The Mirror Game – Beezone Library

**The Mirror Game: Discrimination and the Struggle for Authenticity**

There is something I don’t know that I am supposed to know. I don’t know what it is that I don’t know, and yet am supposed to know, and I feel I look stupid if I seem both not to know it and not to know what it is I don’t know. Therefore I pretend I know it. This is nerve-racking since I don’t know what I must pretend to know. Therefore I pretend to know everything. I feel you know what I am supposed to know but you can’t tell me what it is because you don’t know that I don’t know what it is. You may know what I don’t know, but not that I don’t know it, and I can’t tell you. So you will have to tell me everything.

R.D. Laing, ‘Knots’, 1970

by Beezone

here comes a point in life—sometimes gradually, sometimes with the force of a sudden shock—when one begins to see the Mirror Game at play. It begins in personal relationships, where the reflections of those around us shape our perceptions of ourselves. It extends into social dynamics, where shared understandings become the currency of belonging. And at its most insidious, it infiltrates institutions, where the need to belong and the collective agreement is mistaken for truth, and where authority, rather than insight, defines reality. The challenge is not simply to see the mirror but to recognize what is being reflected—to cultivate discrimination in a world where perception is so easily hijacked by external forces.

The first mirror we encounter is the personal one. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche once remarked that our interactions with others—whether intimate friends or spiritual teachers—are essentially the same in their reflective nature. Yet, we tend to trust the authority of one more than the other. When looking at ourselves through the eyes of a lover, a friend, or even an adversary, there is always the question: Is this my true nature, or is this their projection? The tension arises when the line between self-perception and external perception begins to blur, and suddenly, what we thought was ours is now subject to negotiation.

A friend’s disapproval can feel like a verdict on one’s very being. A teacher’s observation can carry the weight of irrefutable truth. In relationships, we are constantly confronted with the challenge of what is ours to own and what is someone else’s trip laid upon us. The spiritual path is no different. A student in Trungpa’s seminar once asked, “What’s the difference between how the sangha acts as a mirror and how you, as a teacher, reflect us?” Trungpa’s answer was unsettling: No difference. The difference, he suggested, was in how open we were to seeing what was actually there, rather than what we wanted to see. The trap of the Mirror Game is believing that one reflection is more valid than another, when in reality, all reflections must be met with the same discriminating awareness.

Yet, personal discrimination is rare. More often than not, we defer to the reflection of the other, allowing someone else’s perception to override our own. This is where doubt creeps in. And once doubt takes hold, reality itself is up for negotiation.

Beyond personal relationships, the social mirror shapes the broader sense of self. What begins as the influence of one person expands into a network of shared beliefs, assumptions, and expectations. In a community, a workplace, or even within an ideological movement, there is a consensus reality that dictates what is acceptable, what is true, and what must be questioned at the risk of exile. The social mirror is more powerful than the personal one because it offers belonging in exchange for agreement.

Spiritual communities, for instance, thrive on unstated yet powerful understandings. There is a rhythm to how people relate to each other, to the teacher, to the teachings themselves. An unspoken doctrine forms—not necessarily through dogma, but through imitation and agreement. The moment one steps outside of this consensus, one risks being branded as an outsider, a cynic, or worse, someone who “doesn’t get it.” To stand alone in such a space requires an extraordinary level of internal clarity, a willingness to bear the discomfort of contradiction.

This is where discrimination becomes a necessity, not a luxury. Without it, one is simply absorbed into the collective tide, believing what is easiest to believe, agreeing with what is safest to agree with.

At the highest level, the Mirror Game plays out within organizational and authoritative structures. This is where the politics of perception become inseparable from the reality of power. In an institution—whether secular or spiritual—the question is no longer what is true? but who decides what is true? The groupthink that exists in social settings becomes more rigid here, because now it is institutionalized.

The larger the structure, the more its authority replaces direct perception. If something is declared true by those in power, it becomes reality. If a person is labeled as “spiritually developed” by an institution, their status is rarely questioned, regardless of whether they demonstrate any true transmission—that living force that bypasses words and affects consciousness directly. As Adi Da Samraj articulated, real transmission is not merely the presence of energy but its ability to serve a yogic function. Transmission either catalyzes awakening or it does not. It is not conferred by titles, by institutional approval, or by social agreement. Yet, within any organization, authority inevitably overrides transmission.

This is why real spiritual discrimination is almost nonexistent within structured systems. People do not trust their own recognition; they look to authority figures to confirm what they should already be able to feel. If an institution declares someone a “realized being,” most will accept it, even if transmission is absent. If an institution suppresses a figure who carries real transmission, most will dismiss them, not because they lack spiritual presence, but because they lack institutional backing. The Mirror Game within power structures is the most deceptive of all—because it is where the illusion is not just personal or social, but systemic.

If reality itself is shaped by reflection, then the only way to see clearly is to refuse to be hypnotized by the mirror. Discrimination is the rarest and most essential quality in navigating the spiritual path, social structures, and power dynamics. It is the ability to:

Know what is truly yours and what is someone else’s projection.
See beyond consensus reality and stand alone when necessary.
Discern between transmission and authority, between real spiritual function and institutional validation.
Trust one’s direct recognition rather than surrender to doubt.

The greatest danger in the Mirror Game is not that one is deceived by another, but that one loses the ability to recognize their own reality. Once self-trust is eroded, once doubt takes root, one no longer knows what is real at all.

The true test of the Mirror Game is not just about seeing clearly for oneself—it is about using that clarity to reveal the same in another. Real discrimination is not just a personal safeguard; it is a force that awakens clarity in others. To stand in the house of mirrors and say: I “see” beyond what is mine. I “sense” what is beyond yours and can feel what is Greater. That recognition, when genuine, carries a unifying felt quality—one that is not conceptual but a deeply felt intuitive sense of The Real. It is not a mental construct or an agreement formed by words; it is a direct, transmitted living awareness that dissolves illusion and affirms Reality. In this recognition, the test of unity is not in external validation but in the undeniable resonance of T/truth felt between individuals. It is a clarity that does not need to be argued or defended—it simply Is, and in its Presence, both self and other awaken to what is real.—not just for oneself, but for those who dare to look with the same unflinching ‘Heart Gaze.’