Reflection 174

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Facing The World

We have to go through the stage of discovering and being responsible for our unique selves.

But if that’s the whole of the story, gosh I’m in deep trouble, because that little one separates me from all beings. That face-thing in the mirror is my certificate of loneliness, of meaninglessness, because a world consisting only of things is meaningless. Love has no place there. Freedom has no place. It’s a world where each is celebrating its own separate individuality – a recipe for hell. Hell says, “Keep out! I’ve got enough problems of my own.” The guy in the mirror is the wrong way round. That’s why I can’t put him on Here. He turns his back to the world. He says, “I’ve got enough problems of my own, thank you very much.” When I identify with that, I’m in effect saying, “I don’t want to know your problems.”

But Who I really am Here, the First Person, cannot turn his back on the world. He faces the world. This is why we resist our First-Personhood. We have a feeling that to see Who we really are is to take on the suffering of the world – and the joy of the world - what there is of it. (Douglas Harding. Face to No-Face.)


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