“The partner of shame is disgust. Purity has no opposite. In purity, disgust and shame are one.”
Shame
Shame is a light emitted out of the intense pain of exposure. It’s not heavy, but hot and rapid, charged with unbearable vitality. It is reflexive and happens faster than the conscious mind can control. Notice that in the Garden of Eden, shame is ignited prior to guilt and condemnation. The contraction of shame from the pure light of our True Nature condemns us. It is a direct split in consciousness between the individual form and its living Source.
The feeling of shame is one of sudden exposure or the shock of revelation in the light of the consciousness of the perceived ‘other’. Even when we are ashamed before ourselves, the energy represents a severe split between the exposed vulnerability of a separate or disallowed ‘self’ and the consciousness which perceives it.
Shame is alive in the here and now, yet most of the time we won’t feel it, as it is habitually anesthetized through protective structures of Ego. When we are touched at further depths, however, it will begin to resonate. Responses can be rapid, involuntary and physical: the cheeks flush red, the throat tightens, the pelvis freezes, buttocks tighten and there can be a terrible sensation of burning or freezing in the upper chest and/or pelvic area. Body movements include covering up: the crossing of legs, aversion of the head, the covering of the lips and face, and the twitching of the eyes. Yet although shame sings her song in rapid tongues, she is not so easily released. An energetic contraction of shame can stay for lifetimes and be passed consciously or unconsciously from generation to generation. In some families, the experience of shame can be totally prohibited. This is partly because it hurts so much: we shut down, and stay shut.
The origins of many contractions of shame are found in childhood. Incidents around bodily needs, sexuality and the collective family attitude towards the eyes of the ‘world’ all seed shame in the infant psyche. Parental rejection and educational methods often confirm layers of shame through public humiliations intended to conform behavior. In addition, our social awkwardness in addressing cruelty and suffering within the family domain often encourages more shame in areas from incest, divorce, through to childhood illness, grief and loss. In the dynamic of collective repression, shame is a key weapon. This means that the traumatized are often traumatized again through contractions of shame generated by the raw fear in the familial and social environment. Pretty soon, a child learns that the feeling of shame signals a horrible isolation. He or she learns to distract, conceal, hide or to freeze the Felt Sense of purity altogether.
Yet, beneath these covered layers, the contraction of shame remains. In a way, part of the vitality and life force of the organism is trapped in the perpetually burning flames of hell. This hell is made of pure isolation, untouchability, rejection, and is supported by the illusion of static perfection. In general, no one wants to feel it for long, so the energy is cast out towards the ‘other’. In the words of Adam, in facing the great light of his own Source in the fire of shame: ‘Eve made me do it.’ In the words of Eve: ‘It was because of the snake.’
Disgust
The energy of shame can be so sharp, hot and hellish in its experience, that the reflex is to get rid of it. This involves contraction, retraction from the ‘other’, and often revenge on the ‘other’. It is like spitting the ‘other’ out. This is a biological reflex to spit out the poison of shame. The stomach contracts, the vomit reflex sets in. The body goes hot and cold: disgust is taking form.
The movement of disgust can have a time-lag, or it can be instant: that is, the moment another event comes close to a contraction of shame, the threatened one attempts to throw the energy out of his own system in the form of disgust. This can be such a repeated reflex that the living sense of shame is no longer even accessed, all that is experienced is disgust towards the estranged part of experience.
As shame and disgust play out within family systems, it’s easy to watch the passing of disgust between one family member and the other. In childhood, it can be a game. Later, it becomes deadly serious. It’s almost as if a burning ball of fire is passed from one corner of the dining table to another. Often, such a family will designate a scapegoat as a final recipient of the shameful energy, if not a willing human being, then another family member such as an animal. Other families, to give the internal scapegoat a break, will designate the foreign neighbors, or the tax man as the pet hate. Often the scapegoat themselves will seek out a more vulnerable victim on which to pass the disgust.
Unfortunately, a return to purity is often sought out through shaming behaviors which can be abusive.
A central arena of the contraction of shame/disgust is in the dimension of sexuality. From Genesis until today, the split between male and female is a natural duality in creation and as such, is a key rift in the horrors of separate form. The ‘otherness’ of the opposite sex, from the physical through to the emotional and psychological patterning carries with it an easy reflex of shame and/or disgust, as well as a legacy of trauma. This tends to get played out through fields of sexuality and power. It is not for nothing that sexuality has been historically and religiously defined and condemned as impure.
