THE SHADOW SELF
by Jean Pool
Is it possible to have no shadow?
When you don't identify with anything you experience or have experienced, the shadow disappears.
A person’s primary identification is with their body, mind, thoughts and feelings. These all appear to I (subject) as objects.
Why do I (subject) identify with these objects, creating duality: two of me?
The second me, comprised of my identifications with body, mind, thoughts and feelings, casts a shadow. A shadow can only be cast where there is a form as me to cast the shadow, right?
When there is a form, as I, a shadow appears. This shadow must then be understood, requiring shadow work
When there is zero identification with body, mind, thoughts and feelings, on the other hand, no shadow can be found, because I (subject) have been emptied of all forms.
When no form is reflected in the mirror of consciousness, no shadow can be found. Thus shadow work is unnecessary and in fact impossible.
When no form appears in the mirror of consciousness that I call “I", no shadow can be found to study and to integrate back into me
Shadow is most commonly created by trying to be a good person. Thus being a light chaser, pursuing good while trying to avoid evil, is not recommended. This creates and maintains “evil" as a shadow that pursues you wherever you go, and no matter what you do. No wonder so many people believe evil is real!
The opposite, pursuing darkness and avoiding light, casts a shadow as much as pursuing light and avoiding darkness, does.
No opposites are to be pursued. When you choose mentally, between good and bad, success and failure, cleverness or stupidity, pure and impure, you are making shadows, because you are identifying with a concept. The concept - a mental object - becomes part of I, and therefore I now find myself operating from this concept. The concept (object) I embraced is on this side, the side of I (subject): this is the basis of all confusion and the corresponding shadow.
An alternative to trying to purify yourself of all sin, to embrace what is good and avoid evil, or to choose mentally at all, making opposites and therefore shadows where none are needed, is to find out how to be a real person. Awakening has absolutely everything to do with being a real person, rather than a hypocrite who pursues peace and love but is herself neither peaceful nor loving.
Being real is easy if you understand what is required.
What is required is to let go of the fake, non-existent self (the object self, associated with I as subject): what you have identified with. This is, as already mentioned, primarily body, mind, thoughts and feelings.
One way to realise that I (subject) am not a form (object) is to reverse the direction of attention. Place attention in its apparent source (I, subject) and simply cultivate this kind of attention. Do this till it becomes natural, habitual and entirely unconscious. Do nothing else.
When you turn attention to yourself as subject - I who am reading this - you gain awareness of your own mental reactions. As you observe your own mental reactions, you realise you are the only one hurting you. Nobody and nothing has the ability to hurt you. You do it to yourself, through your own mental reactions. Thus, for the first time, you become aware there is no evil. All evil lies within your own unnecessary mental reactions.
When you keep observing yourself as subject, you gradually become aware of where your mental reactions are coming from. They all come from you identifying yourself with something (a form) within you or outside you. As you become aware directly of this connection, and you learn not to react at all, you observe how your identifications with body, mind, thoughts and feelings fall away. As you observe, the self (mental object) is emptied, duality disappears, and a wonderful sense of oneness now becomes your predominant experience and way of relating to the world. In all this, evil is now clearly seen to be entirely unreal, as much as you are no longer a form that can be subjected to harm or destruction (evil).
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