06-11-2011, 10:14 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-11-2011, 10:15 PM by Bring4th_Austin.)
I thought I would share a Q'uo passage I think may be relevant to this discussion of seeing evil in other-selves and acknowledging our own dark sides.
Quote:Knowing the self builds upon itself. When you first begin to know yourself, usually through the mirrors of other people and pondering what bothers you and what pleases you and taking all of those things into contemplation, you are disturbed by what you find. For you have a shadow side. We ask you to look fully into that shadow side, knowing that since all is one you are all things and you have a full range of selfhood.
Naturally, you have emphasized those parts of your personality which seem good to you. Yet those sides of the personality which seem dark are just as worthy, and just as worthy of respect, shall we say. They are a part of you and they need to be loved and honored. And this is where you come into accepting yourself. It often takes a long time to see yourself fully—the self that is the murderer, the rapist, the thief, the liar, all of those things you would never be, you would never act out. Yet you see them coming to you through the eyes, the actions, the thoughts of other people. And you say, “That couldn’t be me. That’s very disturbing.” And yet, my friends, you have those aspects within you. And they need to be acknowledged and loved and accepted. And then they need to be given orders from the daylight side, for they have their part to play in your service here.
If you take the thief and the rapist and the murderer and all of those anarchic elements, what they have in common is a kind of strength that sometimes is missing from the sweeter and more angelic side. And you need to have that grit, that perseverance, that ability to be bloody-minded for the good, to hold your ground, to hold the light and to remain yourself. Those shadow sides of personality are the elements that give you the depth of ability to stand your ground. They give teeth to your ideals. They give you a toughness that you would not otherwise have. And these are good things.
Consequently, we ask you as you look at yourself, as you get to know yourself, as you find these non-integrated portions of your shadow side, and to lift them up into your arms and to love them, to cradle them to you and to say, “Come work with me for the light. Come with me into the light.”
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The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.
The only frontier that has ever existed is the self.