{"id":522,"date":"2010-10-04T09:43:41","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T09:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/intentchopra\/2010\/10\/how-to-dispel-darkness-part-2.html"},"modified":"2010-10-04T09:43:41","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T09:43:41","slug":"how-to-dispel-darkness-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/intentchopra\/2010\/10\/how-to-dispel-darkness-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Dispel Darkness (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

All of the ways that we deal with darkness will fall short unless there is a solution that lies beyond the divided self. As long as one part of you wants to get better while another part of you holds on to negativity, you will be conflicted. The world’s wisdom traditions all teach that there is a way out of the divided self; therefore, by following this way, one should find healing from everyday problems like depression and anxiety. Calling them everyday is not to diminish the suffering that is caused. I could have called them age-old problems or the burden of being human. But the solution to negativity is also age-old and part of being human. In practical terms there are three parts to the spiritual solution.
\nTranscending: It is crucial to go beyond the domain ruled by the divided self. When they are in trouble, people naturally attempt to escape. They suppress their fears, seek distraction, deny the problem, blame others, seek a scapegoat, substitute a more acceptable feeling like anger, and so on. But none of these tactics actually leaves the field of struggle behind; they just pretend to in one way or another. The spiritual rule here is that the level of the solution isn’t the level of the problem. So you must take yourself to a place beyond conflict. The world’s wisdom traditions agree that there is such a place. The challenge is to find it inside yourself. The journey is not as mystical as it sounds.
\nYou are transcending negativity whenever the following things occur:
\nSitting by yourself, going within, and letting your internal dialogue quiet down
\nMeditating, a way of guiding the mind to deeper levels of the self
\nFeeling empathy for someone else
\nGiving of yourself
\nCaring for and appreciating someone else
\nBeing in love
\nLooking at a situation beyond your own limited viewpoint
\nFeeling inspired by someone or something
\nBeing uplifted by scriptures (of whatever faith)
\nShowing faith and trust in a higher power
\nAsking God or your higher self for a solution and then letting go
\nActing morally instead of selfishly
\nObjectivity: If the ways of transcending are so many, why don’t we take advantage of them? Habit plays its part. People keep repeating false solutions to the point where it is hard to see another way. The mechanisms of denial and repression are also powerful. People talk themselves into believing that they don’t have a problem or that their negativity is under control. Yet at bottom there is a common denominator to all false solutions: lack of objectivity. You are overshadowed by your emotions, habits, conditioning, and hidden beliefs. Instead of offering the road to freedom the inner world is a prison, and the only self that can be found is the shadow self, the part of you that holds on to fear, anger, trauma, revenge, jealousy, resentment, and a fascination with negativity in general.
\nIt takes a degree of objectivity before you can face your problems. From the spiritual perspective, the shadow is a subtler aspect of the divided self. Negativity has been pushed out of sight there; it remains quiescent until you disturb it, and then the negativity comes to the surface. This doesn’t mean that the shadow is your enemy. If it were, then the great sages and seers would advise us to fight back with all our might. The reason they don’t is that darkness can always find a way to return; the only way out is to go beyond darkness. In itself, that realization is a form of objectivity.
\nYou are obtaining objectivity whenever any of the following occurs:
\nSeeking a new perspective from someone you trust
\nSeeing that your problem is repetitive–you’ve been here before
\nRealizing that you have experienced a clear space before and will again, because negativity comes and goes
\nFinding moments of calm and release
\nLaughing at yourself
\nSeeing yourself in somebody else’s situation
\nTrusting a trained therapist or counselor who has helped others in your situation
\nGiving up the illusion of being unique–others have experienced the same problems and overcome them
\nJoining a support group
\nHelping someone else to heal
\nHope becomes real and not just an empty promise
\nUncovering your inner power; renouncing helplessness and victimhood
\nShifting: Once you obtain a degree of objectivity, a road starts to open, and by following it, you begin to transcend. You leave the level of the problem on the way to the level of the solution. Going beyond is natural, and as we saw, there are many ways to do it. The path to freedom comes down to repetition, not the old kind where you repeat the false solution over and over but a new kind, where you go beyond, in big and small ways, until you have trained yourself to respond to negativity as your own healer. There are forces inside you that exist to help you; you become your own guru when you learn how to call upon these forces.
\nWe don’t need to use a mystical or religious vocabulary here. The forces I am referring to are aspects of your true self: love, optimism, compassion, kindness, non-judgment, tolerance, acceptance. All are imbedded in your awareness, and at one time or another everyone has experienced them, however fleetingly. To shift into healing, you need to direct these qualities toward yourself. When you meet someone who suffers from a chronic problem, it’s inevitable that in their past they learned to judge against themselves. Once that happens, it is automatic to deny oneself the compassion and understanding that we would direct to strangers in distress. The divided self makes you a stranger to yourself. That is bad enough, but you also learn to hate and fear this stranger. Spiritually, you cannot be a stranger to yourself, because in reality there is only you, a whole person who has always been on terms of loving intimacy. Shifting toward wholeness is how you take advantage of transcending. In other words, once you go beyond the level of negativity, you say, “This is my home. I have found out who I really am. I intend to be this person forever.” You stake a claim on wholeness rather than self-division.
\nYou are shifting toward your true self whenever any of the following things occur:
\nBeing kind to yourself
\nUnderstanding yourself without judgment
\nLetting go of old resentments and unpaid grudges
\nHealing your psychological wounds
\nRealizing that forgiveness is possible, especially forgiving yourself
\nMaking peace with guilt and shame
\nNo longer blaming yourself, or those who made you who you are
\nReleasing the past, living in the present
\nEnding toxic relationships
\nSeeking a wholesome emotional environment
\nMaking a plan for a better future and sticking to it
\nTaking the wisdom of spiritual traditions seriously
\nFinding the courage to confront scary feelings, then releasing them
\nLearning to be alone; valuing what it is simply to be
\nDeveloping a greater vision of life
\nDefining a purpose that inspires you every day
\nListening to the voice within; cultivating intuition and insight
\nValuing your own uniqueness
\nLetting go of externals; no longer defining yourself by status, money, and possessions
\nEach of these points needs to be gone into deeply. You have a lifetime to do that. Our purpose here was to give an overview of the choices that face you. A menu isn’t the same as a meal. It is up to you to make your choices from the menu first. Millions of people don’t even realize that false solutions and real solutions come down to choice, they feel trapped inside their old, habitual responses. When the ancient sages talk about waking up or seeing the light, in practical terms they are pointing to inner choices about how life should be lived. Now you can see how to expand your choices. Reality is much fuller than illusion. It offers openings every day to transcend, obtain objectivity, and shift out of your stuckness. This is spirit at work, and no other work is quite so fulfilling.
\n \"Deepak <\/a>
\ndeepakchopra.com<\/a>
\nFollow Deepak on Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All of the ways that we deal with darkness will fall short unless there is a solution that lies beyond the divided self. As long as one part of you wants to get better while another part of you holds on to negativity, you will be conflicted. 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