Shadow Self Mystery 

June 1986

In the years since the Shadow Self experience with Dr. Sinha in 1981, I have been waiting for the moment when my next teacher would invite me for another lesson or provide another view or confirmation of what I experienced. I have spoken with a few knowledgeable people who I hoped might guide me in finding someone with a similar experience. Several told me they had heard of others with similar experiences, but they had yet to meet them. These knowledgeable people would look at me in amazement and ask me to tell them more about my experience. They said that I had, indeed, been fortunate to experience the Chaya Parush, the Shadow Self. 

One day Norman Krause, one of my spiritual teachers, asked me if I knew what that experience was supposed to have taught me. “Did what you were supposed to learn come to you intuitively?” he inquired. I professed ignorance, feeling that I could not articulate my relationship with my shadows in two different dimensions.

I have often looked up at the sky, knowing that a part of me is there. When I am walking, I know that it, too, is walking. I cannot comprehend the vastness of its size, energy, or capabilities. How little I know about my own reality. I wonder if I go for a walk because it is going for a walk, or if it is the other way around. I have often called upon it to guide me in times of stress. In moments of depression, I have asked it to quit having a nasty disposition because this affects me too. At other times, I talk to it, sharing the glory of the beautiful sunsets and other wonderful sights. I know I have a friend somewhere out there.

I have also acquired an appreciation for my little, dark, earthly shadow that I had previously ignored. I wonder now if I eat because that little shadow of mine is hungry. Perhaps my little shadow eats, and I merely mimic the act. In the deepest darkness, I know that the little shadow is alive and with me. I ask it to come alive in my dreams and guide me. In the privacy of my walks, I have danced jigs with my little companion. My dog playfully barks and jumps on me. I wonder if he knows.

I now feel as if each act of mine is part of an intricate chain; any lack of attention on my part can affect an infinite process. It has brought a new perspective on responsibility.

*****

On this visit to Allahabad, I was determined to find some answers to the Shadow Self mystery.

I knew the Peepal tree at the temple where the Shadow Self experience had taken place had seen my Shadow Self experience years ago with Dr. Sinha. I decided to ask the tree to help me understand more.

People in the area regard this Peepal tree as a holy tree, claiming that this particular tree embodies a holy soul. Dr. Sinha calls the spirit of the tree Baba and admits that his guidance comes through it.

I intuitively knew that Dr. Sinha would not be under the tree the evening I visited it. There was a group of retired people who met there every day. I sat down on the other end of the platform. They did not ask me who I was, and I did not interfere with them. Soon they all left. I waited for a while and then spread my blanket and lay down. Several regular visitors came one at a time to worship at the temple. As usual, they would come, say a moment of quiet prayer, and leave.

Then a man rode up on a bicycle, mistaking me at first for Dr. Sinha. We were soon in deep conversation. He had gone to school with Dr. Sinha and was now a practicing lawyer. He relayed several stories from Hindu mythology, one of them of particular interest to me that day. He related how Tulsidas, a famous Hindu writer, had acquired his enlightenment from a tree.

After telling me the stories, he expressed his curiosity as to what I was doing there by myself. It was around 10 p.m., and he was concerned for my safety. Several times he suggested that I leave. I told him that soon I would go.

After he left, I lay down on my blanket and gazed at the stars. I did not wish to attract the attention of any passerby. After a while, the traffic stopped and there was total silence. I sat up and began to meditate. I must have been in meditation for half-an-hour or 45 minutes when I became restless. I felt more comfortable with my eyes open.

I sat there in quietness, mentally conversing with the tree. “Oh, Baba, you, too, witnessed my Shadow Self. Enlighten me; tell me more about it. I am not about to leave you until you tell me more. People will come in the morning and still find me here. It will be embarrassing for you. Please tell me.”

It was now late at night. I was not getting any answers.Then I felt an inner urge to walk around the temple. As I went around the tree, I bowed and put my forehead on the trunk, repeating my query. There was a twinge, a peculiar sensation between my eyebrows, at the bridge of my nose. It was as if data were being installed at high speed into a computer disc. There was no question in my mind that the tree had spoken to me, but I did not know how to decipher the message.

I stood in reverence for several minutes, tingling from the surge of the experience. The time had come for me to leave. The tree had given the answer; I now had to find an interpreter. I needed to see Dr. Sinha.

*****

The next evening around 8 p.m., I took a cotton blanket, pillow, flashlight, mosquito repellent, and some writing materials and packed them on the back of a borrowed bicycle.

“Where are you going?” my mother, half asleep, inquired from her bed. She slept in the courtyard in the summer, and I could not avoid her.

“Just to get some fresh air.” I tried to sound casual.

“I bet you are going to visit Dr. Sinha,” she said.

