In The Riddle of This World, Sri Aurobindo observes that the fall into the darkness, the ignorance and the inconscience was the only thing unknown to the original being of light, and as one of the infinite possibilities of the Divine himself. For him, it is only by this fall that "...could a certain manifestation of the Supreme Truth be effected—by a working out with its phenomenal opposites as the starting point of the evolution, as the condition laid down for a transforming emergence." [Ibid., p. 103]

But, if such is indeed the transcendental reality, we can better underhand that on the psychological plane the Tempter can no longer be considered as a reality without relationship to our profound being, and that his problem cannot be solved by a simple refusal, or a simple conflict.

The reality of the Shadow

In Western psychology, CG Jung has emphasised the reality of the Shadow. This appears precisely at the beginning of what he calls the process of individuation, of which the end is the discovery of Self and the reconciliation of a person with himself and with the world. The Shadow appears in dreams under the most vary­ing forms, but always corresponds to something which we have refused or which we have been incapable of integrating in our personality. In a certain way, the Shadow represents temptation, but, from another standpoint, it corresponds with our most difficult and serious task. The figures in the dream, or the phantasms which give expression to it, are often the image, sometimes composite, of people who in real life represent precisely that which we condemn with indignation or hold in dread. Thus the Shadow has always a character, which is, if not immoral, at least amoral. It can express certain rejected or suppressed desires, but its roots are nevertheless extra-individual. Behind the images which it borrows from real persons whom we know, the dream allows us to discern forces, mythical or collective, which can take on a demoniac and magical aspect. But it is at the mo­ment when we discover the extra-individual origin of the Shadow that we become conscious of his ambiguous character and of his infinite possibilities of metamor­phosis. The dreaded Magician is prone at this level to turn himself into the seduc­tive young man. The devil can here return again to the angel. In these depths, all becomes possible once more, and the dreaded forces are exactly those which permit us the greatest ascent.

Little has been made of the curious fact that the figures of the Shadow appear­ing in the forms of dreams at the beginning of the process of individuation some­times actually arise in exterior existence. One would say that a sort of attracting force draws into the magnetic field of the subject those individuals who correspond to the images evoked by his unconscious. A correlation between the interior and the exterior is thus demonstrated, and experience makes clear that we meet in life only those persons who correspond forces operating in the secret depths of our being. But these beings are not only the reflection or the complement of that which we have attained, or believe we have attained consciously. They are often also the projections of that which, in us, has remained the most childish, the most archaic, the least differentiated. These beings naturally exercise over us an attrac­tion, mingled with fear. They represent the devil from whom we want to flee and in whom, nevertheless, we wish to lose ourselves. In certain cases of obsession, it can be observed that the fascinating image of the inside is the same as the seducing image of the outside. But for one as for the ether, we perceive that we have to deal neither with something which is substantially different from ourselves, nor with a force which we must avoid or repulse, but in fact with a part of our secret energy and with an encounter engaging our heaviest responsibilities. Here also one might doubtless recall, with Sri Aurobindo, that whenever an extreme affirma­tion exercises on the human mind a powerful attraction, we can be certain that we are facing not simply an error, a superstition or hallucination, but a sovereign fact in disguise which is claiming our adhesion and will take its revenge if it is denied or rejected. In effect, experience shows us that the refusal of the Shadow or a lack of responsibility towards it leads to a disintegration of the individual which results in neurosis, and which saintliness of an ascetic type does not easily escape; it provokes also in communal life crises, revolutions and war.

Analysis of Destiny

In the measure in which it remains tied to Freudian orthodoxy, Western psychology would be tempted to see in the figures of the Shadow only the expres­sion of individual complexes and the remnants of experiences missed; but this attitude is not accepted by the most remarkable representatives of this psychology, and notably by Jung and Szondy. The first has shown that behind the individual complex appears a power, of which it is impossible to define the nature, who reveals to us his existence in dreams only under the form of great collective and universal symbols which we can comprehend merely as a reality in temporal and archetype. But if, as the psychology of the depths maintains, the archetype is a centre of energy which acts outside time and space and, as a result, activates millions of individuals, it is no longer impossible to understand that the beings who find themselves animated by a common archetype should encounter one another in their magnetic field for a necessary contact. If one realises, in addition, that this psychology sees the archetype as a power, at the same time luminous and obscure, the encounter of persons apparently opposed takes on a significance even more profound because the beings in opposition who become in this way paradoxes and problems to one another, are made from a common substance and appear in some way as different facets of a single reality. Doubtless, the researches of Szondy on the generic unconscious and the Analysis of Destiny could also throw certain useful light on this question, because, if it is true, as the learned Hungarian maintains, that every man possesses impelling antagonistic needs, of which some are related to his dominant genes and others to his latent or recessive genes, then the attraction of the contrary would be explained, at least in this particular domain, as a call transmitted to the persons who represent in a dominant way those ten­dencies which remain latent in us, but which none the less belong to us. These tendencies would correspond in some part to the aspirations or the rejections of the line, the ancestors, the race or the species. From this would arise a fact that we have sometimes observed and which testifies to the singular link between certain figures of the Shadow, particularly obsessing, and the memory of the deceased persons. Contact with the contrary would appear, in this perspective, as a duty towards the past and its possible integration as a reconciliation with the ancestors.

