Discovering Your Unlived Life

"Wouldn't it be great to just let go of your ego? Just live in the now and be enlightened? Paradox, the contrary opposites, are not ever truly separated; paradoxes make room for grace and mystery." --Living Your Unlived Life by R.Johnson and J. Ruhl

Authors Johnson and Ruhl write of many of the currents in modern thought, and while many others may write on the same topics, dispense the same or similar notions, these two authors are openly and clearly operating within the bounds of their mentor, Carl Jung. Many self styled spiritualists and life "coaches" may also advance the knowledge presented in the book, Living Your Unlived Life, though with less integrity or honesty, implying it to be their own thought or devises; in reality they too are one of the choir canting Jung equally. Not to be fooled, a Simple Mind seeks to track down ideas and their attribution.

Many have preoccupied themselves with various 'busy-iness' for so long that as the second half of life approaches, there is the strong impulse to push back, to 'forget' the many longings in a lifetime; despite a modern appetite for amusements and all kinds of diversions, the impulse to examine a path less often chosen is ignored. Will it be before long that we turn to our own inner longings, recognizing the need for living life that makes sense now, that is creative and renders satisfaction? Will this occur before death or only in the moments attending ones' passing? Feeling the press of growing tedium or vague dissatisfaction, some will turn, attend to this task and realize the riches from doing so. Living Your Unlived Life may just be the best, most, creative thing you've done.

There are those who will simply say that one must get rid of the 'ego/ I /self' and all will be well. Au contraire! write authors Johnson and Ruhl. Instead they note that without an informed, conscious ego, one is "psychotic, not enlightened… [One] can move the ego into relationship, in service to something greater."
In the second life, as we age and mature, an ego may serve to divinize, making parts whole. It may be a partial answer for what serves the greater good. Indeed,the 'ego' is central to the Holy Grail myth of medieval Europe. In concert with consciousness, the ego holds the reins of daily life; ego strength is what actually distinguishes typical, daily imaginings and playfulness from psychosis and absurdity.

Without potentially destroying your earlier accomplishments, destroying your connections to friends and loved ones, ruining your finances, living your un-lived life may be one of the most engaging times of your life. For some it's tinkering and adjusting, for others it's a 'do over' featuring a second career, meaningful creative solutions to the same time worn problems. As each person is unique, there are unique responses to the issues of living the 'second life' in real time, real world ways.

From this process of discovery of our self, we find that much of what remains undeveloped, un-lived is what seems too grand to bear. "This may seem silly, but if you look honestly at your life, you will find it's true," writes Johnson. Some for example, look for spirit in a bottle rather than inside themself; some seek ecstasy from others or from exterior experiences. And true for many is a knee-jerk reaction against change. The 'ego' simply doesn't like it'; it upsets the settled balance. We struggle to get the balance right for our self.

Engaging in the timeless art of Being rather than Doing is the major focus of the second life; in our earlier years we expended energies upon career goals, establishing and maintaining relationships, building financial security; with those tasks now largely in hand, many will find their mind wandering. It meanders at times, like a daydream of what might be; it dreams of situations we find either highly attractive or repulsing.
All this imagining may be taken together as symbolic, realizing over time greater and deeper self awareness, the beginnings of a peaceful life without regrets. "Midlife is a time of reappraisal in part because as we age, the realm of Being must become more predominant."

Discovering our un-lived life and responding to its promptings is a process the authors write about. Setting time aside during ones' day for moments of reflection, to connect with our deepest self is "not mindless daydreaming, zoning out… it's from a state of energized being" that we learn to recognize our self.

Bringing the "calmness and focus of Being into doing activities is a supreme achievement." Trace what or whom you love; follow what matters to you into your Being. Not every concern is meant literally. Some desires and fantasies are best thought out rather than lived. Engage with your symbols. Learn their meaning.

Through the recognition of your own personal symbols and expressive (visual, lyrical, spoken, physical) language, one may pull back together in greater wholeness parts previously buried or torn from a life story.

No one else can live your life for you, nor will they die for you when that time comes.
Actively imagining your story and where it will go from here is a choice and a challenge for you to decide.

Dreams, Living Your "Unlived" Life

In the culturing process, the many decisions of our parents and childhood caretakers become habits, and they become our own when adults. The mind has a terrific repertoire of past behavior accrued over time and stored until the precise moment when needed. These actions, memories or past, form a bulk of our coping skills in adult life.
For many they are trusty and reliable responses to ordinary life events, things like dealing with annoying people, completing tasks, organizing our schedules and taking advantage of "down time." We often think of them as "manners."

