By insisting so strongly that we ought to love one another, Christianity has in effect not only interfered with our normal sexual development, which is not like romantic love at all, but also with certain innate trends of cruelty and hatred which are necessary aspects of our reality, at least during our early experience of life.
E. Graham Howe
Who is the real me? Am I the real me when I am in touch with the Christ in me, the Atman, the Soul or the True Self, or however else we call this Force that seems to exist within us. Blessed are the children, the women and the mystics who are in touch with this Force, but all ordinary folks like me can only experience the 'I'. It turns out that the 'I' has many faces; in E. Graham Howe's words, we experience the Christian love and the romantic love as well as the animal spirits and the violence. The 'I' encompasses the light as well as the shadow; that is what being human is all about.
Many spiritual travelers have commented on the shadow experience. The shadow pops up because we tend to appeal to an archetype; we want to be someone else in the name of spirituality and we negate the existing other forces inside; we literally sweep them under the carpet because they are too ugly to look at. Step 1 in the process is to acknowledge that you have a shadow; this by itself is hard to do. Step 2 is how to deal with it. Many appeal to the True Self whenever the shadow pops up and try to purify themselves until the shadow goes away. Others accept and embrace the shadow and some even try to harness the power of the demon and put it to a good use.
I try to balance the different phases inside myself very much like a surfer rides the waves of the ocean. Just to give you one example, I enjoy my spiritual outlets like my writings or my conversations within the spiritual community very much. More than that, I would even say I live for them. Nevertheless, I keep a foot in the real world just because I know it is the outlet for the energy that still has to be harnessed by life. I guess this approach sums up my philosophy as a Tao traveler pretty well: Everything is perfect as is to get us to experience our Core; so embrace your life wholeheartedly and to the best of your abilities and get done whatever it is you still need to accomplish. Life and the resistance you face keep your demon at bay; all you have to do is to show up and put your best foot forward each step of the Way.
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