Jung’s Later Visions, Individualized Global Consciousness and
Completed Individuation in Light of the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother
Abstract
In Part III I interpret Jung’s
later visions and dreams and his most complete description of the Self in light
of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s teachings on Integral Yoga, with special
reference to Overmind and Supermind consciousness. I compare and contrast
Jung’s experiences and writings with the goal of becoming one with the
Transcendent non-dual Reality accompanied by ego dissolution. Jung’s psychology
of individuation requires a creative engagement with the world and not seeking
or attaining the Transcendent non-dual Reality per se. The goal of
individuation, rather, demands full consciousness of spiritual experiences and
not dissolution of the ego. I argue that Jung’s later visions and dreams are
most likely experiences of what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother referred to as
Overmind consciousness, although their high numinosity and comprehensiveness
opens up the possibility of him having touched the Supermind, at least
intuitively, His latest and most complete description of the Self, fourfold in
structure and differentiated at four levels of being supports the Supermind
hypothesis. Jung’s last dream-vision is an indication that Jung had won through
to individualized global consciousness and attained completed individuation. An
important caveat to this essay is that it is written as no more than a
contribution to a hypothesis on the nature of Jung’s experiences and the level
of consciousness he attained, and nothing more.
Introduction
There is no better way to put
Jung’s psychology of individuation on a firm spiritual basis than studying his
later visions and dreams in relationship to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and
the Mother on Integral Yoga. The common practice of separating psychology from
spiritual reality and practice is based on the false premise that they deal
with different realities. In fact, when properly understood, they effectively
deal with the same reality, the psyche of individual human beings and its
relationship to the Self, human wholeness and non-dual Reality. This
observation on contemporary Jungian depth-psychology was alluded to by the
esteemed Church Father, Thomas Aquinas, when he observed that the supernatural
not only acts in harmony with nature, which includes the human psyche, and not
against nature; but it uses nature for its own ends. [1]
Despite what I write here, there is
a caveat to this essay that I would feel a need to establish at the outset. I
draw conclusions that some readers might find offensive to their understanding
of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s path or, for that matter, Jung’s, although
I don’t do so intentionally. Yet, I think it should be apparent that what I
write amounts to no more than a tentative contribution to a hypothesis on the
nature of Jung’s experiences and his level of consciousness and nothing more. I
am not personally in a position to determine the nature of anybody’s
experiences and their effect on consciousness, let alone a giant like Jung. Nor
can I determine the true in-depth nature of Jung’s experiences in terms of that
defined by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. What I do here is refer to what Jung
wrote, said, felt and did, along with three of his later visions, and amplify
them using different sources in order to bring in, however limited, some
measure of understanding. This is nothing more than the normal approach one
takes to understanding dreams and visions from a Jungian perspective, while
fully recognizing that the depth of meaning, even of one’s own dreams or
visions, lay outside conscious comprehension. Archetypal dreams may, in fact,
take years to fully comprehend and even then only relatively. I also include
explicatory material from the writings of Sri Aurobindo and words of the Mother
in order to relate Jung’s inner experiences to their way of classifying
consciousness. I do this not for the sake of classifying Jung’s experiences or
level of consciousness per se, but in order to put Jung and his approach to
psychology in what I consider to be proper perspective.
Over the years, I have been witness
to the denigration and reduction of Jung so often, including from spiritual
quarters, that, now that I have been given the opportunity to present him
according to my personal experience, intuition, study and feeling, I feel
responsible to do so in the way I feel is most appropriate, within the
limitations of available time and space. If readers consider the many opinions
expressed on Jung without any or little substantive evidence at all, often by
people who have the capacity to know better, then, perhaps, they will study
what I have to say here in the spirit that I wrote it. In order to do so, they
need to put any predisposed critical judgments aside, without jeopardizing their
ability for true discernment. I do not write this piece to champion a synthesis
of Jung, and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, nor to claim that Jung had attained
a level of consciousness that was anywhere near that of the latter. Still, I find that their paths are
compatible, not identical, but compatible, which could be explained, at least
in part, by the fact that Jung had attained an exceptionally high level of
consciousness and that, in later life, he lived in considerable harmony with
the spirit embodied by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Background
Jung’s position took the viewpoint
expressed above by Aquinas further in that, according to him, the reality of
the psyche itself, which unfolds over time through the evolution of human
consciousness, refers to the deity in all its historical contradictoriness. The
Mother appears to have held the same opinion in her appeal to her disciples to
“feel deeply that there is no division between [you and] that something that
you call God.” [2] Although Jung acknowledged that the fundamental units of the
psyche, the archetypes, which are transcendental to ego consciousness, may have
a “non-psychic aspect”, he identified the psyche as the generative ground of
all spiritual and religious experiences and “the only reality given to us
without a medium.” [3] Following Jung’s lead, John Dourley posited “a wholly
intra-psychic transcendence” that affirms that “the unconscious infinitely
transcends ego consciousness but that nothing transcends the total psyche,” a
position that, allowing for the recognition of an unknowable transcendence that
may go beyond the psyche, is in effective harmony with that of Jung’s empirical
standpoint. [4]
Dourely made many other interesting
observations that are well worth noting on the nature of Jung’s mature
psychology, some of which I describe here. [5] The main thrust at the centre of
Jung’s psychology, he argued, is that the human soul and God are functions of
each other implicated in a quest for mutual redemption. The individual opus
involves taking on the burden of ever-increasing conscious discernment and
suffering aspects of both the light and dark natures of the deity in the depths
of one’s being, while becoming a vessel for the divine contradiction in search
of human reconciliation of conflicting opposites. To account for this
possibility metaphysically, Jung’s model of the divine present to humanity
moved from the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost to a quaternity
that also embraced the feminine [the Virgin Mary] and evil. Psychologically,
the quaternion model requires human creative involvement and divine realization
on earth by way of reconciling the split in the divine ground that only
consists of a self-sufficient infinity of the Trinity.