All these activities give the adult satisfaction and a sense of mastery over everyday events. one often gains a sense of security from these interactions; as a person matures, more experiences accrue and more strategies are learned, stored and used as needed.
For many if not most, there comes a point in time when we are no longer marking time as "from when I was born until the present," but rather time is more as "from the present moment to my death." This shift in perception is gradual, usually occurring in the 40's and becoming louder as the 50th decade and beyond approaches.

Those trusty old solutions, those experiences of the past may no longer suit. What once was a brilliant maneuver at age 25 is not so now. Life is more lived, and the past while possibly remembered fondly now is more nuanced, more characterized. Something new is often in order.
The goal is not the elimination of patterned views and responses; growing maturity may call for a re-examination of previously disregarded choices or pathways.

Yet this can lead to major disruption or even financial ruin of a lifetime of gain. So many busy themselves with other things, staving off the gnawing thought in the back of the mind, that a path once contemplated, such as travel, further study or a career move might, still, make sense.
Writing partly from personal experience and partly from a professional perspective authors R. Johnson and J. Ruhl write in their book, Living Your Unlived Life that loosening up on the reins of life, "give us more freedom of choice, to regain access to lost resources that are essential to a fulfilling life."
The paradox of identity is that identity is fluid over a lifetime, more than something rigid or habitual. Even so, we rely on the patterns of the previous to make our current experiences coherent.

And while these patterns and structures are necessary and in a large degree helpful, they are also, "over time becoming boundaries, restricting our freedom and narrowing our experience." Relying then on the familiar, we do feel often worn out, tired or stressed. As the saying, 'same old thing' kicks in, "by mid-life your identity is the institutionalization of your past," writes Johnson.
The antidote Johnson says may lie in several places, but one thing he assures the reader is that by this time in life whatever the solution, it indeed lies within.
Carl Jung, Johnson's mentor, wrote that it is "a mistake to fear that the truths and values of earlier adulthood are no longer relevant; they have just become relative-- they aren't universally true."

Becoming re-acquainted with your inner life, the who, how and whys of your existence may make you feel a bit of a teen again, but it will also give you new awareness and updated solutions to events in your life. The authors give much, much more detail and introduce the concept of "active imagination" as a real and effective tool for growth.
Johnson insists that it may effectively quell moods, mental stresses and other psychic disorders if practiced effectively and consistently. This technique as explained incorporates ones' dreams, imaginings and conscious thoughts as part of its method.

What Part of Me Believes That?

"Sometimes we are startled. Where did that come from? I didn't know I felt so strongly." -- Robert Johnson, writer, Jungian psychologist

As a student and one associated with the late Carl Jung, Robert Johnson carries on Jung's work. Jung, unlike many of his generation, was one who believed that the base root of most all personal problems is not functional, some described such as "toxic", "games," "setting fences and boundaries," but rather spiritual challenges or crises that are not limited solutions or positions; instead they are potentially limitless and as unique as the persons who pose them. These other terms have no place in the spiritual world; they are 'pop psychology' and not terribly helpful. Sometimes they are denigrating; often they indicate power seeking by the one who utters them. The Simple mind avoids thoughts like these because people are greater than the sum of their mistakenness and sometimes confusion.

We can learn by examining our issues closely. What is it about me that feels this way? Why do I think that? What part of it sets off this (intense) reaction in me? Robert Johnson takes up a small part of this issue writing, "We remember getting worked up in a conversation and blurting out some strong opinion that we didn't know consciously we held." And we are startled by this sudden revelation not only to those listening but in our self equally! There is this sudden surge of emotional energy and maybe we suddenly find we are being our self, because what constitutes our self is the totality which necessarily includes our unconscious pronouncements. These "hidden parts of our self have strong feelings and want to express themselves."

Sometimes the hidden or unconscious part of our self is zany, sometimes its out of sync with social norms; sometimes it's embarrassing, violent, or humiliating when these facets of the self, parts of our personality, abruptly emerge. Other times, points of talent or strength arise, suddenly surprising us with their skill and clarity. As we grow, we may conclude that we are a different kind of person than we previously thought. Complicating matters, our qualities both positive and negative, emotional and intellectual may or may not arrive at precisely the most appropriate moments. This can leave us feeling strongly for or against someone or something and having the intellectual thought, Why? We may not yet understand.

