[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.In consciousness we are invjñv, and yet we actually live in mÖlvdhvra.That is the sthÖla aspect.Butcan we win another aspect? As we know, we cannot understand a thing ifwe are still immersed in it and identified with it.Only when we reach astandpoint that is outside the experience in question, can we whollyunderstand what we were experiencing before.Thus, for example, wecan form an objective judgment of the nation, race, or continent towhich we belong only when we have lived for a time in a foreign countryand so are able to look at our own country from without.How, then, can we put aside our personal standpoint, which repre-sents the sthÖla aspect, and take another, a suprapersonal one which willshow us where we actually are in this world? How can we find out that weare in mÖlvdhvra? MÖlvdhvra is a condition of psychic sleep, we have said;64 2 NOVEMBER 1932we have then no consciousness there and can say nothing about it.Ibegan by saying that by means of culture we create suprapersonal valuesand that by this means we can get an inkling of other psychological possi-bilities and can reach another state of mind.In the creation of supraper-sonal values we begin with the sÖküma aspect.We see things from thesÖküma aspect when we create symbols.We can also see our psyche underthe sÖküma aspect, and this is just what the symbols of the cakras are.Norcan I describe this standpoint to you in any way except by means of asymbol.It is as if we viewed our psychology and the psychology of man-kind from the standpoint of a fourth dimension, unlimited by space ortime.The cakra system is created from this standpoint.It is a standpointthat transcends time and the individual.The spiritual point of view of India in general is a standpoint of thissort.Hindus do not begin as we do to explain the world by taking thehydrogen atom as the starting point, nor do they describe the evolutionof mankind or of the individual from lower to higher, from deep uncon-sciousness to the highest consciousness.They do not see humanity underthe sthÖla aspect.They speak only of the sÖküma aspect and therefore say: In the beginning was the one brahman without a second.It is the oneindubitable reality, being and not-being. 4 They begin in sahasrvra; theyspeak the language of the gods and think of man from above down, tak-ing him from the sÖküma or parv aspect.Inner experience is to them reve-lation; they would never say about this experience I thought it. Naturally we see the East quite differently.In comparison with ourconscious anvhata culture, we can truthfully say that the collective cul-ture of India is in mÖlvdhvra.For proof of this we need only think of theactual conditions of life in India, its poverty, its dirt, its lack of hygiene,its ignorance of scientific and technical achievements.Looked at fromthe sthÖla aspect the collective culture of India really is in mÖlvdhvra,whereas ours has reached anvhata.But the Indian concept of life under-stands humanity under the sÖküma aspect, and looked at from that stand-point everything becomes completely reversed.Our personal conscious-ness can indeed be located in anvhata or even in vjñv, but nonethelessour psychic situation as a whole is undoubtedly in mÖlvdhvra.Suppose we begin to explain the world in terms of sahasrvra andstarted off a lecture, for instance, with the words of the Vedanta: Thisworld in the beginning was brahman solely; since brahman was alone itwas not unfolded.It knew itself only, and it realized: I am brahman.Inthis way it became the universe. We would rightly be taken for mad, or4Jung provided an extended commentary on brahman in Psychological Types, inCW, vol.6, §§326 47.65 LECTURE 4at least it would be thought that we were holding a revival meeting.So ifwe are wise and live in reality, when we want to describe something wealways begin with everyday banal events, and with the practical and con-crete.In a word, we begin with the sthÖla aspect.To us the things that arereal beyond question are our professions, the places where we live, ourbank accounts, our families and our social connections.We are forced totake these realities as our premises if we want to live at all.Without per-sonal life, without the here and now, we cannot attain to the supraper-sonal.Personal life must first be fulfilled in order that the process of thesuprapersonal side of the psyche can be introduced.What is suprapersonal in us is shown us again and again in the visionsof our seminar: it is an event outside of the ego and of consciousness.Inthe fantasies of our patient we are always dealing with symbols and expe-riences which have nothing to do with her as Mrs.So-and-So but whicharise from the collective human soul in her and which are therefore col-lective contents.In analysis the suprapersonal process can begin onlywhen all the personal life has been assimilated to consciousness.In thisway psychology opens up a standpoint and types of experience that liebeyond ego consciousness.(The same thing happens in tantric philoso-phy, but with this difference: there the ego plays no role at all.) Thisstandpoint and this experience answer the question as to how we can freeourselves from the overwhelming realities of the world, that is, how todisentangle our consciousness from the world.You remember, for exam-ple, the symbol of water and fire, a picture in which the patient stood inflames.5 That represents the diving down into the unconscious, into thebaptismal font of svvdhiü°hvna, and the suffering of the fire of maõipÖra.We now understand that the diving into the water and the enduring ofthe flames is not a descent, not a fall into the lower levels, but an ascent.It is a development beyond the conscious ego, an experience of the per-sonal way into the suprapersonal a widening of the psychic horizons ofthe individual so as to include what is common to all mankind.When weassimilate the collective unconscious we are not dissolving but creating it.Only after having reached this standpoint only after having touchedthe baptismal waters of svvdhiü°hvna can we realize that our consciousculture, despite all its heights, is still in mÖlvdhvra.We may have reachedvjñv in our personal consciousness, our race in general can still be inanvhata, but that is all on the personal side still it is still the sthÖla as-pect, because it is valid only for our consciousness
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]