It is not without significance
that, similar to Jung, following her observation above on the lack of division
between humans and what they call God, the Mother is reported to have observed
that “what you call God suffers what you suffer, he does not know what you do
not know; and it is through this creation, little by little, step by step, that
he finds himself again, unites with himself, is realizing himself … developing
more and more of a consciousness that is objectifying himself to itself.” [6]
What Jung referred to as the God-Image or what the Mother referred to as what
humans call God, are similar. In both accounts, not only are his suffering and
human suffering identical but the deity is in search of and finds himself
through the evolutionary growth of human consciousness and knowledge.
Both the Mother and Jung also
understood the nature of the deity to consist of both good and evil, light and
dark in equal measure and that they are ultimately relative. [7] [8] Thus, the
Mother saw the need for conversion of the dark brothers of God, in Hinduism
known as Asuras, and Jung insisted that the individuation process necessitates
embracing one’s personal relationship to the dark angel that Christianity
identified as Lucifer. For Jung this returns Lucifer to his original status as
“the light-bringer” and, according to the Mother, for Asuras to play their
divine role as great “beings of light.” [9] [10] Although the Mother’s
realistic and earth-related emphasis is challenging to the contemporary mind
including many Hindus, Hinduism, in fact, has a long history of recognizing the
Godhead as containing both dark and light with the Asuras being the most
important instruments in the realization of the Creator God Brahma’s original
creation. In the West, although Lucifer was originally considered to be God’s
most beautiful angel and right hand bringer of light and organizational genius,
Jung’s position continues to generate considerable heat and misunderstanding
amongst Christians and Christian Theologians, who can only conceive of the
Godhead as the Summum Bonum or All Good.
As with Jung’s model of the deity
present to humanity, Integral Yoga, with its emphasis on the realization of the
Supermind, also moves from a trinitarian model to a quaternity, from the Hindu
Godhead reflected in the triune image of Sat Chit Ananda
[Existence-Consciousness-Bliss] to include the Supermind, of which the symbol
is a four-sided square. [11] A quaternity synthesizing the Chrtistian Trinity
with the feminine and the devil, which Jung argued was psychologically essential,
and Jung’s unus mundus, with psychoid
archetypes that transcend both spirit and matter, would be conceptually
similar.
The Supermind, according to Sri
Aurobindo, is “Truth-Consciousness,” “the Consciousness creatrix of the World”
and maintains the “spiritual unity of all”. [12] Similarly, Jung defined the unus mundus as the “eternal Ground of
all empirical being” with implications of it being the source of “absolute
knowledge” and that the “multiplicity of the empirical world rests on an underlying
unity” indicating a striking similarity to the metaphysical reality of the
Supermind. [13] According to him, the circular maņdala, with its centre and circumference, symbolizing the unity
of oneness and the multiplicity of experience, is the symbolic equivalent of
the unus mundus, suggesting,
psychologically, its accessibility in everyday life through synchronistic
experiences. [14]
The unus mundus can be understood to consist of indestructible energy,
space-time continuum, causality and synchronicity, a quaternary conceived of by
the Nobel-Prize winning physicist, Wolfgang Pauli and Jung (1975b) that
satisfies the postulates of both physics and psychology. [15] A maņdala consisting of these four
co-ordinates would, in my estimation, be an apt empirical symbol for the
realization of the infinite Trinity of Christianity appropriately completed by
the feminine and the devil, along with new creation in time. Likewise, the
Supermind needs to be understood as the instrumentation for the “infinite
consciousness” of Sat Chit Ananda, and the goal of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga is its
realization on earth and a far-reaching transfiguration of human nature. [16]
Jung’s psychology of individuation
may not go as far as the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, and the Mother, at
least with such a complete understanding. In part, this is no doubt due to
Jung’s greater need, as a child of the West, to come to terms with the
problematic Western relationship to the feminine and evil in comparison to Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother. Yet, the conceptual similarities describing key
master ideas central to each of the two paths to self-knowledge are remarkable
and, to all appearances, they are moving toward the same goal.
Dreams and Visions—1944
This background should allow us to
appreciate the significance of Jung’s path and what is involved in his
insistence on the priority of the transformation of consciousness. With this in mind, I now tentatively interpret
Jung’s later visions and dreams as well as his final descriptive image of the
Self in light of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s teachings on yoga, with
special reference to the nature of what they referred to as the Overmind and
Supermind states of consciousness. Even though these experiences are very
distant from my level of consciousness, my purpose for doing this, is to make
an intuitive effort to place Jung’s path in what I consider to be proper
perspective, while fully recognizing my personal limitations in this regard. My
methodology is to apply disciplined imagination, thought, feeling and sense of
reality to Jung’s experience by examining them in light of Sri Aurobindo and
the Mother’s larger envelope. I do so in order to find explicatory material
that can mediate understanding of the significance and meaning of Jung’s life
and work.
