Facing your shadow: The dark side of spirituality

How did you feel the day you realised the supposed path to enlightenment ran parallel to the path you were trying to run away from? Following just the one path while ignoring the other makes you go around in circles. Only by following/using both paths can you reach your final destination and find home.

It is like saying I am not going to take this road, even if its the only road to my destination because I don't like the gravel it is made of. Its not as pretty as the other road, travelling along its gravel is not comfortable and the dust from my boots effects people in negative ways, but if it gets you home, its a path you have to travel or risk never going home.

Upon this realisation I mourned my old self, the happy and peaceful third life. The forth life, not as pretty, certainly not as wondrous but defiantly stronger and less susceptible to influence.

I miss the third life that was by far the happiest one but sadly not getting me any closer to home.

a reply to: Equisitor
All paths lead you away from home.

The prodigal son went out into the world of things - looking out.
The prodigal son returned home to the world of no thing - look to see what is looking.

The truth is hidden in plain sight - in the seeing.


You think you are a thing that can find some thing called home. All the while you are seeking for home you do not seek it where you are - where else is there really??
Can you see anywhere else? Can you hear anywhere else? Can you smell anywhere else?
Seeing is here, hearing is here - here is where there is.

Any thing other than what there is here and now is just a thought that appears here and now.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain
a reply to: Equisitor
All paths lead you away from home.

The prodigal son went out into the world of things - looking out.
The prodigal son returned home to the world of no thing - look to see what is looking.

The truth is hidden in plain sight - in the seeing.


You think you are a thing that can find some thing called home. All the while you are seeking for home you do not seek it where you are - where else is there really??
Can you see anywhere else? Can you hear anywhere else? Can you smell anywhere else?
Seeing is here, hearing is here - here is where there is.

Any thing other than what there is here and now is just a thought that appears here and now.

I agree with your post and the previous post. Seeing all for what it is comes from just being and not identifying, yet seeing it all means also seeing that within that we were previously unwilling to face. It is all just coming and going as long as we choose the path of letting go of identification and simply being.

a reply to: Itisnowagain
Home in my example is the return to everything. You cannot return to everything by travelling the light way alone, as you end up as half of everything.

The way I see it, its all about the journey not the destination... as it was the destination we were trying to get away from in the first place The moment you get to the destination, you remember the reasons why you left so you leave once again and try to find a different way back than last time.

Oh the joys of infinite expression

How do you beat something that would mimic your every thought or feeling of ether the wanted desires or unwanted desires before the thought comes to mind? If thoughts and the nerves are fueled by light, then where or what would the shadow be? I mean, hell light maybe the fastest thing, but isn't a shadow just as immediate. Hell it would be almost as fast as the subconscious, to that of the conscious, but maybe a little slower...

Is the shadow a backward process of sorts, opposite of that of the subconscious, where thoughts that weren't thought up, or could of been thought up, or that it didn't want to think about. Or does get imprinted by thoughts thrown into the closet.
I like one quote that Batman said in one movie...

"We both looked into the abyss, but when the abyss looked back at us, you blinked".

a reply to: Subconsciously Correct

if you experience a Kundalini like I did, you face all of that and more... the old self dies... the new self is born.

It was hard but I'd go through it all again tomorrow, because after that, it's 'Unicorns & Rainbows!'

originally posted by: Specimen
How do you beat something that would mimic your every thought or feeling of ether the wanted desires or unwanted desires before the thought comes to mind? If thoughts and the nerves are fueled by light, then where or what would the shadow be? I mean, hell light maybe the fastest thing, but isn't a shadow just as immediate. Hell it would be almost as fast as the subconscious, to that of the conscious, but maybe a little slower...

Is the shadow a backward process of sorts, opposite of that of the subconscious, where thoughts that weren't thought up, or could of been thought up, or that it didn't want to think about. Or does get imprinted by thoughts thrown into the closet.
I like one quote that Batman said in one movie...

"We both looked into the abyss, but when the abyss looked back at us, you blinked".

since the abyss returned gaze.. shadow has grown angrier. Shadow is self.. self is shadow.. yet why does shadow only spew that which does not align with light.. or the paradox is as without everything above !!!

a reply to: Equisitor
There is no journey. You have never been anywhere. You cannot 'return' home - 'home' is where seeing/knowing is happening.
Nothing can appear outside 'home' - so 'everything' is within the seeing.

But there are ideas - ideas that there is some 'thing' more, some 'thing' better - some 'thing' missing. Ideas appear within the seeing. All ideas, all concepts arise within the non conceptual (the seeing/knowing).
You are here and now (home) seeing thoughts arise that speak of somewhere else - the belief in the thoughts that say 'I must find home' take you on a pretend journey away from home.
You have never moved away from home.

What you are has never moved.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

If you move from the east coast of America to the west coast, you are in motion but never left America. Its the same thing, always on the move but never outside of self.

Going back to the Op, people like to separate light and dark but they are the same thing. If you neglect one or the other, your gonna have a bad time yet there are a large percentage of people that do not appreciate the dark side seeing it as the villain of the story rather than the other half of the story.

a reply to: Sacri

Sure why not.

Thing is about the Darkness in the realm of psyches, is that there nothing there, even if you can't see it. The Light on the other, well, it can hit something so fast, you couldn't see it.