Mirror of Tomorrow :: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A

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Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by RY Deshpande on Thu 04 Feb 2010 03:30 AM IST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

White Shadow-Persona: with a Commentary on the Da Vinci Code

Abstract

In Parts IV-A and -B, I move into the realm of praxis, which is so essential to understanding Jung’s contribution to psychology and spirituality. Part IV-A primarily concerns an experiential phenomenon that I call the white-shadow persona. The white-shadow persona is a product of the persona that is identified with high ideals driven by a power-complex. The persona is the mask that feigns individuality, but which is a collective phenomena with which one should not identify. The power-complex is a split-off power-drive, which, when assimilated to consciousness, becomes a formative factor that can be used creatively, and the spirit of life. As a subsidiary theme and as an example I comment on the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code, focusing on the albino monk, who is a striking image for the white-shadow persona, as a puffed-up murderous monk who believes he is an instrument of God. In fact, he is trying to prevent the resurrection of Mary Magdalene from obscurity and projected sinfulness, and her being located in her in her rightful place as the bride of Jesus and spouse of Christ, which is important evidence for the tradition of the Holy Grail. As an archetypal image, Mary Magdalene unites both the superior and inferior aspects of the psyche and would, therefore, promote wholeness and the ability of aligning the human will with the Divine will.

Rather than the image of Christ alone, Jung preferred that of Christ on the cross hung between two thieves, one going to heaven the other to hell, a more substantial icon with greater redemptive power. The reason for his preference is that the former image includes shadow as well as light, while the image of Christ alone is all light, or all white and shadowless, without defining substance. In fact, the shadow side of Christianity became split from the light side and was therefore repressed and relegated to the unconscious. This refers to a collective split-off complex and, metaphysically, a separation of the Shadow side from Consciousness or the Self in the mainstream Christian worldview.

To complicate matters, Jung also noted that Lucifer's revolt against God led to the attainment of consciousness and humankind's mastery of the physical and vital worlds. [1] [2] In this sense, Lucifer represents the active principle of creation, which is a viewpoint similar to that held by the Mother; that the Asuras (including the Asura of Falsehood) are beings of light with great formative power. There has been, in other words, a gain in consciousness and world mastery, but also a separation of Lucifer and other Asuras from the Divine Source.

Despite Nietzsche's iconoclasm, his emphasis on the light was perpetuated in his book Zarathustra where the "ugliest man" was not accepted by the "wise man of light," Zarathustra, with whom he likely identified, eventually prophesying disastrous consequences. In a more individual and personal vein, Jung once observed that Mephistopheles can be understood as a power-driven split-off complex that sets itself up in place of the Self "enjoy[ing] independence and absolute power." [3] Yet, he also wrote that Mephistopheles is "the true spirit of life", again in harmony with the Mother’s view that “the greatest Asuras are the greatest beings of Light and, once converted, [they] will become the supreme beings of creation.” [4] [5] A major psychological task is evidently one of integrating the personal shadow and its relationship to the collective shadow to consciousness and the Self. This results in the relativization of both good and evil, a viewpoint shared by both Jung and the Mother.

If individuals don't integrate the shadow they can identify with the white “shadow," project the black shadow onto neighbors or other people and, all the time, be possessed and driven with a power-complex. Here, I am not referring to the compensatory virtuous and white or light shadow of a criminal, who consciously identifies with antisocial and black values and attitudes about which Jung wrote. I use the expression, rather, to give an imaginative picture of inflated consciousness driven by an unconscious power-complex. The white “shadow” of this essay can refer either to the ideals or ideal self-image of any given society or high ideals and various forms of Romanticism, which are not fully integrated into consciousness in an instinctually-related way. In terms of individual psychology, my experience tells me that people with certain personality disorders are very susceptible to these dynamics. More specifically, people with an elitist form of a narcissistic personality disorder or those with another personality disorder with elitist narcissistic features are wide open to this identification. As a first principle, then, I would observe that the white “shadow” is driven by a split-off power-complex that, when truly assimilated to consciousness, can be an instrument of creative power for realizing the Divine work. But this leads to another question, which is: where should one locate this white “shadow" in practical terms and is there, in fact, a more appropriate name for this psychological phenomenon?

White Shadow-Persona

I believe the answer to that is that it belongs with the persona and that, consequently, a better descriptor for what I have thus far referred to as white “shadow” would, I propose, be white shadow-persona. It is more in keeping with Jung’s idea that the shadow is relegated to the unconscious, often carrying considerable repressed vital energy and, as a social construction, the persona is related to ego-consciousness, although grounded on an archetypal principle and what Sri Aurobindo calls the inconscient, a region of chaos, confusion and obscurity. It is also suggestive of the shadowy quality of this kind of persona, which is driven by an unconscious power-complex. Nor does it disguise the white shadow-persona’s repressive, even potentially destructive effect on life.

