by Aaron Harting
with special guest
Puppetji
I have been doing a lot of work on myself recently regarding shadows. Shadows are that part of ourselves that we don't really like to look at, and we surely don't like for other people to know about. The Yogic literature is rife with the term Kleshas meaning Poisons. It is described in the third sloka of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra:
Avidyāsmitārāgadveṣābhiniveśāḥ pañca kleśāḥ
Translated into English, these five (pañca) Kleśa-s or Afflictions (kleśāḥ) are:
- Ignorance (in the form of a misapprehension about reality) (ávidyā),
- egoism (in the form of an erroneous identification of the Self with the intellect) (asmitā),
- attachment (rāga),
- aversion (dveṣa), and
- fear of death (which is derived from clinging ignorantly to life) (abhiniveśāḥ).
One of the ideas about working with your shadow is if you can recognize those uncomfortable parts of yourself when they come in to play in your life, you can own your shadow, and begin to transform your habitual patterns. It is my judgement that whenever we are feeling "stuck" or "trapped" in our life, there is a shadow lurking behind whatever obstacle we need to overcome to step back into our power. We think we see a snake curled ready to strike, it feels like it might kill us, we get scared. It takes courage to approach that fear, and upon further examination we realize it was just a harmless rope. Our mind takes us for a ride with all of the "What if" scenarios that are a complete fabrication with no concrete reality in life. We let these illusions, these shadows run our lives, because we refuse to step into our power as individuals. The consequence of this is we choose to lead unhappy and discontented lives. By confronting that which scares us, with a playful and gentle attitude, we will be begin to make friends with our shadows so that they no longer dominate our lives. It is an ever unfolding process. When we are able to recognize our own shadow, then we are able to have patience and compassion when we see other peoples shadows get the better of them. If we can accept our own dark places, we will likely be able to accept them in others as well. This work begins right in our own skin. I will include a few links to follow if you are interested in researching a little more. My next few posts will be dealing with Shadows. Thanks for visiting, I hope you come back again! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kle%C5%9B%C4%81http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_%28psychology%29 | 
