How Honest is the One with his/her own Soul?

Small and hidden is the door that leads inward, and the entrance is barred by countless prejudices, mistaken assumptions, and fears. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Page 154.

Thx; Lewis Lafontaine

As a young man, I knew something about the sensual rituals of India and the Far East but only in passing. But when I broke away from Islam and tried to be an atheist for a short time, I got to know Buddha, which was the best thing that could have happened to me; Philosophical, spiritual welfare with logic!

Later, I learned much more when I began to play on the stage and had to practice Yoga. We had a young teacher (he wasn’t so young as I first thought, he had just succeeded in getting no wrinkles on his face! He later said that this all comes from being aware of the feelings and their effects on one’s outward appearance; always relax!). He explained why we must know Yoga when we want to be an actor: On the stage, he said you must not get out of breath. And with the help of practising it, we can know our bodies which on the stage is very important. I have learned a lot from him, and it still helps me even though on the stage of life.

Anyway, with all this knowings, I came to the West. That was the middle of the 80s, when Bagwan, or Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh with his movement, was highly influential. The first young people (primarily women) whom my brother and I met in Cologne, where we lived for a few years, were all his followers. I don’t want to tell much about this, though it looked to me those days it could be an excellent business for earning more money! These are actually harmless. What surprised me was the way of use or misuse in learning or, much more to say, teaching eastern wisdom. First, it happened when my wife (girlfriend those days) got pregnant and decided to give birth to our child in a yogi way.

She told me that in a small town near our city, there is a maternity clinic, and they do it with the eastern method; Yoga and birth in the bathtub. I happily agreed because I knew it from Iran as some yogis friends were doing it often. After a while, she told me that the chief doctor also teaches Yoga if I’d like to participate there. I went along, maybe not to learn but to check how it might go. It was disappointing! There were no inner feelings, rather more like sporty training. Getting to know the body was not the point, but getting sweaty! I broke it up and went outside.

Interestingly, the doctor wasn’t surprised or curious to know why I did so but looked at me as a spy from the East to find out what kind of fraud he was. Years later, she tried in different groups to practice Yoga; even a newly arrived couple from India led the latest one. But every time she came back from Yoga, she was excited and sometimes even with sore muscles! As I’ve learned, there had to be something wrong with understanding yoga in this country.

Now, if you are still there and are not bored, here are some words by Dr Jung about this issue and some explanations. I love this humble honesty from such a great man.

In his explanation, Dr Jung writes in his book; Dream and Dream Interpretation about Mandalas and their meaning in comparison between the East and the West, which he got the chance; (as he wrote): in 1938, he had an opportunity to meet and speak with a lamaistic Rinpoche, named Lingdam Gomchen in a Monastery of Bhutia Busty (near Darjeeling) about the Mandala (Khilkor). He explained it as a “dmigs-pa” (pronounced migpa), a mental picture (imago mentalis) which can only be constructed by imagination by a trained lama. No mandala is like the other; they are individually different. Also, the mandalas you see in monasteries and temples have no special meaning since they are only external representations. The true mandala is always an inner image, which is gradually constructed by (active) imagination when a disturbance of mental balance or thought cannot be found and must therefore be sought because it is not included in the sacred doctrine.

And further;

There are some texts, such as Shri-Chakra-Sambhara-Tantra,(²), which contain instructions for making the “mental image”. The “khilkor” is strictly separated from the “sidpe-korlo”, the wheel of the world, representing the course of human existence according to the Buddhist view. In contrast to the “khilkor”, the wheel of life consists of a ternary system, namely the rooster = lust, the snake = hate or envy, and the pig = ignorance or unconsciousness (avidya). Here we throw out the dilemma of three and four, which also play a role in Buddhism. We will reencounter this problem as the Dream Series progresses.

(²) The Serpent Power, hrsg. From Avalon, 1919.

Mandala

The mandalas in their cultic use are of great importance, as their centre usually contains a figure of the highest religious value: either Shiva himself, more often embracing the Shakti, or Buddha, Amitabha, Avalokiteshvara, or one of the great Mahăyăna teachers, or also simply the Dorje, the symbol of all the gathered divine powers of a creative and destructive nature. The text of the “Golden Flower“, which originates from Taoist syncretism, also specifies special “alchemical” properties of this centre in the sense of the “lapis” qualities and those of the “elixir vitae”, i.e. a pharmakon Athanasia.

Knowing this high rating is not insignificant; for it accords with the central meaning of the Individual Mandala Symbols, which possess the same qualities, so to speak, of a “metaphysical” nature – implying, if we are not mistaken, a psychic personality centre which is not identical with the “I”. I have observed these processes and formations for twenty years on a relatively large amount of empirical material. I have neither written nor lectured about it for fourteen years so as not to bias my observations. But when Richard Wilhelm presented me with the “Golden Flower” text in 1929, I decided to publish at least a hint of the results of my observations. One can’t be too careful about these things; because the instinct to imitate, on the one hand, and almost morbid greed, on the other hand, to seize someone else’s feathers and dress up with them in an exotic way tempts all too many people to take up such “magical” motifs and to use them externally like an ointment.

Although this article might be getting longer, I would like to add his simple explanation (or complaint, appeal?) on society and how one must endure all these.

 “recognition of the shadow is reason enough for humility, for genuine fear of the abysmal depths in man” (CW 14: par. 452)

Dr Jung; was a Man of Knowledge, although with Awareness of his Humility.

You do everything, even the most absurd, to escape from your own Soul. One practices Indian Yoga of any observance, observes dietary laws, learns theosophy by heart, prays mystical texts from all of world literature – everything because one does not get along with oneself and lacks any belief that anything worthwhile could come from one’s own Soul. So, gradually the Soul has become that Nazareth from which nothing good can reach, which is why one fetches it from all four winds: the further back and the more unusual, the better. I don’t want to disturb such people in their favourite activities; Still, if someone who wants to be taken seriously, and also is just as delusional and thinks that I use yoga methods and yoga teachings, and possibly have let mandalas drawn to lead my patients to the “right point”, then I have to protest and accuse these people of reading my writings with an almost culpable inattention. The teaching that all evil thoughts come from the heart and that the human Soul is the vessel of all evil must be deeply rooted in these people. If that were the case, then a god would have done a sad job of creation, and then it would really be high time to switch to Markion, the Gnostic, and give the incompetent Demiurge the jolt. However, it is ethically exceedingly convenient to leave the sole care of such an idiot children’s home to God, where no one can put the spoon in their own mouth. Man is worth taking care of himself and has in his own Soul from which something can become. (wie Meister Eckhart sagt; „ez ist zemale inne, niht uze, sunder allez inne“ {Deutsche Mystiker, hrsg, von Pfeiffer, 1845/57, Bd, 2, S. 8,37.} (As I could understand Meister Eckhart’s saying so far, it means: It is all one inner, not ours but all internal one.)

It is worth patiently observing what is happening in the Soul in silence; the most and the best happens if it is not regulated from outside and above. I’ll gladly admit it: I have such high regard for what happens in the human Soul that I would shy away from disturbing and creating the quiet workings of nature with clumsy access. That’s why in this case, I even gave up my own observation and entrusted this task to a beginner who was not burdened by my knowledge, just so as not to disturb. The results I present are the pure, conscientious, and accurate introspection of a man of undeterred intellect who never wanted to show off and not be boasted about. True connoisseurs of psychic materials will therefore see without difficulty the unity and immediacy of the results.

From Traum und Traumdeutung (Dream and Dream interpretation), The dream symbol the individuation process; Mandalasymbolic.

Thanks for your interest. 🙏💖🤗🙏