According to Jung the persona is a "segment of the collective psyche" and can often be mistaken for something individual. [6] Although there may be something individual in it, it is, rather, he insisted, "a mask that feigns individuality", while one is acting a collective role through which the voice of the collective speaks its seductive "truths”. [7] Individuation, however, involves, in part, "divesting oneself from the false wrappings of the persona" and the realization of a privatized Self liberated from social obligations. [8] Here then Jung alluded to the persona as being ultimately connected to falsehood, even if it does have practical value at one level of being. In identifying with the persona, then, one is forging an unconscious relationship to the Asura of Falsehood.

When people come in contact with the collective unconscious and there is an expansion of consciousness, the inevitable outcome, at least initially, is inflation. Jung is particularly biting in his remarks about people who identify with any aspect of the collective psyche, which, he argued amounts to full "acceptance of inflation but now exalted into a system". [9] In mythological imagery this means being devoured by the dragon, and a loss of individual autonomy. Genuine self-criticism, he observed, is thrown to the wind and there is the appearance of a reward in that one seems to participate in a superior world, one “pregnant with meaning.” [10]

Nations in search of their identity, in the extreme like Nazi Germany or other totalitarian states, who project the Messiah or Savior onto their national leaders, are fertile ground for inducing collective inflation. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism, some of which fosters international terrorism, promotes this kind of fanatic inflation. Perhaps to a lesser degree, democratic states governed by leaders representing a Christian fundamentalist religious position are also vulnerable to this unhealthy phenomenon. The on-going Christian battle for good against evil, and the tendency of Christian fundamentalist groups to see the work of the Devil in other people and not themselves, is a classic example of "whited" inflation behind which lies an unconscious identification with Lucifer himself. Here the reader is reminded of Christ referring to scribes and Pharisees as “hypocrites! ....like unto whited-sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness,” clearly alluding to the falsehood of identifying with the persona and fundamentalist dogma. [11]

If taken as a representative symbol of the white shadow-persona that is unconsciously driven by a dark force, the depiction of the murderous albino monk in Dan Brown’s immensely popular The Da Vinci Code cannot be surpassed. He is a member of the fundamentalist Catholic sect, the Opus Dei, an organization portrayed in the book and movie as intent on destroying any evidence of the Holy Grail. It turns out to involve the “bloodline” of Jesus Christ that was reputed to have directly descended from him and, according to some Gnostic traditions, Mary Magdalene, the Grail bearer. In their belief, she was Jesus’ foremost disciple and beloved, loving wife and companion and not a penitent prostitute, as mainline Christianity has officially maintained for some fourteen hundred years. In 1969, the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church put an end to this understanding, which in fact, symbolically, may not have been perverse at all, and publicly acknowledged that this portrayal was not based on any scriptural evidence. [12]

What is most significant, from the point of view of the essay, is that, in the book and movie, evidence for the Holy Grail involves resurrecting Mary Magdalene from obscurity and projected sinfulness and, from an archetypal point of view, her being located in her rightful place as the bride of Jesus and spouse of Christ. It is no coincidence that the name of the attractive young French woman in the movie based on Dan Brown’s work and, as it turns out, the rightful last descendent of the “bloodline,” is Sophie, while, in Gnostic speculation, Mary Magdalene was considered to be the ancient goddess of wisdom, Sophia herself. [13] In fact, it seems likely that her name, Magdalene, does not refer to her home town, as has long been the official view, but is an honorific title meaning exalted, great or magnificent. (ibid.) Archetypally, as Jesus’ wife, she represents the “land and her people”, values of Eros or relatedness in common everyday life, the humanization of the Divine, and her sacred union as Sophia with Christ symbolizes the divinization of life. [14]

According to a French legend, Mary Magdalene arrived in France pregnant with a child that initiated the royal “bloodline” alluded to in The Da Vinci Code. [15] When understood symbolically, this phenomenon parallels the alchemical goal of giving birth to the lapis or philosopher’s stone, also referred to as the filius philosophorum, the son of the philosopher, the product of the womb of matter and the alchemical opus. (Exhibit) In fact, in addition to matter, there are several other symbolic synonyms for the mother of the lapis that could also be applied to Mary Magdalene such as her lunar nature, her association with an alabaster jar or vessel containing the royal nard ointment (that she used to anoint Jesus), her widowhood, and the persistent allusion to her having been a [divine] prostitute, despite the Magisterium’s pronouncement. [16] [17] The alchemists believed that the filius philosophorum compensated for the dogmatic image of Christ as a more complete figure, uniting both the light, superior aspect of the psyche and the shadow, inferior side, thus harmonizing human will with the Divine will. [18] Accepting the archetypal reality of Mary Magdalene and her offspring is a significant response to a one-sided approach to life, where the shadow is not integrated but split-off and projected. Collective acknowledgement of this symbolic reality, at least in the Christian worldview, potentially brings this realization closer to individual consciousness.

