By: Kathleen Falken, Wed Jan 17th, 2007
Jung began with Dream Interpretation and the study of Mythology and went beyond those with studies of Spirituality that are only now being seen for their profound insight and importance to all of us.
"The further we delve into the origins of a Collective Image (or, to express it in ecclesiastical language, of a dogma), the more we uncover a seeming unending web of archetypal patterns that, before modern times, were never the object of conscious reflection. Thus, paradoxically enough, we know more about mythological symbolism than did any generation before our own. The fact is that in former times men did not reflect upon their symbols; they LIVED them and were unconsciously animated by their meaning." -Carl G Jung
It was Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961) who intensified the modern understanding of Eternal Symbols. Jung knew that the greatest study was of the PSYCHE ("Psyche" means "spirit" and "soul" and "mind" and it is this sense that, to us, Dream Study is central to the discovery of all three: Spirit, Soul and Mind).
Jung taught about the importance of dreams. Out of his exploration came the revelation that each of us has his or her own Personal Mythology -- both a part of and separate from the Collective Mythology.
Jung uncovered the characters and story-lines that make up our dreams. He told us of Heroes and hero makers, the archetypes of Initiation and Transcendence, the Shadow within each of us, the Anima (the Feminine) and Animus (the Masculine) -- and the Wise Old One. Jung admitted that it was always in him to grow up to play the Wise Old Man. There are worse role one can play.
Although best known for his influence on psychotherapy and dream study, Jung also studied Spirituality and brought to it his gift of profound insight.
In "Transformation in the Mass." Jung concluded:
"The Mass thus contains, as its essential core, the mystery and miracle of God's transformation taking place in the human sphere, his becoming Man, and his return to his absolute existence in and for himself. Man, too, by his devotion and self-sacrifice as a ministering instrument, is included in the mysterious process. God's offering of himself is a volentary act of Love, but the actual sacrifice was an agonizing and bloody death brought about by men... The terrors of death on the Cross are an indispensable condition for transformation. This is in the first place a bringing to life of substances which are in themselves lifeless, and, in the second, a substantial alteration of them, a Spiritualization, in accordance with the ancient conception of PNEUMA as a subtle material entity... This idea is expressed in the concrete participation in the body and blood of Christ in the Communion."
In his Forward to the "I CHING, or Book of Changes" Jung said:
"The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to that of the modern physicist, who cannot deny that his model of the world is a decidedly psychophysical structure. The microphysical even includes the observer just as much as the reality underlying the I CHING comprises subjective, i.e. psychic, conditions in the totality of the momentary situation... The I CHING does not offer itself with proofs and results; it does not vaunt itself, nor is it easy to approach. Like a part of nature, it waits until it is discovered. It offers neither facts nor power, but for lovers of self-knowledge, of Wisdom -- if there be such -- it seems to be the right book. To one person its spirit appears as clear as day; to another, as shadowy as twilight; to a third, dark as night. He who is not pleased by it, and he who is against it is not obliged to find it true. Let it go forth into the world for the benifit of those who can discern its meaning."
In his Commentary on the "BARDO THODAL: the Tibetan Book of the Dead," Jung said:
"The Soul is assuredly not small, but the radiant Godhead itself. The West finds this statement either very dangerous, if not downright blasphemous, or else accepts it unthinkingly and then suffers from a theosophical inflation. Somehow we always have a wrong attitude to these things. But if we can master ourselves far enough to refrain from our chief error of always wanting to DO something with things and put them to practical use, we may perhaps succeed in learning an important lesson from these teachings, or at least in appreciating the greatness of the BARDO THODOL, which vouchsafes to the dead man the ultimate and highest truth, that even the gods are the radiance and reflection of our own souls. No sun is therefore eclipsed for the Oriental as it would be for the Christian, who would feel robbed of his God; on the contrary, his soul is the light of the Godhead, and the Godhead is the soul. The East can sustain this paradox better..."
Jung's exploration of the emerging New Spirituality was intensified with a dream...
At age 69, Jung suffered a heart attack. While unconscious, he had a vivid dream: "Far below I saw the globe of the Earth, bathed in a gloriously blue light. Far below my feet lay Ceylon... I knew that I was on the point of departing from the Earth. The sight of the Earth from this height was the most glorious thing I have ever seen. I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away. Everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence fell away or was stripped from me -- an extremely painful process..." But it was then in his dream that he saw his personal physician who told Jung that he had been sent from those of Earth "to tell me there was a protest against my going away. Profoundly disappointed -- now I must return to the 'Box System' again."
Jung came to and continued to contribute to his fascinating studies for another 17 years.
It was Jung's major contributions in the studies of Myth, Dreams and Spirituality that helped us see that we don't have to live in the Box System. That by exploring and embracing the New Spirituality, by learning first from our own dreams, then by seeing the wisdom in the dreams of our fellows, that our lives on Earth can go outside the Box.
Do you dream?
What do your dreams tell you?
Do you follow their advice?
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