“I plan to stop there also.” 

“Don’t be late.”

She knew me well. She knew that I was heading straight for Dr. Sinha and that I would be late. Since I had been told not to be late, she would have a perfect reason to scold me in the morning. At 50, I was still a little boy to her.

I had come to visit her while she was convalescing. Rightfully so, she wanted me to be near her even while she was asleep. The presence of house servants in the house was not satisfying to her; she wanted my presence.

It had been a sweltering day. I had gone for an early morning walk, but after seven o’clock in the morning, it was too hot to venture outside. Hot dust blew all day. I perspired while right under the ceiling fan in the house. 

Even in summer, 8 o’clock at night is pitch dark in Allahabad. If I were home in Wichita, there would still be sunlight at that time, and I would perhaps be working in my garden. Here, it was sleeping time. I was not ready to sleep and needed to go outside.

In Allahabad the streetlights are scant and the potholes large and plentiful. I am always amazed that I can still navigate around those potholes after 30 years in America. The starlight is enough in such darkness.

The sky was clear and flat like a sheet, the moon was nowhere to be seen. The stars were at their best, showing off, luring Indra, the angel of rain. As Indra is tempted to go out to see the glory of the stars, his thundering chariot will churn the slumbering clouds. Then there will be rain—a monsoon. The stars had again taken pity on their children on Earth.

I winked at the twinkling stars. We have been friends since time immemorial. I remembered it was on a night exactly like this that I had first encountered the Shadow Self mystery.

*****

When I arrived at the platform, I found Dr. Sinha furiously fanning himself with a hand fan to keep cool.

He was eager to see me, and before I could bring up the Shadow Self–the subject that was foremost on my mind–Dr. Sinha began a discourse on the subject of “I and Self.” I was more than fascinated because I had spent much of the day debating with myself on that very topic. It was evident to me from the power and energy coming through Dr. Sinha that the message was coming from somewhere else. It was as if wherever that message was coming from had also been present during my debate all day long. 

Dr. Sinha began, “All of us spend so much time and energy fighting or improving our circumstances that we have no time or energy left for what we are supposed to learn and experience on earth. It drains all our creativity. Our first task is to learn the art of coming to terms with our circumstances. Once we have done that, then we are ready to live. Then we can become aware of ourselves and use our energies in the task that we are here for.”

He continued, “Nature is very precise and exacting. One is in a particular set of circumstances not because of any accident. Those are the ideal circumstances in which we can learn. We must never think in terms of changing our circumstances. We have to think in terms of doing our best under those circumstances.”

The formula for that, he said, was simple: thanksgiving. We must learn to give thanks for each and every set of circumstances we are presented with. This thanksgiving must be very sincere, to the point of devotional intoxication.

“Our lives are full of struggle,” he said, “but the struggle is not with outside circumstances. Our struggle is within us. There is an ‘I’ and a ‘Self.’ The struggle is within these two. There is not one ‘I’ that can be easily subdued. There are many ‘I’s, like a multi-headed serpent whose heads grow back as fast as they are cut off. The heart of the serpent has to be destroyed.

He continued at length by sharing stories and parables from Hindu mythology. The message soon became deep and complicated, beyond my immediate comprehension. I tried not to focus on it and understand it; instead, I tried to absorb it for understanding at a later date. In the process, my mind seemed to go blank.

This continued for several hours. Then Dr. Sinha became silent, and I realized he had fallen into deep sleep. I sat there in perfect silence, not making any movement, so as not to wake him. I wanted to be aware of the energies around me. During that time, I started to feel the same tingling sensation that I had felt the day before when in contact with the Peepal tree.

Finally, the heat or mosquitoes must have awakened Dr. Sinha, for he started to fan himself and realized that it was late at night.

“Mr. Mathur, it is late, we both need to go home. Ask me one final question, if you have any.”

I was ready. “Dr. Sinha, as you may remember, five years ago you showed me my Shadow Self. It has always posed a mystery for me. I need some further explanation.”

That provoked immediate and loud laughter that made his belly jump up and down. It sounded unusually loud in the silence of deep night. He started to fan himself rapidly.

His voice was abnormally gentle and calm as he finally spoke. “All of this talk tonight was in answer to your question. You have had the privilege of experiencing your Self. On that day, years ago, you saw the projection of your Self and the Light entered within you. From that day on, the real battle started within you. The only thing you can do now is to completely surrender to the will of the Self. You have no choice, anyway. Someday you will see the same Self again, but it will be within you, not outside.

“So, this has been a mystery to you all this time!” And he started to laugh again. There was a gentleness of understanding in that laughter. It was as if he were sharing the joy of my discovery. I looked into his eyes. Love was pouring out.