Early In 1944 Jung broke his foot
and then suffered a heart attack. During convalescence he underwent a
series of extraordinary visions and felt-experiences that correspond to some of
the highest recorded spiritual states of being in Christian mysticism, the
Jewish Kabbalah, and the pagan Greek mysteries as well direct relationship to
the Hindu tradition of South India and
Prior to these visions he saw
himself about 1000 miles above the earth, below which was
Following these experiences and
somewhat later in 1944, Jung had a dream where he saw a yogi sitting in lotus
fashion with closed eyes in deep meditation in front of an alter in a wayside
chapel. He awoke with a shock, recognizing that the yogi had his face, with the
realization that “when he awakened I would no longer be.” [22] Jung understood
that the yogi was meditating and dreaming his existence. Jung himself
wrote that the experience “resembles very closely the Oriental conception of
Maya,” and “in the opinion of “the other side” the unconscious existence is the
real one and the conscious world a kind of illusion.” [23]
His view, in fact, is more
paradoxical in that, at the same time, he also acknowledged that despite
experiencing the three-dimensional world as a sort of imprisonment that “it had
a kind of hypnotic power, a cogency, as if it were reality itself, for all that
I had clearly perceived its emptiness.” [24] Moreover, Jung observed that,
given the yogi’s human form, by increased awareness, the Self can now advance
further towards realization in the everyday life of the phenomenal world.
The image of the yogi with Jung’s face indicates a highly differentiated and
individuated non-dual Self that can potentially make its creative mark in the
world. In this regard, Jung insisted on the need to be related to the
infinite for the sake of a meaningful life, observing that “becoming conscious
of the infinite,” requires being confined to one’s unique personality
configuration and living one’s own life, which includes making mistakes. [25]
Yet, wrote Jung; “The greatest limitation for man is the “self”; it is
manifested in the experience: I am only that!” a human being with definite
personality boundaries existing in space and time. [26]
After his visionary experiences,
Jung fully realized the importance of unconditional acceptance of life as it is
and the importance of “affirming one’s own destiny.” [27] In the final
analysis, affirming one’s personal destiny means “to create more and more
consciousness” by way of conscious acceptance of the conditions of one’s life.
[28] The goal of life, in his view, it needs to be emphasized, is increasing
consciousness and not attaining a transcendent non-dual Reality per
se. The goal is rather self-knowledge, which involves gaining awareness
through confrontation with the opposites, only possible through full engagement
with life on earth.
Space-Time Co-ordinates and Duality
The individuation process engages
the soul in a divine life that, observed Jung, leads the ego as purusha to
become “aware of a polarity superordinate to itself” of an archetypal nature.
[29] Jung believed that the Self not only supports the world of duality like a
reflective movie screen, but that the essence of the Self is in the duality
itself, particularly evident in archetypal experiences, where archetypes are “a
priori structural forms of the stuff of consciousness.” [30] Despite Jung’s
visionary experiences and appreciation of the non-dual principle of
synchronicity, he also appreciated the value of space-time co-ordinates of the
three dimensional world, necessary, he believed, for the sake of
cognition. Thus, he wrote: “a system of co-ordinates is necessary if any
distinction of discrete contents is to be possible.” [31] He then noted that cognition
requires “opposition, a here and there, an above and below, a before and after.”
[32]
Jung always insisted on the need to
return to the duality of the world and the value of its oppositional reality
for the sake of gaining more consciousness. After his visions he wrote:
“In the experience of the self, it is no longer the opposites “God” and “man”
that are reconciled, as it was before, but rather the opposites within the
God-image itself. That is the meaning of divine service, of the service which
man can render to God, that light may emerge from the darkness, that the
Creator may become conscious of His creation, and man conscious of himself.
That is the goal, or one goal,” he remarked, “which fits man meaningfully into
the scheme of creation, and at the same time confers meaning upon it.”
[33] Humans, in Jung’s view, require maximum engagement with the world
according to the requirement of each individual psyche in order to become
conscious of the shadow side of God and gain wholeness. This is only possible
with full involvement in life and evolving consciousness of one’s relationship
with the archetypal psyche, the divine will in action, the understanding of
which Jung has made an outstanding contribution.
Jung’s Later Creative Writings
After these experiences, there was
a significant difference in how Jung involved himself in life.
Indeed, his productive work after the major coniunctio visionary experiences and the yogi dream is indicative
of the significance of the spiritually individuated Self being directly and
creatively fully implicated in the manifest reality of earthly life.
After his visions Jung wrote that he “surrendered to the current of his
thoughts,” writing not to please others but according to the truth as it
revealed itself to him. He was surrendered, in other words, to Sophia, the mind
of God, in Hindu thought, the Para-Shakti, and the wisdom and knowledge of the
unconscious. [34] In fact, all his most important works were completed after
1944, including Psychology and Alchemy,
Mysterium Coniunctionis, Aeon, The Psychology of the Transference, The Transcendent Function, The
Philosophic Tree and Answer to Job.