The white shadow-persona in the guise of the albino monk is “puffed up” beyond all measure and believes he is as an instrument of God through Opus Dei (Work of God), in real life, a contemporary Catholic organization that was granted approval by the Holy See on June 16, 1950. [19] The founding father was Josemaria Escrivà, who died on June 26, 1975, and who was set on a fast-track to sainthood, being beatified on May 17, 1992 by John Paul II in a relatively short space of time after his death. [20] The real-life Opus Dei purports to bring God into every day life and the world, although from a patriarchal Catholic “heroic” perspective regarding a virtuous Christian life. The albino monk in the book and movie is actually intent on killing the potential for the realization of the sacred feminine in life, involving the way of the heart, Eros, feeling, intuitive wisdom and creative power. The feminine perspective and the way of the heart is altogether different from that of a Logos oriented patriarchy, with its emphasis on doctrine, dogma, tradition, obedience and discipline, in itself, of spiritual merit as long as one keeps an eye on and reins in the repressive shadow. This consideration notwithstanding, to a greater or lesser extent, the white shadow-persona always has a repressive and destructive effect on values of the sacred feminine.

From my personal observation, opening the doors of perception through drug use, and disciples of all spiritual and psychological movements with charismatic (often grandiose) leaders or fundamentalist religious movements, without exception, are subject to the risk of becoming inflated. This danger is particularly evident in the case of esoteric groups like those affiliated with The Great White Brotherhood, whose members are taught to specifically adulate “beings of light” as well as occult practices meant to rid the world of the dark forces of evil. In the theosophical movement initiated by Alice Bailey there is conscious acknowledgement of Lucifer as a principle guiding figure of light, but, to my understanding, no evidence of his need for conversion back to the Divine. [21]

Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that Lucifer, which means “bearer of light”, may, in fact, be one of the two Asura’s that have been converted according to the Mother. Indeed, regarding the Asura of Light, the Mother observed that, since his conversion, “he is becoming “Consciousness and Light—he is becoming”, she says, “what he was”. [22] Previously, he had become unconsciousness and obscurity, at which time he made innumerable formations of himself, many of whom refuse to convert—which could possibly relate to the form of Lucifer contacted by Alice Bailey. [23] When unconverted, he and his formations are specifically associated with ignorance and unconsciousness and, when converted, with light and consciousness. The fact of his conversion could explain the instinctive drive and reality of increasing consciousness operating throughout the world today. This is a different phenomenon from active involvement in expurgating evil from the community and world scene, which is an act of unconsciousness and projection, despite its high pretensions.

Jung referred disparagingly to so-called "prophets and prophet's disciples," each of whom identify with one of these respective archetypal images from the collective psyche. [24] Here we have the whitest of white so-called individuals identified with a powerful persona, while inflated with unearned and unassimilated truths and high (Christ or Buddha-like) ideals, yet without any authentic individual autonomy. There is then full projection of the dark Mephistophelean shadow, which, in turn possesses and drives the white knight or his lady with a power-complex. There is, in this case, a Luciferian inflation of consciousness and an unconscious identification with falsehood.

I believe the reader can make a relationship here, if not an equation, between these observations on the white shadow-persona driven by an unconscious power-complex and what Sri Aurobindo referred to as the Evil Persona, at least an important aspect of it, which was, in fact, stimulated by an article authored by Jung. [25] Sri Aurobindo observed that it takes hold of his disciples once they enter his path and begin the march toward realization. [26] Even as devoted disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, one identifies with archetypal images of any kind at one’s peril. Rather, the reader is better advised to put energy into conscious individuation in relatedness to the psychic being or heart-Self in service to the Mother or Self within, while integrating to consciousness the split-off shadow and formative factor that can be used creatively along with the “spirit of life”. Individuals can then potentially become more fully themselves, simple people of integrity without pretension, yet open to a higher will.

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] CG Jung (1970), The Collected Works, Vol. 13, Alchemical studies. Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press

[2] CG Jung (1970), The Collected Works, Vol. 11, 2nd edition, Psychology and Religion: West and East. Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press

[3] CG Jung (1970), The Collected Works, Vol. 12, Psychology and Alchemy, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 69

[4] CG Jung (1965), Memories, Dreams, Reflections, (Revised Edition), A Jaffé, Editor R Winston and C Winston, Translators New York: Vintage Books, p. 235

[5] La Mère (1978b), Édition de luxe, Deuxième Édition, Entretiens 1950-1951, Le 18 février, (My Translation into English), Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, p. 133

[6] CG Jung (1975b), The Collected Works, Vol. 7, Part One, The effects of the Unconscious upon Consciousness, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 157

[7] Ibid.

[8] CG Jung (1975c), The Collected Works, Vol. 7, Part Two, Individuation, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 174

[9] CG Jung (1975b), The Collected Works, Vol. 7, Part One, The effects of the Unconscious upon Consciousness, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, p.169

[10] Ibid., p. 170

[11] Mathew 23:27. The Holy Bible, King James Version

[12] Margaret Starbird (2005), Mary Magdalene: Bride in Exile, Rochester, VT: Bear & Company, pp. 2, 6, 23, 38, 39, 44-46, 52-63, 95, 96, plate 10, passim

[13] Ibid., pp. 2, 6, 23, 38, 39, 44-46, 52-63, 95, 96, plate 10, passim.

[14] Ibid., p., 38

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.