Ironically, the shaming of sexuality, also entangles the energy of shame with trapped sexual energy. This merger of sexuality with shame can affirm the belief that sexuality is inherently shameful. We will even meet those for whom only shameful forms of sexuality are arousing – sexual purity (in unity with body, heart and spirit) ceases to be exciting – it can even cause disgust. This can mean that sexual acts must be increasingly shameful, disconnected or cruel to still be arousing. In this, humanity is birthing a great shadow along the hell-way of sexuality and trauma, where generations often follow in procession. The global porn industry thrives. Sexual purity is conceived as abstinence and the denial of bodily sensation. Yet is it possible that true sexual purity involves the pure experience of the rhythms, longing, release and peace in the sexual and sensual fields – fields which are fundamentally part of our living biology?
See the world, and see the seeing. Let the eyes be pure without negation. Let the ears hear without distraction. Let the mind think without censorship. Let the body touch without contraction. Let the voice express without obstruction. Let the spirit rest without limitation.
Be pure in disgust and pure in shame. Be pure in lust and pure in undressing all these forms that confused us about the source of all we are.
Purity, before, within and behind each second of feeling. Never to be possessed. Never to be adulterated. Never to be punished or sent away. Purity cutting through all sea of delusion. Never denying itself.
The spiral of disgust and shame works directly through the belief in absolute separation between the self and the ‘other’ (whether the ‘other’ is another human being or an inner persona). This disconnection is rooted in the belief that purity can be lost forever, never to be regained. It hides in the shadows of perfection and behind the poise of social forms.
Shame and disgust both crave this purity. Their agenda is purity. They seek it out. The whole energetic contraction of shame is composed of purity that was severed, rejected and thrown back into separate form in a kind of existential shock. When the contraction of shame and/or disgust is fed the energy of purity, the purity within the contraction begins to sing and return to Source. The more it de-freezes into unconditional purity, the less the cement of separation holds between one individual and the whole. Bringing the existential energy of purity towards the energy of shame and disgust is a high-note of healing, from the core of the Mother Wound out into a purification of consciousness on all levels.
As with all Nondual Qualities, purity is not an abstraction. Purity contractions can feature with fully charged emotion on the domestic home-front, including the most innocuous environments such as loading the dishwasher, small-talk, map-reading. The panic to control the conditions around purity can be rife, leading to exaggerated and grandiose scenes that later seem to be surreal in their loss of context and proportion. The average control freak is often standing on a floor of shame.
As a Nondual Quality, purity cannot be grasped, defined, kept, won or lost. Purity is unconditional and indestructible. It is beyond the conditions of time and space which means that it is essentially formless and non-physical. Purity is an activator of the capacity to sense life unconditionally, whether it is the purity of anger or the purity of peace. When an experience purifies, it transforms, releasing limitation and reuniting with its unconditional Source.
As shame is such an arch emotion reflecting the initial reflex to cover-up our human authenticity, to hide and to separate, it is natural that purity would be a Nondual beacon lighting the way home. Are we ashamed of the purity of our feelings? Do our emotions disgust us? Can we allow them the pure impurity that is there in their authentic energetic emergence?
Imagine a purity which is always here, at the Source of all we are. It has always been here and can never be taken away. All manifestation is inseparable from this purity. We breath it in with the oxygen and breath it out. It is pure because it is, in simplicity, all that is, as it is. This purity is not separate from you, nor is it separable from you. It is an inextricable part of all that we are, all that we have ever been and all we ever will be. It is the light within our sight; the silence within our thought and the stillness within every movement.
Through sexuality, this purity is the channel to new physical life, the purity of touch and the purity of a baby. As such, our sexuality flows through purity and in purity each conception occurs. This purity is indivisible. No amount of shame, or disgust can ultimately divide this purity from itself. It’s not ours to claim or to keep, yet we will never ever lose it. It’s as unquestioned as a sun burning and shining its light through an infinite universe. It can be seen in the eyes of a new-born child, or the hand of an old man on his deathbed. It resonates through animals and trees, the blue of the sky and the empty darkness of the night. It pervades the moment between each thought, and the space before, behind and between every feeling. In purity, we are one, and through purity we belong also to ourselves. Purity as a Nondual Quality is not a structure but a living aspect of who we are, behind patterns of Ego and personality. When we begin to relax, and reunite with the living energy of purity, even our worst moments can be recalled and experienced from the seat of purity as Source purity in perpetual motion. To quote Thomas à Kempis:
“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.”
Thomas à Kempis
Affirmation:
Here, I am always, already Pure
“I have also seen children successfully surmounting the effects of an evil inheritance. That is due to purity being an inherent attribute of the soul.”
Mahatma Gandhi