The Exalted State of
In the Hindu tradition there is
acceptance of the exalted state of the Jivanmukta, which Sri Aurobindo defined
as “being one with the luminous shadow of the Parabrahman, which we call
Sachchidananda.” [35] According to him, the psychic being of the
spiritually educated advanced soul has extended itself to the point of being
able to bridge the gulf between non-dual Reality, which, according to the
Mother, is beyond all forms, even the most subtle, and remain self-absorbed in
Samadhi, not in the transcendent beyond, but while actively engaged in the
world itself in divine service to society. [36] He wrote that it is an
egoless state, where the center has been shifted upwards and “established in
God rather than Nature,” although advanced beings in such a state lean down to
serve humanity, being instruments of “the will of God’s in action.” [37] These
are, observed Sri Aurobindo, (ibid) “the final helpers of humanity and are
chosen by God and Nature to prepare the type of super-natural men to which our
humanity is rising.” [38]
Such a state of being can exist on
different levels of spiritual reality, but always involving “a settled
existence in the one and infinite and identified with it,” which Sri Aurobindo
equated to samādhishta of the
Bhagavadgita as a self-gathered waking and “divine Samādhi”. [39] On the
Overmind plane, according to him, the Jivanmukta lives in oneness with the
Transcendent, a formless state of non-duality, there is no sense of ego bondage
but the work is done by “the cosmic Force,” which puts on its own limitations
to the work. [40] On the Supramental plane, he observed, both work and the
spiritual realization are, “as it were, one,” whereas, otherwise, at its most
perfect, the spiritual condition remains through the work. [41]
The Question of Ego Dissolution and Samādhi-Trance
Jung never stopped writing
disapprovingly of the state of ego dissolution in the Ineffable, arguing that
there is no separate ego as purusha there to be conscious of the experience
and, at best, there is only a vague memory. In a letter to his Hindu disciple,
Arwind Vasavada, written on November 22, 1954, some ten years after his
visionary experiences, he wrote, “I can say that my consciousness is the same
as the self, but that is nothing but words, since there is not the slightest
evidence that I participate more or further in the self than my ego
consciousness reaches.” [42] To put Jung’s concern in perspective, although Sri
Aurobindo had repeatedly insisted that his Integral Yoga begins with the
experience of Nirvana, in response to a sādhak concerned about how few members
of her ashram actually had such an experience or even sought it, the Mother
acknowledged that for her disciples, that “if the Nirvana aim had been put
before them more would have been fit for it, for the Nirvana aim is easier than
the one we have put before us.” [43] [44]
At another time, the Mother
recounted an amusing exchange with Sri Aurobindo regarding all the spiritual
literature extolling the superiority of the samādhi-trance state, when she
first met him as a young woman. She said she wasn’t sure that the fact she
never had this experience was a sign of inferiority or not. Sri Aurobindo
replied that with such an experience one actually enters into a region of being
where there is no more consciousness, that it is a state of unconsciousness.
The Mother said that reassured her, and she remarked to Sri Aurobindo: “Well,
this has never happened to me,” and he responded: “Nor to me!” [45] The Mother
is also recorded as saying that in meditation one can experience
samādhi-trance, while “your waking consciousness remains what it is, without
ever changing.” [46] Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s experiences and position
are similar to that of Jung in that what is of utmost importance is the
spiritual transformation of consciousness and not experiences that are
ultimately unrelated to consciousness, regardless of how exalted.
Experiencing Spiritual States with Full Consciousness: The Challenge
The Mother went on to encourage her
disciples to “develop your interior individuality, and you will be able to
enter these same regions in full consciousness, and have the joy of communion
with the highest of these regions, without losing all one’s consciousness and
returning with a zero instead of an experience.” [47] Jung’s visionary
experiences need to be understood in this light. From relatively early on,
Jung, in fact, was very aware of the value of experiencing the primal void and
returning with renewed consciousness as is evident in his discussion of the
“breakthrough” experience of the Godhead and non-dual Reality of the German
mystic, Meister Eckhart. [48] The question is whether or not the purified ego,
which in Jung’s thought is similar to the purusha, allows for the possibility
of a psychic being or chaitya purusha, the incarnated soul, rather
soul-personality, to extend itself to the point of bridging non-dual Reality
with the waking state.
In Jung’s visions, he realized an
ecstatic state of pure or primal being carried in the void as in a universal
womb and there was a sense of underlying identity with the mystic marriage that
can be translated as the Being and Consciousness-Force or Creative Power of the
divine. Although Jung’s primal being remained distinct, in perfect harmony with
the Mother’s recommendations to her disciples, his visionary experience
contained forms, unlike in the reported formless experience of the Transcendent
non-dual Reality. Having noted that, outside of the fact that Jung’s visions
contained archetypal forms, the Mother’s description of the Transcendent That
does not seem so different from the former’s experience, especially considering
that she came to believe the meaning of creation was to unify the distinct
“individual consciousness” with “consciousness of the whole.” [49] [50]
The Mother described the individual
consciousness of the experience as consisting of “a plenary consciousness total
and simultaneous beyond Time and Space, a global perception, with “no Time”…and
no “Space.” One experiences eternity and “the universe, she observed, is
pre-existent, but not manifested,” certainly reminiscent of the mystic marriage
in Jung’s vision, where the seeds of creation are contained in a state of
gestation. [51] Both the Mother and Jung also wrote of movement with regard to
the experience of eternity that translates into the manifestation. In reference
to his experience, Jung put it that there was “eternal movement, (not movement
in time)” and he noted that the psyche’s involvement in space and time may be
the result of the brain acting as a “transformer station” in which it draws the
infinite intensity of the psyche proper into the manifestation through
“perceptible frequencies” or “extensions”. [52] Even more explicitly, the
source of movement, according to the Mother, is Consciousness, which, in a
state of immortality, “is like staggeringly rapid waves, so rapid that they
seem immobile. It is like that,” she said, “—nothing moves (apparently) in a
tremendous Movement.” [53] As with Jung, movement in thought, feelings, the
physical etc are brought into the manifestation through individual
consciousness.
Jung’s Visions as Overmind Experiences
The dispassionate observer has to
admit that the purified ego as purusha, in Jung’s language, has extended itself
to a very high spiritual plane and that, given his writings after the
experience it did, indeed, form a bridge to worldly work in such a way that can
be defined as done by “the Cosmic Force,” as described by Sri Aurobindo for the
experience of the Jivanmukta contained in the Overmind. In Jung’s terminology,
he had surrendered to the archetypal psyche, which speaks with the voice of a
thousand angels as the Word of God. Indeed, the principle of synchronicity,
where inner and outer reality are aspects of a unitary and differentiated
non-duality, it need be emphasized, unus mundus or one world, indicates a
definite sympathy between Jung’s visions and his post-1944 writings, especially
evident in Mysterium Coniunctionis,
but in the other works as well. In Jung’s case, it is even tempting to say that
work and spiritual realization became “one,” which Sri Aurobindo indicates is
the sign of a direct influence from the Supramental plane.
