SHAME

By Nefastos 2020, translated by Necros 2023

“Those who are ashamed of deeds they should not be ashamed of, and not ashamed of deeds they should be ashamed of, follow false doctrines and the downward course.”
-Dhammapada¹

For those who walk the path in the cultural atmosphere of Finnish cold northern bleakness, shame is one emotion we can resonate with commonly and frequently. Shame is based on emphasised self-observation. We might find amusement in a joke about people from different cultures confronting an elephant in their perceived typical way.² A Finnish person would be most concerned about the elephant’s perceptions of them – “What might this elephant think about me?” Now we have a humorous, yet not particularly uplifting, description of this feeling of shame. However, this emotion is based on genuinely uplifting features: emphasised self-reflection and consideration of the connection between the self and the community. This kind of relentless exploration is required if a person is intent on knowing themself, their true self,³ and keeping their ground on the base of absolute honesty. If this kind of honesty is laughed at, the shame lies solely with the ones who are laughing. There is no quality more important in life, especially occult life, than the quality of truthfulness.⁴ 

Criticizing one’s self is still a form of criticism, and the sword of criticism is double-edged: as it lashes its target, it also cuts the hands of its wielder. When feelings of shame become disheartening, inhibiting natural actions, shame has become a device of torture instead of a useful tool in life. In Argarizim, I have proposed that in its essence, shame is just a certain expression of pride – the seventh deadly sin. Shame and pride are only seemingly opposite manifestations of the feeling of being special – that a certain individual would be unfit to be amongst us and be connected to others – be it based on feeling too inferior or too superior to be under our collective precepts and conditions. This severe sensation of separateness is essentially connected to the mystery of Azazel – the scapegoat. This mystery has several levels. Both feelings of being uplifted and pressed down are expressions of the same “heresy of separatism.”⁵ This is the misunderstanding of thinking that an individual would not be part of the same whole as the rest of the world and that the individual could be seen as a separate entity in their essential focal point. 

Feelings of shame have a new emphasis in this modern age of ours, where being increasingly exposed and visible is idealized and having an outer presence is a requirement. The individual in need of a social refuge is an oddball. Evolution research has proposed that colourful and dashing plumage functions as a display of presumptuous success: it’s attractive because it represents an ability to thrive without protective colouring. Now, as humankind has established this apparent openness through technological and cultural revolution, the result is a similar kind of removal of protective colouring and increased brightness of our colourful display. This leads to emphasized experiences of shame, either from visibility or lack of it. The reason for this is not in the saturation of colours per se – in principle, the Cauda Pavonis⁶ of our astral times is a neutral or even beautiful phenomenon – but rather in social pressurization. A person agonized by shame is stuck in an experience of social stigmatization, be it a perceived or real. This fear is realistic in itself. Our lives have been transformed into being public and observable but also presumptuous and busy. We live in a cultural time of being speed blind – moving fast causes us to run over all kinds of things. A hectic, pressurized culture that favours confrontation and overpowering, allowing individuals to thrive whose sense of empathy, genuine self-reflection or ability for tenderness and sensitivity are underdeveloped. These thriving people are capable of convincing themselves of their importance, whether it is true or not. This appearance of perceived importance is what is expected from us. 

The individual who is both intelligent and sensitive may experience being worthy enough only if this has been proven and repeatedly enforced to them in an early enough stage in life, without hesitation. If it’s not, or if this affirmation has been shattered through later hurtful life experiences, this self-perception of being enough for the world needs to be built from scratch again with love and compassion regarding the self. This cannot be replaced with any other method. Only the genuine, connected, appreciative, joyful love of otherness can conquer shame. But what if one can’t encounter this sort of appreciation in their life? Or what if one is incapable of receiving this appreciation? In either one of these circumstances, it’s futile to try to be increasingly pleasing in the eyes of others, to be worthy enough in our own perception.⁷ The problem cannot be solved this way. On the contrary, an admired idol becomes increasingly lonely, depressed, and ashamed the more they’re separated from their genuine self while they’re focusing on pleasing others. However, it is not that one shouldn’t please others – there isn’t really anything admirable in uncompromising selfishness – but only in our own special, characteristic way with compromises that we have chosen through our self-perception so that we can stand firm behind these choices. Yet, the solution does not primarily lie behind these compromises, as important as they are, but rather behind the method of transforming our own self as a positive otherness. 

So, what does this actually mean? It means putting ourselves in the same line as all the others. Now we do not attach ourselves solely to our individual self. That self has long been transformed to the rock of Sisyphus; from a well-fitting cloth of skin to a poisoned tunic of Nessus. As amusing and terrifying as it may sound, it is obvious that we are all something secondary to each other. Let us take some distance and observe this socio-psychological world we live in: All these people, of which I am one single individual, are indeed something perishable, even something pretty silly. But nothing is humiliating in this fact by itself, as this is the nature of things, and there does not exist any other social base on which to condemn us. In this tragicomedy of life, we all stand as equals. 

