Re: Re: the Four luminous Powers and the Story of Creation--Jung on the Shadow
by
RY Deshpande
In response to David’s note, following is the comment I’ve received from Alok Pandey. ~ RYD I have gone through the article and have a fair amount of familiarity with Jung's writings.
My own view of the matter is that though Jung has caught certain ideas from the universal consciousness (or call it collective unconscious if you like), these are nothing more than reflections in the mind. These things are good to play with and may help the mind at some stage to admit certain possibilities but they stop there. True, one can use this 'reflected partial gleam' to understand and also to help certain patients but still it remains a mental thing. It does not carry us farther than that. Personally I like to make a clear distinction between the knowledge gained through the direct inner experience as in yoga and the one that one gains as by straining the mind or even by a reflection in its substance of some gleam of truth that has strayed towards earth and illumined a corner there.
Also I do not understand what kind of empiricism can prove whether even a thing such as consciousness exists. At the level of the mind it will always remain an indirect inferential knowledge.
Having said that, my own personal understanding is that though there are certain seeming similarities in a few aspects the Jungian Unconscious and the Shadow he speaks of is not quite the same thing as what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother say in the Story of Creation and the great descent of the Divine Being into Darkness.
If Ignorance in general is to be equated as shadow then there is shadow all over including what we call as 'superior' thought or 'superior' feeling. Sattwa, Morality, Ethics everything is shadow in that sense. True, the degree of shadow may differ but it is shadow nevertheless. The only shadowless Light is the Divine, all else, including the saint and the scoundrel are shadows. But it is not in this general sense that one refers to it here.
Another meaning attributed to it is that which humanity has left behind in its evolutionary march. I suppose that is what is more likely to be the shadow spoken of by Jung. It is certain tendencies that were alright at some point of time but have hence outlived their purposes but stick to us atavistically hiding in some secret crypts and corners of nature. This is one way to understand evil without loosing hold on the oneness.
But the shadow is still more specific. It is the complete negation, the contradiction of the Divine possibility in nature. It is even given to us as part of the occult arrangement of things by a wisdom surer than reason to hasten the march. It is our special point of struggle, and our special point of victorious emergence. But I wonder if this can be done by discarding the Light and just plunging into the darkness. One must first get the Light and then the work can be done. The higher the Light, the greater the darkness one can tackle. I don't think Jung even contemplated this process or even dreamt of such a divine possibility.
His goals were relatively simpler, the role of our atavistic remnants in pulling us down or keeping us tied. One had to free oneself from these elements of the past, but that is quite another matter than tackling the shadow in the Light of Integral Yoga.
To sum up, the shadow that Sri Aurobindo speaks of is not confined to human beings. It owes its origin before creation began and it will be annihilated when creation is tranformed into the Divine image it is intended to be. In human beings it takes certain forms, that is the negation of the core Godward aspiration, and it is 'allowed' only to paradoxically hasten the progress. The luminous and the dark poles of existence are there before man or even matter came into play. But we must not forget that the dark is not something permanent as some believe it to be the totality of God. The shadowless Light is the eternal Reality, all else including the grey and the black has emerged and will vanish or be tranformed one day. I don't think anyone has gone as far as that except Sri Aurobindo. Even when they seem to use similar language the scope and the sense is very different. It is like seeing a storm while being caught in it or else inferring it through the weather instruments and seeing and knowing it as from the vastness of Space. Or to take another analogy it is like inferring the presence of a soul from the logic of things and having a direct living contact with it. ~ Alok Pandey
In response to David’s note, following is the comment I’ve received from Alok Pandey. ~ RYD
I have gone through the article and have a fair amount of familiarity with Jung's writings. My own view of the matter is that though Jung has caught certain ideas from the universal consciousness (or call it collective unconscious if you like), these are nothing more than reflections in the mind. These things are good to play with and may help the mind at some stage to admit certain possibilities but they stop there. True, one can use this 'reflected partial gleam' to understand and also to help certain patients but still it remains a mental thing. It does not carry us farther than that. Personally I like to make a clear distinction between the knowledge gained through the direct inner experience as in yoga and the one that one gains as by straining the mind or even by a reflection in its substance of some gleam of truth that has strayed towards earth and illumined a corner there. Also I do not understand what kind of empiricism can prove whether even a thing such as consciousness exists. At the level of the mind it will always remain an indirect inferential knowledge. Having said that, my own personal understanding is that though there are certain seeming similarities in a few aspects the Jungian Unconscious and the Shadow he speaks of is not quite the same thing as what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother say in the Story of Creation and the great descent of the Divine Being into Darkness. If Ignorance in general is to be equated as shadow then there is shadow all over including what we call as 'superior' thought or 'superior' feeling. Sattwa, Morality, Ethics everything is shadow in that sense. True, the degree of shadow may differ but it is shadow nevertheless. The only shadowless Light is the Divine, all else, including the saint and the scoundrel are shadows. But it is not in this general sense that one refers to it here. Another meaning attributed to it is that which humanity has left behind in its evolutionary march. I suppose that is what is more likely to be the shadow spoken of by Jung. It is certain tendencies that were alright at some point of time but have hence outlived their purposes but stick to us atavistically hiding in some secret crypts and corners of nature. This is one way to understand evil without loosing hold on the oneness. But the shadow is still more specific. It is the complete negation, the contradiction of the Divine possibility in nature. It is even given to us as part of the occult arrangement of things by a wisdom surer than reason to hasten the march. It is our special point of struggle, and our special point of victorious emergence. But I wonder if this can be done by discarding the Light and just plunging into the darkness. One must first get the Light and then the work can be done. The higher the Light, the greater the darkness one can tackle. I don't think Jung even contemplated this process or even dreamt of such a divine possibility. His goals were relatively simpler, the role of our atavistic remnants in pulling us down or keeping us tied. One had to free oneself from these elements of the past, but that is quite another matter than tackling the shadow in the Light of Integral Yoga. To sum up, the shadow that Sri Aurobindo speaks of is not confined to human beings. It owes its origin before creation began and it will be annihilated when creation is tranformed into the Divine image it is intended to be. In human beings it takes certain forms, that is the negation of the core Godward aspiration, and it is 'allowed' only to paradoxically hasten the progress. The luminous and the dark poles of existence are there before man or even matter came into play. But we must not forget that the dark is not something permanent as some believe it to be the totality of God. The shadowless Light is the eternal Reality, all else including the grey and the black has emerged and will vanish or be tranformed one day. I don't think anyone has gone as far as that except Sri Aurobindo. Even when they seem to use similar language the scope and the sense is very different. It is like seeing a storm while being caught in it or else inferring it through the weather instruments and seeing and knowing it as from the vastness of Space. Or to take another analogy it is like inferring the presence of a soul from the logic of things and having a direct living contact with it. ~ Alok Pandey