Shadow work

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uaya
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Shadow work

Post by uaya »

So I recently came across a content creator online that follows Hinduism and is part of the spiritual/witch community, and she was explaining why she does not do shadow work. For her as a Hindu, working on the mind and the subconscious was pandering to the delusion that the mind even existed. In her path, only the body and consciousness exist, so they only work on those aspects. So she explains the difference like this:

-Shadow work is trying to go from point A to point B and having to deal with friction like in Newtonian physics.

-She prefers to turn her weaknesses into advantages with quantum leaping and manifestation, like bi-location, from point A to B. A more quantum version of physics.

It was stressed that she does not support spiritual bypassing but was advocating not to work within your own subconsciousness because the mind is a delusion of the ego. If you keep trying to transcend the issues of the mind, you are constantly reinforcing that it exists.

What do you all think, and how does healing/shadow work/self-improvement fit into your craft? I feel like it is necessary right?

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Firebird
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Re: Shadow work

Post by Firebird »

uaya wrote: Thu Feb 04, 2021 2:30 pm but was advocating not to work within your own subconsciousness because the mind is a delusion of the ego. If you keep trying to transcend the issues of the mind, you are constantly reinforcing that it exists.
That makes a great deal of sense.

I believe it is said when you work with the shadow, which many times means the damage one has accrued with negative life experiences, you have to walk through the muck again which brings the trauma to the foreground, so yea...that could be re traumatizing, and maybe not always beneficial. Although to peel the layers you have to recognize that they exist in the first place and how they may be affecting your life now. Then you are free to leave it behind. Some trauma is so great that it may take several looks at it to determine how it is negatively impacting you. Ideally you use the Magus of To know, will, dare, and keep silent.
Know the damage, will it to be away, dare it never return, and leave it behind by silence: not to speak of again.
I guess both understanding the Shadow and leaving the Shadow in the dark have their advantages.
Personally, peeling the layers is like a freeing exercise that only brings deeper awareness.
:D bb, Firebird
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Corbin
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Re: Shadow work

Post by Corbin »

Personal thoughts only - I can only comment on my own ideas, feelings and experiences (something we must all agree with).

1) Hinduism is not Witchcraft.
2) Not everyone is ready for Shadow-work / it is not suitable or even necessary for everybody.

It is said that there are many paths to enlightenment - as some have said before 'all paths lead to god', you could just as easily say 'all paths lead to the Goddess'.

I've done my shadow-work (detailed elsewhere) because there was a drive to do so.

I have a different outlook on the illusion best exemplified as: 'use your illusion - don't be used by it' - but that is specifically a very witchcraft / psychological approach, outlook and mindset. Harnessing Illusion is dreamweaving. It is an artists brush and an artists palette. It is the empty chair of the gestalt.

As a hedge-worker, I use illusion all the time to tap into the symbolic language of the subconscious. But I am a very aware of the faerie-ring - that the treasures brought back from the otherworld need to be examined with a logical head in the cold light of day. A balance. Illusion has remarkable value, ask any artist, poet or storyteller.

Even losing yourself in the faerie ring is a process - every 'mistake' a lesson disguised as a mistake. It how we learn, how we grow.

You see, I don't see any process as being without purpose - just part of the journey - just things which can be harmful in excess and of supreme use and purpose when understood and harmonised (where they become greater then the sum of its parts, allies not enemies).

Is the ego deluding us? Or is it a process of a spiritual depth waving its hands and shouting that something needs to be addressed, worked though. That only by examining our illusions in honesty, separating them, examining them can we peel away the layers to get to a significant and personal truth. Part of a hero' journey.

It's not something for everyone but I suspect it is something that at some point in our existence we will need to work through - and will bring equal measure of joy and heartbreak. This was my time.

Physical form doesn't exist? I believe certain things to be true but knowledge is not understanding. Knowing something is a shadow to understanding something and that is achieved by a process or serendipity - getting to the right point where 'magic happens', where understanding transcends knowledge and is in the soul rather then simply in the mind. This is enlightenment and it is a path, a process, a momentum.

You could sit in a sanctuary and meditate until you feel this or in a secular world connect to the sacred; its simply part of the work. Witchcraft is work. As for if shadow-work is right? Some are pushed from behind. That is their path - and no method or path devalues the other. There as many paths as people and at the same time but one.
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Lord_of_Nightmares
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Re: Shadow work

Post by Lord_of_Nightmares »

I am Hindu and Wiccan, and she may be a different form of Hinduism than me. Since the religion is non-dogmatic, she doesn't speak for all of us, at all. Some of us Hindus do not see egos as an illusion.

I also feel some of the things she is saying, is very either she is misunderstanding it or she is being deceitful here about enlightenment. Some of what she is saying sounds more like Buddhism and the concept of "anatta" rather than Hinduism with the concept of "atman".

I guess I have been doing what constitutes "shadow work" but it is more of Hindu/Buddhist meditations in dealing with negative emotions. I find these things to be a natural thing for me, but I agree, it is not for everyone.
I am the Earth, The Sun and the Stars
And I am the also the Moon
I am all animal and birds,
And I am the outcast as well, and the thief
I am the low person of dreadful deeds,
And the great person of excellent deeds
I am Female. I am Male and I am Neuter.
- Devi
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