Acceptance of the Shadows of the Self
A chill wind whips through the bare branches, and the fire crackles in the hearth. Awake and aware, you survey the moment. A question hangs in the air: “Is self-observation a moment of accepting oneself, or does that come afterwards?”
The answer, as with so much in this Work, is both simple and unsettling. Self-observation, as we understand it, is not simple acceptance. It is a cold, clinical examination, an uncomfortable ray of light piercing the murky depths of our inner darkness. It calls for a ruthless honesty that few possess. It is through this relentless observation of the “I’s” that we begin to glimpse the true extent of our fragmented selves, the chaotic multiplicity that governs our actions. We are, as Ouspensky pointed out, a collection of contradictions, living in disjointed fragments, blind to our own disunity.
Acceptance, then, comes after. It is the arduous process of acknowledging the truth revealed by self-observation, of admitting that the photographs taken by our inner eye are not flattering ones. We are faced with the stark reality of our contradictions, our failings, our “obscured side” – the aspects of ourselves we conveniently ignore.
Why is such acceptance so difficult?
We are masters of self-deception. Our False Personality, that carefully maintained facade, fiercely guards its illusion of perfection. It whispers comforting lies, obscuring the truth with self-justification and denial. We know things about ourselves, but refuse to admit them, clinging to a false image of who we believe we are.
This resistance stems from our hypnotic sleep, a state strongly supported by the insidious influence of buffers -those psychological cushions that prevent us from confronting the reality of our fragmented being. They usurp Real Conscience. They allow us to navigate life with a false sense of worth, oblivious to the gaping chasm between our imagined selves and the truth.
True acceptance demands that we confront our “dark side,” the aspects of ourselves we keep hidden, even from ourselves. It is a painful process, a dismantling of the carefully constructed edifice of our self-image. Yet, it is the only path available to genuine self-change. As we begin to see ourselves as we truly are, the false self begins to crumble, exposing the psychological strain of living a lie.
We are, as Ospensky pointed out, living on one side of a circle, only admitting a fraction of our being into consciousness. The other half remains shrouded in darkness, buffered off and denied. This fragmented existence leaves us vulnerable and easily upset by the inevitable contradictions of life. To walk the full circle of Being, we must destroy the buffers.
Once destroyed, they cannot be reformed. We must embrace the totality of ourselves, the light and the dark, the virtues and the vices. Only then can we achieve true inner stability, a peace that transcends the fleeting approval of others.
This Work teaches us that the same struggles reside within all of us. We are all bound by the shared condition of our humanity. It is in acknowledging our shared imperfection that we find true humility, a sense of “nothingness” that paradoxically leads to peace and strength.