Jung’s Experiences and Visions of the Future: Overmind and Supermind
I might add that Jung’s plane of
experience, with its gods and angels, appears to fit the description of the
Overmind, which is the home of the gods who, according to the Mother, also
created the angels. [54] Sri Aurobindo wrote that the Overmind is a “power
of cosmic consciousness and principle of global knowledge which carries in it a
delegated light from supramental Gnosis.” [55] Although “its basis is a cosmic
unity,” he observed, “its action is an action of division and interaction,
taking its stand on the play of multiplicities.” [56] The Supermind, in
contrast, “as Truth-Consciousness of the Infinite has in its dynamic principle
the infinite power of a free self-determination.” [57] Comparing and
contrasting the visions and writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother with those
of Jung, the hypotheses that Jung’s experiences were from the Overmind, if not
a lower plane, rather than Supermind seems more likely.
Whereas with Jung there are loose
ends that still need working out one of which is the relationship of his
psychology to metaphysical reality and theology, the writings of Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother are highly differentiated and grounded on metaphysical truth. Although
Jung’s psychology is relevant to non-Westerners as well as Westerners, much of
his thinking was developed in response to the prevailing Western zietgeist and
religious history and its present state of disarray, albeit with powerful
influences from the Hindu tradition, Gnosticism and alchemy. In comparison, the
yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother finds support and transcends the still
living spiritual traditions of
Overall, one is impressed with the
comprehensiveness and inevitability of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s vision
for the future, which includes, a triple transformation of being, psychic,
spiritual, and what they referred to as the supramental transformation, the
natures of which I will not go into here. I believe that Jung points in the
same direction in his recognition of a paradoxical God-image that includes
differentiation of good and evil that transcends the God-image of the
Jewish-Christian tradition.
In a letter to Father Victor White,
Jung described the direction of the evolution of consciousness after a
far-reaching individuation process that involves a “very real Christ-like
conflict with darkness” and resolution aided by the anima. [58] The more
intense one’s engagement, he observed, the more one foresees “beyond the
Christian Aeon to the Oneness of the Holy Spirit, the pneumatic state the
creator attains to through the phase of incarnation.” [59] Jung then observed
that “He is the experience of every individual that has undergone complete
abolition of his ego through the absolute opposition expressed by the symbol
Christ vs Satan.” [60] He also noted that the state of ‘Oneness of the Holy
Spirit’ involves “restitution of the original oneness of the unconscious on the
level of consciousness.” [61] There is, in other words, in this state of
consciousness, complete harmony between the inner and outer life and the
inter-relations of life and dynamic expressions in life are organized by the
principle of unity and truth.
Jung went on to write that such a
vision seems to be given by grace and acts as a “consolomentum” in the present
time of Darkness. [62] His vision of the future is in accord with Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother’s vision, with the exception that for the latter two, despite the
apparent contemporary Darkness or, perhaps, that is a necessary part of it at
this point in time, the supramental transformation of life has already begun.
The similarity is evident in comparing what Sri Aurobindo wrote concerning
supramental consciousness to what Jung wrote about the egoless state of
“Oneness of the Holy Spirit,” indicated in the previous paragraph. The
supramental being living in cosmic consciousness, according to Sri Aurobindo,
has no ego and a Truth-consciousness that organizes right relation and right
expression [63]. Moreover, as with
Jung, in the Gnostic life of Knowledge, which is essentially an inner life;
“the antinomy between the inner and outer” will have been reconciled and
surpassed. [64]
Jung, in fact, described the individuation
process as culminating in highly differentiated spiritual transfiguration,
which involves complete integration of being. [65] Although, this is not the
place to develop his thesis, which I did in Part I, it is based on assimilation
to the fourfold Self at each of four levels of being, physical, vital [life],
mental and spiritual, in Jung’s Gnostic language, represented by the Lapis
Quaternity, the Paradise Quaternity, the Shadow Quaternity and the Anthropos
Quaternity. The process has both a static and dynamic aspect and is realized in
a continuous ascending and descending movement over time.
V Madhusudan Reddy described a
comparable image of the fourfold Self inducing perfection at each of four
levels of being in reference to the Vedas and in relationship to Sri
Aurobindo’s Supermind. [66] Jung’s vision for the future, however, is less
differentiated and comprehensive than that of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and,
outside of the above description of the Self, he did not explicitly refer to anything
comparable to the supramental transformation as a potential goal of
contemporary individuals. It is as if Jung personally came to a realization of
the Oneness of the Cosmic Self and defined the transformation of being in terms
similar to the principle goal of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga, but he never
put it forth as a goal of the individuation process per se for others.
Yet, Jung’s revelatory visions are
remarkable and worthwhile pondering in relationship to Sri Aurobindo’s
nomenclature. Given the multiple coniunctio
visions from three different traditions and the visionary relationship to the
Hindu tradition as well, there is a superordinate wholeness to them that
supports the hypothesis of Overmind, and possibly influence of the Supermind.