Into the mix, our self definition is called into play; we are challenged by it. The unconscious is a huge energy system. Like others have famously observed the heart has its reasons, and the reception of its images and messages can be deeply informative to our spiritual and growing selves.

In the Presence of Gods and Goddesses

"People can get so over-involved with searching for mythic connections that they forget they also have personal associations to the symbols." Robert Johnson

Many times we dream of events from our past waking day, a sort of summation or re-hashing of events, or their parts. The mind in its curious method dissects, injects and reintroduces the subject in a way that is different from the events of our waking world. It's as if the mind sees with its own eyes, for its own purposes. Humanity has for eternity taken note of dreams. They perplex, confuse and inform in equal proportion. The bible as well as many other ancient texts serve as oracles to the perplexing nature of the dream state. Dreams and spirituality have always had a connection.

It is within our deepest self that we dream. In the silence of our nights images come to us; energies and feelings are portrayed as if on a movie screen while we slumber; watching the show which at times is so vivid and realistic filled with our emotions, hopes or fears that upon awakening we're not entirely sure if it "was real or just a dream." Often time the memory of the dream is deep; we ponder it, catching what little we can deduce and turning it outward concretely looking at others. But outward is not the solution, nor is it a resolution because the dream is the dreamer and the images are personal. No more is it true that dream symbols are standard than it is to assume that the loves one plays out at night are interchangeable!

If it were true that the loves, the gods and goddesses of our dreams were interchangeable, would not their value be so much less? What would we learn, and what could they teach us about our feelings, our beliefs and our own energies? Often dreams record and reflect changes a person has made, or is soon to make in their waking life; dreams then represent a reflection of their engagement with their own values and beliefs. In our spiritual journeys towards greater wholeness, dreams play an important role in representing to us what we most deeply think and feel.

We try on roles, we solve issues, paradoxes are presented and solutions, or part solutions, rendered. Feelings are deeply considered; the feelings that may have been squelched in our waking day, now are guides to what matters to us. Even if the images presented in the dream are borrowed, as in for example, your mother, your neighbor, the man in the store, an animal or a place, those images symbolize something that is going on. "You use that image to refer to something inside of you," writes Robert Johnson. With careful consideration, dreams can and often impart wisdom to the dreamer.

Jung: The Psyche, an Androgyny

“The most important aspect of the psyche is the “soul-image.”
--Inner Work by Robert A. Johnson

For psychologist Carl Jung, the understanding of dreams and making the unconscious conscious are at the heart of the individual. While there are, in his view, other significant factors influencing one’s behavior and thoughts, for Jung archetypes and dreams are a pathway. The concept of archetype comes up frequently in reference to dreams and what he calls “Active Imagination.”

Archetypes as described by Jung are a most provocative concept. While an ancient idea, Plato also held a like concept he called, “ideal forms,” or forms pre-determined to come into the world as the divine pattern. Jung took the idea and fused it with individuals.
In his view, individuals hold in common primordial symbols which express their deepest motives, the world over. Even if an individual has not personally experienced something, the mind, in a dream state, may still conjure the symbol.
In the dream state then, symbols appear to represent universal human themes and individuals appear to represent “energy forms,” or those distinct, inner personalities, the inner-self.

Dreams often aid in the resolution of conflict through symbolic means by bringing the unconscious and the conscious into harmony.
In his book about the subject, Inner Work, Jungian psychologist, Robert Johnson writes, “Most people can’t face inner conflict at all; they impose a kind of artificial unity on life by clinging to the prejudices of their ego and repressing the voices of the unconscious.
If there are parts of ourselves who have different values, or needs, most of us would rather not hear about it.”

Thus, the categories which we determine to be good or bad are mostly arbitrary and subjective. They are without absolute.
In Jung's view, we are actually all plural beings, possessing any number of conflicting and opposing, distinct personalities co-existing in one body.
This is familiar to most us; we like some things, love others, dislike, or are uncomfortable about still more.
Making the self conscious or transparent is a life long task. It is the move towards wholeness and wellness. The most important aspect of the psyche is the “soul-image.”

