9-11 Reflections, 2012 and the Integration of our Shadow Self

Eight years ago today I was a freshmen in College. Eight years ago I walked into my friends dorm room to watch the second plane hit the towers. Four and a half hours away from my home in Staten Island I watched with the same horror that every New Yorker was experiencing. In those moments I had no idea what was awaiting me and my family. It never even occurred to me that Dave, my brother in law of 17 years; a fire fighter in squad one was going to lose his life on his wedding anniversary with my sister.

Eight years later and so much has happened. I’m telling this story, yet I know it is a story. A piece of my identity was shaped by this experience. The years of self-destructive grief and anger that unconsciously moved me through many of my college years. Through this I came to a path of healing and meditation that opened itself up for me in my last years of university. I have had many spiritual deaths since then. Many peak experiences and also dark nights of losing the identity or paradigm that I formally knew as a reality.

Like many others, I became committed to a spiritual path through a shift in paradigms relating to the discovery of elitism. Studying communications in college, I took many courses in journalism and discovered the depth of deception of our media/government and the history of corruption, power and manipulation that exists in the world. I came to know that the world was not run by governments but groups of elite families whose manipulation of world affairs goes back further than one could imagine. This of course went deeper and deeper as I dug, as I sought truth. I wanted to know, something in me deeply needed to know. It all started with 9/11 hitting home and from their the 2012 door was later opened. Somehow my personal journey was interwoven with this powerfully symbolic, Era defining collective catastrophe. Discovering the relationship of major institutions and their use of esoteric or occult sciences to maintain control triggered a rebellion in me. I began a path of healing and reclaiming my own power. Of wanting to spread awareness and inspire others to claim theirs. It forced me to follow the synchronicities and inner knowing that would lead me to the right people, teachers and situations ultimately transforming my destiny, reality and my sense of self.

Now, eight years later I feel compelled to share this. I have let go of many personal stories. I go in and out of relating back to them. The times I had in India, or in the jungles of South America taking plant medicine. Coming home and finding the difficulty of relating who I had “become” (more like what I had “undone”) with what people expected as "me". Over the years of meditating, something has come alive. Something that is beyond my personality, body or mind has come to the surface and I seem to identify more with this than any story. It is an interesting juxtaposition to relate to personal history that is ever creating itself, relationships; a sort of self and other, versus being pure awareness or simply being existence itself. Can we do both at the same time? Maybe that is a form of “enlightenment”.

This whole last week i’ve entered a reflection phase and have been asking a lot of questions. Is there really a right or wrong? A good or bad? It is hard to distinguish feelings from reality, or as I like to call it... THE WHAT IS...beyond our interpretations, projections and RE-defining. The Vedas call it avidya, or ignorance. That which gets in between us and reality. How much of our own values get projected out on the world as an unconscious justification of subtle survival feelings? I’m getting to a point of letting it all go. There is nothing to change “out there”. This drive to make the world a better place can just be the ego feeling unsafe in a world it doesn’t understand. Does the sun care when you die? Does the moon stop for you when the suffering is too strong. This interplay of our personal stories, of our soul or spirit having a human experience coupled with the overwhelming magnitude of the universe has been hovering over me. This paradox is making me question every value that I’ve ever sworn bye. We have to dig deep to find truth. Who are you? Who am I? These are very important questions at this time of great change.

I’m coming to the point of understanding that the basis, or the majority of our reality is a creation our ego. Not the ego in traditional eastern or western terms. More the Ego in the way I have come to know it as... is the inner child. A survival mechanism and also that which clings to familiarity and resists change. The ego-or inner child is really an imprinting of energies in the central nervous system (Chakras). Essentially the first 3 Chakras is where our inner child-ego resides, and this flow of energy contributes the shaping of reality; how we relate ourself, the other and the environment. It is our shadow self, our unclaimed piece that is affecting us through its patterning our whole lives. I have been in a process of “unfreezing” or integrating these energies in my Chakras. Essentially dismantling my ego patterns. This is not glamorizing at all, as it takes a lot of courage and can be terrifying at times... as well as debilitating.

Right now the familiar is being ripped up during this powerful transformation process. As our old structures come crumbling down, on some level it is shaking our inner child. The basis of this article is to really shed light on this aspect of self that we neglect to embrace or even notice fully. It is always there whether subtle, unconscious or on the surface. We live in a Modern Yoga culture fixated on awakening the Kundalini or OPENING the third eye. From the process I have mentioned, I have come to see that it is more a path of balancing the Chakras. We are all different and have over-active and under-active Chakras. It can be ones imbalance that even creates the desire for enlightenment! What does enlightenment even mean? To make lighter?!, Perhaps. I feel at this point it is a process of DISILLUSIONMENT. Peeling away the layers of illusion, Which needs guidance, support and a strong self-regulating mechanism...to really step back and question our movements/intentions. It is in balancing our Chakras that our soul can come to the surface to make choices instead of our conditioned ego and its fear of change (ie: death). I commonly meet a lot “spiritual” people that seem to use Yoga or Shamanism as a tool that seemingly has been chosen by their ego (inner child) to either, AVOID unwanted feelings or GAIN power for controlling life. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Its just what goes one for a lot of us... Including my self in phases. Blind spots are what they are because we cannot see them. Ask yourself, how much agenda moves me? “GOOD” or “BAD”; am I really going with the flow? Am I really accepting myself or others: AS THEY ARE?

We are in a rapidly accelerating time-space, co-creating point of culminated manifestation. Whatever we desire we can make happen. BECAUSE OF THIS... It so important to come from a place of deep silence and compassion. It is important to create out of the inspiration of the soul and NOT the reaction of the ego (whether its altruistic or not). Remember, based on what was expressed; CHANGE = DEATH to the inner child/ego. This Change needs to come with an acceptance. Coming out of all this heavy speculation, I feel it is important to consider your relationship with your destructive side. I am now seeing my own self-destructive side as my inner child acting out. We all have a death drive and drive for life. Learning compassion for myself and others, i’m coming to understand that this wrong, or “evil” in the world comes from that same child in others. All the destructiveness comes from an un-integrated child!; from a panicked child in someone’s nervous system lashing out. Now is the time that we must become the parents of ourself. To be grounded and committed to seeing the world in a way of relating to existence and not projecting our ideal out on others...objectifying our subjective reality in an unhealthy schism. We have the power to let go! To be with things as they are and align with these natural cycles. Now is the time to seek refuge only in our center and to make responsible choices as mature spiritual adults. We will always dance with paradox/duality until we awake from this dream. I hope this view on things was helpful and interesting for you to consider. Blessings.

“If death is ugly, that means your whole life has been a wastage. Death should be a peaceful acceptance; a loving entry into the unknown, a joyful goodbye to old friends, to the old world. There should not be any tragedy in it.” -OSHO