My Integral Inner Universe

The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook upon life. That I feed the hungry that I forgive an insult that I love my enemy in the name of Christ; all these are undoubtly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, the enemy himself are within me and I myself stand in the need of the alms of my own kindness; that I myself am the enemy who must be loved, What then?

Carl Jung, the 20th century Swiss psychiatrist, brings up an interesting point. All of the enemies that we encounter are nothing more than creations that express the nature of our separated consciousness. No one is doing anything to us; we create the shadow and project it externally in order to physically experience the contrast it manifests. We have blind spots in our belief system. There are things in that system that we refuse to admit about the self. The war's we rage externally have their roots in our inner world. We create ideas and instigate emotions that reach our ego and a dualistic projection occur. We believe those ideas and emotions are the work of an external energy or situation.

As Fritz Perls another 20th century psychiatrist explains that by taking responsibility for every thought and emotion, every movement we make and not transferring responsibility to anyone else,expands our awareness.

Even illness is created by us according to Perls:

As long as you fight a symptom, it will become worse. If you take responsibility for what you are doing to yourself, how you produce your symptoms, how you produce your illness, how you produce your existence; the very moment you get in touch with yourself, growth begins, integration begins.