The Idea

"It's a magnificent idea—an idea that appears in India in the mythic image of the Net of Indra, which is a net of gems, where at every crossing of one thread over another there is a gem reflecting all the other reflective gems. Everything arises in mutual relation to everything else, so you can't blame anybody for anything."—Joseph Campbell on Schopenhauer's idea of how everything links to everything else, from The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers."

In each of our lives there are seemingly magical coincidences that, if not convincing us there is a higher force at work, at least cause us to wonder. In each of our lives there are also random, sometimes painful, events that, if not causing us to disbelieve in a higher force, at least cause us to doubt. At times we feel the masters of our destinies and at others the victim of fate. Our lives and the world can seem good one day and filled with evil the next. In short, life often seems contradictory and confusing.

The contradictions lead to age-old theological debates about the existence or non-existence of God or a god-like force. They lead to philosophical debates of free will versus destiny. They make us grapple with the ideas of good and evil and ask why they exist in our individual lives and the greater world beyond as well.

This is a book about an old and simple idea that makes sense of the contradictions and confusion at all levels—personal, global and metaphysical. It is a beautiful idea that simply and elegantly explains the connections between us all and it all, but it is also a deeply troubling idea that disturbs the dark secrets we all keep within ourselves.

It is an illogical idea, but it has an intuitive power that eats away at more rational views of life. It is not an idea that can be proved right or wrong in debate—it either feels right or it doesn't. All any of us can do is try it on and see how it fits.

When it feels right, all the pieces of your life, the lives of those around you, and the world around begin to click into place. It leads to understanding of theological and philosophical issues such as free will and determinism, whether or not God exists, and how there can be a benevolent God in a world with evil. It presents a framework for better understanding any system of religious belief. It leads to understanding of the interconnections between us all that are the world we live in. It helps us understand a global horror such as the Holocaust and a personal one such as the death of a loved one.

Despite these benefits, it is not a well-accepted idea because it requires a different way of looking at things. It requires suspending some very dear logical beliefs, at least until the idea begins to settle in, but even harder, it requires an uncomfortable degree of honesty, especially with yourself.

It is not an idea that prods you to any particular course of action that will somehow better your life. It will not make you a winner at sports or get you that raise. It suggests only that you seek answers in a new way that will bring understanding and a greater sense of harmony with the world around.

This is not a book about healing or change, although healing or change might result. It is not a book about positive thinking, meditation, prayer, or visualization, although all of these are tools for achieving a more harmonious life. This book is about understanding the reality of our lives as it exists. It is about accepting who we are and our relationship to everything outside ourselves. It is about the peace of mind that can come from that understanding, no matter what our circumstances.

The idea unifies the seeming contradictions of life by looking at them as different aspects of the same phenomenon. It is an idea that says the same force that is at work for the joyous coincidences in life is at work for the painful ones. It is an idea that says free will and destiny are one and the same. It is an idea that sees no distinction between good and evil. It does not show the way to act, but only the way towards understanding, acceptance and peace.

The idea is called Reflection in this book, but has gone by many other names as well. It has been described many ways, but it is simply stated in this book as our inner selves and outer realities are perfect reflections of each other.

A car that won't start, a child's love, a pet that runs away, the unexpected promotion, a sunny day, the San Francisco earthquake, famine, plenty, an unsightly zit, and finding out you have no cavities—all are perfect reflections of the individual inner self.

These are not cause-and-effect relationships. We do not create reality, nor does reality create us. Instead each reflects the other simultaneously and perfectly.

This is how Reflection leads to understanding. Because the inner self and reality are perfect reflections, if we know one we can find out the other. The inner self is very difficult to know. The outer world is there for observation.

For example, in the stories in this book a phone call with the perfect job offer reflected an inner need for work at the time, a raging yeast infection reflected an inner need to escape from bike racing, and the San Francisco earthquake reflected an inner need to get out of teaching a seminar series (in San Francisco).

To use Reflection in this way requires making two leaps of faith. One is logically difficult and the other emotionally difficult. Of the two, the emotional is by far the more difficult, but lets look at the logical issues first.

