NOTE: This article is a heavily revised and edited version of the original, which was published 9 years ago.
When we internalize shame and let it fester, it can manifest externally as maladaptive and unhealthy emotional and behavioral patterns. It becomes especially difficult to realize the nature of those patterns whenever society has normalized them, which raises questions about how certain socio-economic and consumer models of society devalue and hurt the human spirit. When these patterns are valorized, perhaps it could be argued that they encourage a sort of sociopathy, because in order to cope with entrenched trauma rather than resolving it, we have to numb ourselves, doing whatever it takes to succeed.
In order to vanquish our deeply entrenched sense of shame, what we call internalized toxic shame, we must be able to accept it. But in order to accept it, we need the key that allows for the cognitive opening that can process it and organize it, ultimately resolving it. This key is gratitude. Gratitude in an ultimate sense is in terms of the foundation of our Being. The gratitude for our various life experiences arises out of a paradigm based on that foundational state of gratitude.
This paradigm shift begins with the practice of detachment from the material world, which leads to an embrace of the spiritual dimension of our being in which we acquire a sort of experiential relationship with the mysterious reality of our essence. It is not that there is a change in our essence from a state of ingratitude to gratitude, but rather from ignorance of our essence to knowledge of our essence. It is an inward illumination that ennobles the self, and this inward illumination is the manifestation of what in Islam is calledΒ Δ«mΔnΒ [faith]. This faith is said to be the light of knowledge of God, and so there is a direct correspondence between knowledge, faith, and the illumination of the self.
There is a phenomenological shift as well that occurs, which makes up our mental paradigm, where we start to assemble the world of phenomena and its events differently based on that state of gratitude. The Qur’an is emphatic in describing the psychological qualities and expressions of this perception of the world, such as when it says:
And if you attempt to count the favors of God [upon you and in creation], you will never be able to count them nor take them all in.
This is to say that now when we look at the world of form in all its phenomenal multiplicity, from the mundane to the profound, from the minute and subtle to the extravagant and apparent, we actively see the beneficent hand of God at work. But the world is made up of both the sweet and the bitter, from the simple blessing of having eyes that can hydrate themselves automatically to a fully abled body and a house and shelter, but also the difficulties of illness, poverty, absence of relationships, war and civil strife, disease and the loss of loved ones. Yet the emotional effect from this change in how we perceive ourselves and the events that make up our lives, through the paradigm of gratitude, grants us a profound way of feeling, thinking, and being. Indeed, the Prophet ο·Ί described very aptly the paradigm of the Believer:
"How wonderful is the affair of the believer, for all his affairs are good, and this applies to no one except the believer. If he experiences something pleasing, he is grateful, and that is good for him; and if he experiences hardship, he is patient, and that is good for him."
From a purely physical perspective, an event in life is amoral, neutral, neither good nor bad. It just is; goodness and badness is not contained in the atomic behavior of phenomenal events. However, it is the mind that determines its nature as an experience through the ongoing intuitive recollective process of the Forms, the principles that underlie human experience in relation to the world. Thus, the experience of gratitude emanates from our own Essence upon the world, whereby we experience the nature of our Essence through the vehicle of the world. And thus the world, for the Believer, is calledΒ al-‘ΔlamΒ [the world] as an instrument of knowledge.
Each painful event in life that we relive in our mind because of shame can be a means to confronting the source of shame in our Heart. Again, we see the wisdom here, a hidden goodness in pain, by virtue of our paradigm of gratitude. Rumi says, “These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” When we are able to look at something that we did or that happened to us that makes us feel deeply ashamed with the eye of gratitude, then we will be able to move beyond that event and what it meant for us at that time, which may have caused us to become trapped. To move past it does not mean to forget about it or to pretend that it never happened; this is simply repression and denial. No matter what, it plays a role in who we are today and who we can become in the future. In some way, it is related to our Higher Self; it hints at it, even demands that we uncover it, because to remain here is painful and harmful.
Gratitude also means, functionally, to let go, to sever attachment to experiences that made us feel ashamed and lowly as well as their associated forms and images by perceiving the spiritual reality behind them. Gratitude transforms the nature of our experiences by transforming the concept of phenomena, where the concept of the “things” in time and space that we experienced are seen as dependent effects within the chain of causality, emptying them out of the false sense of inherent reality that we projected onto them and recognizing them as instead lacking inherent reality. To transform the nature of a thing, its essence must be changed. Changing the essence of “things” in experience requires our paradigm to shift. In this case, the “things” that we believe have harmed us have been transformed from having inherent reality, inherent power, and inherent meaning to lacking any of that. This can only happen through perceiving the entire structure of Consciousness and witnessing the dependent nature of the contents of Consciousness.
