Integrating The Shadow In Awakening

[Ludwig]

This is a great article, i thought it might be of help to some of you.

Quote

...Most people hope that awakening will make all the pain disappear. But the wisdom and humility to allow support where support is needed, even after awakening, is a great support in itself. This is especially so as the personality and sense of self reappear within awakened consciousness, and there may be ensuing disappointment or confusion – and even more so if there is unresolved trauma or addictive patterns and no previous inner work has been done. The clearer the vessel, in other words, the more transparent the personality vehicle, the less likely it is for dense energetic contractions to coalesce on re-entry to three-dimensional earthly reality...

http://www.scienceandnonduality.com/integrating-the-shadow-in-awakening/

[Henri]

Yes!  Karma is a bitch!

[WelcometoReality]

@Ludwig Thank you for sharing this!

[cetus]

@Ludwig Sometimes people do seem to be attracted to the idea of enlightenment because of wanting to escape personal issues that can't be dealt with straight on. And I can see how enlightenment work could be used by some to just to bury the true issues.  I think some hear the statement " you don't really exist" and it's like "O.K., that could work for me!". I can't stand my life now, so maybe this will make all my problems go away. Of course all "problems" do arise out of the sense of self in the first place. But somehow that seems to get hidden only in the awakening path. It never really vanishes because it was never solved in the correct manner in the first place. I guess what I'm trying to say is, enlightenment is not true for someone that is only looking for an escape to what they can't face.

[Ludwig]

@cetus56 Yes, i completely agree. But if one becomes aware of that running away there is an extremely huge acceleration potential. Because then you can see on the one hand that you are trying to run away from your problems and on the other that this is everything that is holding you back. So you get more and more hooked on enlightenment and at the same time on solving your issues. Say for example you are very anxious so you run into enlightenment work. There you encounter a teacher that smashes your anxiety right into your face. And as you walk through your anxiety than the spiritual path opens in a way that might take others decades. It can be an insane upward spiral. 

Edited April 2, 2016 by Ludwig

[cetus]

7 hours ago, Ludwig said:

@cetus56 Yes, i completely agree. But if one becomes aware of that running away there is an extremely huge acceleration potential. Because then you can see on the one hand that you are trying to run away from your problems and on the other that this is everything that is holding you back. So you get more and more hooked on enlightenment and at the same time on solving your issues. Say for example you are very anxious so you run into enlightenment work. There you encounter a teacher that smashes your anxiety right into your face. And as you walk through your anxiety than the spiritual path opens in a way that might take others decades. It can be an insane upward spiral. 

@Ludwig Yea, I totally agree about enlightenment work for anxiety or phobias. That would be perfect to defeat that type of "suffering, I'll call that. I'm referring to for example people that use enlightenment as a means of escape or excuse for deep seated issues. Like resentment, anger, denial or a completely distorted view of the world. Of course all that would be smashed to pieces when they attained enlightenment, but not facing and resolving those deep seated issues first would make for a very long path. Even if they did hear the truth from a teacher, they would probably interpret every word in their own way and adapt it to fit their world.

[Leo Gura]

Enlightenment work is only for the purpose of having a direct experience of your true nature. There's more beyond that in the sense that aspects of the old ego mind will still probably remain after you discover who/what you are. So that's where shadow work comes into play, and in general, self-actualization continues after enlightenment. What happens then is that you spend the rest of your life aligning your mind to embody the realization of no-self. The bulk of the spiritual work comes AFTER enlightenment, not before.

People commonly get this wrong because they have a cartoon image of what enlightenment is. And they want to use it as magic pill to cure all of life's problems. Which is not how it works.

All that said, it's still really really helpful get enlightened. Because trying to purify the ego via the ego is like pulling teeth. Seeing through the ego speeds up the shadow work a lot. Huge chunks of the ego structure will simply fall away after enlightenment, making your job a lot easier.