[17] CG Jung (1974), The Collected Works, Vol. 14, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 17-22 passim

[18] Marie-Louise von Franz, Editor and Commentator, (1966), Aurora Consurgens: A Document attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, a companion work to CG Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis, Translated by RFC Hull and ASB Glover, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 214, 252

[19] Josemaria Esrcrivà (2006), (http://www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/saintj12.htm).

[20] Ibid., (http://www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/saintj12.htm).

[21] Sarah McKechnie (2001), A Talk given at the Scorpio Festival, October 31, 2001, INEH [International Network of Healing] www.ineh.org.in

[22] La Mère (1978a), Édition de luxe, Deuxième Édition, Entretiens 1953, Le 25 novembre. (My Translation into English), Pondicherry, p. 427

[23] Ibid.

[24] CG Jung (1975b), The Collected Works, Vol. 7, Part One, The effects of the Unconscious upon Consciousness, in Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Translated by RFC Hull, Bollingen Series XX, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 169-71, passim

[25] David Johnston (2006), Evil Persona, Shadow and the Transformation of Community, www.davidbear.ca p. 8

[26] Sri Aurobindo (1970), Vol. 24, Letters on Yoga, p. 1660

The series concludes with Part IV B

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Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by paulette on Thu 04 Feb 2010 04:52 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I am surprised that David Johnston concludes his excursus with Part IV, dealing in a hasty way on momentous themes such as the shadow/white persona, the collective shadow and the evil persona – and without mentioning, at this point, the existence of the absolute shadow. Given its complexity and manifold implications the matter should have been the object of a separate paper, examining in depth all aspects.

The projection on others of one’s shadow, suppressed or repressed, in psychology is a well-known phenomenon. While the Mother too deals with it, she also points out that if the sadhaks are sincere the very nature of this projection may help them to recognize their own shadow. But how many are sincere? This is the question.

The refusal to acknowledge one’s shadow, while at the same time projecting it on others, at a collective level leads to persecution, scapegoatism, witch hunt and, ultimately, war and genocide. Individually, it makes a balanced relationship impossible, generating resentment and hatred. Jungian psychology identifies many possible causes behind such destructive behavior, disrupting not only society and inter nations’ relationship, but families and couples too.

Whenever someone heralds “the truth” and, blind and deaf to anything else, accuses and persecutes those not accepting his “truth”, there is inflation and projection of his personal shadow under the disguise of the shadow white persona: another much too common phenomenon. Playing the victim and accusing others, instead of dispassionately acknowledging one’s pitfalls, is one variation of the same game.

All this applies to the entire human lot, within as without yoga, and of course is also part of the evil persona. However, the evil persona refers specifically to the sadhaks of Integral Yoga, as it emerges from Sri Aurobindo’s reply to Kishor Gandhi, the ashramite who submitted him a text about the shadow by Jung [Letters on Yoga, p. 1660]:

“What you say about the “Evil Persona” interests me greatly as it answers to my constant experience that a person greatly endowed for the work has, always or almost always, - perhaps one ought not to make a too rigid universal rule about these things – a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done. Or, if it is not there at first, not bound to his personality, a force of this kind enters into his environment as soon as he begins his movement to realise. Its business seems to be to oppose, to create stumblings and wrong conditions, in a word, to set before him the whole problem of the work he has started to do. It would seem as if the problem could not, in the occult economy of things, be solved otherwise than by the predestined instrument making the difficulty his own. That would explain many things that seem very disconcerting on the surface.”

For those interested, to my last comment on Part III I have added most relevant quotes from the Mother on sleep as yogic repose, entering sachchidananda.

Paulette

Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by auroman on Thu 04 Feb 2010 05:18 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

“What you say about the “Evil Persona” interests me greatly as it answers to my constant experience that a person greatly endowed for the work has, always or almost always, - perhaps one ought not to make a too rigid universal rule about these things – a being attached to him, sometimes appearing like a part of him, which is just the contradiction of the thing he centrally represents in the work to be done.

Since you love to quote this passage so often :-)... .I'd like to put down my misgivings about citing it repeatedly.

In this case, Sri Aurobindo may have been referring to the Asuras who were born with the Mother and the constant attacks that the two of them faced during their work. Surely, the vast majority of Sadhaks are not born "greatly endowed for the work". So as Sri Aurobindo said above, one must not turn this passage into a universal rule. The vast majority of Sadhaks are living in partial truths and struggle to balance their day-to-day life. Controversies arise when we privilege one set of epistemic virtues over another (e.g. "freedom of speech" versus "allegiance to the Guru"). If we start asking each other to look for some "shadow" within, especially when there may be none, then it creates unnecessary paranoia.

Also, is it not possible that you were so heavily influenced by Kishor Gandhi in your early Yogic endeavours that now you keep falling back on the same explanation (it must be the evil persona) for every mishap you encounter in real life ?

Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by paulette on Thu 04 Feb 2010 08:18 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Auroman,

Integral Yoga is also known as the Path of Triple Transformation: psychic, spiritual, supramental. In accepting disciples Sri Aurobindo and the Mother acknowledged their potential possibility of transformation, via their own path; otherwise, why should they accept such people? As both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother stressed, each of us represents one or more impossibilities to be solved. The purpose of their mission on earth is not some solitary salvation, it is a specific collective work on behalf of humanity. Hence the necessity of gathering here types coming from all quarters as representatives of the impossibilities of the entire human species. Unless this is done – transformation of the whole gamut of human impossibilities – the work is incomplete.

Such opus certainly calls for asuras and asuric types. It is worthy to read what Nolini Kanta Gupta wrote in “On the Brink” [Collected Works vol. 6, “Sweet Mother”, pp. 20-25], including this footnote:

“Sri Aurobindo in one of his private notes discloses that most of his disciples were Asuras, the bigger the disciple the greater the Asura. Perhaps they, impelled by a higher Call, came of themselves in order to surrender and be converted to the new life. It may be that that urge wore off in the end and had to be postponed for its fulfilment. It is significant what Sri Aurobindo says in his Hymn to Durga:
"0 Mother, give to our life and mind the Asura's strength, the Asura's energy and to our heart and intelligence a God's character and a God's knowledge.”

Nolini’s words shed further light regarding the nature of the evil persona. In his crystalline style he writes:

“Here on this earth, we know, a battle was raging and is still raging between the Gods and the Asuras: men are their agents and instruments. The battle is to decide the destiny of earth and humanity. Mother was the leader of the divine army here. Now human beings are a very uncertain quantity. They themselves do not know on which side they are ranging. Some perhaps may know to some extent but that does not seem to count much in the actual things.
Yes, the pity is that man does not know and yet so much, if not the whole thing, depends on him. For man as he is now is so far removed from godliness and so close to Asuras that the battle upon earth between Gods and Asuras seems to be an unequal game. Man by actual nature is asuric: it is through aspiration that he is trying to be godly but it seems he is now out of breath with his aspiration and has fallen back on his normal nature of the Asura.
Man enshrines in him the individualised Godhead, the personal Divine: the possibility of the incarnation of the Divine lies in him alone. Hence the struggle between Gods and Asuras for the possession of the human vessel.”

Also:

“A god is a single undivided being, even as an Asura is a single undivided being. But man is a divided dual being; on one side he is a soul, on the other he is predominantly a body complex. By his soul he is akin to the gods, by his external being he is neighbourly to the Asuras.
He is thus the link between Heaven and Earth. He is the twice-born, dvija: he is planted in the mud of earth ─ he has the proverbial feet of clay ─ and his head soars high, bathes in the sun's light. He is an "emergence" out of earth, a being of evolution; he is also an "immergence", a descent into earth from heaven: one part in him is godly, the other asuric. As the divine he is Brahman, as the Asura, Aham.”

True, it was Kishor Gandhi who initiated me on the theme, at a time when I most treasured Jung because of his fourfold classification of the anima, from chthonic to celestial. A guardian angel sent to help me putting things straight, it was Gandhi who made me face the lowest of lowest as an indispensable step in the real work to be done. However, reading about the evil persona, the half deva/half asuras, Kishor’s very exhortation (or Satprem’s chapter in “The Adventure of Consciousness”) only confirm what has been my constant experience since when I entered the Path, 36 years ago – first during the formative years at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, and afterwards in Auroville: each of us carries an evil persona, manifesting exactly the opposite traits of our svabhava and svadharma, ready to mess up and destroy our true mission and destiny. It is part of the titanic work of self-transformation to never loose track of the fellow, while to put our head under the sand leads
nowhere.

Each soul is potentially divine remarked Swami Vivekananda. The key lies with that “potentially”. What we do with it is our responsibility and task.

The Mother said that the shadow will disappear only in the supramental world. Beware!

Paulette

Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by auroman on Thu 04 Feb 2010 08:34 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

“Sri Aurobindo in one of his private notes discloses that most of his disciples were Asuras, the bigger the disciple the greater the Asura.

Interesting...would you have the note or the reference.

I wasn't referring to Sri Aurobindo's disciples but the Sadhaks who exist today. It is not necessary that all of them have gathered because they were greatly endowed for some work.

I can't help notice the biases of various groups -
a) The Patricia/Thea group reads geometry, numerology and astrology into everything
b) The Ashram inmates see Asuras everywhere
c) The Jungian group sees shadows and evil personas everywhere
d) The pomo crowd (SCIY) sees the world as a giant power struggle with hegemonies and marginalizations creating internalized resentment from which arise suitable cultural responses. And yes, covert agendas !

In the absence of spiritual sight, all these are only inferences which could be right...or wrong.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by paulette on Thu 04 Feb 2010 11:55 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

The footnote is part of the reference I have already quoted, probably at p.20 (I don’t have the book with me).

As for the shadow in humans, there are postings in Mirror of Tomorrow where this had already been dealt with; let’s anyhow wait for part B before starting the discussion. However, what is to be clarified immediately is that there is a difference vis-à-vis the specificity of the evil persona; as Sri Aurobindo describes the latter, this manifests as sheer contradiction of all that the sadhak stands for. Conversely, the shadow of ordinary laypeople at the origin is not necessarily, or not always negative; it can even be positive and creative, for example when old patterns and fossilizations have to be dismantled but the individual doesn’t have the courage to take a stand against a “common wisdom” turned obsolete. When this urge is repressed it sinks into the unconscious and turns destructive.