The profane world does not acknowledge anything existing outside of this plane of the “temporal and silly” and thus has to present solutions to the problems of discovering meaningfulness in life. In this context, we don’t have to examine this profane process further. That is to say, an esotericist does not see our existence as solely bestial but sees the essential self behind the mundane “I.” These words are also written by a being who exists as a relatable “I” to a single, human individual, and to every other individual as something other – something secondary and abstract. The being who is writing this text is, like every other person is, “a brittle, crumbling psychological work of collage from unfinished ingredients.”⁸ As humans, we are all quite weak, even coincidental, beings imprinted by numerous cracks of life, failures, dangerous and incidental successes, excessive or weak compromises, encumbrances of consanguinity, fulfilled or negligent wishes, and so on. It’s important to perceive this definitive agility of the “I” for an occultist, but not in the way that is common for religious people as “contrition” or similar forms of escaping responsibility. If “I” has sinned, there has not been any capacity to act differently, and the reasons are something collective, natural, and understandable. As mentioned, “I” is something almost comical: surficial, not an essential part our ourselves. One should relate to the fragile nature of “I” with a kind of compassionate humour; striving for the best, but accepting the good grade instead of excellent, as well as satisfactory and even adequate grade results. Striving is essential, the intention, as has been stated many times before. 

However, there exists something that perceives this, something that is capable of observing this personal form of “I” quite neutrally.⁹ Does this inner perceiving mystical eye feel any shame or pride? If it could, it would still confuse itself with the animal it is observing. So, no; Inner Ego, the master in us, does not have any soft spot for love or bitterness towards its ward. This Ego is completely neutral, and precisely because of this incorruptible nature it has been named as Satan, the cold judge.¹⁰ The inner master is Satan, the transcendent opposition for all the diversions of our lower self. Wonderfully, this also means opposition to excessive rigour!¹¹ 

This is the “gospel” of satanic occultism, the “Gospel of Saturn.” When a person does their best, they have no reason to be ashamed of it. In turn, sadly, if a person does not do their best, no saviour will redeem them from their self-created hell of blame and inertia. On the contrary, the deeper we go into apathy, the more we have grounds for self-blame, for we have become supportable weight instead of supporters. Whatever New Age preachers may claim, we will never become cosmocrators, powers of nature (magicians), if we don’t become as such in our own existence and psyche concerning our inner challenges, as mundane and tormenting as they are. Master does not expect anything of us other than the everlasting “Try!”, but this expectation is absolute, for every day and every moment. Real humanity can only be created through striving. 

At a very early stage, Christian theology distorted the original meaning of the so-called act of sin – essential wrongdoing – and the act of forgiving such actions. The experience of being sinful, of wrongdoing not just towards people, but also towards the very world itself, is like a twisted version of the actual ethical challenge of life. The basis of this is in the correct understanding of the necessity for a human being to live their life as rightly and highly as possible, and that failure or desisting from this striving has its own negative consequences. Unfortunately, the Judeo Christian religion has completely twisted the meaning behind the teaching of forgiveness. The original teaching about forgiveness corresponds naturally and inevitably to the structure of human psychology and it reads as follows: “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”¹² In other words, it is only by for giving each other that we can be forgiven by our inner judge. It is impossible to be strict towards others and gentle towards ourselves: the inner eye does not sleep but sees through this kind of hypocrisy and secretly calls us to account. Equally foolish and secretly prideful is to forgive others, but not ourselves. Who do we think we are? 

The pronounced experiencing of shame is a reactionary mode that often requires a lengthy process of taming. This can be dealt with with the practice of compassion and genuinely refraining from judging, first towards others and then towards our own personality that we are now capable of seeing as another form of otherness. We can’t be strict towards others without also secretly being very strict towards ourselves, and we also can’t fill the measure of our strictness by ourselves: the human, an incarnated being, is, in fact, imperfect. But this imperfection has to be seen as the kind of imperfection of an animal and thus is perfect in its essential constitution. No one would think about blaming a snake for its incapability to fly, or a bird for being incapable of shedding its skin. A shrew can be perfect without the powers of a lion. We have to achieve this kind of realization in relation to our human temperament: demanding from ourselves the greatest ability to be ourselves, not someone else who possesses a different temperament.¹³ For this reason, self-knowledge is such an integral ability for a human being. 

Self-knowledge is a result of being attentive, but being observant is not about seeking faults fearfully. To constantly seek faults is as foolish and harmful as it is to rationalize faults as being non-existent when they factually do exist: it is a certain kind of religious belief, even if it manifests as an apparent inverse belief in the archetype of criticism as our saviour. Neither of these, the over-emphasis on criticism or ignoring it altogether, suffice. Only when we strive to build both can we achieve balance, profitable ground, and the kind of humus that is both humane and humble: the balance of humanity. The knowledge of self is thus an intense balance of sensing one’s self, and self-knowledge is the basis of a meaningful life. 

