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In this fascinating clip, Father Thomas Keating asks Diane Musho Hamilton Sensei about how to best approach shadow work when it is something within yourself that is triggering a negative response, as opposed to something outside of yourself. This can be extremely difficult or confusing for many people; the self is an incessantly shifting target, and often very elusive—deceptive even—when asked to reveal it's deepest and darkest secrets, even to itself. Father Thomas then deepens the conversation by asking what happens once a person's own shadow is in fact identified and confronted—for many people, recognizing their own shadows can effectively amplify those shadows, as the ever-conniving self tricks itself into thinking the shadow is being integrated and liberated by the light of consciousness, when it is actually just given the space to be freely (and often obnoxiously) expressed....
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Here Father Thomas asks Diane how to go about performing shadow work when a person feels that their race, religion, or culture are being attacked—especially if that person is coming from an amber or mythic-membership stage of development, when even a well-intentioned exchange of ideas and perspectives can trigger a strongly defensive reaction. Diane responds by emphasizing the two primary purposes of just about any form of shadow work: 1st-person liberation of the self, and 2nd-person harmony with others, neither of which can be fully realized without the other....
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Most of the truly advanced practitioners in any area of human growth — whether in meditation, prayer, shadow work, yoga, kung fu, etc.—say that the real fruits of practice come when we begin to use the practice spontaneously throughout the day, when it becomes an intrinsic part of the fabric of our lifestyle, and not just an activity limited to the temporal container we set aside for it. In this delightful clip, Diane and Father Thomas share two different, but equally powerful methods from their own traditions to deal with difficult emotions the very moment they arise, wherever you may be....
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What do we do when, in times of crisis, we notice ourselves confined to the limitations of our "small self," despite our commitment to spiritual awakening? Father Thomas and Diane continue their discussion of the difficult relationship between spiritual practice and shadow work, particularly as applied to the mythic or ethnocentric stage of development. Considering the fact that even history's most realized saints have often been embedded in mythic consciousness, it is becoming increasingly important to recognize the difference between states of spiritual experience and stages of psychological development, and to properly account for both in any definition of the word "enlightenment."
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