The Spell of MΔra: Devaluation and Shame
Shame is an internal condition of the Soul. While there is healthy shame and unhealthy shame that corresponds to one’s behavior, what is typically referred to as shame within the context of mental health is of a different category. It relates more to a condition of metaphysical despair rooted in being cut off from the knowledge of one’s Essence. The manifested experience of this is expressed in many ways, including self-hatred, depression, lack of hope and optimism, stagnancy, and a sense of giving up. These attributes do not correspond to healthy shame whatsoever, and so unfortunately there is much ambiguity in the English language with regards to this concept, where the same word has now been used to refer to two different experiences. This has in turn led people, in their attempt to overcome the destructive mental health outcomes described by the aforementioned attributes, to develop a sort of animosity towards even healthy shame. This is dangerous because it results in an overcompensation to one’s shame through self-aggrandizing beliefs and the destruction of social norms and boundaries for no sake except to demonstrate one’s sense of self-empowerment. For clarity’s sake, we can refer to this as toxic shame.
This toxic shame arises out of the inversion of the concept of love as it exists within us on a primordial level, from an unconditional one to a conditional one. And with love being conditional, we search for it outside ourselves, and thus it inverts the orientation of the mind’s eye away from the beauty of the Soul that is illuminated in the light of God. Ignorant of the internal beauty as the splendor of Truth, we exist in a state of ugliness, of abandonment, of resentment, of deprivation. These states of being, from a Dharmic perspective, pertain to what are called mental defilements, unwholesome mind-states (kilesaΒ in Pali), and they are the effects of falling under MΔra’s spell, for “Mara threatens not by withholding the seasonal rains but by withholding or obscuring the knowledge of Truth.” What this means is that abundance and deprivation are internal states based on knowledge of Truth or ignorance of Truth; even if we are given all material provisions, the seasonal rains, if we exist in a state of deprivation due to ignorance then we will feel like we have nothing. This harkens back to the Qur’anic verse on the grateful, “And if you attempt to count the favors of God [upon you and in creation], you will never be able to count them nor take them all in,” and where from a state of ingratitude, despite the innumerable blessings, one would not even be able to recite a single blessing.
Feeling like we have nothing, we will always suffer, we will always feel the shame of abandonment, causing us to neurotically grasp at validation from the world and from others in an attempt to end our suffering, rendering us as hungry ghosts walking the desolate wastelands. This is the foundation of the paradigm of the Devalued Self. And so, shame causes us to interpret the world so that our inner state is reflected in our subjective experiences of the events that make up our lives, thus validating and confirming the reality of our negative internal state of deprivation. Thus, how we perceive our own Essence forms the nature of our experiences. Now that event, when it arises even in our memory, recalls within us those feelings of shame, almost as if it is a mental bridge to our false perception of our Essence. Our Essence is what is most fundamental to us, most familiar, and these experiences therefore are experiences of what is familiar, and this is dangerous because familiarity breeds comfort, a zone in which we naturally abide. That is an important aspect of human nature, to seek and remain in comfort, which speaks to the dynamic between entropy and order, chaos and stability, imbalance and homeostasis. And so, we may therefore develop a sick sense of comfort in seeing the world negatively, which becomes reflected in our habits, such as the automatic habit to complain. This is how we develop a victim identity and confine ourselves to self-limiting comfort zones within prisons of fear without even realizing it consciously.
Can the current strength of our eye of gratitude see through the illusion of abandonment and devaluation that MΔra has cast over us through this event, through this person, through this attachment? Most likely not. It is said that the Buddha prevailed because he had mastered his mind; he had learned how to restrain it and how to cultivate equanimity from within. The theme of the stories of his trials were lessons that highlighted how the illusions, by seeing their impermanent nature subject to decay, failed to devalue him through material identification, to the material sphere of being, and to make him full of the mental defilements that arise from attachment, such as fear and anger and covetousness.