Such points of view evidently cannot be substituted for a transcendental explanation of the phenomena recorded, but they seem nevertheless able to bring light to bear on them, which, although fragmentary, is nonetheless fruitful and true at a certain level of observation.

Evil Persona and Sri Aurobindo’s Solution

The fact that Sri Aurobindo considers that the only solution to the appearance of the "Evil Persona" is for his opposite to take upon himself his problems, doubt­less also links up with the attitude of the psychology of the depths in regard to the Shadow. This solution differs greatly from the one generally held by Chris­tianity, because, in this new perspective, the Devil is no longer a reality to flee from or to destroy, but a reality to transfigure. If the "double" who dogs my foot­steps is a tragic murderer, I find myself henceforth under the obligation of assum­ing the problems of a murderer, for he is merely a part of my own being which has gone astray. Contact with the Devil thus becomes a necessity which we can no longer escape; and indeed this contact may lead to a turmoil in which we run the risk of losing ourselves altogether. Yet no victory over dualism and no spiritual growth is possible without the acceptance of this risk and without the descent into Hell which it presupposes.

The problem, which one is thus forced to face may sometimes present an almost intolerable burden. However, it seems to me that I have noticed that a person who assumes such responsibilities is helped to an equal degree by some­thing which we might be permitted to call grace. It is at the very moment at which we find the answer to the enigma of the Sphinx that it dissolves itself. The integration of the Shadow results in the disappearance of the Shadow. It is true that this integration is never complete or definite. For the Shadow which we bear is in proportion to the world as much as is our light. It is at each stage of our ascent or of our descent that we meet it. That is why the task to which we are called seems sometimes to be endless: it has continually to be begun again with each of the beings, who, in fact, belong to the same centre of energy as ourselves, whom we must carry with us into the light or follow into the darkness and whose enigmatic form is a symbol of each stage in our lives and the inverted sign of our illusions. 

Note by Paulette

When an ashramite sent a text from CG Jung to Sri Aurobindo the Master replied that this greatly interested him, as it was his “constant experience” that the “Evil Persona” will sooner or later manifest as a being, attached to the sadhak, representing “the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done.” Sri Aurobindo’s letter was published in the Ashram’s Bulletin of Physical Education in English, French (as Le Double Mauvais) and Hindi; the Mother commented twice on this letter. The disciple who had submitted the text to Sri Aurobindo was Kishor Gandhi, regarded as one of the greatest Aurobindonian scholars; the Mother had appointed him as the sole editor of Sri Aurobindo’s Letters on Yoga, in three volumes, and other texts. To him we owe the publication in the annual Sri Aurobindo Circle, Vol. X, 1954, of which he was the much praised editor, of the article reproduced here.

Raymond de Becker is a French journalist and television personality. A pupil of CG Jung and a specialist in psychiatry and psychology, he is the author of The Understating of Dreams, an extensive analysis of dreams throughout history. 

In a private e-mail Paulette writes to RYD: “By giving me a photocopy of this article, some twenty-five years ago, Kishor Gandhi initiated me to the Royal Path of the Shadow (in Jungian Psychology as well as in Integral Yoga), and directly to the Evil Persona in Integral Yoga. The Mother herself commented at least twice about the Evil Persona (Sri Aurobindo’s reply because of a text by Jung submitted to him by Kishor Gandhi).” The Mother’s comments appear in Collected Works of the Mother Questions & Answers, Vol. 5 and Vol. 6. Here is Sri Aurobindo’s letter reproduced again:

What you say about the “Evil Persona” interests me greatly as it answers to my consistent experience that a person greatly endowed for the work has, always or almost always,—perhaps one ought not to make a too rigid universal rule about these things—a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done. Or, if it is not there at first, not bound to his personality, a force of this kind enters into his environment as soon as he begins his movement to realise. Its business seems to be to oppose, to create stumbling and wrong conditions, in a word, to set before him the whole problem of the work he has started to do. It would seem as if the problem could not, in the occult economy of things, be solved other wise than by the predestined instrument making the difficulty his own. That would explain many things that seem very disconcerting on the surface. [Letters on Yoga, Cent. Ed. Vol. 24, p. 16]