Gold and Shadow

I had an insight while in my men's group that I intend to hold to as long as I can! So I am writing about it....

The Lord's life flows in such that the divine is in us. When we own it, and feel it to be our own, it is no longer divine, but it is still His love and wisdom. In the lingo of the format of this men's work, it is called gold. Everyone has this gold within.

The vessel the receives the Lord's life is called the "own" (Latin: proprium). Lisa Hyatt translates it as "autonomy" as in the following from Heavenly Secrets #3994:

“Innocence is an absolutely essential element of love and charity, and consequently of goodness. A person’s innocence consists in knowing, acknowledging, and believing, not with the lips but with the heart, that only evil originates in oneself, and everything good originates in the Lord…When a person confesses and believes this in his heart, the Lord flows in with good and truth and instills a heavenly autonomy into him which is bright and shining. Nobody can possibly be truly humble unless that acknowledgment and belief are present in his heart; and when they are present he is self-effacing and so is not preoccupied with himself, in which case he is in a fit state to receive the Lord's Divine. These are the circumstances in which the Lord flows in with good into a humble and contrite heart."

Notice that the Lord eventually changes the proprium from being completely evil to being heavenly. In the lingo of this men's work the first proprium is called a person's shadow.

One way to use this information is to imagine one's shadow as out in front, and so no longer hidden. Also, one accepts the existence and power of the shadow. One cannot get rid of it. And fighting it is futile. In fact, again in the paradigm of this men's work, one is to embrace and accept the shadow as not only a part of one's being, but as equally valuable. This makes sense of one considers that the proprium will eventually be changed by the Lord into a purely good vessel.

So the insight was a feeling, both an emotion and a physical sensation. I realized the emptiness produced by a dilemma. On the one hand, if I label my shadow as a worthless piece of "refuse" (trash) I will have to lie to you in order to hide this part of myself because, of course, I want to look good and and I want you to like me (which you wouldn't if you saw what I was REALLY like). On the other, if I don't lie and show you that I am a worthless piece of refuse, again, I have come to believe, you will see me for what I am and will reject me and not like me.

The way out of the dilemma is to stop rejecting my shadow and to stop calling it bad and wrong. (Note: it is evil ONLY in itself, because I am giving it power by holding onto my judgment of it and trying to hide it or get rid of it). By accepting my proprium for what it is, I stop giving it power from the divine love the Lord is giving me to use. I detach from it in the sense that I don't make it all of me. I let go of it so that I don't own it (a favorite concept: all evil is from hell, all good is from the Lord). All the time I remember this, I can much more easily control the behavior, including thoughts as well as actions, that I am ashamed of, that separate me from the Lord, heaven, and that I would be embarrassed if anyone knew about.