As part of the sense of plural being, Jung proposes the theory that the psyche is, as a result, an androgyny. It manifests itself as ‘containing both feminine and masculine energies.' While every man needs “to connect his masculine energy” to his feminine energies, women also need to connect their feminine energy to their “masculine” self.
Doing so creates balance within the individual. The psyche spontaneously divides masculine and feminine, appearing to the conscious mind as complementary opposites like yin and yang, dark and light. “They are destined to make a synthesis, one stream of energy.”

Your Neurosis, a Low-Intensity Religious Experience*

“Jung’s studies and work led him to conclude that the unconscious is the real source…" Robert Johnson

Jungian psychologist and author, Robert Johnson writes about many things in his book, Inner Work. Most importantly he details the value of the ‘inner world’ of individuals. The inner world as he describes it follows along the ideas of his mentor psychologist Carl Jung who defined the term: the ‘secret inner life we all lead, by day and by night, in constant companionship with our unseen, unconscious self." Johnson, like Jung, makes considered value of these associations, the conscious, the unconscious, dreams, rituals and something he calls active imagination.

“Jung’s studies and work led him to conclude that the unconscious is the real source of all our human conscious… reasoning, awareness, and feeling. The unconscious is the Original Mind, the primal matrix... Every feature of our functioning consciousness was first contained in the unconscious and then found its way from there… The conscious mind reflects the wholeness of the total self… this [is] a storehouse of raw energy assimilates into the personality… the true depth and grandeur of an individual human being is never totally manifested until the main elements of the personality are moved from the level of potential (meaning more at ‘possibility’) in the unconscious… [to] the level of conscious functioning.”

Jung observes about the inner life: the unconscious, when in balance with the conscious mind lives in relationship to one another. However the disaster in this view is that the modern world has completed “the splitting off of the conscious mind from its roots in the unconscious.” Thus all the forms that nourished earlier generations such as dreams, vision, ritual, imagination and religious experience are lost, dismissed by the modern mind as base or superstitious. What’s left? Many seek to fill the void with a ‘conscious consumerism,’ fed by big business, they fixate on the physical, the external, material world.

Still the inner world strives to make itself known. Many have contact with this form of knowledge through the recollection of dreams. While dreams are not taken literally in Jung’s view, they are, however, powerful imaginings and symbols pointing the way; thus the dream is a portrait of the dreamer. They are influential reporters of our behaviors, whose origins are from within. And “curiously people resist their good qualities even more emphatically than they resist facing their negative qualities,” writes Johnson. Dreams “constantly speak to us about our beliefs, and attitudes.”

Moving from dream work to the place of ritual is part of the process Jung describes as a function of making the unconscious individual. Ritual is a most important tool with great energy to bridge the difference between the paradox of opposites. It ties our divided selves together. In the West, Johnson says, there is a great urge to make everything abstract, to use intellectual discussion alone in substitution for concrete, direct, feeling experiences. When emotions are registered physically and concretely, they register at the deepest places of the psyche.
Another important point Johnson brings up is that of common sense. While imagination is a useful and valid part of conscious reckoning;its content and origin are produced uniquely within the self. Many conduct themselves without common sense. Not everything one imagines is to be acted upon. Some things are just for contemplation. Through thoughtful consideration, the distinction between the active and contemplative becomes apparent.
The Hindu master Sri Aurobindo once said, “Why is it that when people first relinquish the world (worldliness), the first thing they relinquish is common sense?” Courtesy and respect of others remain important community values.

* As for Neurosis, Jungian analysis sees this as a situation where unconscious motives are expressed in ways that do not directly serve the person; they may actually be detrimental imbalances to the self. How? For more information: This is a long discussion contained within the book, Inner Work by Robert Johnson, and also many prior references by Carl Jung in his writings.

Mandala or Mandorla?

"Happily...we have a solution. This is the mandorla... It is far too valuable a concept to have lost." Owning Your Own Shadow -- by R. Johnson

"Everyone knows what a mandala is, even though mandala is a Sanskrit idea borrowed from India and Tibet. A mandala is a holy circle or bounded place that is a representation of wholeness..... the Tibetan tanka [for example], a picture generally of the Buddha in his many attributes... Mandalas are devices that remind us of our unity with god and all living things."
Mandalas are found in places as diverse as a Tibetan monastery, an Indian ashram or a Christian cathedral. In the christian version, the mandala is most often represented as a rose flowering. It appears in Gothic architecture as a rose window,  frequently representing a healing symbol in christian mythology.

