Shadow and Light

A common metaphor in literature is to liken light to consciousness, and darkness to ignorance. But what makes a good metaphor truly resounding is that it isn't simply analogous, but one and the same. Light is consciousness, and darkness (or shadow) is ignorance. This is where spirituality trumps a scientific view of the world in which all things are seen as separate until proven to be linked, and then still kept compartmentalized for the purpose of isolating phenomena for proper labeling. In the spiritual world view all things are linked, in fact all things are one, and not to sound cliche but, it's all good.

This is the spiritual view, but not necessarily the religious one. In fact, many religions don't stop at dividing the world between "good" and "bad" but take it up a notch with terms like "Evil". Even among the secular who have no special faith in science or religion it's almost impossible to shake the idea that some things are just bad, or simply no good. Ignorance is one of these no good phenomena that we as humans have almost universal unanimity in our wholesale rejection of. And what crazy person would stand up for this underdog of the underworld to be the ultimate devils advocate, to actually advocate on behalf of the devil himself? Ummm, I'll take that challenge, and I'm just crazy enough to do it.

Consciousness (or awareness) is light, and what is light without dark? What is day without night? How can anyone or anything be illuminated when there is nothing to illuminate? And even that which is illuminated is still textured by the interplay between shadow and light, without shadow there would be only light, only a blinding whiteness from which nothing could take form. Even when light shines out into and endless sea of darkness as the Sun and every star in the universe it is shadow that defines that light. Shadow and light appear to be mutually exclusive yet they always meet at the frayed edges of our perception giving us a world of vivid visuals. As light grows shadow shrinks but never fully dissipates, always ready to roll back in with the ebb and flow of our awareness.

We earthbound souls yearn to return to a world of only light, we long to be enlightened so that we might show others the way. But we came to this world for all of the shadow it provides us to live our lifetimes in a state of self discovery, and how can we dis-cover what has not been covered over to begin with? All matter is light trapped, or slowed in it's vibration to a degree that it appears to be stationary, stagnant, permanent. We walk through the forest feeling that it is nothing but an earthy obstacle course not seeing how it flows from the ground up ever so slowly compared to our relatively rapid gaits. To the trees we are almost imperceptible, like fleeting flickering ghosts gone as fast as we came.

But our lives on this planet are not intended to be those of limitless godheads who can see to the ends of the universe and into the mind of the great spirit. Our consciousness may expand and contract but as a rule it can only hold a hand full of awareness at a time, to pick up another hand full requires putting down what you now hold. Our light shines like a flashlight into the darkness, we only see what we focus on and when we turn it is gone to us though it lingers in our blind spot. The Sun and every star is there to show us what it is to have total awareness, complete illumination, to shine in all directions simultaneously. But awareness is not knowledge, it's only a temporary focus on knowledge. We "Know" everything, we simply ignore most of it most of the time, this is ignor-ance and it works hand and glove with awareness.

Now that you know it all, enjoy your ignorance. It's your coffee break from your true state of enlightenment and total illumination.