– We do not smash the mirror but look into it. Today the world holds a concave mirror up to most people, and what is amiss is plain to see. But if you once look into the mirror, that is the first step towards sobriety.
– All right, I accept that, and I have no wish to smash the mirror. But how long can one endure nothing but negative feedback?
– Man can bear a great deal, more than he would think. Negative feedback must in any case be handled with discernment. The wise say that either quantitative or qualitative criticism must be heeded.
– What is quantitative criticism?
– Quantitative criticism is when everyone, or almost everyone, signals that you are not heading in the right direction. If your deeds displease most people, that must by all means be heeded. Qualitative criticism, on the other hand, is concerned not with mass opinion but with the opinion of the authority who matters most to you.
– That is interesting, so the opinion of the many does not count?
– According to the teachings, in a doubtful situation it is advisable to conduct oneself as calm, spiritually profound and wise people would. Their conduct is the yardstick. And this is not a matter of numbers.
– Like quantity and quality?
– Yes, perhaps something like that, though as I said, criticism can be a matter of both quantity and quality. It would be easy to read qualitative criticism in our favour and so brush aside quantitative criticism. In my view, both are worth heeding.
– And personal conviction?
– You mean we should take up a third viewpoint as well? Alongside authority and our surroundings, inner conviction?
– Yes, perhaps it would not be right to leave it out of account.
– I agree: without inner approval a man merely does violence to himself. In any case, the spiritual tradition sets out a threefold system of reference. One of them, concerned more with doctrinal sources, refers to revelation, logic and sacred tradition. Whatever proposition or claim you wish to prove, you must appeal to these sources. Alongside this there exists another order, by which the right course of action can be decided. This is the system of reference formed by the teacher, the teaching and the practitioners. Here the teaching stands at the centre: the teacher is a teacher in the light of the teaching, and the practitioners too are practitioners in the spirit of the teaching. Yet any instruction truly becomes your own only when your heart, too, approves it.
– And does this not hide the danger of self-deception or convenience? That I accept only what I find convenient?
– There are traps, of course, and one must be prepared for them. That is why the very first and perhaps the very last quality is sincerity. If you are exacting with yourself, you will not fall into the error of self-deception. But you feel for yourself how much fuller the feeling is when you can embrace something heart and soul. When a counsel, a thought, becomes your very being. When a word, a gesture, accompanies you for a lifetime. In the presence of the great, one receives many such gifts.
– And are the great a mirror to man as well?
– They above all are the true mirror. Of course, to look into the mirror of a stern saint is risky. If there is still self-deception or falseness in you, this sight exposes it. The mirror of a kindly saint is a distorting mirror: it filters out your shortcomings and shows an image better than the real one. But it is also a magic mirror, for it not only filters out your shortcomings but slowly puts an end to them.