What Lurks in Shadows Loves Darkness--A Course in Miracles, 17.3 part a
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
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In terms coined by Carl Jung, the shadow is an important element of personality. It holds rejected material that constitutes a powerful store of energy, even renewal of an individual's understanding of themselves in relation to others. If the shadow is ignored, ie if the rejected aspects of 'self' remain unexamined, they will dominate a person's life in apparently uncontrollable, subconscious ways. The unexamined shadow can drive destructive aspects of relationships, cause people to sabotage positive aspects of life, and cause a downward spiral into what seems like insanity from the outside.
In 'Shadows of the Past' the Course describes 'shadow figures' as dark selections of painful interactions that a person collects. They are 'in kind,' intended to reinforce a false self. The false self is a version crafted out of misunderstandings and wrong conclusions about the nature of the world the self inhabits. Assuming the world is dangerous, the self requires weapons and protections. It cobbles these tools out of life events and stores them, using them like a mad-scientist to invent a kind of monster, a golem, a wraith that exists in a twilight where there is enough light to manipulate ideas but not enough to see any truth at all. There is a lot of analysis on these concepts by various teachers of the Course. The topic is part of a dark soliloquy in chapter 17 that explains how we fabricate our own 'Frankenstein Monster' to replace the Truth of what we are. It paints the perverse attraction we have to the process, the impossibility to extricate ourselves by an act of personal talent or will, and provides 'the only way out.' Here is my understanding of how it has manifested in my own life.
My parents had a philosophy of not giving their kids the 'big head' and it resulted in a conspicuous absence of ANY commentary, positive or negative about their children. It created a family neurosis of each of us scavenging for an affirmative picture of ourselves which had to be created out of available sources. A child's scope of experience is so small and the gaps between conclusions so large, that no matter how clever they are, it is tenuous, solipsistic, wrong and crazy. My parents also lacked a sure footing of who they were in the world, even in the delusional sense, so it was easy to pass on this culture of mistaken identity. That is only the background to the example to follow.
Imagine 8 Cub Scouts on a linoleum floor during a Den meeting run by my mother. Maybe we were in the third grade. Each scout had a piece of wood, some nails and a hammer. We were to drive in the nails in a competetive spirit to see who would drive in their [for symbolic value] 5 nails first. I already knew I would win. I was the biggest, smartest, and my mom was the host of the project. I identified the losers in advance, deciding Russell was the worst of the lot--the one to humiliate with a flawless, stellar performance. If this case this seems cruel or too specific to be repeated--think again--it is a model for a way I oriented myself in social groups, albeit unconsciously, through most of my life. Certainly until I went through various shocks to my mental machinery around the age of forty (psychotherapy, gurus, India, marriage etc...)--I'm sure it's still in there somewhere. Anyway...
Mom is set to time us, we are eager to start pounding, and I have one eye on Russell. Now why? I've got to ask myself even if you aren't interested--why on earth did I consistently identify a n'er-do- well as a kind of hurdle? Is it that obvious? I WAS THE NE'R DO WELL. I projected it onto some kid, some nerd, clueless, slow, struggling person in the vicinity. I can think of a half dozen of these weird arrangements over the years. Since I was HE, there's no WAY I could win the battle to outdo my own self-judgment--not this way anyway. Back to it--mom says ,"Go!" and we are slamming. Long story short because it is boring as hell--I bent the nail over, couldn't straighten it and in a fit of rage I pounded the be-jeezuz out of it in a temper tantrum that definitely got some sideways glances. I am so glad that only the Holy Spirit can run the tape on these episodes in a life review because it would make me want to identify a cosmic bridge of no escape and leap into permanent oblivion where I don't have to see how stupid and wasteful I have been with my faculties. Raw and uncut, hell -in-suburbia among the entitled middle class, this one snap shot is a shadow. It figures into the other vignettes of similar ilk to create an un escapable prison of strategy to save my worthless self through self-destruction. "Holy Spirt? WEEE don't neeed no steeenking Holy Spirit!"
It really is a sad place, but hey, as HS (holy services) says, "Go through the fear to find the holy instant, the interlocking chain of miracles that can let the scouts learn wood lore again."
Much here to be revisited. Thank you.
This helps us in our process, I [we] are glad it stimulates inner discussion.
The perspective ACIM brings is a Loving Truth ... and I let the words gestate thinking they lead to my own destruction and ruin. I guess that's a good thing once I realize that it is not me that fears this, but the seductive programs instead.
But not even so much destroyed as fade out due to lack of interest... ego so likes to dramatize. Jokes on me. The ego does what it does but we don't have to tune into what it is saying. So, without placating seeing all things in creation have their place, it's what we give attention to that is enlivened and made real and so a choice-less choice unfolds
I have a microcosm of this dynamic in MANY inner dialogs with myself--disasterizing as though to just scare myself into either procrastinaton or screwing-up. Also, it seems the 'tragic end of the ego's world' might not be as frightening (it is) if I get established in 'the other World.' Again, as you said, the seductive programs' --sirens leading to the rocks or just empty banter, if I'm listening to them, they have similar results. Thanks....
@@hamiltonconstellation Currently my experience is one of spiritual crisis. ACIM plays directly into it for better and worse. Knowledge and wisdom illuminate the scene but it is I who must decide from my own Heart. I choose within duality for it is a black and white yes/no decision within this many shades of gray world of mine in which I seek truth. Absurd. It all hinges on reality of myself as an independent separate being, which is the fallacy. So, I choose and decide what to do calling into question the foundational 'I' who is doing the choosing. I have done the not-choosing thing but the pot on the back burner is boiling over now. Oddly, this one choice has the potential to reverberate into many lives. I have given it over to HS consistently yet it ends up on my plate. It is unappetizing
so it must be my own creation. The saga continues ... (yes, the fact that the symbols are in time is not lost to me).