 If the shadow figure contains valuable, vital forces, they ought to be assimilated into actual experience and not repressed. It is up to the ego to give up its pride and prigishness and to live out something that seems to be dark but actually may not be. This can require a sacrifice just as heroic as the conquest of passion, but in an opposite sense. The ethical difficulties that arise when one meets one's shadow are well described in the eighteenth book of the Quran. In this tale, Moses meets Hidr, the green one, or first angel of God, in the desert. They wander along together, and Hidr expresses his fear that Moses will not be able to witness his deeds without indignation. If Moses cannot bear with him and trust him, Hidr will have to leave. Presently, Hidr scuttles the fishing boat of some poor villagers. Then, before Moses' eyes, he kills a handsome young man, and finally he restores the fallen wall of a city of unbelievers. Moses cannot help expressing his indignation, and so Hidr has to leave him. Before his departure, however, he explains the reasons for his actions. By scuttling the boat, he actually saved it for its owners because pirates were on their way to steal it, as it is the fishermen can salvage it. The handsome young man was on his way to commit a crime, and by killing him, Hidr saved his pious parents from infamy. By restoring the wall, two pious young men were saved from ruin because their treasure was buried under it. Moses, who had been so morally indignant, saw now, too late, that his judgment had been too hasty. Hidr's doings had seemed to be totally evil, but in fact they were not. Looking at this story naively, one might assume that Hidr is the lawless, capricious evil shadow of pious law abiding Moses. But this is not the case. Hidr is much more the personification of some secret creative actions of the Godhead. One can find a similar meaning in the famous Indian story of the King and the Corpse, as interpreted by Henry Zimmer. It is no accident that I have not quoted a dream to illustrate this subtle problem. I have chosen this well-known story from the Koran because it sums up the experience of a lifetime which would very rarely be expressed with such clarity in an individual dream. When dark figures turn up in our dreams and seem to want something, we cannot be sure whether they personify merely a shadowy part of ourselves, or the self, or both at the same time. Divining in advance whether our dark partner symbolizes a shortcoming that we should overcome, or a meaningful bit of life that we should accept, this is one of the most difficult problems that we encounter on the way to individuation. Moreover, the dream symbols are often so subtle and complicated that one cannot be sure of their interpretation. In such a situation all one can do is accept the discomfort of ethical doubt, making no final decisions or commitments, and continuing to watch the dreams. This resembles the situation of Cinderella when her stepmother threw a heap of good and bad peas in front of her and asked her to sort them out. Although it seemed quite hopeless, Cinderella began patiently to sort the peas, and suddenly doves, or ants in some versions, came to help her. These creatures symbolize helpful, deeply unconscious impulses that can only be felt in one's body as it were, and that point to a way out. Somewhere, right at the bottom of one's own being, one generally does know where one should go and what one should do. But there are times when the clown we call I behaves in such a distracting fashion that the inner voice cannot make its presence felt. Sometimes all attempts to understand the hints of the unconscious fail, and in such a difficulty one can only have the courage to do what seems to be right while being ready to change course if the suggestions of the unconscious should suddenly point in another direction. It may also happen, although this is unusual, that a person will find it better to resist the urge of the unconscious even at the price of feeling warped by doing so rather than depart too far from the state of being human. This would be the situation of people who had to live out a criminal disposition in order to be completely themselves. The strength and inner clarity needed by the ego in order to make such a decision stems secretly from the great man who apparently does not want to reveal himself too clearly. It may be that the self wants the ego to make a free choice, or it may be that the self depends on human consciousness and its decisions to help him to become manifest. When it comes to such difficult ethical problems, no one can truly judge the deeds of others. Each man has to look to his own problem and try to determine what is right for himself. As an old Zen Buddhist master said, we must follow the example of the cowherd who watches his ox with a stick so that it will not graze on other people's meadows. These new discoveries of depth psychology are bound to make some change in our collective ethical views, for they will compel us to judge all human actions in a much more individual and subtle way. The discovery of the unconscious is one of the most far-reaching discoveries of recent times, but the fact that recognition of its unconscious reality involves honest self-examination and reorganization of one's life causes many people to continue to behave as if nothing at all has happened. It takes a lot of courage to take the unconscious seriously and to tackle the problems it raises. Most people are too indolent to think deeply about even those moral aspects of their behavior of which they are conscious. They are certainly too lazy to consider how the unconscious affects them.