Many of the letters and calls I receive from students revolve around a certain theme that I thought I'd take a moment to discuss here. For simplicity's sake, I will paraphrase this somewhat concern/question, which goes something like this:

"As I work on my self, grow through and into new understanding about my present nature, I seem to run into problems with former friends and family members who just don't seem to understand what I am going through and doing with my life! In fact, the more I try to explain myself, and help them see what's actually happening, the worse things get. It seems that by trying to be a mirror for them, so that they might see themselves as they really are, the more my intentions backfire!"

And now for some insight into this "sticky-wicket" called wanting to be a mirror for others…

If we try to "show" someone the state of his or her interior life, by acting as what we think is a mirror for them, i.e., tell them how much fear they have, how mistaken they are with present choices, the extent to which being identified with their negative energy betrays them, etc, then, as we have already started to witness, we create nothing but resistance in them. The reason this happens to us and with others, as it does, is as follows.

A mirror never tries to reflect the objects in it; to reflect the objects appearing within it is its very nature. The mirror is without choice; it doesn't care how others feel about what it reflects back to them because it is indifferent towards its own content. It just reveals what has come into it; that's all.

What happens to aspirants along the way is that they get around others who have no awareness at all of their states, their hidden motives, etc, and, because the aspirant has begun awakening to these same vibrations in themselves -- these energies that formerly had been so suppressed as to be fully unrealized -- they begin more or less to directly experience the state of the person they are around (who doesn't even know their own state).

But, because the aspirant is still just "learning the ropes" of these new orders of their own interior reality, they resist the presence of the state being resonated in them by the presence of the one being unconsciously punished by it. It is due to the pressure of this as yet unrealized resistance that the aspirant then tries to tell the "other" person what's wrong with him or her. And, of course, because the aspirant is him/herself expressing the same state as what he or she would correct, there is increased conflict between the parties instead of the imagined peace one hoped for at the outset through trying to "teach" the other what is wrong with them.

All of this is to say that when we truly act as a mirror for someone it's because we are not resisting the state he or she is in, but instead we are quietly aware of its (often painful) presence within us. We suffer this similitude willingly, understanding now why the person we want to correct is in the conflict that he or she is. We know their pain directly, and do nothing toward it in ourselves or try to "fix" them.

This state of conscious self-awareness, and the sacrifice that comes with it is the true mirror; there is no division between the reflection and the reflected; they are one. And in this (higher) state a healing can take place that can't be imagined because there is no longer anyone trying to do the healing, nor is there the one to be (judged) healed...just the light of awareness that changes all that enters into it.

Of course there is more to this than words can say, but these notes will give you a good idea of what needs to be done, and what one should cease from doing when it comes to "helping" others. The law is...as Christ said so simply, "Physician, heal thyself."

In the news yesterday came this story: David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" – whose career roared back to life when he played the assassin-turned-victim in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" – was found dead Thursday in Thailand. Police said he appeared to have hanged himself.

By any account, this is sad news, and all condolences go out to family and friends. But the serious aspirant must look into this kind of unhappy event with a wish to read between the lines, to see and realize the underlying story that leads to such tragedies.

First, it must be pointed out that this is a man who not only played the television role of a Shaolin monk for many years, but he also taught tai chi, meditation, and martial arts as part of his career and life path. The contradiction between his spiritual background, the subsequent (world's) perception of his character, and the tragic way he ended his own life seems almost inexplicable...after all, how is it that one with so much knowledge, fortune, and fame comes to such a sorry end? Here is one answer for your consideration and study:

There is a direct and proportionate relationship between the amount of inconsolable pain we have and our misunderstanding of the purpose of our life here on Earth.

There is no other explanation for the virtually endless accounts of how individuals with great fortune of one kind or another – including the adulation of countless people – end up destroying themselves, as well as the lives of those who have loved them. In fact, as evidence suggests, winning recognizable success in this world acts like a grinding stone upon the souls of all those conditioned to believe that the purpose of their lives would be fulfilled through that same success. After all, what does one do when – having come to possess everything hoped for – one still finds oneself empty...even of the hope there might still exist a solution to such growing discontent. In this case, and in many like it, un-answerable despair leads to acts of desperation.

