There is a popular story about how a child, one late afternoon, was running about playing with her shadow and trying hard to catch it. However much she tried, she could not succeed and then began to cry.
A sadhu, noticing her efforts, came forward and asked the child to stop running and look at her shadow. She did so, and now the shadow stood still. He then asked her to touch her head, and the shadow did likewise. ‘There,’ he said, ‘you have now caught your shadow!’
The child became happy and stopped running about, catching the shadow in its different places.
The same principle can be used in trying to understand ourselves, without a shadow of doubt. We must be able to stop the mind from running about and still it. As the mind and the ego are stilled, they cast no shadow; then only are we able to catch the source of light, our consciousness. This is known as going back to he source and attaining knowledge.
Source – Prabuddha Bharata – October 2013 – Page 14