To Contract AND Not to Contract; There is No Question

I don't know if I'm intuiting something important or not, but I think I am. 

It seems to me now that everything that exists can be seen as a Contraction which creates Shadow.  Everything.  To exist means to be located in a place and time which means there is also a place and time where you do not exist.  Only that which is beyond existing and not existing can do both.  So, I guess I have to agree with the Atheists who say that God does not exist.  If we understand existence as a small sub-section of that which transcends existence, then I gotta hand it to 'em: God would, logically, include existing and not existing.  But I doubt that's what they're talking about.  When humans speak of God, we're mainly concerning ourselves with the part Who does Exist. 

Hence, my point. 

Once something is committed to being, a space and time where it is not, also emerges.  You cannot create something without also creating the non-existence of it.  Before a thing existed, it's non-existence didn't exist yet either.  Call it condensation or contraction or whatever.  First, there is a field of potential, then a thing emerges simultaneously alongside of it's opposite or non-thing. 

As humans, we have great power to create.  But we create without awareness of this Shadow creation.  I want my personal space to be beautiful, therefore I decorate and arrange my things artfully around me.  We do not usually acknowledge what happens when we do this - that we therefore also create space where, what we think of as beautiful, does not exist.  Without realizing what we've done, we've powerfully created a space of ugliness - which is prolly fairly large since we can't decorate the whole world. 

Another example: I want to generate kindness.  Therefore I adopt a manner of behavior and attitude which includes as much of what the majority of humans consider kind as I can.  This seems simple enough and a wonderful goal.  But without knowing it I've also generated the opposite of this kindness.  My desire has begun a process which chooses one thing over another, leaving behind the other, creating a pile of rejected others.  Others like being indiferent to the needs or sufferings of other people or causing pain to other people. 

I am only aware of the thing I have intended: kindness.  By rejecting the impulse to be indiferent or cruel within myself, I have also rejected that impulse in other people.  Those other people do not necessarily feel inspired by my rejection.  They may just feel rejected.  And that which exists but is rejected, will assert itself.  What you resist, shall persist.  And we're as sick as our secrets.  Those rejected other people will gather around the pile of rejected behaviors and attitudes and protect and assert it with or without our permission.  We have unwittingly created and strengthened our "enemy". 

Everything that exists has this Shadow.  Everything. 

God.  Me and you.  The earth.  The Universe.  An atom.  A beautiful painting.  A thought.  A drop of rain.

It seems to me that the Eastern Spiritual Traditions have recognised this and have tried to help us turn this thing around and disempower the suffering which comes as a result of the lack of existence of those things which we have intended.  Sort of, run the tape backwards and dissolve everything so that all we have left is that field of potential and there's no existence and no Shadow and no one gets hurt. 

Isn't that regressive?

I've been watching (as closely as I have time for) Andrew Cohen's Spiritual Community and reading his convos with Ken Wilber.  This morning I was perusing the Zaadzsters page and found a profile who looked inneresting to me so I followed it.  It lead me to a website for a Teacher named simply, Thomas.  Who knew that the Germans could achieve enlightenment?!  As I listened to a video of Thomas talking about  some of the problems inherent with Spiritual Communities, I started to see the problem very clearly.  Some individuals seem to be able to achieve the essence of enlightenment fairly well (others lose it when they must interact with the normal world), but communities get stuck in the idea of enlightenment.  How do we get communities to achieve the essense?  A teacher with a very Powerful Presence can sometimes generate enough Transmission to keep all the members of a Community in a sort of gelatinous state of enlightenment.  In order to function within that Community, an individual must reject a certain amount of their autonomy so they don't sow discord into the We-Space.  It's a fragile bond that breaks easily. 

What if that too is regressive?

What if there is another way?  A way forward.  A way that doesn't run into a glass ceiling and stay stuck in the idea of enlightenment.  A way that includes all that has come before us and achieves what is ahead of us - rejecting nothing.  A way that includes our autonomy, our desire, and everything that we have unintentionally generated as Shadow by creating what we wanted?   What emerges when we run the tape forward instead of backward?  Something besides entropy?  Is there another possibility?

There are alot of folks who are certain that I am asking the wrong questions.  That I don't really understand things correctly, and therefore am confused.  But I don't think that is right. 

Out of the field of possibility has emerged what Is - both what was intended as well as it's Shadow.  The mechanism of creation is, always has been and always will be - Contraction.  Reversing the mechanism of Contraction returns our awareness to that field of possibility - the only place with no Shadow.  But on the way to losing Shadow, we've also lost Existence.  Ramana saw this.  It was a price he was willing to pay.  Nietzsche saw it, but was not willing. 

Is that really the price we have to pay?  And when existence asserts itself and gets all up in our face and disrupts our serenity, is that a price we really can pay? 

I think there must be another way.

~Ww