Life Between Light and Shadow

Life is strange … we build our certainties in the form of thoughts or matter and they become the illuminated area of our life. The rest is in shadow.

When we are inflexible on our certainties, then the illuminated area of our life remains unchanged, as the one in shadow.

When, on the contrary, our certainties change slightly or radically, then new certainties become the new illuminated area of our life, overshadowing the rest, maybe also what was previously illuminated.

It looks like a game of perspectives, things to put in the foreground or in the background. But who pulls the string of this game and what happens when we need to decide what to illuminate or to put in shadow?

The illuminated area is often the one we like, the one we are proud of and that we gladly show others.  It is so illuminated that the one in shadow goes into the background: useless details, why should we waste time in trivialities? And our life goes on, new experiences and beliefs will move the borders of the illuminated area attracting our focus like a magnet … and leaving those “trivialities” always in shadow.

Ironically, sometimes it looks like only our dark part is illuminated, the one we don’t like and that we would gladly hide even to ourselves.  A strange twist of fate or this ghost puppeteer make it the only detail we are able to see: our defects and miseries are mercilessly under the spotlight.  And yet, even though we don’t like them, we keep staring at them with no will to ask ourselves questions,  look for answers and then take actions.

And also in this case, the area in shadow goes into the background: useless details, why should we waste time for those trivialities …

But where does this voice come from? And why are we so inclined to listen to it even in diametrically opposite situations like these? In fact, in the first case we don’t look at the defects we should improve, while in the second one we don’t even consider our qualities, that we probably could improve too.

How often we say: if I realized it before, everything would be different! Maybe we are now able to see a detail that previously was in shadow and precisely for this reason we didn’t notice it. But what does create light and shadow? Very often it is our thoughts, our prejudices, our beliefs that illuminate our reality with their light… but is this the only possible light? In my opinion, no. When we ask ourselves this question, we simply change the direction of the light, illuminating what previously was in shadow, thus not existing for us. Actually, it was “simply” under the shadow not of a beautiful tree but of our belief that was hiding it from our view.

Useless details? Not always … and even so, why should they stay in shadow? We and our life are the sum of all details, details in light and shadow. If the sum does not include light and shadow, its result will never be what we really are.

Why do we allow this to happen?

Perhaps it is not us who move the string of this game or perhaps we are afraid of shadow or are coward and prefer not to face the truth. Or perhaps thousands of other reasons.

Whatever the answer is, our life will be the projection of the light and shadow we have inside. Thoughts and beliefs will make us believe it is the projection of what we are, know or want, but it’s actually the projection of those thoughts and beliefs and therefore of their mental content which is THE PAST! In other words, our past illuminates itself and makes us believe it is what we are at present. Maybe it is what we were yesterday, but today we could be different if we would just observe outside that cone of artificial light.

The “real” future can live only if our Essence, the only one able to be in the present, from the present observes its light and its shadow and takes actions to improve itself, instead of repeating the past.

In the light there is also shadow and in the shadow there is also light and our sincere search for truth is able to illuminate shadow so that it can understand and transform itself.

To be free, any human Being should give awareness to both elements of the two sections, thus freeing consciousness from those thoughts, beliefs and characters it has being living, believing it was them. This is the only way for it to project itself into the future and not the mental content it has lived.

The real light is above the cones of light and shadow projected on our life by our mental content and that we often follow letting them decide what has to stay in light or in shadow. This light “simply” illuminates and, free from meanings, allows us to understand the significance of what our mind defines as light and shadow.

Graziella Cella
Blogger Rebis Group

Translation by Graziella Cella