Asuras abund, but the problem is that everyone sees the asuras in others, instead of first working it out in him/herself.

I won’t comment on Patrizia Norelli = Thea: she had already threatened me with a court case. That Wilkinson freely writes in this forum, while Deshpande has deleted my comment on this, is quite significant.

Paulette

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by RY Deshpande on Thu 04 Feb 2010 02:03 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Paulette: "I won’t comment on Patrizia Norelli = Thea: she had already threatened me with a court case. That Wilkinson freely writes in this forum, while Deshpande has deleted my comment on this, is quite significant."

This is irrelevant and should be treated as deleted. If such comments persist they will be entirely removed.

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by auroman on Thu 04 Feb 2010 07:43 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

That Wilkinson freely writes in this forum, while Deshpande has deleted my comment on this, is quite significant.

Actually, Paulette is referring to a comment of hers that you (inadvertently?) deleted. The text of that comment follows. Maybe you saw the word "deleted" and therefore deleted it :-)

Patrizia Norelli = Thea for years has been flooding Auroville through her rare disciples. Quite unsuccesfully: all messages are immediately deleted.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by RY Deshpande on Thu 04 Feb 2010 08:25 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

What I'd deleted today was a comment that was posted twice, or that got posted twice.

RYD

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by paulette on Fri 05 Feb 2010 03:00 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Auroman refers to a commented I posted in Part II.

Paulette

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by auroman on Thu 04 Feb 2010 10:32 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

b) The Ashram inmates see Asuras everywhere
c) The Jungian group sees shadows and evil personas everywhere

My comments may be misconstrued without articulation :-)
I was pointing out that the primary factor in the diagnosis of evil or bad things is determined by one's upbringing.

Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by RY Deshpande on Thu 04 Feb 2010 03:02 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Regarding the Shadow a distinction has to be made between the Creative Shadow and the Destructive Shadow, Creative Death and Destructive Death. The projection of the Four Powers of the Supreme Being, their separation from the Origin, and their becoming the Opposites—these are an aspect of the Creative, presented in the Four Luminous Powers and the Story of Creation. The Destructive which had arisen as a dark possibility is in the Sons of Darkness.

~ RYD

Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by paulette on Fri 05 Feb 2010 03:54 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

“I was pointing out that the primary factor in the diagnosis of evil or bad things is determined by one's upbringing.”

This is true in terms of what the Mother calls atavism, and Freud the superego. One’s perception of the world, society, morals etc. for many people reflects one’s upbringing and prevailing “common wisdom” of the age. If one is not aligned with it, either the person is condemned and ostracised, or represses dissatisfaction and this builds up as shadow (Jung). But the shadow is first of all an archetypal force that transcends limits and barriers; when it manifests in undeniable ways people react.

As long as we are not willing to face our own shadow (it is normal to have one; but when it is never confronted it turns pathological), not only it builds up in the unconscious with ominous consequences (neurosis, psychosis may insue), but we project it on others, attacking them for the same contents we refuses to acknowledge in ourselves. Character assassination, witch-hunt, lynching etc. are the common outcome of this operation. Another reason is that our victim has unmasked our shadow traits and deeds and must be punished for this.

When this mechanism turns collective then we have war and genocide, which the white shadow persona, also turned collective, legitimises and sanctifies. Whenever a holy war starts, whenever “crusaders of truth” (white, red, yellow, black, any colour) shout their truth to the world and take arms, be sure that this is the opus of the white shadow persona. At the Ashram as in Auroville, in the USA as in the Arab countries or anywhere else in the world.

The term “evil persona” (translated into French as “le double mauvais”), introduced by Sri Aurobindo commenting on the Jungian shadow, refers to his sadhaks feeling and acting in the exact opposite way of what they preach and ought to be. This keeps happening, even if the Masters are no longer in the body, by the force of the place itself, because to counteract the evil persona is a most conspicuous part of the work to be done, in the light of the collective realisation that is the very reason for the Ashram and Auroville to be.

Paulette

Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by auroman on Fri 05 Feb 2010 06:55 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

The term “evil persona” (translated into French as “le double mauvais”), introduced by Sri Aurobindo commenting on the Jungian shadow, refers to his sadhaks feeling and acting in the exact opposite way of what they preach and ought to be.

I don't want to hear about this evil persona anymore! You are scaring the s**t out of me :-)

Now I feel I can understand the overpowering grip that Christianity has over people with it's conception of Satan, evil and all that.

Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by Lori Tompkins on Fri 05 Feb 2010 04:55 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I found the following on Sri Aurobindo's writings on Asura from an open discussion on the topic. I thought it might be interesting in the context of this discussion. (I deleted some of the Sanskrit verse b/c the typographic symbols were all amuck.

