You Are Hell And Heaven At The Same Time
The whole of who we are as people is much deeper than what we appear to be showing, and it goes much further than what we ourselves believe. Our lights and our shadows are part of a whole to which we belong.
What are our shadows? They are our personal hell, all the aspects of ourselves that we do not want to recognize, the ones that we strive not to bring out. All i shouldn’t , i can’t , i don’t dare .
Attitudes, thoughts and emotions that appear to us out of place, unacceptable and inadmissible. All that within our culture we perceive as inadequate, the person we repress because we think we cannot be. All that we scold and judge in others.
We strive to show only a part of ourselves, thus rejecting the aspects that are part of us, but which we do not accept. All this presupposes a waste of energy that in the long run ends up turning against us.
The world is not made of light alone
We believe that our strength lies in making the most pleasant and cheerful aspects we have in us shine. We hide behind a constant smile and an inexhaustible predisposition to help others.
Yet it is not possible to maintain such behavior forever. There are many circumstances in which it is necessary to express one’s sadness, one’s anger, one’s malaise and all those aspects that appear “negative” in the eyes of society.
In this way, one does nothing but give these aspects a greater intensity, ultimately causing them to escape in an inadequate and disproportionate way.
Here is an example: after accumulating large amounts of discomfort, at the first opportunity we will be led to explode, discharging all the negativity accumulated at once, towards someone in concrete.
When this happens, the consequences are often unpleasant, as well as creating a sense of guilt related to having reacted disproportionately.
Accept your own shadow
The sense of guilt generated due to the disproportionate manifestation of a conduct that we have long repressed pushes us to close the doors in the face of this particular aspect of ourselves in the demand that it does not return to reveal itself.
What we do not understand is the fact that in this way we are only feeding it further; in fact, we will increase the chances of it suddenly expressing itself inadequately.
Being able to become aware of this process will make us take a step towards the acceptance of our shadow; of what we are and what is part of us, but which we do not want to recognize.
Be yourself effortlessly, naturally; complete yourself. By accepting yourself, you will awaken your consciousness so that you open up to the experience of discovering yourself and loving yourself for who you are.
The fusion of opposites
This is how our world begins to form: thanks to the fusion of opposites, the dichotomy of everything and nothing, of life and death.
It is about accepting that we are made of opposites, recognizing all that we avoid and reject in others. All this will lead us to a condition of greater humanity: we will achieve respect and understanding towards those we reject.
There is no good or evil, but the integration of opposite poles, the balance of their complementary being.
Being constantly in conflict with an aspect of oneself – as when one is a victim of the theory “I am a responsible person and I cannot afford to behave differently” – involves a use of energy that exhausts itself and ends up suffocating, until when, inevitably, the opposite extreme is reached.
When we have healed the conflict with one of our poles, we will be able to make room for integration and the possibility of finding the balance, so as to live a proportionate life. So to be and let yourself be.
-Osho-
In the following video “The light of the shadow”, you will discover many more examples of what it means to avoid the shadow that hangs over our lives:
https://youtu.be/AKnvV4RT4vM
Images courtesy of Amanda Cass
