Four Aspects of Redemption

Four Aspects of Redemption

Stuart Wilde


(The psychology of the shadow process)

I came to see the first aspect of redemption is what I call the investigation. This is where you make rudimentary enquiries about yourself and realize you have a shadow and you start to think about it gradually indicting yourself for your crimes against humanity and animals, and for your actions in life and your shadow traits, in effect ‘owing the program’.

The second part is the pledge. This is where you agree albeit tentatively NOT to do whatever you used to be doing, so in effect it is a loose promise to become a better person.

This is the point where sooner later you go in to a crisis as what has been done so far is not enough to complete the shadow process even if you think it is. This is when people may fall backwards and even leave the spiritual/psychological journey all together.

Sometimes they seem to externalize parts of their unresolved shadow on other people and make them into a devil, or blame them, or at other times they experience life falling apart at the seams. This is when the ego usually decides to make a run for it. But the shadow never goes away; it is in your soul there is no place to run.

I’m not a Christian but I respect Jesus and his work greatly. There is an analogy in the Bible of this process of redemption. It says that when Jesus was tempted by the Devil in the desert the Devil wanted Jesus to call him his brother and to love him, but Jesus rejected the dark as being an exterior entity to himself, less than himself, saying "Get behind me Satan."

After the temptation of Jesus was over it is says in the Bible that the Devil departed "...for a season". I imagine that those critical words are missed by most readers. "For a season" means the Devil (the human shadow) retreated to come back later not that he/it departed and went for ever.

To process the dark one has to embrace the third aspect that I call the agony. This is where you re-enter the shadow process a second time to see the pain and sadness it has caused you, and moreover to comprehend the pain it has caused others. You have to feel for their pain or, the agony of the dark inside you never goes away. So you may naturally go into self-doubt, gilt and feeling lousy about yourself, which is to be expected.

Or, you let go and you comprehend the enormity of other peoples’ pain that you created and you realize how that became your pain and you empathize with them and love them and you learn from it. Essentially you go through a crucifixion.

This is the last part of the shadow journey when the Devil returns ‘after a season’. First you experience the betrayal of Jesus because you betrayed yourself and others by lying and pretending to be decent while perhaps being rather vile. Second, there comes the agony of Gethsemane where you feel hopeless and lost and a little ashamed and maybe a bit of fear sets in.

Then you are taken to your trial where you shadow is shown to you. Jesus pretended to be perfect so he was convicted anyway (shadow is not innocent). Then comes the carrying of the cross, which is the weight of it all. I was on a sacred journey once when this happened to me and I could feel the wood of the cross and the way it dug into my shoulders. The pain of the wood lasted for three days on an off. All these components are common to everyone.

Then the nails are placed in the feet and hands and you become immobile unable to act; comatose. The ego is dying and the shadow is lonely and scared as it knows its time is up. Gradually you die on the cross and you ascend to something better, your true celestial self—a divine being.

The final part of the process is the action that you must take to actually do something about the way you treated people, begging forgiveness, paying old debts, acts of kindness and service towards humanity, tenderness and care, becoming a vegetarian maybe. Then gradually you are made whole and the celestial opens up to receive you back in its unfathomable soul.

Your dark is inside your heart now ‘loved and cared for’ by you and understood and under control and the interplay of light and dark is over, that is redemption, and now you have a real protection for the Devil truly is your brother or little sister. Not because you are devilish but because you realize the Devil is you and you have now returned that darkness within you to the light, you have made one small part of the overall global-devil, whole—restored it.
See how beautiful it is?

"I squeak the truth, Bra..." ....have to--pledged to it.
(The Art of Redemption by Stuart Wilde published by Hay House)© Stuart Wilde 2009
http://www.StuartWildeBlog.com