13

It’s fitting that 13 should be the post number of my blog on Shadow. I didn’t plan it this way but such is the nature of things. The Universe speaks with artful timing, with or without our consent. Of course we have to be aware of it to assign this artful meaning, so I suppose we are collaborators, the Universe and us. In fact in the end the art consists in that we are more than just collaborators, we are part of the dance of the One, casting our own shadows.

Hameed Ali, better known by the pen name, A.H. Almaas, is a brilliant spiritual teacher in whose school I participated for a short time, and whose books I learned from over many years. Almaas -affectionately called Hameed by his students- is dedicated to preserving the knowledge of Spirit, or True Nature, as he calls it. Basic Trust is the term he uses to describe our state when we are aware of this True Nature, the unity of our collective existence. When it is clear that we are fundamentally and eternally connected in one Source, and that our identification as separate, isolated, helpless creatures is mistaken, we can rest in our Being and allow the flow of life without struggle. Prior to this realization, we construct our personalities around this lack of Basic Trust. In the belief that we are not held in Being we construct strategies for acquiring the love we feel we’ve been denied or don’t deserve.

Almaas uses the enneagram to show his map of personality strategies for pretending to have or to acquire Being. Each one strives and struggles to put up a show of having particular qualities of Being that most represent the fundamental loss of Unity for the individual. In essence this is a false show, substituting dominance for the essential Strength of clarity and expansion, or wealth for the essential Value of our Soul. Each aspect of Being is like a facet of a diamond, it projects light from a different angle and produces a different color, while being an emanation of the one Source. There is much diversity in humanity, while we are also projections of the One.

The Diamond Approach of A.H. Almaas is an extremely detailed account of the construction of the personality around the loss of Being and the re-discovery of that Being in the deconstruction of the personality. His general notions of this loss and rediscovery are useful, but for me the technical details and particularity with which he analyzes the types are not entirely necessary. The fundamental truths about our belief in separateness and the unity of Being are enough. With this clue we can come to know our shadow, to assume responsibility for and integrate it back into Being.

The shadow’s source is our deepest and most basic wound to the Soul, it is both ancient and new, both passed on to us when we are born, and co-created in relationship with our unique individuality. Wherever there is lack of transparency and deep self-love in our parents and culture, we will experience that darkness. It’s an insidious darkness that we laugh over or quietly accept in our families. We normalize not sharing feelings, substance abuse, prioritizing money over people. We normalize secrecy and lies. We normalize victimhood and ineptitude and accept it as our fate. We normalize dominance and oppression. Of course there are much more overt wounds of abuse and neglect, sometimes none the worse because at least they can be readily acknowledged, but deeply, deeply damaging to the Soul.

Our particular disposition, biological, social, cultural, and environmental aspects at birth blend together with the darkness passed on through generations to define how our shadow will look. We symbolize the wound in good vs evil, we project it onto the weak and the down and out. We cover it with pride and justify our disdain and disgust. We cover our disdain and disgust in political and moral justifications.The shadow hides in goodness, that goodness that seeks to show itself, the goodness that protests like a Gollum, even to ourselves, “I would never hurt anyone on purpose!” “I’m a loving person!” All the while inside we feel the pang of selfishness, the slight satisfaction of keeping our secret. We enjoy our wound and revel in our darkness. We might enjoy our victimhood.We keep our darkness separate and indulge it semi-consciously in alone time or in manipulations. We don’t want to really see it because it brings us satisfaction and to truly see it we would need to accept the suffering it causes us and others.

This is not to deny humor or discretion. There is beauty in the play of dark and light, no day not followed by a night. The shadow is its own particular kind of darkness that seeks never to be brought to the light of day. In humor and discretion we bring conscious choice and conscience to our blending of the light and dark. The shadow wishes to remain unconscious and it knows no conscience. It is sticky and it has a feel. It creates un-wellness. We can track it in its path of broken relationships and seek it in the corners where our selfish motivations lie. In our un-owned fears and hidden social awkwardness, or our meanness that we blame on others, we find at base a deep lack of self-acceptance and love.

This deep lack of trusting that we are good enough, that we deserve love and that we are held by and indeed a creation of the interconnected Source itself creates illness in us. Twice nominated for the Nobel prize in genetics, scientist and philosopher Irvin Laszlo writes that 1% of illness is genetic and 90% of doctor visits are caused by stress (The Great Upshift, 2023). When we integrate the shadow and come to deep acceptance we take better care of ourselves and each other. We see our fundamental interconnectedness with the planet, with all creatures and people, and indeed with the Cosmos. We have and create less stress.

This is all well and good but so difficult to resolve. Our lives are complicated and our corner-cutting with our Souls is almost a forgone conclusion. Sometimes it affords us what little satisfaction we have. It is true that it is not the easiest path but also true that the payoffs are so many times worth the price of admission that afterword we would gladly suffer all we have for the freedom, peace and love we discover. Even those of us very far down the path of Self-discovery are likely still contending with the shadow. It’s especially easy to bypass when we can hide in transcendent states and see ourselves as more advanced than others. We are justified in having our little slice of the pie.

People from very advanced spiritual practitioners to those who don’t know where to begin can benefit greatly by exploring psychedelic work with a guide who has integrated the shadow. A guide who has integrated their own darkness can help shine a light in preparation for journeying, and mushrooms themselves are like a floodlight to the Soul in the presence of such a person. They work with us to help reveal the separateness and wounding we can’t or won’t see on our own. The most fundamentally interconnected organisms on the planet can help bring us back to acceptance and belonging in the One. This process is greatly aided by suspending false beliefs in separateness. Begin by opening up to the possibility that we may be co-creating our own pain. Begin by allowing for the possibility that we can be met and held by an artful, intelligent Universe.