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August 4 - August 4, 2024
Water has often been used as a symbol for the deepest spiritual nourishment of humanity. It is flowing in our time in history, as always, for the well is faithful to its mission; but it flows in some odd places. It has often ceased to flow in the accustomed sites and turned up in some most surprising locations. But, thank God, the water is still there.
One such unexpected source is our own shadow, that dumping ground for all those characteristics of our personality that we disown.
As promised of the living water, our shadow costs nothing and is immediately—and embarrassingly—ever present. To honor and accept one’s own shadow is a profound spiritual discipline. It is whole-making and thus holy and the most important experience of a lifetime.
The persona is what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world. It is our psychological clothing and it mediates between our true selves and our environment just as our physical clothing presents an image to those we meet. The ego is what we are and know about consciously. The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know.*
The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into consciousness. It is the despised quarter of our being. It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego. If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage or some indiscretion that slips past us; or we have a depression or an accident that seems to have its own purpose. The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house.
It is absolutely necessary to engage in the cultural process to redeem ourselves from our animal state; it is equally necessary to accomplish the spiritual task of putting our fractured, alienated world back together again. One must break away from the Garden of Eden but one must also restore the heavenly Jerusalem.
Generally, the first half of life is devoted to the cultural process—gaining one’s skills, raising a family, disciplining one’s self in a hundred different ways; the second half of life is devoted to restoring the wholeness (making holy) of life.
A cultured person is one who has the desired characteristics visible on the right (the righteous side) and the forbidden ones hidden on the left. All our characteristics must appear somewhere in this inventory. Nothing may be left out.
Whenever we pluck the fruit of creativity from the golden tree our other hand plucks the fruit of destruction. Our resistance to this insight is very high! We would love to have creativity without destruction, but that is not possible.
We must hide our dark side from society in general, or we will be a bloody bore; but we must never try to hide it from ourself.
To create is to destroy at the same moment. We cannot make light without a corresponding darkness. India balances Brahma, the god of creation, with Shiva, the god of destruction, and Vishnu sits in the middle keeping the opposites together.
whether we know it or not our psychic twin follows us like a mirror image.
Most people presume that they are the sole master of their house. To acknowledge and then own one’s shadow is to admit there are many more sides to us that the world generally does not see.
The more refined our conscious personality, the more shadow we have built up on the other side.
the ego and the shadow come from the same source and exactly balance each other. To make light is to make shadow; one cannot exist without the other.
India has three terms describing this place of sainthood: sat, chit, ananda. Sat is the existential stuff of life (mostly the left side of the balance); chit is the ideal capacity (mostly the right side of the balance); ananda is the bliss, joy, ecstasy of enlightenment—the fulcrum of the seesaw. When sat and chit are paired together, and sufficiently conscious, then ananda, the joy of life, is created. This is won by owning one’s own shadow.
The high creativity of our modern society can be maintained only if we will recognize the shadow that accompanies it and pay out that shadow in an intelligent way.
To refuse the dark side of one’s nature is to store up or accumulate the darkness; this is later expressed as a black mood, psychosomatic illness, or unconsciously inspired accidents.
The tendency to see one’s shadow “out there” in one’s neighbor or in another race or culture is the most dangerous aspect of the modern psyche. It has created two devastating wars in this century and threatens the destruction of all the fine achievements of our modern world. We all decry war but collectively we move toward it.
Unless we do conscious work on it, the shadow is almost always projected; that is, it is neatly laid on someone or something else so we do not have to take responsibility for it.
Our hero-worshiping capacity is pure shadow; in this case our finest qualities are refused and laid on another.
Development generally takes this means of introducing the next stage of its progress. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s character.
It is very puzzling to examine our capacity for projecting our best qualities. It is as if we fear that heaven might come too soon! From the point of view of our ego, the appearance of a sublime trait might upset our whole personality structure.
The ego is…primarily engaged in its own defense and the furtherance of its own ambitions. Everything that interferes with it must be repressed. The [repressed] elements…become the shadow. Often these are basically positive qualities.
you can touch your shadow—within form—and do something out of your ordinary pattern, a great deal of energy will flow from it.
Most marriages in the West begin with a projection, go through a period of disillusionment, and, God willing, become more human. That is to say, they come to be based on the profound reality that is the other person. While in-loveness is close proximity to God, love based on reality serves our humble condition far better.
The shadow is very important in marriage, and we can make or break a relationship depending on how conscious we are of this. We forget that in falling in love, we must also come to terms with what we find annoying and distasteful—even downright intolerable—in the other and also in ourselves. Yet it is precisely this confrontation that leads to our greatest growth.
A true myth gives a pulse reading of a whole culture, a valuable insight into its character and destiny.
Contradiction brings the crushing burden of meaninglessness. One can endure any suffering if it has meaning; but meaninglessness is unbearable.
The quickest way I know to break a person is to give him or her two sets of contradicting values—which is exactly what we do, in modern culture, with our Sunday and Monday moralities. We are taught by Christianity to follow a set of values that are almost entirely disregarded in everyday business life. How is a person to cope?
Our Constitution is based on freedom and democracy—the right to choose one’s own way—but our religious teaching has us subservient to something greater than our private selves. Here we are directed by the will of God.
East speaks to West over a very wide chasm! I had to observe that my Indian friends live in relative peace while my American friends, so devoted to decision making, are a tense and anxious people.
If I can stay with my conflicting impulses long enough, the two opposing forces will teach each other something and produce an insight that serves them both. This is not compromise but a depth of understanding that puts my life in perspective and allows me to know with certainty what I should do. That certainty is one of the most precious qualities known to humankind.
“Find out what a person fears most and that is where he will develop next.”
To balance out our cultural indoctrination, we need to do our shadow work on a daily basis. The first reward for this is that we diminish the shadow we impose on others. We contribute less to the general darkness of the world and do not add to the collective shadow that fuels war and strife. But the second result is that we prepare the way for the mandorla—that high vision of beauty and wholeness that is the great prize of human consciousness.
