pUrNamadah pUrNamidam...-Carl Jung

[Guest guest]

Our beloved Ben-ji writes....

 

"Personally, I do not believe that such similarities could be

coincidental, and so I look for an explanation in terms of

underlying subconscious or spiritual processes of the mind, similar

to those of the famous psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung (not that I

necessarily > agree with all of his theories)."

 

well, here is what Carl Jung himself said...

 

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), student of Sigmund Freud,

psychiatrist, interpreted Hinduism in terms of his psychological

system, and pointed out the great significance of Indian thought for

the modern West:

 

"We do not yet realize that while we are turning upside down the

material world of the East with our technical proficiency, the East

with its psychic proficiency, is throwing our spiritual world into

confusion. We have never yet hit upon the thought that while we are

overpowering the Orient from without, it may be fastening its hold

upon us from within."

 

Jung found out in 1909 that myth and dream were linked, but it had

been well known in India forever. It is implicit in the syllable OM,

or A-U-M according to Mandukya Upanishad.

 

(source: A Joseph Campbell Companion - Selected and edited by Diane

K. Osborn p. 122)

 

 

Jung says: "The Christian West considers man to be wholly dependent

upon the grace of God, or at least upon the Church as the exclusive

and divinely sanctioned earthly instrument of man's redemption. The

East (India), however, insists that man is the sole cause of his

higher development, for it believes in "self- liberation."

 

"While we are overpowering the Orient from without, it may be

fastening its hold upon us from within."

 

(source: In Search Of The Cradle of Civilization: New Light on

Ancient India - By Georg Feurerstein, Subhash Kak & David Frawley p.

267).

 

"The idea that man is like unto an inverted tree seems to have been

current in by gone ages. The link with Vedic conceptions is provided

by Plato in his Timaeus in which it states..." behold we are not an

earthly but a heavenly plant."

 

What is of special interest to us is the surprising affinity between

Jung's conclusions and Hindu thought. He himself was aware of it. He

thought that it was no mere accident that soon after the French

Revolution the Frenchman Anquetil du Perron brought to Europe a

translation of the Upanishads "which gave the Western world its first

deep insight into the baffling mind of the East."

 

He says, "To the historian this is mere chance without any factors of

cause and effect. But in view of my medical experience I cannot take

it as an accident…In the crowds that poured into the Notre Dame, bent

on destruction, dark and nameless forces were at work that swept the

individual off his feet; these forces worked also upon Anquetil du

Perron and provoked an answer which has come down in history. For he

brought the Eastern mind to the West, and its influence upon us we

cannot measure. Let us beware of under-estimating it!" He had a

great respect for the Eastern civilizations which had discovered and

learnt to use the resources of the subliminal mind. In his own

words, "Great and enduring civilizations like those of the Hindus and

the Chinese were built upon this foundation and developed from it a

discipline of self-knowledge which they brought to a high pitch of

refinement both in philosophy and practice."

 

As the Upanishad describes it, the Self is that which being known all

else becomes known.

 

(source: Hindu Culture - By K. Guru Dutt - With a foreword by Sir

C.Ramaswami Aiyar p. 227-228).

 

He admired Hinduism. He said if Rama can cry in the forest when he

lost Sita and if still Rama could be an altar of worship, that is why

Hindu society is a sane society. He said the Hindu society

legitimised sorrow, while other religions do not do that.

 

(source: 'There is reverse discrimination against Hindus' - T R

Jawahar - newstodaynet.com).

 

Jung says: "We have not yet clearly grasped the fact that Western

Theosophy is an amateurish imitation of the East." Our studies of

sexual life, originating in Vienna and England, are matched or

surpassed by Hindu teachings on the subject, Oriental texts ten

centuries introduce us to philosophical relativism."

 

(source: The Wisdom of China and India - By Lin Yutang p. 118).

 

Jung in Psychological Types examines Indian Philosophy from a

psychological perspective in glowing terms. His theories have some

intuitively and aesthetically resonant qualities. Simple but precise

and partially derived from Indian Thought:

 

"If the attainment of the middle path consisted in a mere surrender

to instinct, as the bewailers of "naturalism" suppose, the

profoundest philosophical speculation that the human mind has ever

known would have no raison d'être. But, as we study the philosophy of

the Upanishads, the impression grows on us that the attainment of

this path is not exactly the simplest of tasks. Our Western

superciliousness in the face of these Indian insights is a mark of

our barbarian nature, which has not the remotest inkling of their

extraordinary depth and astonishing psychological accuracy. We are

still so uneducated that we actually need laws from without, and a

task-master or Father above, to show us what is good and the right

thing to do. And because we are still such barbarians, any trust in

human nature seems to us a dangerous and unethical naturalism. Why is

this? Because under the barbarian's thin veneer of culture the wild

beast lurks in readiness, amply justifying his fear. But the beast is

not tamed by locking it up in cage. There is no morality without

freedom. When the barbarian lets loose the beast within him, that is

not freedom but bondage. Barbarism must first be vanquished before

freedom can be won. This happens, in principle, when the basic root

and driving force of morality are felt by the individual as

constituents of his own nature and not as external restrictions. How

else is man to attain this realization but through the conflicts of

opposites?"

 

(source: Psychological Types – By C G Jung p 213 – Routledge 1971

Reprinted 1999. This quote has been contributed to this site by a

visitor).

 

 

abstracted from a Tribute to HINDUISM

 

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Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be

alcohol or morphine or idealism.

 

Carl Gustav Jung

 

thank you benji for sharing your thoughts on Jungian approach !

 

 

 

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