While mandalas are perhaps more familiar to many persons, the mandorla is an important symbol as well; during the Medieval age it was prevalent in many places. It has a healing effect, "but, as Johnson writes in his book, Owning Your Own Shadow,' it's somewhat different.
A mandorla is an almond shaped segment formed when two circles partly overlap."  This symbol is "nothing less than the overlap of opposites." It is often seen in spiritual terms as the overlap between heaven and earth, dark and light.
Each of us, at different moments in our every day existence, have the experience of the worldly demands which collide or conflict with our spiritual longings and desires.

It is within the ancient symbol of mandorla that we may be instructed so as to reconcile these demands and needs. In our lives, mandorla may act to remind us of our life as both earthly and heavenly.
The Christ depicted with his mother, Mary at his side, clearly makes the point (mandorla) how wonderfully true the affirmation of the feminine energy is in life, by assigning her in a place next to the majesty (masculine) which is the Christ.
Some of the most beautiful mandorlas in European monuments feature this particular subject. "The mandorla is so important in our torn world" that re-examining it is of great significance.
There is a tendency to divide the self, to banish elements of self and let them live unobserved alongside the "known" self.
However in doing so, considerable energy is sidelined into what is sometimes called the "shadow." But they will not stay hidden forever and have the habit of returning; asserting their energy, like it or not.

When that day of reckoning comes, and there may be many over a period of time, the mandorla is a wonderfully healing help. It begins to focus one upon the self and the re-emerging split. Mandorla starts first as something very tiny, a sliver really, and as it grows, greater overlap occurs; the self is re-made more whole, stronger and more complete.
Binding together, making holy the unholy; mandorla is a profound religious and spiritual experience. It is the place of poetry, where the fire becomes the rose, where this is that, where transformation is great synthesis.
The biblical story of the bush which burns, yet is not consumed is poetry leading to a new sense of wholeness, unity completed. The bush and its burning overlap. Healing begins in the space between. And mandorla is peacemaking.

"If your eye be seen, your whole body will be filled with light." Matthew 6:22

Inside the Grail Legend

“...if one is to find the Grail, [that] means not to fall prey to a mood.” The Holy Grail as interpreted by Robert Johnson


There are many, many truths to be gained from study of this most unique of legends, the Holy Grail. Following the lead of Carl and Emma Jung and Marie Louise von Franz, Robert Johnson writes in his book, He, that “what the Grail myth is telling us is that in his relationship to the interior feminine a man should relate to her, that interior feminine [self] on a feeling level and not on a mood level.” The author distinguishes the terms mood and feeling by explanation: he writes, a mood is the result of the interior self unconsciously in possession, the anima or interior feminine self of a man; a feeling is a value, the ability to value. “If a man has a good relationship with his anima, his feminine self, he is able to feel, to value, and thus find meaning in his life. If a man is not related to his anima... he has no capacity for valuation. So sharp collision between the two types of interior experience a man goes through."

In the Legend of the Grail, Percival is guided to his feeling senses, his anima. In discovering a bit of this sense, he is useful and creative; in doing so, he must not however seduce or be seduced by the interior feminine self. Granting himself seduction is destructive towards his goal of finding the Grail Castle. He is, in the legend, most thoroughly advised not to fall prey to a mood. “As soon as a man falls into a mood, he has no capacity for relationship, no power for feeling and therefore no capacity for valuation.” All moods, good or bad, are trouble.

While under the spell of a mood, the one who feels its effect is like a person bewitched. “He cannot think, he cannot function, he cannot relate; he may think he’s doing a great deal, but there is just so much churning inside. If something is not already wrong, a man in a mood will make it wrong.” And if they are not wise to it, a man’s loved ones may also fall victim to his moods. A man may, in fact, in that state of mind think that they are quite responsible for his moods!

Robbed of a sense of relatedness or meaning, a man in a mood we learn in the Grail legend, is a man who cannot find fulfillment. He is easily bored. Thus “if something is wrong with one’s ability to relate, the meaning in life is gone. So depression is another term for mood. One finds that most of the content of a psychosis for a man is anima. It’s a haunting, a possession.” A mood is a little madness then, which overtakes. Many times a person may be overtaken by a mood. There is then wild enthusiasm for this or for that, but the mood runs its course and then the thing is forgotten; much time and money is expended by those in a mood. While in this state he does not ‘run his own house’ and then is impossible to live with; he is terribly critical of exterior, in the flesh women at this time, soundly blaming them for any number of things to which they stand mystified!  A man must learn in his quest for the Grail to look for fulfillment but not good moods, lest he is again in possession by something destructive. It’s as if in the mood he declares, “You are going to make me happy--or else!”

The anecdote to this is to learn to live in time, moment to moment. One can learn to recognize the advent of a mood and refuse it. It is one's responsibility to know what is going on within himself so as to live consciously-- the point of this quest for the Holy Grail. “A man who has this kind of self-knowledge begins to develop ego strength,” writes Johnson. When truly enthusiastic, a man is filled with the Spirit of God. He is vibrant and creative. A great creativity flows, one which is stable and productive. It is not the petulance of a child.

The truest genius of a flesh and blood woman is that if she can be consciously aware of her innate feminine nature, not critical of others, and strong enough to stand up to this “spurious femininity” when a man’s mood presents such; he will likely come out of his mood and return to his senses. Many in this world are in the possession of a mental illness, a foul mood which befalls them either frequently or intermittently. They may say they’re having a bad day while in this state. And when comes its opposite, because balance is necessary, mania or depression appears. Chaos may also result owing to the lack of feeling or valuing. Careful reflection and conscious awareness is the point of Percival’s methodical search. The myth, if we follow it through, tells us that Percival triumphs.

Jung and the West, Regarding Kundalini*

"If some great idea takes hold of us from outside, we must understand that it takes hold of us only because something in us responds to it, and goes out to meet it." --C.S. Jung
In 1932 renowned psychologist Carl Jung, former student of Sigmund Freud, delivered a scholarly paper, now collected into a book, Visions, at a psychoanalysis conference in which he discussed the practice and symbolism of Kundalini Yoga. He also revealed to his listeners a startling correlation in the West between the practice of this type of Yoga, and the experience of a sudden, and perhaps not easily reversible sudden break with the realized world in some individuals. He describes this break as a psychosis, in which the individual believes himself unable to contact with, or function in the everyday world. He is then, psychotic by Western standards, Jung states.

On 16 November 1932 at the same conference, from the transcripts which survive, C.S. Jung says, " the child has grown into a peculiar sort of tree which is human above and snake below... the Kundalini. And below the diaphragm it is all snake... And what is worm below is divine above..." "In the Chakras, the Kundalini was always separate...We must never forget that the Kundalini system is a specifically Indian production, and we have to deal here with Western material... You know that Kundalini changes on her way up to Ajna, the lower part, the part of darkness where the Purusha does not appear, is the black snake; there one is absolutely swallowed up in nature, in emotion, and everything beyond emotion is not perceived because it is not perceptible....Jung continues, "So, to a primitive, a man who thinks is most uncanny, a very bad man, a sorcerer full of hatred who will surely poison you... When you have that point of view, you are inside of the monster. When you come through the diaphragm, you are outside of the monster, and then you can see what really held you was that divine being which appeared to you, when looked at from the inside, as a big snake.

That is the reason why this being is monstrous...."There is an intuitive philosophy taken over from Proclus, the Neo-Platonist, who extolled, "Where there is time, there is creation. Thus time and creation are the same... " Jung further discusses in this same lecture the evolution of Gnosis in the Greek world and the development of Christianity. He notes that Saint Paul first was a gnostic before his conversion; the prevailing ideas of both gnosis and the phrenes of Homer. "In those days Christ ranked with Bacchus or Dionysus. In the case of the phrenes, when the hero is killed, the phrenes leave him by the mouth, or by above, but that which goes to the lower regions is the psyche... It is exactly the same in Chinese philosophy where the shen is the masculine soul that goes [rises] up to the gods; the kuei soul is female; It sinks down to the darkness... you see, the Chinese understood man as consisting of two parts...Now this kuei soul according to Eastern and Greek tradition is not immortal...it slowly loses its form and vanishes into the lights of the Heavens... The little flame from my breast rushed forth and sought to merge with this figure.

