Take only what you need. Give a little more than you need. Do not resent others but be as generous as you can, in all ways, for all beings, including those who trouble you the most, are on a spiritual journey that matters. It is not your job to make someone feel good or matter, that is their own challenge, but your attitude to others and to life in general matters greatly. Consider compassion, kindness, and love. Begin there when the time to give comes along, and then decide what is right.
Guilt is the emotional consequence of knowing, on some level, that we are not the mask we portray ourselves to be in the world. We are guilty because we know we fail to meet the standard of perfection. We are aware of our inferiority and our darkness hidden within.
Who is that animal lurking within? – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Actually, this knowing is a saving grace, because despite having to suffer the torture of guilt, we are owning the existence of our dark side. We encounter and suffer inwardly the dilemma that in a less conscious individual is only known through the disowned projection of one’s dark side onto a scapegoat that reflects the hidden darkness within. In projection, guilt is avoided because the real problem is projected “out there.” It can be eliminated and controlled by imprisoning or killing off the bad guy “out there.”
Our time is rife with mass projections of evil onto Muslims, Mexicans, African Americans, women, Democrats, Republicans, Jews, Palestinians; the list is endless. The world is currently completely divided into separatist camps that see themselves as morally superior to all others. They completely project their inferior dark side onto some other camp “out there.”
The preponderance of these polarized camps in our time is the surface repercussion of a more deeply brewing clash between the collective unconscious that contains all our darkness with the idealized moral superior values that our egos identify with in our religions and modernistic lifestyles. Would that the collective consciousness of the world could feel guilty, that is, own more fully and grapple with the true depth of its nature versus continually locating it outside where it destroys its neighbor and the world in order to be delivered from its own evil.
Unfortunately, though the world must arrive at this deeper truth to survive now, it is the individual that must lead the world in this task. The individual who faces their own shadow is the advance guard of a transformed world. On the other hand, how fortunate that every individual who faces the true depth of their own shadow advances the world on its path of survival. How empowering!
How do we own our shadow? How do we resolve our guilt? To begin with, as long as we only identify ourselves as light beings, or as beings who must be purified of or relieved of our own darkness, we will always suffer guilt. As Erich Neumann states:
“Just as light cannot be extinguished by the superior power of darkness, so too there is no evidence to show that darkness can ever be abolished by any superior power on the part of light.” *
We are all light and shadow… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Light requires the contrast of shadow to be defined; dark requires the contrast of light to be known. One cannot be separated from the other and be whole. The two are inextricably opposite sides of the same wholeness.
Human beings are beings of light in their spirit, as reflected in mental processes and consciousness. Human beings are beings of darkness in the depths of their instinctual, animal natures. Spirit beings could not be in this world without their animal bodies. Animal and spirit are inextricably linked in a partnership in this world, saddled with the challenge of developing a relationship which acknowledges and finds life for both animal and spirit.
If we identify with an ethic that says passion and pleasure are evil, we will suffer guilt. Our wounded animal self will torture, ad nauseum, our morally superior controlling ego with depression and “bad” fantasy. We must abandon this old ethic. Our new ethic must grant the human animal its basic human right: The right to pursue happiness. With this gesture, our spirit consciousness acknowledges its animal partner, though the challenge of true integration and reconciliation with the fullness of who we are is indeed the greatest human challenge.
Guilt can be relieved when we accept that the animal hungers, lusts, and rages. The fact that the animal has these experiences does not make it bad; it simply makes it a human animal.
Of course, it is equally appropriate for its spirit counterpart to require of the animal a bit of refinement and restraint. Once the animal energies can find satisfaction and expression, with conscious consent and collaboration that allows for a fuller expression of all that we are, we advance.
What ultimately will relieve us of our guilt, is to embrace a new human ethic: Integrated wholeness versus perfection based on suppression or repression of the animal—that which has led us to our current status: a crumbling civilization with its discontents!
Reconciliation, when all is known and accepted… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
May we all herald in this new ethic, beyond guilt, as brave pioneers taking full responsibility for our individual wholeness in our interdependent one world.
Going beyond, Chuck
* Reference: Erich Neumann, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, p. 46.
Note: I am grateful to Erich Neumann and his book, Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, which has inspired much of this blog.
When is it appropriate to retreat? Many people seek relief in retreat. Many people seek escape in retreat. Many people seek solace in retreat. Retreat comes in many forms. Not only is there physical retreat, but there is emotional, mental, and spiritual retreat as well. There is conscious retreat and there is unconscious retreat.
Often retreat is misused as an escape, and yet there are times when it is necessary, a pivotal move that brings one face-to-face with that which must be faced. When one finds oneself suddenly retreating, for one reason or another, one must determine the validity and the rightness of one’s retreat.
Facing one’s darkness is often the purpose of retreat, but one cannot do so without shining a light within. Facing one’s common behaviors and responses to life’s woes needs investigation as to why, and so a light within is necessary. Retreat may not always be into darkness, and so if one turns always to the light, a turning within is equally necessary.
Contemplation of self is good and necessary. Do not be afraid to retreat there, into the deeper self within. That is where you will find all you need, the answers you seek, within the dark and the light of you!
Most people are not what they portray themselves to be. Far too often a person’s outer expression defines them, but the truth is, in many cases the outer demeanor is merely fictional. The real person sits inside, afraid to come out. Times are changing rapidly now though, and it’s time for everyone to be real, for the fall of all that is, the changing times, are coming in more ways than one. Seek to be real at all times, and seek to help others to be real as well. If the real you lived on the outside all the time, and everyone else were equally real, what would the world be like?
The morning sun created its own still forest pond… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
A nice calming channeled audio message to start the week. May you all find yourselves sitting by your own still forest pond often over the coming week!
