​How is the mind like a mirror?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How is the mind like a mirror exactly and how is it cleansed? Mirror is that in which we see our own reflection. So, the mind is like a mirror in the sense that whatever are the nature of the contaminations in the mind, based on that we have a conception of ourselves. I give an example that if one is contaminated with greed, then I think myself successful if I have a lot of money.
And if I don’t have a lot of money then I think I am a failure. So, my self-conception is shaped by the kind of contamination that is there in the mind. So, if I am of a Kshatriya disposition then I think having a big hefty healthy frame, that is what and that thing that my value depends.
If I am weak, if I am not powerful then I am good for nothing. So, we can have different self-conceptions based on the kind of contamination or the kind of conditioning that is there in the mind. So, in that sense the mind acts like a mirror.
So, now the cleansing of the mirror of the mind means, is it clear? The cleansing of the mirror of the mind means that, to take that example literally, suppose there is a mirror in which there is dust. Then when I look in the mirror with the dust, I see my reflection also with the dust. I see maybe some spot here, some spot here, whatever it is.
When the mirror is clean then I see a clean perception of what I am. So, like that the contamination which are there, they give us a distorted conception of ourselves. So, when the mirror is clean, that means we chant regularly and by that we start increasingly understanding that actually I am a servant of Krishna.
Then the mirror is clean that means we actually perceive ourselves. Yes, I may have all these other designations but at my core I am a soul who is a servant of Krishna. And that’s what we realize when the mirror gets cleaned.