As this “sickness of excessive self-observation”¹⁴ is in the vicinity of empowering esoteric self-knowledge, so is the wounded ego of artistic genius. These factors often go together, and a sensitive person has to put in much effort to keep this potentially positive self-observation benevolent. If this observation starts to become pathological, one may question this tool of self-torture by pondering if we ever truly can reach the most genuine problems in us. Our false perfectionism is always built as a sort of idol, which would reveal itself flawed if it were to be manifested according to this false perfectionism. “Beauty is in imperfection”, and many of the things we wish to change to align with our ideal image are healthier and better in this form that we have not managed to mutilate with absolute control. There is a distortion, a mote in the eye itself for as long as the mind condemns excessively harshly. This is a psychological fact and a matter we cannot get rid of. Thereby, as long as we emphatically condemn ourselves, we do it based on the wrong grounds: by the unlikely result that our neurotic compulsion eventually succeeds in making us fit into our ideal, we wouldn’t be any closer to the ideal as it would objectively manifest. Neurotic perfectionism is an imperfection of the mind where shame manifests as pride and pride manifests as shame. 

The only way to burst this solipsistic bubble is to understand that our black spots are outside of the control and reach of direct perception: they are healed through indirect action, love. A person who learns to forgive others – while not being unbridled and headfirst, but through genuinely undergoing inner processes – will be forgiven by their inner judge and condemner. But, paradoxically, to be able to forgive requires strength. It demands the ability to settle as if being beyond the reach of harmful acts, as independent beings, seemingly above others. The human mind is thus like a koan: we are to get off our pedestals, all the while rising increasingly self-willed through this act, increasingly stronger souls, towards that genuine individual strength. The Adept is the beautiful inflorescence of this strength, one who has reached the deeper Self and is capable of learning how to do that. 

FINIS

1. Verse 316, translated by Eknath Easwaran
2. I’m presenting this anecdote even though we live in a time where presenting cultural qualities is perceived in an exceedingly negative light. Creating taboos seldom results in anything good; it would be much better to pay attention to the mindset in which we create character structures. One part of Satan’s manifestation as a trickster, a joker, is exactly in how the buffoon pays primary attention to cultural taboos. Behind this mask of comme il faut and general denunciation tends to reveal candy-coated structures of ruthlessness. 
3. Following the Oracle of Delphi’s imperative.
4. Satyan nasti paro dharma, the motto of the Theosophical Society, also references this. Commonly translated to “Truth is the highest religion” or “There is no religion higher than truth.” A better translation would be: “There is no dharma (lifestyle/virtue/responsibility) higher than truthfulness.” So the truth is not something that we preach as supposedly outer phenomena, it is something that we hold on to even when it might torment us. Truthfulness is needed for us to systematically stay soulful in all aspects of life – family relations, romantic relationships, business relationships, social relationships and also when we are writing a diary. For more about the challenging and deepening exercise of truthfulness, see the article “Totuudellisuus hengellisenä harjoituksena (Truthfulness as a Spiritual Practice).”
5. Blavatsky’s The Voice of the Silence, XV.
6. The “Peacock’s Tail” is one of the stages of the process of alchemy.
7. This should not be confused with a genuine striving for the right action because it’s the right thing to do. A person who evades striving because “others” are demanding it has not realized the essential rules of inner meanings and self-support in the spiritual process. 
8. Pentagrammaton, IV.
9. This is a skill to be learned and has nothing to do with defensive dissociation or distancing self-loathing. See Naamion olennot (Beings of the Mask), chapter III, where I have written about the Self and its six different grade forms of settling into otherness. These six members of self-projection correspond to the six emanations in the hexagram, which all originate from the same secret focal point, the Monad.
10. Diabolos, the accuser of the soul.
11. This seemingly cold righteousness of Satan, which, in fact, is not at all cold, might have been depicted best by Bulgakov, dressed in magnificently carnivalesque and ceremoniously black at the same time.
12. Matthew. 7:1-2.
13. The occultist still has to understand the aforementioned fact that our Self is not exhausted on this temperamental “I.” A profane person may think like this, and can live a beautiful life identifying perfectly with the “I” of this side: this is in no way reprehensible as long as they do their best in this focus of their lower self. But an occultist must realize that she can’t be Yorick today and Hamlet tomorrow, or Odysseus today and Penelope tomorrow. Our temperament today is the result of our temperament yesterday, but they are not the same. We must not attach to our temperament neurotically, which in the end is just a cloth and an instrument for the Work. The process of working in different colour aspects in the system of the Star of Azazel, and the possibility of passing through the grades, helps in understanding this. 
14. Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground