By Eknath Easwaran

In Kerala state, South India, where I grew up, the new year is ushered in with a ceremony many centuries old. The night before, while most of the family is asleep, a special shrine is assembled with all kinds of lustrous objects – yellow flowers, brassware, gold jewelry, ripe fruits, lighted oil lamps – arranged around a mirror draped with garlands. The next morning, each member of the family is led to the shrine with eyes closed and asked, “Would you like to see the Lord?” We open our eyes, and shining in the midst of this bright setting we see our own face in the glass. It is a beautiful reminder of the divinity in each of us – the viewer and everyone else around.


Naturally, the reminder tends to get forgotten later, as life closes in again. But in my home, whenever one of us children began to misbehave, my grandmother had only to ask, “Do you remember where you saw the Lord on New Year’s?”


When you and I look into a mirror, we see a familiar face with a distressing tendency to show fatigue or age. But that is not what the mystics see. They look at us – through us, into us – and see something transcendent, luminous, timeless, “the Face behind all faces”:

I look into the mirror and see my own beauty;
I see the truth of the universe revealing itself as me.

I rise in the sky as the morning sun, do not be surprised . . .

I am Light itself, reflected in the heart of everyone.
   – Fakhruddin Araqi

This is of fundamental importance, because it touches the very heart of our image of ourselves – our idea of what the human being and human nature essentially are. The great mystics of all religions are telling us unanimously that at the very core of the human personality, in the very depths of our consciousness, lies a divine spark that nothing can extinguish. Not all the mistakes we have committed, not all the problems we may have brought upon ourselves and others, can extinguish this spark. Nothing can. It is, as Meister Eckhart says startlingly, an uncreated light – the essential core of divinity present in every creature.


If you can remember this every day in moments when you are inclined to look down upon yourself, this reminder will restore your faith and inspire you to put all your efforts into releasing this beautiful image from the mirror of possibility into your everyday life.


Original goodness


In Western mysticism, discovering this divine core of personality is considered superhuman – rising above the ordinary human level to a plane far, far higher. This is certainly true, but the point of view of Indian mysticism is just as accurate: we are subnormal now; our task is to become normal. Our natural condition is love; anger, hatred, animosity are unnatural. Our natural condition is to be a saint; anything less is a masquerade.


This sounds like Polyanna, but the mystics are not denying our negative side. They are well aware of the many serious flaws in human character. But it is refreshing and practical to remember that before original sin came original innocence. The core of personality is original goodness. It is covered, if you like, by sin, but the covering can be removed, and when it is, the essential goodness of our nature is revealed. 


In fact, I don’t use the word sin very much. You seldom hear me talk about sin unless I am quoting. It can become a kind of obsession, and any obsession is bad because it hinders spiritual growth. When we keep on deprecating ourselves, we can end up worthy of deprecation. By reinforcing a low image of ourselves, we come to expect no better. “I’m just a sinner,” we say. “What can you expect?” 


I have met many people who suffer from such a guilt complex that it hampers their spiritual progress. This is one of the cleverest aces the ego can play. “You – you’re no good! What can you possibly say in favor of yourself?” I don’t mean we should ignore our weaknesses; in fact, the purpose of meditation is to overcome them – all of them. But to do that, it’s simply not helpful to go about deprecating yourself. The best thing is not to think about yourself at all; give your attention to those around you.


In our modern civilization, there are millions of people who have come to have such a poor, worthless image of themselves that they become accustomed to all kinds of unelevating behavior. In spite of all our affluence and all our technological achievements, the general image of the human being has been brought so low that we think we are merely physical creatures whose only aims in life are self-preservation and pleasure. 


When you are brought up to believe that this is your legacy as a human being, it can lead to serious problems later on in life. I believe this accounts for a great deal of the insensitivity and self-destructive behavior that seems so common today. That is why all our children need to be brought up with the lofty image presented in all the world’s great religions: that there is a divine source of love and wisdom, beauty and compassion, in every human being, and the purpose of life is not to make money or enjoy pleasure but to discover this spark of divinity in the depths of consciousness, which will help to establish peace on earth and good will among mankind.


