I Am Thou

"We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life." (Carl Jung)

In order to watch the new Star Wars movie with our boys, we watched the re-runs of the original series. There is amazing spiritual wisdom in these Star Wars episodes. One insight caught my eye in particular when Master Yoda asked Luke Skywalker to go into the cave for learning purposes. Master Yoda told him specially to leave the lightsaber behind but Luke took it anyway. In the cave, Luke has the illusion of meeting his father, Darth Vader, and wins by killing him. However, when he removes his mask he finds himself lying there.

When Luke later fights his father for real, he luckily remembers this lesson. He managed to cut off a piece of his arm just as his father did to him in a prior fight. As he sees the wires hang down he probably remembered his own wires that got connected to his living cells at exactly the same spot. Maybe at this moment he had a "I am Thou" vision. It can't get any more obvious than that when we reflect on our relationship with our parents or our children. Thanks to Luke's lesson learned, his hatred leaves him just in the nick of time. As Luke withdraws fro the fight, Darth Vader opens up to the light and his son's suffering and he kills his evil master to save Luke.

It is easy to see ONENESS in these extreme cases, but it is harder to spot this divine connection with our friends and especially our foes. I remember the story of an Indian Raja who got executed by a Muslim invader. As he fell to the ground he whispered, "Thou art HIM" and died. It is hard to live up to this level of spiritual maturity, but if you look closely you will always find a sign of the WAY helping you realize that your mirror is near-by.