Man in the Mirror PROJECT - A Game of Perception

"The innocence of children represents to me the source of infinite creativity. That is the potential of every human being. But by the time you are an adult, you're conditioned" 

- Michael Jackson, Ebony/Jet interview, 2002 

With Man in the Mirror PROJECT we are focusing our efforts on consciousness.  To break down patterns of perceptions about ourselves and our world.  Healing ourselves then can only begin to heal the world around us.  WE will become the change we wish to see in the world.

It's been said many times that we have been conditioned.  In this lifetime, other lifetimes, society, countries and religions.  We have separated ourselves and consciousness into them and us.  Catholics are different than Islams.  Iranians different than Americans.  But is this true or is it merely our perception?

Today I'd like you to explore our emotional and mental bodies with the following exercise.  Look at the picture below and note what you see:

Each of us may have a different perception of the picture above.  If you are with a group of people you may want to embark on conversation about what you see.  However, we each have ideas about the way things are and the way things should be.  We interpret everything we see and experience through these two different ideas.  We rarely question why we see things the way we do and simply assume we are correct, storing the idea within as truth without even realizing it.

Now look at the two pictures below:

       

When looking at the first picture some of you may have seen the young woman, pictured left in the original picture presented and others the old woman pictured right.  No one was incorrect, yet your perception of what the picture was is different.  If we did not go further, you would have looked at the original picture, made your conclusion and stored it in your mental body.  Later when asked you would have gone to the point of arguing with someone else that had the different perception of the picture because in your mind you KNOW what you saw.  This is how powerful our conditioning affects us and our perceptions.  If in a few seconds we can have that kind of impact on the way we see things, what about the conditioning of a lifetime?  The influences in our lives, family, church, society, friends, have all made silent unconscious impacts on our lives which have shaped the way we see ourselves and our world.

Our work is to shift this consciousness into one of openness.  Valuing other's opinions even if they are different than our own, valuing the human, even though they may be a different color and valuing another country, even though they believe in running it differently.  We must recognize we are all one, living in different states of consciousness acting as if we are separate.  Let us shift that consciousness into a unified level of love and acceptance.  This shift must begin with us.  May you begin today by taking a step back and viewing any given situation as a child.  With an open mind and loving heart.