Light and Shadow arise together
Dear Reader, beloved Friend on The Path,
In this week's Soul-Letter, I want to invite you into a deeper innerstanding of something that almost everyone walking this path with sincerity encounters, yet very few are prepared for.
Whenever a profound, expansive, luminous experience arises, something else is already present with it.
Not later. Not as a consequence. But simultaneously.
A contraction.
A "descent".
A shadow.
This is not an error in the process.
It is not a sign of imbalance.
It is polarity revealing itself.
There is a tendency – especially in spiritual circles – to aim for constant "elevation". To polish oneself into something perpetually bright, calm, gentle, golden.
But life does not move in a single direction, does not move in linear form and time, and awareness is not flat. If you attempt to remain only in light, you will inevitably meet its polarity, not as punishment, but as honesty, as part of Kosmic Nature.
"Where light appears, shadow is already present — not as opposition, but as depth."
This is how existence expresses itself.
If there is a sun, there will be shadow.
Not because the sun is unreliable, but because light, by its very nature, creates contrast.
You do not doubt the sun because a shadow appears on the ground. And yet, many doubt their spiritual unfolding the moment shadow enters their inner landscape.
Here is something subtle, yet essential to see:
Your very presence creates shadow.
Not because presence is incomplete, but because awareness illuminates everything it touches. Including what was once hidden, suppressed, or left behind.
Shadow is not separate from light.
It is shaped by it.
Light & Shadow are not Duality, they are it's Polarity.
(*I will be doing a Podcast exactly about the fondamental and mostly misinterpreted difference between Duality and Polarity).
If you truly look, you'll notice something remarkable:
Every shadow is already outlined by light.
It floats into light.
It cannot exist without it.
This is true even for thoughts we label as "negative."
When a heavy thought appears, it is not proof of falling back. It is simply energy expressing itself within the same field, light and dark, expansion and contraction, clarity and density.
Nothing has gone missing.
The moment you touch a peak experience, a sense of unity, love, vastness, stillness, a descent will follow.
Not as collapse.
But as revelation.
This is where many lose trust.
They tell themselves:
"I lost it."
"I'm going backwards."
"I'm not ready."
"I must have done something wrong."
But this interpretation comes from misunderstanding totality.
What is actually happening is far more intimate.
She is revealing herself.
The feminine movement of life.
The depth that could not show itself until space was opened by light.
"Shadow is not here to stop you. She is here to be welcomed back into wholeness."
You are not here to overcome darkness.
You are not here to purify yourself into something spotless.
You are here to welcome Her in all her forms.
Not to dramatize Her.
Not to analyze Her.
Not to turn Her into identity or story.
Just to allow Her to be seen, as part of the same One-Mind that shines as light.
This path is not about choosing light over dark. It is about standing still enough to see that both arise from the same source.
–> Light reveals.
–> Shadow gives depth.
One without the other is abstraction.
Together, they form lived truth.
When this is truly inner-stood, something relaxes deeply in the system.
You stop managing experiences.
You stop chasing highs.
You stop bracing yourself against the next descent.
You begin to trust life again, not selectively, but wholly.
And in that trust, both light and shadow lose their grip, because they were never separate from you to begin with.
What remains is not brightness.
Not darkness.
But presence, vast enough to hold both without preference.
May we stop resisting the movements of life.
May we remember that nothing arising in awareness stands outside the One-Mind.
May we welcome light and shadow as equal expressions of truth.
And may we rest, not in purity, but in wholeness.
With love and deep presence,
Bear Saorin
The One Mind Sanctum
P.S. If you are experiencing a descent after an opening, nothing has been lost. Something deeper is being allowed to appear.
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