My memories

I was recently thinking about my earliest confirmed memory.

It's an odd one. I now know that I was about 3.5 years old. Prior to this moment I had three small, short scenes I recall, however whether those were a dream, false memories or real ones I don't know. This memory is different, from this time onwards I have a steady, unbroken stream of memories.

I was standing in front of the mirror in my parents room looking at myself... That's it.

That's my first memory, while looking at a mirror and seeing myself, I suddenly realized that I was looking at "me."

It's an odd thing to really think about, at that specific moment, I believe I was first able to truly comprehend what an "identity" was, at least in my simplistic way. I realized that there were discrete pieces of existence in the universe and that I represented one of these discrete bits.

Looking back at it, it may also have been one of the saddest moments of my existence...

Some mystics have claimed that God is separated from the human soul by an infinite number of veils. They go on to say that God has allowed the veils to come up, but He has not created them - we have.

Through our sense of self, through our ability to discern that there is a difference between "I" and "we" we find a double edged sword. On the one had, this ability lets us fulfill an important role, as the Qur'an says, we are all "vicegerents of God on Earth" which means we are here to represent God and care for all creation. On the other hand, this role we have taken on grants both intellect and separation.

As Rumi says, we are like reeds separated from the reed bed - we long for the source. If we are separated for long enough, we continue to feel incomplete, but we no longer truly know what to do to feel complete. We lose that connection to the reed bed until eventually, our mournful cry becomes less mournful, we begin to forget what we have lost and look to the world around us to fill the separation within our souls... unsuccessfully.

Coming back to my first memory, this moment was my moment of personal attainment. I began to become a person, I became an individual, but my longing for my reed bed continued and continues to this day... This was the moment (as close as I can tell), when I was looking into that mirror, when I realized who I was, that I forgot who God was.