Practicing detachment is a part of inward striving, or what in Islam is calledΒ mujΔhada al-nafs. This refers to the Islamic concept of striving, struggling, and exercising control over one’s own ego and base desires. This has metaphysical significance because it is understood that will is desire, and desire is will; to control the desire is to control the will. And since desire is the energy of the Soul, its character, which is will, the purification of the Soul of all defilements has to do with the purification of desire, expressed through the purification of the will. Here we see a common theme across revealed religion that has retained, to some degree, the principles of the spiritual Path. Detachment where the gaze of the Heart is restrained and the ego retrained is to perceive all phenomena as impermanent, as illusory, to apprehend their true nature of nothingness, as lacking inherent existence or reality. When this occurs, egoic desire for that thing evaporates at once. That includes not only the image and memory described by sight and sound and tactile sensation, but also the thought itself, and even the feeling itself. This is to be experienced to be understood. While description is limited, some examples can help to illustrate this reality. Think about something that you have great desire for, even if it is a compulsive behavior that you feel you cannot resist. Now imagine that if you were to engage in that act, there would be a direct consequence, an ugly and catastrophic one: perhaps you would acquire a disease, perhaps there is something very disgusting with a terrible odor attached to it, or perhaps you are being watched by others and there are legal consequences that could ruin your life. At once, cognizing this, the desire for the initial act has not only vanished but has been replaced by a volition in the opposite direction. This is the sobriety of the intellect where reason has prevailed over lowly desire, and in this there is purification because, as our teachers have said, the irrational Soul desires to be made rational.
What does that mean to you and what areas of your life can you apply this, especially to shame and suffering? We must weaken our attachment to those images of pain, to those illusions that have sway over us. What we may find is that it lessens our sense of investment in the world, our sense of need for people and things and outcomes, and instead places us into a greater state of abundance and a sense of being grounded in the fundamental dimension of experience itself. Here, there are no contrivances. There is only reality, an immaterial awareness that precedes our perception of “things” yet qualifies their existence in reality and time and space. In Islamic spirituality, the Sufis say, “Whoever is deprived ofΒ adabΒ is deprived of every type of good. Whoever is deprived of theΒ adabΒ of the moment [adab al-waqt] then his moment is nothing but disgust or the detestation of God.” TheΒ waqtΒ [moment] becomes theΒ maqtΒ [wrath]. This is a profound warning: the very instant of life, which should be a precious opportunity for connection with God, transforms into its opposite when lived without spiritual discipline and awareness. The fruits of theΒ waqtΒ are something that nobody and nothing can give to another, for it is given by God alone, and it pertains to apprehending the nearness of the presence of God. The closer we are to the presence of God, the more intense the reality of our Being becomes, the more our Essence illuminates with Divine Consciousness. It is when we think another person or a thing, a status or a career, can give this to us that we become enslaved to it, and it is here that these things come to occupy our minds and drag our awareness towards them and out of the reality of the moment with God.
As our attachments weaken, we enter into a state of silence. In silence, we become aware of our own sense of reality, which again is tied to the reality of God who, as the ontological ground of pure Being, qualifies the existence of all else. To be aware of our sense of reality is to dwell within a state of pure Consciousness, unhindered by distractions, images, and attachments. The Buddha said, “Silence is an empty space. Space is the home of the Awakened Mind.” As the mind awakens, we start to know our true Self, feeling its presence, and we become aware of our Essence that is beyond the Self as comprised of mental fabrications and phenomena, the contents of Consciousness. In relation to the things that occupy our mind, we acquire demonstrative experience that this event, person, or situation whatever it might be that had sway over us does not existentially define us. It is separate and simply subject to the active generative process of the ego. It therefore lacks inherent reality. And in relation to our pure Consciousness, they are illusory mental concepts. And when we dwell within that state, we will feel a sense of completion, a sense of home. A Path opens up for us. The key word here is Path, for it is not the end of the journey or something that is meant to be attached to and self-identified with.
There arises from within a strong sense of gratitude after experiencing the state of pure Consciousness. When we realize that it is coming from within, then we realize that gratitude is inherent to us, that this positive state and its manifested emotions are inherent to us. They do not need to be dependent on chasing the ego. And by dwelling within that state with mindfulness, we can condition our very physiology and its neurological pathways towards experiencing gratitude more easily and more naturally. Rather, we are returning to a natural state that perhaps we may recall was the character of our experiences of life as children. We will be able to breathe easier, there will be mental stability. Our paradigm will start to shift in a way that reflects this state of gratitude. The mind will automatically start to create healthy and positive narratives to frame difficult life experiences, thus making us more resilient in the face of trials. As the eye of gratitude opens, we will start to perceive the wisdom hidden in our trials, and this is what enables the human Spirit to become cultivated and to grow.
