the outside?
The Mirror Principle states what is out there is a reflection of who and what you are. The outside is a mirror, a neutral and neural mirror. You do not see reality, rather you evoke it. Reality is a verb, a relationship between the perceived inside and outside.
We are active participants and creators of the world, of the universe.
The world happens with you…not to you. It does this because of Sunyata (Emptiness)
You are the show watching itself.
This separation between you on the inside, and the world on the outside, between the knower and the known is an illusion, (Maya), a mental fabrication, (Aham kara). It is a viewpoint. A form of consciousness. However, both knower and known arise together.
We are not a thing. We are a process. A process within the process.
A mirror is simply clear. There is no clinging, no attachments, no agendas, no judgments.
The Mind is a mirror, not a scrapbook.
We are not watching life, we are creating and being it.
The one searching is the one being searched for.
The world, the Divine Presence, is pretending not to know itself, so that it can remember and discover, find out, what it is.
There is no edge between you and what you see. No plate of glass.
The “you” you see in the mirror, in the world, is just presence looking back.
These things can be further elaborated and discussed by the following ancient spiritual texts, as well as others.
The Bhagavad Gita: Translated by Eknath Easwaran
The Upanishads: Translated by Eknath Easwaran
The Heart Sutra: Translated by Red Pine
The Conference of the Birds: by Attar
Also, the first two lines of a traditional Nepali song, Phoolko Aakhama, (In the eyes of a Flower), sung by Ani Choying Drolma on the Internet. English subtitles.
“In the eyes of a flower
The world appears as a flower.
In the eyes of a thorn
The world appears as a thorn…”