Life is a Mirror
A humble advice to those who ever feel life is unjust
Most of us are step-children of life. Illegitimate children. We live apologetically, as though our very existence is cardinal sin. We tread the earth softly on the outskirts of life lest we in anyway disturb our few legitimate siblings. We clad ourselves in the uniform of anonymity and spend our days whining about how bitch of a step-mother life is. We cast furtive glances of pent-up jealousy and self-loathe at the few privileged legitimates gurgling on the fat laps of life.
This primordial phenomenon is concentric. It could be on global level (first world nations enjoying the lion’s share of the world’s resources while the large majority languishes in poverty and lives on their crumbs), national (few elites or their ethnic group are the legitimates over the rest), societal (where legitimacy is on racial, caste, sex, disability basis), or even familial level (there is always one in a family who is the apple of mom and dad’s eyes, who can never do anything wrong, upon whom anything, from acting, singing, or even fooling around looks good, while the rest are relegated to moping what is left off our parents’ love and attention). One can, of course, be illegitimate on many levels. Such as a disabled woman of color.
We are not born illegitimate. We are made illegitimate especially in the first seven years of our lives. (Thus Aristotle said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.) We pick up fettering prejudices, attitudes, views from our social environment such as “Frailty, thy name is woman.”, or subtle remarks as in ‘You look so normal’ to a disabled, or not so much in words as in action as when a white woman passes by a black man, she clutches her purse in fear, or in the absence of it all, when you are treated to cold indifference. All of these negative energies blow over through our unguarded consciousness onto the clear plains of our subconscious mind like sand dunes until they pile up, cement into mountain of negative belief and sink further down into our unconsciousness. The mountain is the resultant, deep-seated limiting belief that we are less capable, less worthy, less deserving of the goods of life.
Most of us may learn of our illegitimacy early in life. We learn on account of being born with the ‘wrong’ skin colour in the racist world, or being born female in the sexist world, or disabled in the unfair insensitive world, or of a minority religion in the intolerant world. Often, while you fight to right the injustice, you have that gnawing little feeling inside you, the feeling of being diminished in some significant way because you are, say, a Shudra in Hindu caste system and that you are not entitled to feasting on the joys of life — you are happy living on the leftovers of the legitimate children.
Are we doomed for life though, that once illegitimate is illegitimate for life? Can one be reborn to legitimacy? The book of life is littered with great men and women who attained legitimacy — went from the fringes of their existence right onto the fat laps of life. Helen Keller. Albert Einstein. Booker T. Washington. Oprah Winfrey. Steven Jobs. Maya Angelou. Etc.
How can we throw off the title of bastards of life and be the rightful children and share in the love and opportunities of life? The stories of the great men and women who made it tell us that the way to gain legitimacy is not by feeling sorry for oneself on the outskirts, nor by barking at, kicking back, or pushing against the injustice, for, in the immortal words of Carl Jung, “What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size”. The solution we aim for should not be to bring the privileged down and become equal in ruin, misfortune, hardship. There is enough space for all of us and more on the laps of life. First, you should know that life, as ugly, unjust, and cruel as it feels, is not unfair. Life is just an image — it is the reflection of the mountain inside of you. Hence, instead, all our attention, efforts and energy should be veered towards the mountain, the mountain of limiting unconscious belief that holds us back from joining our siblings in taking part in the opportunities and joys of life. The way to do away with the mountain, as any of the great people would tell us, is not through brute force, but through the principles of love.
Only the might of love can scrap the mountain of limiting belief built and cemented over the years off its feet and toss it out. Only then will you be able to be reborn to legitimacy.
Love is a whole of two halves though: love for oneself and love for others. First, love yourself. Love the humanness in you, a miniature image of God, in all its strength and frailties. Love, also, the subtle uniqueness in your looks, traits and character that differentiates you from any human being who has ever lived on earth. Fill your heart with the love for yourself. Wake up every morning, stand before a mirror and speak to yourself in praise of your glory. Write yourself a love letter, if you have to, from a person of your true desire in as convincing as you possibly could. Love yourself even for your insecurities. Feed your starving soul with the love it has been depraved of thus long.
This is one half of the whole. It is sometimes mistakenly thought that loving oneself suffices. If you fill yourself with only your love, you become, as the expression goes, full of yourself. The result of being full of yourself is you become disdainful towards others, which in turn drives you further away from life. This is why only extolling, for instance, black hood, womanhood, to the exclusion of the others has not freed the world from racism and sexism. Thus, the natural, subsequent step is to let the love radiate onto others. Look at your legitimate siblings playing peekaboo with life every day, and in place of envy or anger, fill yourself with their love just as you filled yourself with your love.
Only when you to learn to naturally experience love for others as much as you have for yourself will your rebirth to legitimacy become complete. Life will then turn towards you, beckon you from the outskirts of existence you have always been standing to come to her fat laps and play tickle songs and lovies together with the rest of children of the kingdom.