Mistakes and growth


For myself, I don’t ever look back on the past and say, “Oh, I did so many foolish things! I committed so many mistakes, caused trouble to so many people, and so many people troubled me.” All this is gone. My mind doesn’t go to the past or to the future. I live right in the present, where all my attention goes into improving who I am today.


That’s why I am not afraid to confess to mistakes. I have committed most of the mistakes people make in going after things that are not worth going after. We don’t know they aren’t worth going after; we have to learn. Just as a toddler cannot walk, just as a child cannot jump hurdles, none of us can avoid making big mistakes until we learn to control the mind. 


Then, once we have learned, to look back on our past and judge ourselves with our newfound wisdom seems utterly unfair. Everyone makes mistakes; every ordinary person needs a certain amount of experimentation in order to learn. When we recall past blunders committed in honest ignorance, therefore, there is no need to get overcome by regret. The point is to learn not to go on committing those mistakes today.


That is why I say not to dwell upon the past. Don’t put your attention there. If you see graffiti on the wall of your mind, don’t read it; don’t dwell on it. Concentrate more and more upon the present. Instead of giving all your attention to what you did twenty-five years ago, give it to what you are doing now.


This is one reason why the approach of the Compassionate ­Buddha has such appeal today. The Buddha did not talk about sin; he talked about mistakes. The emphasis is much more positive and practical. We are not wicked; we just make mistakes. We are ignorant – sometimes, I admit, a bit slow to learn, but still not wicked. If you fail a course in school, your teacher is not going to give you a W for wicked and send you to perdition. A good teacher just says, “You haven’t learned yet. You haven’t done your homework. If you do your homework and learn, you will get a good grade.” Once we get a passing grade in life, we don’t have to go through the agony of repeating the same mistakes over and over. We have graduated – we have learned.


Then the burden of the past falls away, just as when we wake up from a dream. It is as though all those mistakes have been cast into the depths of the sea. Afterwards, we don’t ask ourselves, “Why did I do those foolish things? Why did I not do better?” The person who made those mistakes is no longer the same. We have changed: the mask of our old personality has been taken off, revealing who we truly are.


Then all the energy of our full personality – all the vitality that used to flow towards selfish satisfaction and the pursuit of personal pleasure and profit – flows freely in new, creative channels. If you look back, you can see the old dry creek bed of past conditioning and say, “Yes, there must have been a river there once”; you can see the sand and pebbles. But there is no water coming. It’s all flowing towards the source now: health, happiness, love, wisdom, all the energy of a strong, new nature.


A little every day


When all is said and done, this is the glory of the human being: not technological marvels, but the capacity to remove everything that hides this imprisoned splendor in our consciousness. 


This is not theory. This is not metaphysics. Ordinary men and women in every great religion have turned all their resources inwards to make this supreme discovery. When one of these great pioneers, the thirteenth-century German mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg, was asked how she did it, she replied simply, “My mirror is pure and I am his reflection.” That is a precious clue, for you and I can do the same. 


The Bhagavad Gita uses the same image. Just as we cannot see our face in a mirror that is covered with dust, the Gita says, we cannot see the divine face in our consciousness because the dust from past conditioning has settled on it. In order to see the Lord within us, we have simply to cleanse our consciousness of the dust and grime that cover it. 


In your home, you probably clean your mirror every day. Suppose you looked while you were putting on makeup and you couldn’t see your face. Wouldn’t you go and wipe the mirror clean? Similarly, the Gita says, all you have to do to see your real beauty is to extinguish self-will, fill your mind with peace and your heart with love, and spend your time working for the benefit of all.


