चेतोदर्पणमार्जनम्

Nobody here is asked what he feels. In Bharata's Nāṭyaśāstra a state becomes rasa through the signs it makes in the body, the anubhāvas (VI, the prose after verse 31; Ghosh vol. 1, p. 105). The audience reads them; it does not ask.

The order is the Abhinayadarpaṇa's: where the hand goes the eyes follow, where the eyes go the mind follows, where the mind goes the feeling follows, and there rasa arises (Ghosh 1957, p. 46). So the mirror asks for the hand, then the eye, then the breath.

The pace of the hand is Bharata's tempo for each rasa: quick for anger, courage, wonder, disgust and fear; medium for laughter and love; slow for grief (XIX.58 to 59). Whether the beat is steady, how heavy the touch is and how long the breath goes out are ours. The mirror is not a measurement and claims no accuracy. If the lamp it shows is not yours, choose another.

The line under the lamp is from the hall in Janaka's palace in the Rāmacaritamānasa (Bālakāṇḍa 240 to 241), where each one saw the Lord according to his own feeling; from Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.43.17, where each one in the arena saw Kṛṣṇa differently; or from Saundaryalaharī 51. The meanings beside them are ours.

Ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam, wiping the mirror of the heart, is the first phrase of Śrī Caitanya's Śikṣāṣṭaka. There the wiping is done by chanting the Name, which is what the sitting after this does.

Nothing you do here is kept or sent.