SHADOW WORK AND THE SELF, AND THE SAGE

 I receive a number of tortured messages from those who say they are trying to heal their shadow or some past experience. There is a poignant beauty in their suffering, and their suffering arises as innocently as the waves breaking on the shore, as innocently as joy.

In the story of Miranda, there was great suffering and a desire to heal her traumas. She was diagnosed with PTSD and depression, but trying to heal seemed like trying to dig a hole in the ground to get to the end of the hole.

What can sometimes be heard is that these stories belong to no one, that they freely arise like a pain in the knee, that they are not your burden, and you are not broken. That you are not lost in the darkness; you never were. There was only ever this light, this love, and there is no one who has some unconscious darkness they need to heal.

Some write that they feel those who seem enlightened may still have shadows they have ignored. They may be accused of manipulating their audience. But there is no one who attains enlightenment. That is the illusion of a separate person. This view that seems to be speaking here happens like the rain, in the same way as any other view that appears. It may resonate or not. Either way, it is the same wind blowing through your hair on a fall afternoon. It makes no claims to truth or enlightenment. It just appears.

The question that arises here is: Who is it that is manipulative? Who is it that has a shadow?

The suggestion that there is someone who is “enlightened” but can still be manipulative is a misunderstanding. There is no “I” to be liberated. There is only what is happening.

Is the wind manipulating the leaves on the branch as it blows? There is no separate person doing anything, no separate person being done to, no separate cause and effect outside of the story. The breeze, the branch, the leaves — not separate, except to thought.

What happens is unchanged by interpretation. Actions appear in the same way as characters in a film. There is no one doing them, any more than you can affect the characters in a movie. And we are characters in the very same film.

Words that describe someone doing are never true. Simply notice that two people can each say the other was manipulating them and speak of the very same incident. There is only the story.

The idea of a shadow does not appear in the talks of the speakers I share, though I seem to recall it from reading Jung in younger days.

In this, there is no psychological self. No unconscious mind. Only life appearing. If it seems to appear as manipulation, that is like the snow falling, the sun shining, and then telling a story about what it means.

The one who seems to manipulate is the same one who seems to be manipulated. The one who says there is a shadow is the same one who sees no more shadow than you see at night in the darkest cave. Not one, not two — just this, just what appears to be happening.

Of course, if it seems that there is a shadow that needs to be worked on or healed, or if it seems that there is manipulation, then that is what is apparently happening. It is perfectly this as it is, and there is no one to change it, nothing wrong with it, and no one bound by it.

But it may happen that stories of a shadow or a manipulator may be seen as innocent as projections about an infant crawling in the grass. Look deep enough and the shadow is only light’s reflection, the love that animates all that is. A love that takes no sides and sees nothing that is not already, as it is said, “whole and complete.”

Just this dreaming,
just this love,
always only ever this,
however it seems to appear