What's on the Other Side
of the Looking Glass?
Before you take a running leap at your mirror . . .
Just where is the other side of the looking glass?
You may be familiar with Lewis Carroll's classic, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- or -- Through the Looking Glass".
Kind of had a dreamlike quality, didn't it? That's a hint.
We grew up in a culture where far more attention is placed upon image than upon our own experience, and more upon how things look than upon how they feel. Even our feelings about things are largely governed by whether we believe others will approve of them. No? Just look at advertising; look at the notion of "political correctness".
Where are we taught to attend directly to our own experience or to originate our own values?
Certainly not in school, where we are taught to validate and to perpetuate the feelings and observations of others.
The mirror -- or "looking glass" -- is a symbol of that way of life -- the concern with outward appearances, with how we look. The odd thing is, in the mirror, everything is seen in reverse, and everything appears to be where it is not -- "over there".
What is being reflected is not "over there"; it is "over here". The other side of the looking glass is not behind it; it is in front of it, the one place we never look.
Introspection is gazing into the other side of the looking glass. It looks at the place of dreams and of perception. The other side of the looking glass is where "you", the reader, are, as you experience yourself to be -- though not as others see you. Just to be clearer, it is not where I, the writer am, as seen by you; it is where I am, where known by me, myself, as "I".
Question: From what point of view do you view that "inner" you?
Oddly, it's from the same point of view that you view the world. It faces inward; it faces outward. It faces ... but it can never be faced and is never seen.
It is our source -- or ... ourselves as source.