This is something everyone can do. Of course, it is far from easy, but in my own life I have found ways to do a ­little bit each day. Just as an artist perfects a painting with little strokes, or a sculptor creates a statue with delicate touches from amorphous stone, you and I, little by little, can make our lives a work of art.


“Work on your statue”

How can we do this? In a famous passage, the third-century mystic Plotinus uses an image that I would have said he borrowed from me if he hadn’t anticipated me by so many centuries. “What then is our course?” he asks. “We must shut our eyes and awaken another way of seeing, which everyone has but few use” – a perfect description of meditation.


“Then,” he continues, “withdraw into yourself and look” – look into the mirror of your heart. “And if you do not yet find yourself beautiful, then, just as someone making a beautiful statue cuts away here and polishes there, makes this line lighter and that place smoother, until a lovely face emerges, so you too must cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is dark, make the whole work glow with beauty, and never cease working on your statue until the divine glory of virtue shines out on you and you see complete self-mastery enthroned within you.”


“Cut away here” – a little jealousy, a bit of malice, a good deal of self-will, a lot more anger, first within consciousness and then, of course, outside, in daily living. In other words, for perfecting this statue, it’s not enough to meditate regularly; we must also carry through in daily behavior. In all our relationships, instead of competing, we try to complete those around us. Instead of trying to get our own way, we try to put the other person first. Instead of always pursuing personal satisfactions, we gradually give more and more of our time to the welfare of the whole. And as we do this, we – and those we live and work with – gradually see a beautiful face emerge.


This is the purpose of my method of meditation. The inspirational ­passages we use in meditation give us the model – the magic mirror that shows us our true face. And my eight-point program provides the tools. Meditation on a passage is our internal instrument; the other skills are for working on your statue during the day.


For the words of these passages are not just poetry. When we meditate on them with one-pointed attention and an open heart, they stir a response within us. We glimpse in them a reflection of our own true Self. The wonderful potential latent in us begins to shine, as a possibility we can not only imagine but long for and begin to live by. Each passage is a mirror for helping us bring the lofty vision of the world’s great spiritual traditions into our daily lives.


Imagine beginning each day absorbed in meditation on passages like the Prayer of Francis of Assisi:


Lord, make me an instrument of 
thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me 
sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope; 
Where there is darkness, light; 
Where there is sadness, joy.

Or this, from the Buddha:


Just as a mother with her own life protects her child,
      her only child, from harm,
So within yourself let grow a boundless love
      for all creatures. . . .

Strive for this with a one-pointed mind; 
Your life will bring heaven to earth.


Then, when you step out into the workaday world, these words go with you. Gradually they become part of you, assimilated into your character and consciousness. In the stress and hurry of the day, they give examples to follow: patience, compassion, wisdom, courage, love. 


More than that, they become your friends. When you get caught up in the heat of the moment, the words come to you and tug at the sleeve of your mind: “An instrument of peace, remember? As a mother protects her only child?” 


For if this original goodness is within you, it is within everyone else as well. The way to reveal the divinity in ourselves is to keep our eyes focused on it in those around us, treating everyone with respect, kindness, and compassion.


A little lamp

“Bring light to all that is dark,” Plotinus says. There are dark corners of consciousness where light has never penetrated, corners where negative emotions try to hide. That is why a person who has revealed the splendor within shines like a lamp in the dark, lighting the paths of others, throwing light on life. We don’t have to have a sticker on the back of our car saying “I am a lamp.” Our life – every word we say, every act we do – communicates this divine radiance 
to everybody. 


When you live like this, the mirror of those passages gradually ceases to be a picture and becomes a window, a “magic casement” opening out onto the luminous world of reality. Then, very simply, we see ourselves as we are. We see for ourselves who lives in our heart, and in the hearts of everyone around us. Complete in ourselves, we need nothing from anyone else, nothing from the world, nothing from life but the opportunity to give. Then, as the Buddha says, our lives will bring heaven to earth.