Mirror

The the metaphor of the mirror to describe the deeper meanings of perspective and perception is truly a brilliant observation. Mirrors are incredibly interesting way to show the deeper meanings in nature. I personally loved when sells discusses the dirty mirror. "While looking at a smudged mirror the viewer sees the glass. If the mirror is polished, a shift occurs. The glass becomes invisible, with only the viewer's image reflected. Vision has become self-vision." (Sells 63) What i find the most fascinating about this concept, is that the viewer's can have deeper interpretations of simple things. This idea is the firm basis in achieving all knowledge by understanding the idea of infinite perceptibility, or the removal of fixed perceptions. I found this to be quite a different view point than other islamic ideas, which reject interpretation. I really liked sells simple summation of the sufi belief of perceptibility. He states, "Sufi mystics used the polishing of the mirror as a symbol of the shift be- yond the distinction between subject and object, self and other." (63). I think that this idea is truly a fascinating and innovative way of viewing life and religion, especially in consideration to the ideas of fundamentalism, which totally reject the concept of multiplism.