The Circle

In the centre of your inner circle is stillness.

Here is your known world. It's safe in the centre.

In the reflection of the mirror at the centre of the circle, everybody else is just like you. They sound the same, they eat the same food, have the same political views, read all your favourite books and definitely talk your language. Undifferentiated. By the light of the lamp in the centre you have a strong, safe conception of yourself, an inkling of eternity captured in the loves of the personality.

You're you and they're you.

On the outside of the circle is the reactivity, the chaos prompted as response to the stillness at the core.
In the reflection of the mirror held from the outside, the Other, at the centre, generates a bile-laden reaction. You oppose every principle, you trounce every argument, you object to the way that the eating is done and those books they read in that inner circle are absolutely pulp material. The language of the centre is incomprehensible, and it would be reprehensible to think of it being any other way. By the light of the lamp on the outside, strength and purpose, and will and fight come from negation of the centre, (ironically) completely beholden to relationship.

You're you and they're definitely them, not you.

On the periphery, you stand knowing you're own, inner circle, but are willing, ready and able, to explore the perspective on the outside of the circle. The want to know drives you out. In the reflection of the mirror, you see your self surrounded by foreign, unknown territory, but this doesn't initiate reactivity, it initiates investigation. By the light of the lamp, the damnations of the outside and the cloistered intimacy of the inside meet, and marry.
You stay because you recognise the shreds of truth that make up the All, you stay because you recognise the strands of the Divine that make up the All, you stay because you're comfortable enough within your own skin to take the time out to think of your neighbour as yourself, and well, check out the view from the other side. Whatever She looks like. Cos....

You're them and they're you.

And you know it.