Importance Of Mirror – In Gita Verse 9.29 I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto Me in devotion is a friend, is in Me, and I am also a friend to him.
Krishna says that I am just a mirror. In me you will see your reflections. Reflection of your formless, buddhahood.
From Zen monk Rinzai’s life we will understand the Importance Of Mirror.
A Zen monk, Rinzai, attained his enlightenment, and the first thing he asked was, “Where is my body? Where has my body gone?” And he began to search. He called his disciples and said, “Go and find out where my body is. I have lost my body.”
He had entered the formless. You are also a formless existence, but you know yourself not directly, but from others’ eyes. You know through the mirror. Sometime, while looking in the mirror, close your eyes and then think, meditate: if there was no mirror, how could you have known your face? If there was no mirror, there would have been no face. You do not have a face; mirrors give you faces. Think of a world where there are no mirrors. You are alone – no mirror at all, not even others’ eyes working as mirrors. You are alone on a lonely island; nothing can mirror you. Then will you have any face? Or will you have anybody? You cannot have one. You do not have one at all. We know ourselves only through others, and the others can only know the outer form. That is why we become identified with it.
Till the time you feel that Krishna is my friend Krishna will also appear to you as a friend. The moment you become formless suddenly you will find that you and Krishna are not separate as any form but you also become whole. Like Rinzai you will not recognize yourself as some identity. But you realize yourself as whole, formless.
Krishna is nothing but clarity, transparency. To him, things which are invisible to you
are visible. Your potentiality is something very invisible, the mystery of your being. But
to Krishna it is almost an open book; he can read it. And to have such a master, who can read your potentiality and can help you grow according to your potentiality – not
according to his ideology – is the greatest blessing one can have.
Let’s understand how the master can see your potentiality from Buddha’s previous life incidence: It reminds me about Gautam Buddha’s past life, when he was not yet a buddha, and he heard about a great master who had become enlightened. He went to see, just out of curiosity, what this phenomenon of enlightenment is, and how it makes a difference in a man.
He touched the feet of the man, although he had no intention of doing so; but just as he came into his energy field, spontaneously he touched his feet. He wondered why he was touching his feet, because he had not come there to be a disciple. But the very area, the very atmosphere, the very milieu – and something in his heart started ringing a bell, that perhaps he had come close to his home, without any conscious intention.
Just spontaneously he touched the feet of the man. It was a miracle to him, because he had never touched anybody’s feet. He was not a man of faith or belief; he was a young man, and very argumentative. This was a strange act that he had done, but stranger than this was that when he stood up, the master touched his feet.
He said, “What are you doing? In the first place, I had no idea, no desire, no intention of touching your feet – but it happened. I was just watching it happening in spite of me.
And now you are touching my feet! – I am nobody, I don’t know even the ABC of
enlightenment. I have just come here out of curiosity.”
The master said, “You may not know what is contained in your seed, but I know. I can
see that one day you are going to become the buddha. Yesterday I was not a buddha,
today I am a buddha; today you are not a buddha, tomorrow you will be a buddha. This
a small time difference does not make any difference.”
When Krishna is saying – I am also a friend to him. – He says that I am mirroring, to your formless, your buddhahood. When he says that – I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone – he means that I am mirror to everyone. Whoever comes to me I reflect his Buddhahood, formless.
At the same time it has to be understood that buddhahood cannot be attained, it is already your nature. If you try to attain it, you will miss it. You have just to relax and see within yourself, and the Buddha is already there in its absolute splendor.
The use of the word attain means that something has to be done, you have to go
somewhere. There is a possibility of failure – you may succeed, you may not succeed.
And attainment is always of the outside world, of the objective world – riches, or fame,
or power….
But buddhahood is not an attainment. It is simply a remembrance, as if you had forgotten something, and suddenly in a silent relaxed state you remember it.
When Krishna is mirroring us we become relaxed and remember our Buddhahood.
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