Every trigger that evokes a reaction from my ego, is a button that is pressed to conjure up a mirror before me. Every time someone says or does something that irritates, annoys or angers me, a mirror appears, and I am forced to see my unflattering, often repulsive image, again. This mirror shows the darkest, ugliest, meanest evil forces hidden inside me. I stand confused, wondering, “Who is in the mirror?”

All those powerful scary demons that I had been constantly running away from, hoping never to see again, whom I had either ignored, buried deep down, or presumed dead, many times before in the past- resurface, fully personified in my own projection, and I am forced to look at them once more.

I cannot hide from these mirrors. They show me the layers of dust and muck from lifelong habits and conditioning that has covered my once pristine soul. My eternally beautiful real self is veiled, with all the distortions and ugliness of rage, envy, desire and fear.

I know that these mirrors do not lie. It is difficult to face them, but they are only trying to help. They are trying to show me what I have become, so I may once more, long for and explicitly be- what I really am, and have always been, hidden underneath all these layers of dirt.

I cannot be, what I see in the mirror, because I feel beautiful!  The mirror does not lie, it is just reflecting what it sees. So, why this conflict, in what I feel I am and what I appear to be? I surely cannot be both!

Perhaps I am confused, because this discrepancy means, I am still carrying the heavy burden of what I am not. I have covered my real innocent purity, with blankets of worldly rags- these are heavy with habits, they reek with a stink of a lifetime of conditioning. They are full of innumerable layers of ignorant, foolish, deceitful behaviour, the ugliness of which hides and betrays my real beauty.

I need a thorough cleansing, but not just on the surface. I need to scrub off every residue of my apparent self, from my real Self. I need to completely wash away the identification with what I see in the mirror. This is not me, deep down I know.

I have wasted a lifetime hankering after worthless treasures, I have been foolish and collected itchy trinkets, that I thought would make me look pretty! But I stand before a mirror every day, and what I see is not pretty.

Nobody who looks at this mirror, can see what is concealed underneath all these layers. But I know, I do not just see from the eyes of an outsider, I feel from the depths of that image in the mirror, I know from its core that this whole appearance is an illusion, a play of ignorance.

My centre remains serene and tranquil, and has never had a speck of dirt on it! I remain forever sacred and divine, in the depth of my being.

But the mirror is not lying! Something needs to be purged, not one at a time, for that could go on forever, but all at once!

The adornments of this projection that hide the real me, need to be shredded and dropped all at once- in one clean sweep. Just like, death cuts clean every bond in a swift moment- this illusion has to shatter instantly, completely and irreversibly.

If I see a ‘how’ floating in the mirror, it is just another knickknack that needs to go! I cannot play favourites and try to save some of these items, these will not serve as flattering accessories to the beautiful Self that I am hoping to expose.

Asking ‘how’ is just another deception of the thought, it adds more embellishments, and tries to sew the garments of illusion tighter, so they will not be jolted down easily. So, the question of ‘how’ to go about doing this, should not be indulged in.

I need to urgently gather all I have, leaving nothing behind, saving no shreds of my outward identity, and surrender everything totally to my real inner Self.

I need to sink into my being and implode into the bare minimum spark of ‘who I am’. All other frills and fuss, everything that is attached to, but is not the real Self, should be immediately and irrevocably purged! All the layers gone, I will be left stark naked.

Then, when I look in the mirror, it will show the real me. The real me, that was always innocent underneath all the clothing.

Until that happens, I will continue to be tormented, no matter how many new shiny gems I acquire, or which precious jewels I adorn. I will never look beautiful.

The eternal splendour of my real Self is trapped, under the weight of heavy ignorance, waiting to be released. It’s time to set it free, and set this house of mirror ablaze, with the serene radiance of the unfathomable beauty, grace and elegance of my real Self!