What has happened here? Well, a sort of mystic union. The ego attempts to merge, or unite with the universal Self. The ego-self shows vivid desire; flame is always vivid desire to merge-- and where would that lead? To a seeming death--or to something new. Jung concludes, to the Western mind, the overly close parallels of opposite, of black and white, of hot and cold, of far and near, etc. creates a complete state of unconsciousness, a collapse of clarity. In its place, complete confusion, a state much like insanity comes to reign. Opposing factors coming too close together would render many people in a state of complete disorientation. They lose their values, their sense of rightness and have no idea what is wrong with themselves. They just feel that they simply don't care. In the mind of Kundalini, is the snake darkness? Is it light? Is it male or female? Perhaps it is both. How so? With new consciousness, what then am I? Is my 'self' enlightened, or a self, dis-integrated? However, the self may be righted again, says Jung, by dropping deeper into the Chakras system, into the water to quench the fire.

* This article, a reader favorite appeared her previously April 9, 2009

Visionary Experiences

Our twenty-first century has a tremendous collective prejudice against the imagination
--Robert Johnson

No one in fact, "makes up" anything in the imagination. The material that appears in the imagination has to originate from somewhere; that is the unconscious, asserts Robert Johnson.
Writing, "the prejudice against imagination... is reflected in things people say like, "You're only imagining it," or "that's a fantasy, not reality," yet imagination more properly understood, is a channel through which unconscious material flows to the conscious mind. Johnson writes, "to be even more accurate, imagination is a transformer that converts the original material into images the conscious mind can perceive."

The prejudice against imagination is so strong in modern society that experiences understood almost intuitively by our ancestors have become swamped in a sea of rational, scientific thought. Modern thinkers have need to rediscover what the ancients knew: the mind is conceived with a power to convert the "invisible" realm to conscious, visible, forms that can be detected and contemplated. As the Catholic Christian creed records, "we believe in the seen, and the unseen..." The ancients thought of it too, as the place of the gods, the region of pure spirit. It was, and is, a place of power to make images, enabling us to see.

In ancient Greece, the place of fantasy, or place of producing poetic, abstract and religious imagery, was nearly unquestioned. This inner world was thought of as a place of ideal forms, of the expression of the gods; they gained meaning from imagination and dreams, both in the spiritual and aesthetic realms. "These meanings could then be held in memory and made the basis of thought and reasoning."

"In religion, the imaginative faculty was the legitimate path of religious inspiration, revelation, and experience." The simple fact that information comes to one through the unconscious mind, or imagination, in no way discredits it as a form or a reality. Experiences of poetic imagining are not mere whimsy; rather they express in symbols the real happenings of a human life experience.
"Humans depend on the imagination's image-making power, and its image-symbols for creative endeavors such as poetry, visual arts, literature, sculpture, and essentially all philosophical and religious functioning." Without imagination, Albert Einstein, for one, would not have deduced the intricacies of the natural world; indeed he states that many of his most important ideas came to him through imaginative intuition. This imagination, then can serve as a great contribution to both individuals and society.

In Carl Jung's positing, he came to the thought that humans are endowed from the eons with archetypes, powerful symbols that spring from deep within the universal, collective, human nature. In all "cultures and religions since the beginning of history, the idea of a soul has sprung up spontaneously... human kind has always intuited the existence... that was invisible, yet active." The soul has often been referred to as feminine, present in poetic, and religious symbolism. Sometimes the soul is seen as an inner woman, regardless of one's exterior gender. Muses have often inspired great thoughts of religion or arts. And not only does the soul function as an inner reality, but it generates a set of symbols, universal to all.

These symbols are, in part, what makes us human-- universal, yet unique individuals. Carl Jung deduced that the psyche manifests itself as androgyny, neither male nor female, but both, one and the same. Within our collective conscious there exists the seed of both the male and female, the anima and the animus.

Thus the inner self is a plurality, like the Chinese idea of pairs, such as yin and yang. While they may appear to us as opposites, the great challenge in the spiritual life is the reconciliation of this paradox. Because in fact, the two are one; they are two parts of one stream of energy.

The end product of this evolution, writes Johnson, "is something that we can sense, feel and describe intuitively--even though we have not obtained it, a sense of wholeness, of completeness. This wholeness is the totality of our being," our Oneness. Totality can be expressed symbolically in ways such as mandala or divine geometry.
Failing this, "the self may well lapse into a place of mental disorder, of compulsions and neurosis."

Often we refuse the awakenings of conscious, repressing the best parts of ourselves, both the light and the dark; we come to view large swaths as negative. In viewing the offerings of unconsciousness negatively, as good and bad rather than in degrees of integration, in oneness, our richest parts bear no good fruit for us in our lives. We reject them, relegating their energies to some dark place where we just will not look.