Reflection goes contrary to our cause-and-effect views of the world. The synchronous changes without and within do not follow cause-and-effect. The lack of cause-and-effect might be accepted in the abstract, but it is very difficult to accept on a daily basis. We constantly use cause-and-effect logic to explain the interactions of people and events in our lives. It is natural to think that sometimes we cause things to happen and sometimes we are pushed by events around us.

Reflection implies the connections between us are much deeper and very different from what they seem. The events that push us are reflections of our inner selves, and the times we push are reflections of other's inner selves. In either case we are moving synchronously through time.

But Reflection is not the only idea that runs counter to cause-and-effect common sense today. Modern physics has run into the same problems as documented by Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics and Stephen Hawkings in A Brief History of Time. Scientists have discovered that the normal relationships between the objects of our world and the very nature of time, on which all cause-and-effect logic is based, are not what they seem.

Our skill at cause-and-effect thinking is probably due to the way our brains have evolved. It is useful for catching rabbits, growing corn and other such necessities for survival. It does not appear to be useful for understanding the workings of the Universe from either a physical, metaphysical or theological point of view.

But the lack of cause-and-effect logic is not the main difficulty in trying to understand Reflection. The real problem is emotional. This is because Reflection implies that the reality of our lives is a perfect indication of who and what we are. This runs into two problems. First, it is not a pleasant thought because the circumstances of our lives are not always to our liking. Second, our psychologies are so constructed that we can create powerful self-images that are more to our liking, denying information that doesn't fit the image.

For example, my self-image was of a good and caring father and an excellent mate. My reality includes two divorces with a child from each marriage. My psychology allowed me to retain my self-image, which I continued to project to myself and those around me, and to explain my life situation as due to poor choices of mates. I could paint relatively convincing pictures of each of my past wives, showing how their behavior led to these personal tragedies in spite of my best efforts to the contrary.

Reflection blows this cover. It implies I was not a victim of these women. It implies the destruction of two homes is a reflection of my inner self. It is me. My self-image said no and did its best to hide the truth, but the truth, so frightening to me, is made known.

And for you, my reader, it implies the same. That bad relationship, the trouble with your children and or parents, the problems at work, the accident, the sickness (and not just yours but the sickness of those around you as well)—all these are reflections of you. It implies who you say you are is of no account, only your reality accurately describes you.

Why go on then? This probably doesn't sound like fun. But it is. Looking for the hidden connections that exist between us all has the intellectual pleasure of solving a jigsaw puzzle, and the emotional pleasure of understanding and forgiveness.

Forgiveness? Yes—Reflection holds for everyone else as well. Whatever you have done in your life to feel guilty about, those thoughts or actions are reflections of others around you. You are a reflection of the inner selves of others as much as they are of you. Your ugliness is theirs, and theirs is yours, but until you fully believe the total extent of your own reflections, you cannot fully believe the extent of other's.

We can talk about the beautiful understandings this idea brings to religious thought, we can talk of the seeming randomness of dice, we can talk about the interconnections between the participants in the Holocaust and see a harmonious symmetry in the horror, and we will do all that in this book, but none of it makes sense until we confront the personal horror of each of our own inner selves and the immediate world around us.

We can talk of how Reflection presents an enlightening view on Christian concepts such as sin and forgiveness, how it is at work in Old Testament writings, how it relates to Eastern concepts such as the Tao and Karma, how it relates to New Age philosophies and psychological journeys toward peace, but none of it rings true until confronted on an individual level.

So the first section of the book is concerned with practical examples of Reflection. The second through fourth chapters all focus on how reality reflects a single individual's inner self. The remaining chapters of the first section show the simultaneous reflections being pairs and small groups of individuals.

The second section is more theoretical, with chapters dealing with the meanings of emotions, the ties to religion, science and psychology, and the larger global webs of Reflection.

Those interested in just the theory should read at least The Individual Perspective and the beginning of Pairs of Perspectives and Larger Webs in the first section.

Copyright ©1992 Dennis Merritt. All Rights Reserved.