I could see him watering the lawn as I walked towards home. As I watched a giggling two year old came bouncing out of the house declaring, " I can step on you." He said, "I don't think so because I'm too big." We all three laughed as the little boy stepped on his Dad's shadow.
No harm done.
But what about when it is not a bouncing, giggling two-year-old child who says, " I can step on you." What about when it appears as the experience of lack: perhaps the lack of love, money or time? What about if it is the aggressive suggestion that you are not safe, that the ones you love are in trouble, that the world is in crisis.
Can these aggressive suggestions really step on us? No – because our true nature is "too big." In fact our true nature is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscience good. Can't get any bigger than that. Our true nature and our true dwelling place is, as, and with, Divine Love.
How do I know this to be true?
In the words of a famous song, "Because the Bible tells me so." Actually, if you think about it – everything tells us so. How possible would existence be without an infinite "force?" Call it what you will, but it has to exist. Can this force, this power, be both good and bad? No. It's not possible to have opposite ideas present in the same place at the same time.
There can't be two omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscience powers. Either there is only good or there is evil. Take your pick. "What YOU perceive to reality magnifies." I choose Good. I choose Grace. I know it to be the only power. So do you.
" And God made man in his likeness." Have you thought about what that says about your true nature? It means you are the likeness of God – way too big to be stepped on by the taunting of something that can't exist anyway.
It can only step on your shadow.
The problem lies in the fact that unlike the Dad watering the lawn who knew his shadow wasn't who he is, we identify with our shadow. Even when we are aware of our true nature we still hang on to the belief that our shadow is also real. We keep the belief that our shadow has sensation, problems, and happiness – in fact lives a whole life calling itself by our name and claiming to be our true nature.
When Christ Jesus prayed, " And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (John 17:5) wasn't he in essence declaring the shadow as unreal and affirming his true nature, one with God?
Applying these truths to daily lives dissolves problems and reveals all that we need already present. When faced with the suggestions of loneliness I remembered that God is Love. Therefore I am already loved. Knowing and living this, love bloomed in my life. When we needed a new car, but the human situation made it look impossible, we remembered that God is omnipresent therefore so are we. This shift of thought shifted events and two weeks later we had the car that we needed.
When we try to live both – our true nature and our shadow – we are the "double sided man." We are attempting to serve two masters. How can we fix the shadow? We can't, but we spend a great deal of time trying.
When we no longer identify at all with the shadow that claims to be us, we will no longer be afraid of any aggressive suggestions of " I am going to step on you."
In fact, we can say, "Go ahead, try and step on me. You can't. I'm too big. All you can step on is just a shadow!"
No harm done.
Article by Beca Lewis author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Find her book at Perception Publishing or visit The Shift for more free information on spiritual perception.