"Even the voice of God, can be and is rejected." The soul is then left to "stealing or appropriating" what it needs-- our time, our energies, falling into dark corners "where incomprehensible and odd behaviors arise, in unprotected places the ego lets down, and the part of us that would otherwise accept, and believe this is gold, is left without a place to turn.

"Curiously people usually resist their own good qualities even more emphatically than they resist facing their negatives." Yet to achieve a balance, both must be regarded evenly. A practice of writing out your imaginings, dreams and musings will help to balance oneself, bringing clarity and peace to a life. Most importantly, actions make initial imaginings concrete, into a form that can be seen clearly. The use of rituals, both in symbol and in religion, are also quite valuable and lend a concrete avenue for modern man to attend to his own unique, spirits and longings.

What part of it do you believe?
~Robert Johnson, Inner work

Carl Jung Examines Kundalini Yoga

"If some great idea takes hold of us
from outside, we must understand that it takes hold of us only because something in us responds to it,
and goes out to meet it."
--C.S. Jung


In 1932 renowned psychologist Carl Jung, former student of Sigmund Freud, delivered a scholarly paper, now collected into a book, Visions, at a psychoanalysis conference in which he discussed the practice and symbolism of Kundalini Yoga. He also revealed to his listeners a startling correlation in the West between the practice of this type of Yoga, and the experience of a sudden, and perhaps not easily reversible sudden break with the realized world in some individuals.

He describes this break as a psychosis in which the individual believes himself unable to contact with, or function in the everyday world. He is then, psychotic by Western standards, Jung states.

On 16 November 1932 at the same conference, from the transcripts which survive, C.S. Jung says, " the child has grown into a peculiar sort of tree which is human above and snake below... the Kundalini. And below the diaphragm it is all snake... And what is worm below is divine above...'

'In the Chakras, the Kundalini was always separate...We must never forget that the Kundalini system is a specifically Indian production, and we have to deal here with Western material... You know that Kundalini changes on her way up to ajna, the lower part, the part of darkness where the Purusha does not appear, is the black snake; there one is absolutely swallowed up in nature, in emotion, and everything beyond emotion is not perceived because it is not perceptible...."

Jung continues, "So, to a primitive, a man who thinks is most uncanny, a very bad man, a sorcerer full of hatred who will surely poison you... When you have that point of view, you are inside of the monster. When you come through the diaphragm, you are outside of the monster, and then you can see what really held you was that divine being which appeared to you, when looked at from the inside, as a big snake. That is the reason why this being is monstrous....'

"There is an intuitive philosophy taken over from Proclus, the Neo-Platonist, who extolled, 'Where there is time, there is creation.' Thus time and creation are the same...

Jung further discusses in this same lecture the evolution of Gnosis in the Greek world and the development of Christianity. He notes that Saint Paul first was a gnostic before his conversion; the prevailing ideas of both gnosis and the phrenes of Homer. "In those days Christ ranked with Bacchus, or Dionysus. In the case of the phrenes, when the hero is killed, the phrenes leave him by the mouth, or by above, but that which goes to the lower regions is the psyche...'

'It is exactly the same in Chinese philosophy where the shen is the masculine soul that goes [rises] up to the gods; the kuei soul is female; It sinks down to the darkness... you see, the Chinese understood man as consisting of two parts...'

'Now this "kuei soul according to Eastern and Greek tradition is not immortal...it slowly loses its form and vanishes into the lights of the Heavens... The little flame from my breast rushed forth and sought to merge with this figure. What has happened here? Well, a sort of mystic union. "
The ego attempts to merge, or unite with the universal Self.

The ego self shows vivid desire; flame is always vivid desire to merge-- and where would that lead? To a seeming death--or to something new.

Jung concludes, to the Western mind, the overly close parallels of opposite, of black and white, of hot and cold, of far and near, etc. creates a complete state of unconsciousness, a collapse of clarity. In its place, complete confusion, a state much like insanity comes to reign.

Opposing factors coming too close together would render many people in a state of complete disorientation. They lose their values, their sense of rightness and have no idea what is wrong with themselves. They just feel that they simply don't care. In the mind of Kundalini, is the snake darkness? Is it light? Is it male or female? Perhaps it is both. How so? With new consciousness, what then am I? Is my 'self' enlightened, or a self, dis-integrated?

The self may be righted again, says Jung, by dropping deeper into the Chakras system, into the water to quench the fire.
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