Most people presume that they are the sole MASTER of their house. To acknowledge and then Own one's shadow is to admit there are many more sides to us that the world generally does not see. DR. JUNG tells how he first intuited the presence of "another" in his psyche.
"I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment. Everything depended on my keeping this little light alive. Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me. But at the same moment I was conscious in spite of my terror, that I must keep my little light going through night and wind, regardless of all the dangers. When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light i was carrying. I knew too that this little light was my consciousness, the only light i have. Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light, my only light".
JUNG had gone through a highly refined enculturating process, from his childhood in a rigid Swiss Protestant home to the severe discipline of his medical training. Long hours of concentrated attention gave him a very focused personality. But this was at the cost of ignoring the dark and primitive aspects that appeared in his dream. The more refined our conscious personality, the more SHADOW we have built on the other side.
This is one of Jung's greatest insights: that the ego and the shadow come from the same source and exactly balance each other. To make light is to make shadow; One cannot exist without the other.
To own one's own shadow is to reach a holy place - an inner centre- not attainable in any other way.
MANDORLA
The Human Dimensions of the Madorla
One can view a human life as a mandorla and as the ground upon which the opposites find their reconciliation. In this way every human being is a redeemer, and Christ is the prototype for this human task. Every glance between a man and a woman is also a MANDORLA, a place where the great opposites of masculinity and femininity meet and honour one another. The Mandorla is the divine container in which a new creation begins to form and germinate. Scriptures never tires of speaking about courtship and marriage as the symbol for our reconciliation with spirit.
If we have a powerful Mandorla experience and what a JOY it is!!, we can be sure it will be brief. We must return to the world of dualities, of time and space, to continue our ordinary life. The shadow is created all over again, and a new experience of transformation is required. The great individuals in history have only momentary glimpses of wholeness and they, too, return very quickly to the world of ego-shadow confrontation. there is a Hindu proverb: "Anyone who thinks he is enlightened is not!"
Our human situation divides us over and over again into ego-shadow opposition, no matter where we start. As long as we take our place in society, we will pay for it by bearing a shadow. And society will pay a general price with collective phenomena such as war, violence, and racism.
to balance out our cultural indoctrination, we need to do our shadow work on a daily basis. The first reward for this is that we diminish the shadow we impose on others. We contribute less to the general darkness of the world and do not add to the collective shadow that fuels war and strife. But the second result is that we prepare the way for the Mandorla - that high vision of beauty and wholeness that is the great prize of human consciousness.
The Ancient ALCHEMISTS understood this process. In ALCHEMY one goes through four stages of development: the Nigredo, in which one experiences the darkness and depression of life; the albedo, in which one sees the brightness of things; the rubedo, where one discovers passion; and finally the citrino, where one appreciates the goldenness of life.
After all this comes a full - colour Mandorla. This is the pavanis, the peacock's tail that contains all the preceding hues. One cannot stop this process until one has brought it to the pavanis, that concert of colours that contains everything.
Wrongly done, the many colours of life produce a grayness, and all the colours neutralize each other into a dull monotony. Correctly done, the pavanis comes and all the colours of life make a magnificent and rich pattern. The mandorla is not the place of neutrality or compromise, it is the place of the peacock's tail and rainbows.........