Just as everything [reflected] in the mirror does not touch the mirror at all.

The mirror (darpaṇa) is the perfect metaphor for cid-ātman, the consciousness-self. It reflects without being contaminated: the reflected fire does not burn the mirror, the reflected water does not wet it. Consciousness is like this: it experiences everything—pain, pleasure, thought, emotion—without anything affecting it substantially. Tradition has refined this analogy over centuries. The mirror does not “possess” the reflections; it does not retain them; it is not modified by their presence or absence. In the same way, the witness, sākṣī, does not possess experiences, does not retain them, and is not modified by them. The error (bhrānti) is to identify with the reflection: “I am fat,” “I am sad,” “I am successful.” Correct discernment (viveka) sees that these are pratibimba, reflections in cit (consciousness), not attributes of cit itself. The practice of trāṭaka—visual fixation on a single point—trains this disidentification. One gazes at a flame or a bright object and observes how the mind clings to the form. In time, one learns to hold the gaze without attachment, seeing that the object is darpaṇa-gata, contained within the reflective field, not a possession of the field.