The Mind-State of Gratitude
Gratitude, unlike shame, is an internal condition that arises out of an understanding of love as an unconditional concept, causing us to exist in a state of abundance. When that is internalized, we have the power to perceive events in life as having a purpose that is meant to benefit us. Materially, yes, there is pain and loss. But is material pain and loss everything? That answer depends on our paradigm, of course. From a materialist paradigm of the modern world, the foundation of atheism, the answer is yes. And thus humans are driven for material advantages no matter the cost, maximizing all pleasures and securing all personal comforts no matter the cost to others or the environment. And yet, it has no metaphysical significance, so the negative condition of the human Spirit remains in all moments. The nature of the material universe is loss; it has already vanished, for the lights by which we see the stars betray us as to their existence. From a metaphysical perspective, the answer is no. There is more to existence than what we see before us. The stars, despite their physical absence, have meaning for us in that they inspire within us meaning that lies beyond their physical existence. This inspiration, this significance that only creatures of a human quality of Consciousness can experience and know, is a demonstration of that in itself. There is more to the material world because love is unconditional, not mere human love but the love of the enduring Spirit. And if this sacred love pertains to the secret of the Essence of the Soul, then our Essence exists transcendentally and unconditionally in relation to the world. It is not conditional on the material, thus, we must not seek it through the world per se. The world is a mirror, not the ends in and of itself. Gratitude arises out of a cosmic paradigm that perceives purpose beyond the scope of the material universe. We feel a sense of transcendence in relation to the material world, experienced as a sort of inspiration and freedom. It transforms painful events in life from experiences of suffering into experiences of growth, into lessons, into tests that are meant to push the human Spirit higher and higher. This has manifestations in the material world in the form of strength of character shown in our capacity for true empathy and selflessness. As his last challenge to Siddhartha, MΔra says, “Get up from this seat [of Enlightenment], Siddhartha. That seat does not belong to you, it belongs to me.” This is an interesting passage that captures the resentment of Satan in the Islamic tradition, which the scholars of the Path say was his coveting of theΒ Maqam al-MahmudΒ [The Praised Station], which belonged to Muhammad ο·Ί as the light of prophecy. Siddhartha responds, “You are not striving for the welfare of the world, or for Enlightenment. This seat belongs to me.” From an Islamic perspective, this pertains to the identification of the seat of Enlightenment as something created for the representatives of God.
I am reminded of a quote by Rumi, which expresses perhaps among the highest narratives from the highest of paradigms. He says, “Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” This cognitive frame allows us to see people from a cosmic perspective, one that sees them without malice or resentment even if they were someone that injured us in the past. The Prophet Muhammad ο·Ί described the state of affairs of someone who has internalized this cosmic paradigm [the Believer] as “Amazing… This is because there is good for them in every matter and this is not the case with anyone other than the Believer…” He said that when we are happy, we are thankful to God, and if we are harmed then we maintain patience that leads to internal goodness. These are narratives that emerge from the higher paradigm. Patience is understood as mindfulness and the restraining of the mind from unskillful thoughts and states that would result in devaluation and attachment. Buddhism emphasizes how to cultivate the Awakened Mind initially (bodhicitta), how to keep it, and how to strengthen it once it is cultivated. We find the same formulaic equation in Islam as well, especially with regards to cultivating the Heart, maintaining it through patience and protecting it through mindfulness and adherence to sacred law, and strengthening it through disciplined practice. These are elements of sound spirituality; there is no shortcut. The journey is the destination, and the Path itself is the gift.
Footnotes
MΔra is the demon that tried to prevent Gautama Buddha from attaining Enlightenment. MΔra has been described as “the personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment”, and is associated with death, rebirth and desire. MΔra is analogous to the concept of the Devil.
In traditional Buddhism, four metaphorical forms of “MΔra” are given:
- KleΕa-mΔra, or MΔra as the embodiment of all unskillful emotions, such as greed, hate and delusion.
- MαΉtyu-mΔra, or MΔra as death.
- Skandha-mΔra, or MΔra as metaphor for the entirety of conditioned existence.
- Devaputra-mΔra, the deva of the sensuous realm, who tries to prevent Gautama Buddha from attaining liberation from the cycle of rebirth on the night of the BuddhaΒ΄s enlightenment.
After my LSD trip, my self-development has focused on identifying shame and loosing its grip on my life thru compassion.
This article came to me at a fortunate time, it’s empowering to read similar thoughts from other perspectives.
Can I be in a relationship if I still have issues with pornorgraphy and masturbation? How do I reverse 10 years of using porn and masturbation to find momentary relief from my loneliness. Im interested in all of your articles. I especially related to the one about childhood traumas where you discussed parents with mental issues being the receiver instead of the caregiver for the child. I feel I have so many internal issues I dont know where to start
Great article, thank you so much for sharing