Enlightenment Intensive, 2006
Many people, when we talk about acts, routines, and numbers, think of this as our “dark side” or “shadow self.” They speak in terms of our “darkness” and imply that this part of us is somehow bad and wrong.
The vast majority of people construct a version of themselves. We script our lives and become forgetful that we’re living a series of poses.
But I’m not somehow implying that this is bad and wrong. It isn’t a “dark side” or a “shadow self.” It’s just a version of us that we’ve constructed. It can however have unfortunate consequences.
One the other side of things, if one raises the subject with many other people, they feel attacked. It’s a very difficult discussion to have. Most people today don’t know why we’d discuss it.
It’s a lost piece of knowledge in our society as it’s constituted today. Very few people continue to have the same understanding that was the common property of the Growth Movement. Where have you heard anyone say today “I’m aware that” or “I observe in myself,” etc.?
Self-observation, owning our numbers, being responsible for our agendas and investments – all these are lines in the Dead Sea scrolls at the moment.
If I were to say to most people we need to become aware of our investments, they’d think I was being belligerent or negative. If I dared to imply that a person seemed to have a hidden agenda which I’d prefer was raised to awareness, they’d declare war on me.
That’s one reason why I haven’t pursued these subjects in perhaps the last ten years. There was no context in which to fit it. The context has been lost decades ago.
Be that as it may, this is the place I say we need to go as a society. We need to become skilled in raising the hidden side of our behavior to awareness, the constructed side, the packaged and repetitive, automatic and artificial side. Like the iceberg which is 9/10 below the surface, and which can spear a ship without the spear being visible, 9/10 of our behavior is not at this moment visible to us either. And it can up-end lightworker efforts.
For nourishment, I have to reach back in time and take comfort from the remembered company that so valued this work. I confessed to a colleague a day or so ago that I actually feel lonely. I feel a need for the company and partnership of those people who remember what we created in those years – the clarity, the wholeness, the integrity. The ease with which we spoke, the comfort we felt in each other’s presence, the deep bond of trust.
One day, when our three-month encounter group was nearing its end and the spring sun was becoming warmer, the whole group took its lunch out and sat on the porch. No one spoke a word. Everyone was deeply reflective. And you could feel the love that connected us all. It was as thick as soup.