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| Narcissus, Caravaggio |
Who looks in the "mirror" of the water to see one thing, it is true, its image. Who goes to himself risks a meeting with himself. The mirror does not flatter, showing that faithfully reflects that in him, and that is the face that we never show to the world, because the veliamo by the person, the mask of the actor. But behind the mask is the mirror that shows the real face. This is the first test of courage to face the inner way, a test which suffices to give up, startled, the majority of men. In fact, the encounter with oneself is one of the most unpleasant experience, which is projecting escape all that is negative about the world around it. Who is in a position to see its shadow and to bear the knowledge has already completed a small part of the task: at least he did emerge as "the personal unconscious." But the Shadow is a living part of the personality and wants to live with her in some form. It is not possible to prevent it from there with arguments, nor with the many arguments you can make anodyne. This problem is extremely difficult because not only calls into question the whole man, but he reminds the while his misery and his inability. The still strong - or should we rather say weak? - Do not like to pose this problem, then prefer to think of a few heroic "beyond good and evil" and cut the Gordian knot instead of dissolving.
(The archetypes of the unconscious - Jung)