Rajarshi Nandy: Right at the onset let me clarify that I have no knowledge of Sanskrit. However, since the time you had adviced me to follow Aurobindo's writings on the Vedas, I have been doing so for some months now. It is in his writings that I first came across this Asura paradox. He mentions in some of his writings, plus in some of the conversations which he had with his direct disciples which were recorded by Sri A.B. Puranic, that the word Asura in the Vedic sense ment "Mighty".

Later on with time as the Puranas came along and classical Sanskrit developed - he considered Rig Vedic Sanskrit as pre-classical and mystical in nature like pre classical Greek - the word Asura become corrupted to mean "that which is not divine". Following are some parts from his "Secret of the Veda":

"In the first place, the Angirases are not merely the deified human fathers, they are also brought before us as heavenly seers, sons of the gods, sons of heaven and heroes or powers of the Asura, the mighty Lord, divas putraso asurasya virah (III.53.7), an expression which, their number being seven, reminds us strongly, though perhaps only fortuitously, of the seven Angels of AhuraMazda in the kindred Iranian mythology."

*Aurobindo mentiones the words asuryam Äruhat as a single word, asuryamaruhat ….

"O Flame, thou supreme and wonderful thing, it is thou who by force of will becomest in us the greatness of discerning power; in thee the all-harmonising Friend in the sacrifice accomplishes the work and climbs to divine mastery*.

* Asuryam, the god-power, the mastering force of the Lord, the divine Asura in us." ….

1. O Will, O Universal Power, the mighty One supreme in vision, master of his being, lord of his plenitudes has given me his two cows of the Light that draw his wain. He of the triple dawn, son of the triple Bull, has awakened to knowledge with the ten thousands of his plenitude.

…. Further, while analysing a Hymn to Varuna-Mitra he says:- "Asura, a word used in the Veda as in the Avesta for the Deva (Ahuramazda), but also for the gods, His manifestations; it is only in a few hymns that it is used for the dark Titans, by another and fictitious derivation, a-sura, the not-luminous, the not-gods."

Above are some of the example, not all of course, (there are quite a few more from hymns on Indra and Varuna) where Sri Aurobindo considers that the word Asura is used as an adjective indicating supreme might.

The division of Asura meaning evil and Deva meaning divine has been used to further some theories about Aryan MIgration/Invasion. The Avesta too mentions the Daeva and Ahura (s becomes h) and their roles are reversed. The Avestan Ahura is truth, therefore Ahura Mazda was the greatest Truth for them while the word Daeva indicates falsehood and lies. Some people have opined that this could be because one stream of the Aryans had settled in Iran and another in India and these were at war, therefore one of them called Devas as divine and Asuras as evil while the other reversed the terms. Of course, both Iranian and Sanskrit are have similar roots.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by auroman on Fri 05 Feb 2010 06:39 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Asura can also mean an evolutionary state of man according to the Record of Yoga pg 1325.

These are man’s beginnings. He rises by the descent of ever higher types of Manu from the Bhuvarloka, first he is Pashu, then Pishacha, then Pramatha, then Rakshasa, then Asura, then Deva, then Siddha. So he ascends the ladder of his own being towards the Sat Purusha.

The Pashu is mind concentrated entirely on the annam, the Vanara mind concentrated on the Prana, the Pishacha mind concentrated on the senses & the knowledge part of the chitta, the Pramatha mind concentrated on the heart & the emotional & aesthetic part of the chitta, the Rakshasa is mind concentrated on the thinking manas proper & taking up all the others into the manas itself; the Asura is mind concentrated on the buddhi & in the Asura Rakshasa making it serve the manas & chitta; the Deva is mind concentrated in vijnanam, exceeding itself, but in the Asura Deva or Devasura it makes the vijnana serve the buddhi. The others raise mind successively to the Ananda, Tapas & Sat & are, respectively, the supreme Rakshasa, the supreme Asura, the supreme Deva.

From
http://www.mirroroftomorrow.org/blog/_archives/2009/4/10/4148894.html

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by Lori Tompkins on Fri 05 Feb 2010 07:27 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I am wondering is Auroman one and the same as David Johnston, or are thse two different people?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by paulette on Fri 05 Feb 2010 10:21 AM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

Sri Aurobindo explains very clearly that the evil persona is a being attached to the sadhak that compels him to do the opposite of his truth of being. It follows that, as long as the sadhak is unwilling to face it, there is no hope. In my understanding, the evil persona is the Lord of Nations entering the sadhak via its medium and turning him into Mr. Hyde. It is falsehood versus one’s svabhava and svadharma.

