Remain united in body, mind, and spirit. Find the means to stay connected and aware within the self to all that you are so that your energy is united and flowing, so that all that you are stays in synch, allowing you to experience all that you are more fully and happily. In safekeeping of your tri-part self, more fully experience your own wholeness so that the world around you may be experienced more fully and wholly as well. As within, so without. United as one, in body, mind, and spirit, find the ultimate joy you seek. And then you will discover that everything really is possible.
Keep a humble attitude even while you strive for the highest inner attitude of consciousness and awareness. Remain calm and at peace within your human self even while you seek to achieve your highest spiritual self. Inner balance comes when these two selves are known, treasured, and appreciated for their uniqueness, and yet also in knowing that you are not special but the embodiment of all that is, just as everyone else is. True unity and wholeness come when you realize this, that you are the same as everyone else, a part of the greater whole that wants only the greater good for all.
Infants scream, toddlers tantrum, and adults sulk when they don’t get what they want. Disappointment at a frustrated need or desire can result in an intolerable emotional state in humans of all ages. Often the resulting mood reflects a bipolar state of either happiness, if there is a change of fortune, or rage and depression at continued frustration. The ability to regulate and tolerate emotional extremes is a true sign of maturity.
This inner state of emotional challenge is often reflected in distorted, all-or-nothing reactions to other people. If an individual’s thinking reflects one’s own, that person might be liked. However, if that same person says something disagreeable to one’s own sensibility, they made be suddenly viewed as all bad, not a good person. The ability to tolerate the tension of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ qualities in the same person is often lacking. The result is a literal splitting apart of the other person, as either all good or all bad.
Often, intimate relationships suffer the brunt of splitting perceptions. If a couple are in sync with a desired activity, things flow smoothly. However, if they individually seek opposing activities this can result in an abrupt mood change and withdrawal from the now ‘bad’ other. Should the other give in to one’s want, there can be an instant positive mood shift, as the partner is restored to ‘goodness’.
Often, the partner who acquiesces to the other’s need creates a split within themselves. Though they smile and proceed outwardly, inwardly they carry a pocket of resentment that doesn’t allow full connection with their partner. This inner emotional stalemate can result in anxiety and depression, though outwardly all appears well.
We live in a time that has encouraged splitting on a grand scale. The political polarization of our time has resulted in roughly half the population viewing the other half as all bad. Either one agrees with the other or they are seen as all bad by the other. There is no tolerance for mixed feelings or beliefs. This is further exacerbated by the lifting of the social norm to suppress one’s angry or disappointed feelings.
This release of suppressed rage is cathartic and a relief from the constraints of political correctness, much like psychoanalysis freed the repressed sexuality of the Victorian era. Nonetheless, in both cases, primal release of repressed emotion does not result in emotional maturity and, in fact, often fuels an endless addiction to emotional excess.
The results of splitting are a divided self, a divided relationship, and a divided country. Though compromise might be a valued step in the resolution of conflict, it does not necessarily reflect true unity. True unity can only be achieved if there is full acceptance of other, perhaps as captured in the suggestion to ‘turn the other cheek’.
Jesus’s suggestion to turn the other cheek is fundamental to the shamanic practice of freeing oneself from the burden of self-importance. To not be offended by another’s behavior, however outrageous, allows one to tolerate the existence of the other. True, one may need to defend oneself from the behavior of the other if there is physical threat, but this is not driven by personal offense at the behavior and values of the other.
Beyond offense are the split, polarized attitudes of a world fatigued by Covid. One side clings protectively to the safety of retreat. The other lurches boldly into the right to live freely, even if it means death. Can we all not find both attitudes active within ourselves? Are we all not challenged with the conundrum of safety vs adventure, as we navigate the most basic decisions of daily life? Does it serve us to resolve that tension by becoming one-sided, projecting the rejected ‘evil’ opposite onto others?
Buddha proposed loving compassion for all. All includes evil. Rather than split off evil as something to be repressed, evil is granted its place in the flow of all that is. The ability to tolerate both the good and evil within the self sets the stage for unity of self. This, of course, requires a high degree of maturity and responsibility for managing and balancing the opposite tendencies within the self.
Tolerating the evil within the self can allow for acceptance of one’s partner as a being who sometimes pleases and sometimes disappoints. Accepting the evil within the self lessens a reactive emotional charge to others who act upon their own evil impulses. Loving compassion does not preclude necessary boundaries, but with loving compassion those boundaries are not driven by divisive hatred.
Buddha arrived at the unity of enlightenment through the meditative practice of stillness and not grasping at any offering that presented, ranging from the most seductive to the most horrific. To achieve this, one must find deep calm, regardless of what thought presents from within or what scene is presented from without. The equanimity of this kind of detachment actually reflects total acceptance of everything, the key to unity.
To practice this meditation in our current world environment is to bring oneself to calm, within and without. Whatever appears, go to the breath: loving compassion on the inhalation, release of tension and judgment on the exhalation.
Intend unity; heal the split. As within so without.
In the light of day the solid world appears safely discernible. As darkness approaches the discernible melds into blackness. Anxious anticipation and fear replace confidence and security, as that which awaits in the darkness draws near.
“Go to the light” is the guidance of spiritual traditions. We turn on the lights to dominate the night, to safely traverse night’s feared demons. Home security systems promise protection from real or imagined demonic projections upon the darkness.
But what is the truth of those inner demonic projections, so frequently veiling the truth of the night? Jung appropriately named that disowned portion of the psyche, that which lives in the shadow. For Freud, the personal portion of the shadow was the sequestered human animal, whose sexual and aggressive politically incorrect impulses were relegated to wish fulfillment dreams.
Jung extended the reach of the shadow into all the unknown dimensions of self. Just the venture of letting go of ego control in the journey of sleep is a leap of faith. Who can guarantee that a night’s sleep will deliver them into life in a new day?
Dream is a natural entry point into the subtle spirit realm. As the body sleeps, the spirit naively launches into journeys in infinity. Will it safely return? Will its cord to the physical body remain intact?
What encounters will the spirit face beyond Freud’s wish fulfillments or repressed sins? Beyond the personal lies the collective, replete with entities unsettled and seeking. How will spirit handle these encounters? Will it be drawn into heavens of delight, or into hells of terror? These are the challenges of the journey of the dark night of the soul.
Beyond the collective lies the transpersonal, the light of the high SOUL. But the truth is that high SOUL is the Yin/Yang of white and black. In blackness is latent spirit. In light is spirit manifest. The light of the manifest requires shadow. Without contrast there is nonexistence.
To seek the safety of the light without owning one’s contrasting shadow ill prepares one for one’s true spiritual journey. One must reckon with and explore the fullness of one’s unknown self to avoid the trap of negative projection upon blackness, and the false security of clinging to the one-sidedness of the light.
All beings are black and white. To achieve the lightness of being needed for true ascension we must reconcile with, own, and treasure this wholeness. Without the darkness of the unknown our heaven in infinity would terminate in boredom. Without the light of consciousness to navigate the darkness we’d surely lose our way.
Inextricably united, may black and white journey in oneness into that good night.
When ice melts it comes together in a unified whole… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
In today’s audio channeling we are advised to consider working on a unified self as the antidote to our personal problems as well as our world’s problems. Coexistence is fine but it is not the answer, Jeanne suggests, unity is, wholeness is, oneness is.
All that we wish for in our world must begin within the self, for if we are not a unified whole how can we possibly create an outer unified whole? The first big work takes place within!