In fact, Jung understood that by entering the black rock he would attain
absolute knowledge suggesting he could well have been at the door of the
Supermind itself, described by Sri Aurobindo as “Truth-Consciousness.” [67]
Moreover, Jung conceived of the
unus mundus as the cosmic Self and unitary matrix consisting of multiple
archeypal images and absolute knowledge, and authentic experiences of
synchronicity, or meaningful coincidences of inner and outer events, as being
acausal without causal precedents. Jung defined synchronistic events as “a
particular instance of general acausal orderedness,” [67a] where a reflective
observer is able to recognize their meaning. Synchronicity, he believed, are
sporadic acts of creation in time of a continuous creation of an eternally
existing pattern. Such acts of creation involve an irruption of the unus mundus, which transcends both
psyche and matter, through the archetype into the continuous flow of time or
space-time. They are experienced as
meaningful in that one is connected through them to transcendental universal
meaning, while participating in “absolute knowledge” that touches both the
heart and the mind of the whole person. [67b]
Yet in relation to the relatively focused light of consciousness Jung
referred to a universal mind with “absolute knowledge,” as “luminosity” and a
“cloud of cognition” that has access to a vast field of information. In
relationship to every day consciousness, its meaning speaks in a soft voice and
is, generally, not so evident unless one is particularly observant and
reflective. [67c] Yet, the sense of orderedness, the existence of “absolute
knowledge,” the creative act of a pattern that exists from all eternity, and
the relationship to universal meaning as well as the transcendence of both psyche
and matter, its unitary yet multiple nature all seems to harmonize the unus mundus with the Supermind, with
synchronicity as its experience in the throes of everyday life.
Jung’s Visions, the Jivanmukta Goal of Non-Duality and Integral Yoga
As I write this, I have to confess
the extreme inner conflict I always feel when trying to come to terms with
Jung’s psychology and his experiences in face of the challenge of Hindu thought
regarding the acknowledged state of the Jivanmukta. According to Jung’s
persistent admonitions and recorded visions, he never attained this
realization, at least as classically defined. A facile understanding by
Hindus or those attracted to Eastern or Western mysticism, as result, can and
often does dismiss Jung as being spiritually limited, not having had the
ability to go the full route and dissolve his ego in non-dual Reality. Some
seekers even fail to differentiate Jung’s path from Hindu or Buddhist paths,
seeing them as essentially the same, blurring the difference. Many also
overlook or undervalue the significance of Jung’s differentiated contribution
to the value of becoming conscious of one’s engagement in the world at an
archetypal level, rendering life itself both full and sacred and the experience
of life itself an aspect of non-dual reality. I am often told that a particular
path of spirituality involves life in the world, but, from my study, there is a
failure to recognize the need for a conscious relationship to instinctual life
and ideas at an archetypal level, which includes the shadow side of the
Divinity, like Jung insists is essential for wholeness. There is,
typically, no developed psychology of any depth.
The one notable exception that I am
aware of is the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, with all its
differentiated planes of being and intimate knowledge of the Asura, the dark
side of God. The realization of wholeness is much less global and restricted
without full acceptance of the archetypal dimension of life. Indeed, the Mother
indicated that the “exclusive spiritual approach … is also fatal” and leads to
one aspect of the whole and not the whole itself, alluding to the limitation of
realizing the Transcendent without full knowledge of the world. [68]
Jung’s Final Dream-Vision in Light of Integral Yoga
Jung’s life and writings, with all
their loose ends, work on and frustrate me like a never-solvable and
inscrutable koan. Whatever shortcomings there may or may not be in Jung’s
path of individuation he did, in fact, attain a level of individuated spiritual
Oneness through ego surrender and spiritual transformation that includes his
individual form continuing to exist at the level of the rhizome, below the
roots of the world trees. Jung, in other words, became spiritually individuated
down to the elemental vegetative level of being. For purposes of explication I
refer to what Sri Aurobindo called the vital-physical, the nervous being with
its “reflex emotions” and “smaller sensations,” petty “desires” and “reactions
to the impacts… of the outer physical and gross material life.” [69] The
vital-physical is also the principle source of physical pain, “suffering and
disease of mind or body”. (ibid.) It
is noteworthy that it involves a level of being that is normally considered
inconscient and that Sri Aurobindo contended requires the intervention of the
supramental Force for the difficulty it represents “to be entirely overcome.”
[70]
Sri Aurobindo also wrote that “it
is the supramental alone that can transform the material being but the physical
mind and the physical vital can be very much changed by the action of the
psychic and of the overmind.” [71] The physical-mind is concerned with finding
a practical mental order regarding physical objects and external actions as
well as being a materializing vehicle for the thinking and dynamic minds. The
physical-vital refers to desire, greed and pleasure seeking on the physical
plane. Although Sri Aurobindo did not
specifically refer to the vital-physical here, this comment may also be
relevant in understanding the nature of Jung’s level of transformation, which
may well have involved psychic and Overmind action, possibly along with an
intuitive touch from the Supermind.
Here, then, is the testimony of
Jung’s final dream-vision, which he was able to have recorded just prior to his
passing away.
“Jung saw a great round stone in a
high place, a barren square, and on it were engraved the words: “And this shall
be a sign unto you of Wholeness and Oneness. Then he saw many vessels to
the right in an open square and a quadrangle of trees whose roots reached
around the earth and enveloped him and amongst the roots golden threads were
glittering.” [72]
Although the dream speaks for
itself Marie-Louise von Franz amplified its significance by referring to the
Tao, where with the attainment of “the meaning of the world and eternal life,”
“the Chinese say Long life flowers with the essence of the stone and the
brightness of gold.” [73] One could just as well refer to the fulfillment
of the goal indicated by the Upanishads and the attainment of knowledge of both
Vidya and Avidya, the Eternal and the Ignorance, as well as the Mother’s stated
objective of a “global” “consciousness at the same time individual and total.”