The shock of such stories, as in the sad case of Mr. Carradine, is that we are predisposed – readily deceived – into believing that the way someone acts (around us) is the same as their actual character. Of course, and to the point of this blog, nothing could be farther from the truth.

The reason we believe in any "public performance" is that we are all, to one extent or another, actors on stage. We too believe we are who we pretend to be in any given moment, embrace those who agree to see us as we would be seen, and reject those who challenge our role. In a sense, it's not too far from the mark to say that many of us have come to believe that being a good performer in life is somehow the same as fulfilling the purpose of life! Here's the strange logic behind the self-created misery that follows it:

For each successful "performance" we pull off – around others or within ourselves – it feels as though we've won – for the moment – what we've imagined will make us whole and happy – but the drawback here should be self-evident: not only is it wearisome to walk around having to juggle the masks one needs to wear, but no one knows better than the actor that he or she is not the same as the character being played. Conflict between what is real within us and the role we are playing mounts until the inevitable collapse on stage. In fact, any time we outwardly express a negative state it's because we can no longer maintain our role of being cool, calm, and in control...the mask has come off!

One of the principal tasks of the true spiritual aspirant is not only to see through the masks of others, but also to see through and remove the many masks he or she wears on a daily basis. It can be rightly said that we judge others not so much because of the masks they wear, but to keep us from seeing what is masked within us by finding fault with them. And yet, as we work to see through these masks, and become aware of the frightened actors beneath them, our compassion (for them) grows instead of our conflict with them.

(More to come...)

Real life is not by the numbers; it is impossible to "know" and grow at the same time. Yes, one can have a formula for a prescription drug, or a recipe for a good green salad; but there is no system of thought that can stand up to the ever-shifting changes of real life, let alone meet those same changes fearlessly. The self that knows itself through thought can never develop beyond the content of itself, any more than a math equation can suddenly outgrow the pile of figures responsible for its form.

One of the reasons we want to know – in advance – how "to do" certain things, spiritually speaking, is that we want to save time in our spiritual search; we want to "cut to the chase" of how to end the conflict we have in ourselves with others, and arrive at the contentment we've imagined; we want to be at peace. Among the many hidden contradictions in approaching the inner quest from such a mindset is the following: the more we try to save time – find the "shortcut" to higher consciousness, the more we actually create and slave beneath the sense of time that drives us through our days, as well as becoming further identified with the level of consciousness that creates the prison of psychological time from which we hope to escape.

The truth is, we can't know what to do in advance in any given moment. And although we now meet life in exactly this way – that is, with predetermined ideas about how to respond to what unfolds before us – this is not unlike a downhill skier "knowing" when and where he will make his turns before it snows. Add to this idea the fact that whenever ideals or systems of ideas go before us as measuring sticks, they are soon turned into a judge's bench from which we dispense some form of punishment on anyone (or upon ourselves) for not doing as we think ought to have been done.

Knowledge, regardless of how sophisticated, is a tool. It arises from and belongs to what has passed – it is the past put into a formula. As such it embodies, defines, and relates us to life through what we, or others, have already come to know is true about reality. But real life is not limited to what was – it is always new – it is always now. And while it may bring to light, under law, certain conditions or events that precede its appearance (what we call karma), it is more than just these forms alone…just as a flower in bloom is more than its newly opened petals.

Real life is the expression of living intelligent forces that actively shape whatever they touch, as well as whatever reaches out to touch them. It might be said that each moment appears, as it does – in whatever form or color – hard or soft, dark or light – to teach us about ourselves – and how can we hope to learn what we must from such moments, if we meet them already knowing how they should unfold? No form is free.

And just as one wouldn't mistake a ladder for being the same as the rooftop upon which he hopes to view the stars, neither should we confuse knowledge for those innermost revelations that can come to us only through self-understanding. This level of genuine self-knowledge is never static – it places no demands on life, therefore it fears nothing that life may reveal – it has nothing whatsoever to do with thoughts, plans, or otherwise imagined purposes. Real self-knowledge, the unshakable ground of enduring peace and security, is born in the union of the present moment with a Presence in us that's capable of being aware – at once – of what is acting upon it, of what is being acted upon, and what is flowering as a result.