The Quest for the Super Man
Many religions have based their teachings on the idea that man is an imperfect being that needs a lot of hard work in order to reach a higher state of purity, consciousness, or goodness. This approach has helped countless people throughout the ages transcend their negative qualities and embrace a compassionate attitude toward all living beings. But its downside resulted in a literature that encourages putting ourselves in a constant inner struggle with matters that can never be exterminated from our psyche or biology: issues like sexuality, rationality, intuition, desire, and attachment, are all more or less perceived as threatening to our “salvation”.
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Mystical and Esoteric schools also worked around this notion. Even though many of them stress on accepting ourselves as we are with all our defects, the bulk of their work is still based on building “a better man”. After years of disseminating Esoteric concepts to the public since the 19th century, it became one of the main streams that contributed to the appearance of what we call today the “New Age” philosophy. The latter emerged as a hybrid between the 19th century “New Thought” (a spiritual current that formulated the notion that "right thinking" has a healing effect on the body), and the 20th century ”self-help” and motivational psychology, in addition to different elements imported from East Asian religions and Christianity, together with other simplified concepts from Esoteric schools.
As a blend of many sources that focus on perfecting everything related to man, New Age philosophy took the self-improvement ideas to an unprecedented level. It is today attracting millions of interested people around the planet. But as the emphasis on absolute positivity grew, so did the negative effects of such an approach. In the quest for superman, we have burdened ourselves with much more than we can carry.
What really happens when we suppress our shadow?
New Age beliefs call to refrain from expressing any sort of negative thoughts, emotions, or traits, under the caution of crystallizing and amplifying them. In a similar way, people who believe in the Law of Attraction consider that their negative thoughts result in negative life experiences, suffering, disease, and unpleasantness. But it often happens that this perspective encourages us to ignore our dark side instead of acknowledging it, which paves the way to become stuck on the opposite side of what we want to achieve. Denying the existence of our shadow qualities, our defects, and shortcomings, prevents us from understanding them and inhibits our capacity to deal with them when they emerge. This way, we won’t have the means to work them out gradually and truly become a better person. Unattended and ignored, our negative qualities will lurk in the shadows, grow into an even darker shade, and become a hidden force that affects our attitude and actions greatly in ordinary life.
For example, if we convinced ourselves that we can never be angry because we became so good at hiding external signs of anger, then it’s very likely that we will act angrily without even knowing it. Our claim of transcending anger becomes a camouflage to be angry on the inside all the time, indulging ourselves in passive aggressive behavior toward everyone and everything.
Similarly, if we waged a daily war on ourselves, thinking that it’s the only way to deal with our negative traits, we’ll end up exhausted, troubled, and depressed, especially if these defects are natural human emotions.
That’s why, many a time, we see people who claim to be “enlightened” behaving worse than “ordinary” people. We see them bursting in anger over the smallest issue, engaging in internet wars against each other, abusing people around them, or making all sorts of wrongdoings.
The bright side of darkness
In praise of darkness, it’s often said that it’s an integral component of the universe through which we have the possibility to recognize what light is, just as death allows us to cherish and know what life is. Likewise, all the negative aspects and feelings have in fact a brighter side. They don’t just allow us to learn about the good things in life, like when sadness teaches us the beauty of happiness, but they also have a value on their own. Learning to embrace the YOU in the mirror. Thereby teaching us how to really love ourselves.
Anger for example, is often the outset of terrible things; but at times, it preserves our humanity: when a tree is cut down, when a child is hurt, or an injustice has been inflicted, it’s anger that drives us to amend the situation.
Despair is a gateway toward acknowledging hard facts and the first step toward finding a solution for any predicament we face. Sadness is the meter of happiness; it allows us to discover what really bring us joy and stimulates us to pursue it. Our ego gives us a sense of identity, stability and space in a crowded and dangerous world. Judgment is a defense mechanism by which our brain works to protect us from repeating the same harmful experiences. And attachment is the process through which we grow to love a person, a song, a place, and therefore the whole world.
That does not mean that all these aspects are to be praised and magnified, but to understand that there’s another side to the story. These issues are part of us, they make us who we are. We cannot decide suddenly that we can ditch a feeling or a trait that human beings have had since their first dawn on this earth.
We can of course work on clearing and purifying our inner dimension, but this is a lifelong process and not something that could be achieved in one retreat. Treating all the anger, resentment, failures, mistakes, and negative traits starts by first accepting who we are, by acknowledging all our aspects, our good and bad, our sweet and sour. It starts by embracing our dark side, and understanding it, then working our way with it slowly to transform it from a lurking shadow into a supportive companion!
The secret in the mirror
What would you think if one day, you looked behind you and found no shadow?
You’d probably wonder whether you’re dead, or you might recall the legends about vampires who have no reflection in the mirror or dark beings who show no shadow when the light is cast upon them. In all cases, you’d see it as a sign that you might have ceased to exist as an ordinary person. Popular myths say that vampires don’t have a reflection because they’re devoid of spirit; in a similar way, we can safely say that the absence of a shadow for a person is a sign that they’re not human…
Our reflection, whether in the mirror, or on the ground, along with all the shortcomings and defects it shows, is deeply perceived in our consciousness as a sign that we do exist, and many have learned this lesson a long time ago: “We can’t possibly exist without a shadow”…