[74]
One can understand this dream to
represent the full embodiment of the meaning inherent in Jung’s visions of 1944
and, therefore, related synchronistically, as well as him having attained
individualized global consciousness and completed individuation. Jung, in fact, postulated that each experience
of synchronicity is a particular example of general acausal orderedness that is
observable by the individual, where such forms of psychic orderedness are “acts
of creation in time,” without deterministic precedents. [75] Jung’s two
outstanding visions in question are rather feeling experiences of the unus mundus, or cosmic Self. Indeed, his
final realization opens up the probability of Jung having become feelingly
conscious of general acausal orderedness sustaining his own life, with multiple
experiences of synchronicity or even all life as synchronicity, again pointing
to a supramental influence.
At the end of his life, Jung
stopped using the I Ching, the Chinese book of wisdom, which integrates the
microcosm with the macrocosm, the individual with the universal. This book, otherwise known as the Book of
Changes can be understood as the embodiment of Tao that purports to show
the way for individuals to live individually in accord with archetypal cosmic
principles. Jung told Marie-Louise von
Franz, a highly trustworthy source, that the reason he no longer needed to use
it was that “he already “knew” in advance what the answer would be,” indicating
a superior degree of knowledge by identity. [76]
Sri Aurobindo differentiated
several planes of being ascending from the Mind through the Higher Mind, to the
Illumined Mind, and then the Intuitive Mind, where he defined intuition as “a
power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by
identity,” where original knowledge resides in the Supermind. [77] The next
level up is the Overmind, where thought “manifests from above or comes in upon
the cosmic mind-waves…” and “there is the extension or identification
constituting a cosmic being, a universal individual.” [78] [79] When, after his
coniunctio visions, Jung wrote that
he “surrendered to the current of his thoughts,” writing not to please others
but according to the truth as it revealed itself to him, it seems to me he is
saying precisely this. [80] In confirmation of these sentiments, he ended one
of his later essays, Answer to Job, with these inspiring words: “...even the
enlightened person remains what he is, and is never more than his own limited
ego before the One who dwells within him, whose form has no knowable
boundaries, who encompasses him on all sides, fathomless as the abysms of the
earth and vast as the sky.” [81] By ego Jung meant the point of awareness or
purusha and its field of consciousness, consequently in the foregoing
statement, fulfilling Sri Aurobindo’s definition of the Overmind as extending
identification to constitute a universal individual.
Whether or not Jung attained the
true status of a Jivanmukta and realized Overmind consciousness or even
something of the Supermind consciousness, his way, without question, leads to
fulfilling the divine Will in life. Jung’s path of individuation is, in fact,
not directed toward a predetermined spiritual goal for the individual, unless
it is integrating a relationship to the superordinate opposites in the Godhead
according to each individual’s unfolding destiny and grace. For
individuals in the process of individuation, the path fits the unique
requirements of their individual soul and whatever may be the natural
developmental needs of the psyche, whether as a householder or not, and
whatever the fateful twists and turns of life, and in whatever way the
archetype of the Self requires the ego to sacrifice its position for the sake
of the individuated psyche’s growing extension toward Wholeness and Oneness of
Being.
My methodology in all the papers in
the Four Part Series on Jung was to refer, first and foremost, to Jung’s
visions and dreams and what he himself said and wrote. In this way I was
always being faithful to his inner life and myth and his own declarations. In
order to bring some measure of understanding to them, I applied the method of
amplification and brought disciplined imagination and thought to bear. I also
referred to the thought of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother mainly to show
similarities, but also to show contrasts. In Part III, I used Sri Aurobindo and
the Mother’s words to compare and contrast, but mainly for purposes of
explication and mediation of three of Jung’s late visions and dreams and what
he, himself, wrote and said about them and related subjects. I always
stuck closely to Jung’s inner life and its outer manifestation.
I have been driven to relentlessly
study Jung, and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother together for some forty years as a
vocation stimulated by my own inner life. I am not classifying Jung,
categorizing him or judging his level of consciousness from an external vantage
point, which I would consider to be totally inappropriate. I am only trying to
open up understanding of the wholeness of his life and the place of his
psychology in the world by bringing explications to bear on Jung’s inner life,
mainly from the thought of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who, surely, have the
largest vision and understanding of anybody on spiritual and psychological
matters. I believe that I logically applied explanatory material from the
former’s writings and what the latter is reported to have said. If this
means that I come to some tentative conclusions about Jung’s spiritual
attainment, it is based on my heart-felt engagement in the process.
At the same I realized in the
process of writing these papers, especially Part III of the series, that I may
be crossing the line of what some people might consider to be taboo or out of
limits. I took the freedom to proceed with my writing, nonetheless, as I believe
it is most important to follow one’s inner truth even if it eventually proves
to involve error or miscalculation.
References
[1] Victor White (1982), Revelation and the Unconscious, in God and the Unconscious, the Jungian Classics Series, with a forward by CG Jung and an introduction
by William Everson, Revised Edition, Ann Arbor Michigan, Spring Publications Inc., pp. 107-40 passim
[2] The Mother (1987), Conversations of the Mother, Shyam
Sunder [Editor],
[3] CG Jung (1975a), On the Nature of the Psyche, in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Collected Works, Vol. 8, Second Edition,
Third Printing, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ:
Princeton University Press. p. 216
[4] John P Dourley, Jung and the Recall of the Gods, Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice,
Vol. 8, No. 1
[5] John P Dourley, (1987), Love, Celibacy and the Inner Marriage,
[6] The Mother (1987), Conversations of the Mother, Shyam
Sunder [Editor],
[7] The Mother (2004), Being of Gold: Our Goal of Self-Perfection,
a compilation from the Mother’s writings, Auroville: The Centre for Indian
studies, pp. 30, 34, 38, 52, 70-94 passim
[8] Victor White (1960), Soul and Psyche: An Enquiry into the Relationship
of Psychotherapy and Religion,
[9] CG Jung (1970), The Spirit Mercurius, In Alchemical
studies, Collected Works, Vol. 13, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX,
[10] The Mother (2008), Becoming One: The Psychology of Integral Yoga:
A compilation from the Mother’s writings,
[11] Sri Aurobindo (1970a), Letters on Yoga, p. 954
[12] Sri Aurobindo (1976), Dictionary of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, MP Pandit
Compiler, Pondicherry, Dipti Publications, p. 252
[13] CG Jung (1974), Mysterium Coniunctionis, Collected Works
Vol. 14, Second Printing, Translated by RFC
[14] Ibid.
