The Real Image, not the Mirror Image.

Though he (Jesus) had done so many signs before them, yet they did not believe in him; it was that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Therefore they could not believe. For Isaiah again said, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should [so that they would not] see with their eyes and perceive [understand] with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.” John 12:37-40

When our understanding of the world and our place in it becomes increasingly spiritual we face a specific difficulty. We cannot simply transpose our material understanding into spiritual concepts. It does not work that way. We have to do the reverse by integrating our spiritual understanding into our worldly view. We can only do this if we remind ourselves that there are many views that can be held about a situation, the more we can find the better. This means that we don’t fasten on a particular view but continually look for other and different views. By gathering all the different views, by being open to the different perspectives and holding them in our heart we will come to Right Understanding.

It is the difference between perceiving with the heart or perceiving with the head. If our understanding comes from the head then it is the astral body, the body of consciousness, which is at work. The astral body acts as a mirror; it reflects the outside world into our soul. Many spiritual philosophies say that whatever we perceive in the outside world, be it beautiful or ugly, it is simply a reflection for what is going on within us. This is only true for our instinctual life. If the sense world is our only reality then, yes, we won’t accept the signs from spirit, we won’t believe the higher spiritual impulses, we will only experience the physical world as it is mirrored within us. The heart that perceives is the heart that beats in time with the etheric Christ. Free of the senses, and at the heart of the heart, is the “I”. The reality of the “I” is the source of all true understanding.

Therefore we know that the outer world does not mirror who we really are. With Buddha we can agree that the way we see the outer world is maya, illusion, it could not possibly mirror our true self. When we find our true self then we must learn to see the reality of the outer world, not the other way around.

As consciousness progressed and the tenets of Buddha evolved, the Rosicrucians spoke of Right Understanding through the instruction, “Know Thyself.” Know that you are part of the universe in which many different aspects exist, both seen and unseen. Learn to differentiate yourself from all the other aspects, learn to recognise your self among them. If we are a mirror for all that is outside us how are we to recognise ourselves? Then the Rosicrucians said: “To know self look within the world. To know the world look within self.” This doesn’t mean that other people’s actions are really reflecting what we are; we don’t confront ourselves in other people's behaviour. It is pointing to our faculty of Imagination.

See in the world the shapes that resemble our physiology. See the eye in a peacock’s feather; see our sexual organs in the flowers. See that the rivers resemble our blood vessels. See that the tree tops can resemble our brain. Then we know that we are part of the creation of the Hierarchy. Then we understand that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are at the foundation of our existence. We are at one with them. This understanding makes us free. We stand in our I AM and we see the real image, not the mirror image. We can never know ourselves if we only see what is reflected to us from the outside.

Rev Mario Schoenmaker spoke of this use of Imagination or imaging. He would say that if we saw something with our senses, then we closed our eyes, after a while the image would fade. If we could keep the image there by using our will, we could step through that mirror image into spiritual reality. This is sense-free thinking; this is the thinking that arises in the etheric body which gives us Right Understanding. This is the perceiving heart which could only come to life when we turned to Christ to be healed. Right Understanding, right perceiving, means that “Know Thyself” becomes “Know Christ.” The Christ force will show us the reality of the outer world which is now his body created by the Father and sustained by the Holy Spirit.