Saturday, June 13, 2015

When You Have a Chance to Step out of the Shadow

I have often wondered why I feel that I understand addiction so well when in fact I have never experienced one. The reason is that the letting go of an ego aspect feels exactly like it. The experience of "doomed with and doomed without". Who knows, perhaps that is what the snake experiences as it lets go of its skin; it shakes and shakes until the old one is finally gone.

The three temptations of Jesus and Gautama were almost identical symbolically, even though both men struggled with very different issues. In my humble opinion the story of the three temptations caused a lot of havoc in the religious community. It somehow creates the image that you can just decide on your nature. Nothing could be further from the truth. Transcending is an insight, not a decision. Gautama's enlightenment came after a seven year soul searching exercise, and we know little of what Jesus went through before he had his enlightenment in the desert. The old skin will fall off when it is ready. You can't scrape it off your body beforehand.

"I can't live with or without you", as U2 puts it so well. The old skin starts itching and showing signs of wear and tear, while the new skin is not quite ready yet. Accept and embrace this period. Enormous insights wait for you in this holy shadow period. It is a period where you can get depressed over the impossibility of this task, or you can experience enormous power surges caused by the tension within. This choice is entirely up to you. Accept the struggle, find creative outlets for the otherwise destructive energy and just wait for God's chance to transcend to a higher spiritual level.

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