[15] CG Jung (1975b), Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,
The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche,
pp. 418-519 passim, 514
[16] Sri Aurobindo (1976), Dictionary
of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga, MP Pandit Compiler, Pondicherry, Dipti Publications, p. 252
[17] [18] CG Jung (1965), Memories, Dreams, Reflections, recorded
and edited by Aniela Jaffé, Translated from the German by Richard and
Clara Winston, Revised Edition,
[19] Ibid., p. 291
[20] Ibid., p. 293
[21] Ibid., p. 296
[22] Ibid., p. 293
[23] Ibid., p. 324
[24] Ibid., p. 295
[25] Ibid., p. 325
[26] Ibid., p. 325
[27] Ibid., p. 297
[28] Ibid., p. 326
[29] Ibid., p. 345
[30] Ibid., p. 347
[32] Ibid.
[33] Ibid., p. 338
[34] Ibid., p. 297
[35] Sri Aurobindo (1972a), The Upanishads, Birth Centenary
Library, Vol. 12, p. 460
[36] La Mère (1978a), Entretiens 1957-58, p. 3
[36] Sri Aurobindo (1972b), The Hour of God, Birth Centenary
Library, Vol. 17, p. 57
[37] [38] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Birth Centenary
Library, Vol. 20, pp. 307, 308
[39] Ibid.
[40] [41] Sri Aurobindo
(1970a), Letters on Yoga, p. 683
[42] J Marvin Spiegelman and Arwind
U Vasavada (1987), Hinduism and Jungian Psychology,
[43] Sri Aurobindo (1970d), Letters on Yoga, pp. 347-348 passim,
348, 59
[44] La Mère (1980a), Entretiens 1957-58, pp. 517, 518, 519
[45] La Mère (1978b), Entretiens 1957-58, p. 314
[46] The Mother (2008), Becoming One: The Psychology of Integral Yoga,
a compilation, p. 260
[47] La Mère (1978b), Entretiens 1956, p. 314
[48] John P. Dourley (1992), A Strategy for a Loss of Faith: Jung’s Proposal,
[49] The Mother (2004), Being of Gold: Our Goal of Self-Perfection,
p. 38
[50] Ibid., p. 52
[51] Ibid., p. 52
[52] Gerhard Adler, editor (1975), CG Jung: Letters: 1906-1950, in
collaboration with Aniela Jaffé, Translated from the German by RFC Hull, Vol. 1,
p. 358
[53] The Mother (2004), Being of Gold: Our Goal of Self-Perfection,
p. 30
[54] La Mère (1980b), Entretiens 1955, pp. 180-183 passim
[55] Sri Aurobindo (1970c), The Life Divine, p. 950
[56] Ibid., p. 952, 953
[57] Ibid., p. 967
[58] Edward F Edinger, (1996), The New God-Image, a study of Jung’s key
letters concerning the evolution of the western god-image, Edited by Dianne Cordic
and Charles Yates, MD Willmette
[59] Ibid.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Ibid.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Sri Aurobindo (1970c), The Life Divine, pp. 952-53
[64] Ibid., p. 978
[65] CG Jung (1975), Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of
the Self, Colllected Works. Vol. 9, II, Second Edition, Translated by
RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, pp. 222-265 passim
[66] V Madhusudan Reddy (1996), The Vedic Epiphany: The Vedic Fulfilment,
pp. 270-272.
[67] Sri Aurobindo (1970c), The Life Divine, p. 132
[67a] Marie-Louise von Franz
(1992a), Meaning and Order, in Psyche and Matter, Foreword by
Robert Hinshaw,
[67b] Marie-Louise von Franz
(1992b), Some Reflections on Synchronicity,
in Psyche and Matter, pp. 245-66,
passim 256, 257
[67c] Ibid., pp. 245-66 passim, 253, 254
[68] The Mother (2004), Being of Gold: Our Goal of Self-Perfection,
p. 34
[69] Sri Aurobindo (1970d), Letters on Yoga, Birth Centenary Library, p.
348
[70] Sri Aurobindo (1970c), The Life Divine, p. 962
[71] AS Dalal (2002), Emergence of the Psychic: Governance of Life
by the Soul, Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, p.
104
[72] Marie Louise von Franz (1975),
CG Jung: His Myth in our Time, Translated
from the German by William H Kennedy,
[73] Ibid.
[74] The Mother (2004), Being of Gold: Our Goal of Self-Perfection,
p. 52
[75] CG Jung (1975b), Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle,
in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, pp. 418-19 passim, 514, 517
[76] Marie-Louise von Franz
(1992b). Some Reflections on Synchronicity,
p. 259
[77] Sri Aurobindo (1970c), The Life Divine, p. 946
[78] Ibid., p. 950
[79] Ibid., The Life Divine,
p. 951
[80] CG Jung (1965), Memories, Dreams, Reflections. p. 297
[81] CG Jung (1975c), Answer to Job, in Psychology and Religion East and West, Collected Works, Vol. 11, pp.
355-70 passim, 470