The Wall of Darkness
The division between right and wrong is superficial, there is something deeper
Us Westerners were introduced to eastern thought throughout the ages: when Alexander the Great expanded his empire to China and India, with the incursions of Genghis Khan, with the Mongols in Europe or the evangelical incursions of Saint Francis Xavier in medieval Japan, not to mention the millennia of commerce between the two hemispheres; all created an interchange of culture, literature, and knowledge. However, the tipping point of the entrance of Eastern Thought in the western hemisphere came about with Swami Vivekananda’s visit to the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago in 1893, and it came as a storm. Mysticism, Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita, Buddhism, meditation, Karma, Maya, and other philosophical writings and ideas seduced Westerners, and by the first great war most intellectuals were somewhat acquainted with eastern thought and spirituality.
Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of World Religions 1893
I appreciate there were differences between the east and the west in the 80’s, nowadays more washed down. In the east, life happened to people from the time they were children; in the west we are always confronted with choices. In China, a mother did not ask her child what he wanted, she gave it to him; in the west mothers asked their children, do you want vanilla or chocolate ice cream? In the 80’s in Japan, universities offered students assertive classes to help them take initiative. In Japan’s metro they have Passenger Pushers to force people onto the subway carriage. In Latin America, on the metro at rush hour, there it would actually need assistance to prevent people pushing and hurting each other.
It’s only natural then that religious systems in Asia exalt individuals to the category of the divine, and in the west, we are all plunged into the category of sinners… naturally, religion tends to counterbalance cultural and social dispositions. East and west are like the two hemispheres of the brain and it is in their connection and interdependence that extraordinary things happen.
The primordial division is not between right and wrong, it is between being and non-being.
This “opposition of forces” is what makes stars posible, and goes all the way up to the evolutionary hierarchy in our brains’ hemispheres.
I have attended a meditation retreat called Vipassana a few times. It is an extraordinary humbling experience that teaches us about who we really are. For ten days straight, you sit to meditate for ten hours every day, you do not engage with anyone in any form of communication, and you share meals in silence. Needless to say, every sit is a happening; very much like every instant of life is a happening… if you are alert! Sometimes you are a volcano that expels energy out of control, others it is a sweet experience of calm and peaceful breeze.
On one such sit, I went deep and found myself in an awesome experience. With every breath my body became settled and peaceful. I glanced at thoughts as they appear, like watching clouds in a blue sky. They attempted to grab my attention; I felt the pull, but centered on the letting go with each exhalation. I began to follow their trail and the thoughts became more unsettled, but interestingly I became more centered and peaceful. Then I came upon a dark wall; it wasn’t solid, rather it was a limit in space without light whatsoever. Ideas sprung from it as if from empty space. I could appreciate how they transpired out of this nothingness into my consciousness. Because I did not cling to the idea, they passed right by me.
I was able to stay a while in front of this dark nothingness. As thoughts came out of it, I could hear the sound of the idea, I felt the attraction for my attention; I could hear the sound, but it did not sway me out of my soft focus on the Wall. I paid closer attention to the appearance of each thought out of the darkness and it was like there was nothing and then the thought appeared.
The opposition between the forces of Being and Non-being are on the boundary of that dark wall.
We tend to think that being is where we act, and the subconscious is non-being. But if you have not consciously decided to know your Self and confront the depth of your contradictions, fears, and apprehensions, you are living in a non-being state and being springs from that wall. It is not an either or, it is a flux; however, when you are avoiding or repressing what comes from that wall, your whole life is a negation of who you truly are, and therefore living in non-being.
You have reasons to resist what comes out of your Wall or Shadow; there is a reminiscence of the infinite, and therefore it includes that You that is capable of wonderous, and horrendous deeds as well.
The Shadow is not a place, it’s the furnace of Being where everything springs from
My intuition tells me that Being and Non-Being is what creates the universe. We tend to think of the Shadow (Jungian concept of the darkest aspect of the subconscious) as a place where our darkest and most horrendous aspects of the individual springs from. It is the wrong interpretation. The shadow is a portal, our deepest roots go all the way to primordial soup of creation, when there was everything in one single infinitesimal point; and as that it is too much, there is a line where it shares no light. It is a divisory line between Being and Non-Being, the all potential and the concrete and factual.
When we are in our early years and have negative experiences, it doesn’t matter if you are three-months-old or five-years-old, that negative experiences ignites signals of alert and all your being is completely present. That is an interesting characteristic of pain and profound adversity, you focus on it like nothing else exists, it is the most real thing you can experience.
It is remarkable how pain and deep stressful experiences make some kind of reset in your psyche. It is like the person has been reset by anxiety, the adversity trigger; and then your response to it becomes fixed. Like an equation, it is saved inside you. When you have similar experiences, it triggers similar responses. As it becomes more automatic by your negation and repression of the stimuli, it sinks into the Shadow and now it is a source of instability and distress when anything resembling the original distress experience appears.
Alistair Campbell on deviantART
Stress and acute anxiety are friends
Precisely because we are unfathomable, we need help to explore and amplify our perception. Therefore, stress and anxiety are our allies. Precisely because stress and anxiety create this reset, like a reboot in a computer, it is a perfect moment to learn new skills and set new disciplines. If you just resist the situation, your psyche falls back on previous patterns; but if you gather all your bravery and confront that dragon, you will be able to extract gold. Yes, something of you will die; maybe even something you are attached to. In the final analysis that is why you extract gold, because riches are found where you are most unwilling to look for them.
Through stress and acute anxiety you can expand and push back the divisory line of the Shadow, you integrate a small part of the Whole Being of who you are and can bring on gradually into your life.
If you feel pain, it is because you are alive
I have encountered people that have told me they have never fallen “in love”. If you have fallen in love, you know that it is misery, uncertainty, destabilizing and painful… especially at first (darn, that is an understatement). But then, when it is reciprocated and the first embrace takes place, you are high above the clouds and heaven is a step below.
If you are afraid of life, Life will not happen for you. One needs to become vulnerable to fall in love, to live fully and discover who you can become. Learn to Love your Self in this way and nothing will tear you down. Learn to Love others in this way, and the whole world will be yours… you will need nothing to be whole.
That is the challenge!
COMING UP NEXT WEDNESDAY…
If you find Darkness in the midst of Light, don’t backoff
There are experiences that touch us deeply and send us in an unexpectedly trajectory. Be aware, no matter how laudable our intentions are, we may find ourselves being the agent of Darkness.
Original Photo WeHeartIt