Regarding Satan, let’s not forget that he was the most beautiful angel, so beautiful that he took himself for God – and this delusion (inflation) turned him into the prince of the devils. But according to the Mother Satan has reverted to his original status: Lucifer, “the carrier of light”. As David Johnston puts it:

“To complicate matters, Jung also noted that Lucifer's revolt against God led to the attainment of consciousness and humankind's mastery of the physical and vital worlds. [1] [2] In this sense, Lucifer represents the active principle of creation, which is a viewpoint similar to that held by the Mother; that the Asuras (including the Asura of Falsehood) are beings of light with great formative power. There has been, in other words, a gain in consciousness and world mastery, but also a separation of Lucifer and other Asuras from the Divine Source.” Johnston adds, afterwards, “Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that Lucifer, which means “bearer of light”, may, in fact, be one of the two Asura’s that have been converted according to the Mother. Indeed, regarding the Asura of Light, the Mother observed that, since his conversion, “he is becoming “Consciousness and Light—he is becoming”, she says, “what he was”. [22] Previously, he had become unconsciousness and obscurity, at which time he made innumerable formations of himself, many of whom refuse to convert—which could possibly relate to the form of Lucifer contacted by Alice Bailey. [23] When unconverted, he and his formations are specifically associated with ignorance and unconsciousness and, when converted, with light and consciousness.”

Commenting on all such matters with an Aurovilian, he reminded me about Saint Paul who, persecuting Christians, got blinded and fell from the horse, and ended up being the greatest saint and theoretician of Christianity. But there is more, in Sri Aurobindo’s view [MCW, vol.11, p. 45]:

“This talk begins with Mother’s comments on the following letter of Sri Aurobindo.
“... although St. Paul had remarkable mystic experiences and, certainly, much profound spiritual knowledge (profound rather than wide, I think)—I would not swear to it that he is referring to the supramentalised body
(physical body). Perhaps to the supramental body or to some other luminous body in its own space and substance, which he found sometimes as if enveloping him and abolishing this body of death which he felt the material envelope to be. This verse [“For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.] like many others is capable of several interpretations and might refer to a quite supraphysical experience.”

Sri Aurobindo wrote that the asuras may even have a halo of light around their head. Auroman’s last posting, “Asura can also mean an evolutionary state of man according to the Record of Yoga pg 1325”, and the distinctions he lists command attention.

At the human level do problems arise, as long as the psychic being is not in front, when individuals who are endowed with exceptionally bright minds and a great culture lack, on the other side, the much refined feelings and emotions of the higher vital? I have watched this happening over and again. Jung would interpret the phenomenon as lack of eros. Ultimately, it sums up to the incapacity to love, to share, to widen oneself so as to comprehend the other’s point of view. It is the patriarchal, masculine mind trampling upon the feminine, intuitive, feeling and eros-related mind. The next step is enforcing one’s truth as the absolute truth and crushing all others. There is no psychic being in all this, only titanic egos tyrannically clinging to their ‘truth’, opening the gate to inflation.

Paulette

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by paulette on Fri 05 Feb 2010 03:25 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

As an homage to Jung’s synchronicity, I reproduce a passage from The Life Divine, pp. 410-1, pointed out to me by an Aurovilian and neighbor, in the course of our private discussion on evil, suffering, division, shadow, asuras, in Sri Aurobindo’s words – versus the Zoroastrians, Manicheists, Gnostics’ and Cathars’ query on evil:

“A manifestation of this kind, self-creation or Lila, would not seem justifiable if it were imposed on the unwilling creature; but it will be evident that the assent of the embodied spirit must be there already, Prakriti cannot act without the assent of the Purusha. There must have been not only the will of the Divine Purusha to make the cosmic creation possible, but the assent of the individual Purusha to make the individual manifestation possible. But it may be said that the reason for the Divine Will and delight in such a difficult and tormented progressive manifestation and the reason for the soul's assent to it is still a mystery. But it is not altogether a mystery if we look at our own nature and can suppose some kindred movement of being in the beginning as its cosmic origin. On the contrary, a play of self-concealing and self-finding is one of the most strenuous joys that conscious being can give to itself, a play of extreme attractiveness. There is no greater pleasure for man himself than a victory which is in its very principle a conquest over difficulties, a victory in knowledge, a victory in power, a victory in creation over the impossibilities of creation, a delight in the conquest over an anguished toil and a hard ordeal of suffering. At the end of separation is the intense joy of union, the joy of a meeting with a self from which we were divided. There is an attraction in ignorance itself because it provides us with the joy of discovery, the surprise of new and unforeseen creation, a great adventure of the soul; there is a joy of the journey and the search and the finding, a joy of the battle and the crown, the labour and the reward of labour. If delight of existence be the secret of creation, this too is one delight of existence; it can be regarded as the reason or at least one reason of this apparently paradoxical and contrary Lila. But, apart from this choice of the individual Purusha, there is a deeper truth inherent in the original Existence which finds its expression in the plunge into Inconscience; its result is a new affirmation of Sachchidananda in its apparent opposite. If the Infinite's right of various self-manifestation is granted, this too as a possibility of its manifestation is intelligible and has its profound significance.”

SRI AUROBINDO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paulette

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Jung’s Psychology of the Living God and Transformation of Individual and Community: Part IV A—by David Johnston

by auroman on Fri 05 Feb 2010 09:12 PM IST | Profile | Permanent Link

I am wondering is Auroman one and the same as David Johnston, or are thse two different people?

No, the two are different people. I am the Fourth in the Solar Line come to take over now that the Third is on the verge of finishing her mission. I will reveal myself with magical powers at the appropriate time.

Blessings to all,
-Signed by both - me and my evil persona

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