Vodou 501: The God in the Mirror

When the priest beholds god, they behold a mirror—the reflection of god they can hold. The mirror contains god and god contains a mirror.

There are several subtle traps in those statements. The first is to misunderstand that the god in the mirror is the all, to forget the specificity that the mirror gives god. We cannot help but see god as we see god, in the now that we behold god. It is all the god we see and all the god we reflect, but not all the god. And easily, easily we see god as all of god, we teach god as all of god. Ego can be incredibly subtle, and it’s such a small and gentle nudge between all the god we can see and all the god.

A small and gentle nudge on which genocides have been conducted, on which wars have been justified. The ego must be right, must be victorious. To be right, it must be god. Ego is ever the enemy of knowing god.

A priest represents god, and all the god they have to give is all the god they have to give. People can be forgiven for thinking of that god as the all, or as close to the all as they can be. They connect to the god which they can connect, and all that god is all of god for them. Ego is closest to them, and it is ego which, with the consciousness’ tendency to divide things, interprets god in terms of good or evil, right or wrong.

We do not, as priests, walk about reminding people that the all they can perceive is not the all. They will come to it in time. We do not, as priests, walk about reminding ourselves that the all we can perceive is not the all. It is either what you have learned or what you will learn—that now will come when it comes.

The second is to mistake the mirror for the priest. The image is shockingly recognizable, the god we can reflect. It does not reflect the ego, nor ego’s various delusions of past and present. It reflects the whole soul of the priest, not the minority which is the priest’s consciousness.

It reflects the overlap between the priest and god. The priest is not god, the priest is god. The priest is not the all. The priest is in the all. The priest is given a great deal of room to learn the tools of god. This does not make them god, it merely means they have increasing overlap and dominion, reflecting the lessons they are intended to learn.

Here, ego will try its best to insert itself. When the overlap becomes more indistinguishable, ego will often ask what the difference is. The overlap can be intoxicating, and in the process of dissolving the ties which feed ego—the need to be right, the need to be good, the need to prove oneself—the consciousness is shocked by its own dimensions and impressed by what it can accomplish. It is easy for ego to argue that the line between priest and god does not exist, and that the priest is elevated. More pertinently for ego, the priest’s whims become god’s whims. The priest’s likes and dislikes become the all’s likes and dislikes.

Obliterating restraint does not dissolve the priest’s tie to ego any more than practicing asceticism does. One of ego’s primary tools is imbalance, no less here than anywhere else.

Both of these are a place the mirror and the priest are imbalanced. They are where the priest perceives one more than the other. Where the priest is focused on their resemblance to god, ego can argue they are the all. Where the priest is focused on reflecting god, ego can argue that they should, they must be doing it correctly.

It is the isolation of the consciousness which makes it susceptible to ego. And indeed, where ego is, things are separate and that separation cannot be tolerated. It must be rejected or suppressed. It must be forced to rationalize and become one.

There are traps in the mirror.