Dancing With Shadow

This application for the 2017 Parallel Perception Scholarship was submitted by Mark.  If you would like to offer your support for Mark please leave a comment at the end of this blog post.

I am at a pivotal threshold in my life path and I would love to take this opportunity to share the insights that Lujan Matus has so masterfully allowed me to realize.

In the beginning of our journeys, we often gravitate towards spiritual teachers or motivational speakers that tell us what we WANT to hear as opposed to what we NEED to hear. We focus on the positive and expel any sort of negativity from our minds.

But as Sun Tzu, in The Art of War states:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Imagine a Yin Yang symbol suspended within the void. One side blue, representing “positivity” and the other side red, representing “negativity”. Also, imagine that when you focus on the blue/positive side of the Yin Yang, it becomes brighter and more vivid, while the red/negative side becomes suppressed and APPEARS to fade away.

Since the beginning of my path into spirituality/self development I have mainly focused upon positive thoughts and feelings and exiled any form of negativity from the scope of my perception. But if you only focus on one side of the Yin Yang, the other side is still there, you just can’t see it.

I have entertained the idea many times, but have recently began to embody the fact that in order to become buoyant and to see the truth of the circumstance that we are in, we must see both the “good” and the “bad” from a neutral perspective. The Yin Yang appears to symbolize duality, when in actuality, it symbolizes unity.

We must examine our behavior extensively. We are constantly dancing with shadow, whether we’re aware of it or not. For the past few years I have been focused on positive thoughts and would have considered myself a very positive person. All of the other gurus and spiritual teachers said things like “feel good now” and “focus on your desires” and things of this nature. I did exactly this, but I remained stuck within my circumstance.

Even though I was focused on my positivity, I was a slave to the hypnotic rhythm of “that same old thing” without even realizing it. Since I couldn’t see the enemy, the enemy took advantage of me for many years.

But through Lujan’s guidance and through careful examination and continual practice of an empty, formless 98% inward gaze, the shadow is progressively becoming powerless over my behavior and I am able to stop any form of behavior that compromises the feeling in my chest.

Back in July, Lujan and I had five Skype meetings and at the end of the first meeting (which was very confronting and I was vulnerable and frightened for basically 55 minutes of the hour) Lujan had left me with very beautiful feelings and I had felt that I would not compromise my integrity after that point. But I did.

The next week I came back and Lujan asked me “Tell me what happened last week.” and I said “Shadow attention got me.” I blamed shadow attention for my wrong doings. And Lujan said something to the effect of “Shadow attention is you”, meaning that when I compromised my integrity, I was fully in control of my actions, which I was.

Lujan’s teachings are not a magic pill that instantly and magically change your circumstance. It is truly up to you as an individual to apply these teachings in your life. Nobody will make the change for you. It is only now, three months after our meeting that I am finally beginning to claim sovereignty over my personal power.

As I become filled with emptiness, clarity ensues. As I let go of thought and action that is disharmonious with my energetic signature, I resonate my being more powerfully and my circumstance begins to shift synchronistically into resonance with my being.

Thank you for everything Lujan.

Mark
Canada