FA+
Shop
Individuation • Quotes
8 months ago
Between two modes of being, one centred around the ego and the conscious will, the other around the Self and a deeper transpersonal will,
There lies the dangerous journey of individuation, a night-sea journey down into the depths of the psyche for renewal and rebirth.
The decay and death of what Jung called the conscious dominant, the old principle of ego control and will, brings with it the temporary collapse
Of the mechanism of repression by which the autonomy and control of the ego is maintained.
This collapse unleashes into consciousness the long-repressed power of the instinctual unconscious,
Which can be experienced both as a tremendous creative daemon and a terrifying, destructive force.
During individuation-on the way of psychospiritual transformation-one faces two main challenges,
which occur simultaneously: first, overcoming the old dominant, ruling principle in the psyche;
And, second, controlling and taming the Dionysian power of the instinctual unconscious.
If the total personality were to be considered as a city of which the ego regards itself as mayor,
This city would contain not only inhabitants whom the mayor had never seen or heard of the personal unconscious,
But he would eventually find that there were other authorities which were not under his command,
Seeming to obey a central authority which he did not know existed and which resided elsewhere-in Central Asia, say, or on Mars.
This central authority would give orders and the local militia would obey them, disregarding any conflicting orders the mayor may have given.
The question still remains: Who or what is this authority? What is the other directive unconscious centre of the psyche?
Jung called it the Self-the Self in contradistinction to the ego.
Mature consciousness, according to Jung, is dependent on a working relationship between a strong but flexible ego and the Self, regulating centre of the psyche.
For that to happen one has to acknowledge that the ego is not in charge. This is not a natural process; it is a major shift in perspective,
Like the difference between thinking the earth is the centre of the solar system and then learning that the sun is.
This generally doesn't happen until later in life, when you look back on your experience and
realise there was more going on than you knew. Ergo, something other than 'you' was pulling the strings.
In its rightful function the ego is the light in the darkness of the unconscious, and in some ways identical with the Self.
The ego of an individuated person, for instance, would be a manifestation of the Self, it would be open to the unconscious.
Such an ego manifests the Self by having a double attitude towards-and being constantly, humbly,
Open to the unconscious and thus offering a basis of realisation for the Self.
God needs our poor heart, says Angelus Silesius, in order to be real.
Nietzsche once said that before the path can be followed, one must first have found the lantern.
And the lantern can only be found after a conscientious submission of ego sovereignty and a purgatory of fear and trembling.
In those dark hours the luminosity of the Self is often hard to discern,
But it is the only light to guide us on the path yet to be undertaken.
Nietzsche once said that before the path can be followed, one must first have found the lantern.
Individuation is, in effect, Jung's answer to Nietzsche. It is a response, that is, to the fate that befell Nietzsche,
Who found himself cast into the role of sacrificial prophet of an unconscious transformation process that had significance for the entire culture.
Inner work, as a practical experience, shows us that we can embrace the conflict, embrace the duality,
Bravely place ourselves in the very midst of the warring voices, and find our way through them to the unity that they ultimately express.
Do not succumb to the concern that devoting time to inner work is an exercise in navel gazing or narcissism.
Such comments often come from family and friends who have a vested interest in our predictability and consistency.
As you retrieve unlived life, it will shift the nature of relationships-conscious and unconscious-with those around you.
People often asked Dr. Jung, Will we make it? Referring to the cataclysm of our time.
He always replied, If enough people will do their inner work. This soul work is the one thing that will pull us through any emergency.
Marie-Louise von Franz counseled that it would be wrong to become a Jungian.
If you do that, you miss the whole point of his psychology,
Which was to become the one unique individual you are meant to be.
As Jung told Alan Watts, he was glad he wasn’t a Jungian.
I’m Jung. I do not want anyone to be a Jungian.
I want people above all to be themselves.
Should I be found one day only to have created another ism
Then I will have failed in all I tried to do.
If a single individual devotes himself to individuation, he frequently has a positive contagious effect on people around him.
It is as if a spark leaps from one to another and usually occurs when one has no intention of influencing others and often when one uses no words.
People, Jung observed, live on only one or two floors of a large apartment building
Which is our minds, forgetting the rest. The individuation process puts us in touch with the rest.
Most men resemble great deserted palaces the owner occupies only a few rooms
And has closed off wings where he never ventures.
To individuate, the ego must face that which is normally excluded from awareness.
It must face the dark half of the psyche, where the Self resides. It must come face to face with the unconscious.
Individuation requires looking deeply into the darkness inside each of us, a darkness that goes beyond our existence as individuals.
We have to descend into that darkness, fight battles within, then emerge once more into the light. And that is a lonely journey that few undertake willingly as Jung says,
A person has to be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself.
Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation.
We can define individuation as the ego's progressive awareness of and relation to the Self,
But, as Jung has pointed out, the experience of the Self is always a defeat for the ego, and a defeat for the ego is experienced as tragedy.
During individuation, one encounters the gods not through any collective myth
Or mediated through the external forms of a religion,
But directly, as powers to be experienced within one's own being.
The symbolic inner experiences which the shaman lives through during his period of initiation
Are identical with the symbolic experiences the man of today lives through during the individuation process.
Enlightenment is not some ideal goal, perfect state of mind, or spiritual realm on high, but a journey that takes place on this earth.
It is the process of waking up to all of what we are and making a complete relationship with that.
The experience of depth psychology, the process of individuation that must be undergone,
Is itself an esoteric event which changes people to the depth of their being, extends their consciousness,
And brings their personality to the maturity of the whole person.
People want an easy path. Jung's path of individuation is not easy.
Jung points out that because individuality and the development of personality are deviations not congenial to the collective,
Historically only a few have dared the adventure, the so-called hero's journey, which takes courage or at least the capacity to bear fear.
The hero, like the ego, stands between two worlds: the inner world that threatens to overwhelm him,
And the outer world that wants to liquidate him for breaking the old laws.
Only the hero can stand his ground against these collective forces,
Because he is the exemplar of individuality and possesses the light of consciousness.
All the same, since the beginning of recorded time, heroes have been endowed with godlike attributes.
Anyone who would turn aside from the beaten path and strike out on the steep unknown was deemed
Either crazy or possessed by a demon, or possibly a god. Some were coddled, just in case;
The unlucky ones were hacked to pieces or burned at the stake.
Many have thought that individuation is a form of narcissistic preoccupation.
Rather the enlarged person, the one who undertakes and returns from the quest,
Serves the tribe through challenge, redemption and reinvigoration.
Individuation cuts one off from personal conformity and hence from collectivity.
That is the guilt which the individuant leaves behind him for the world, that is the guilt he must endeavour to redeem.
He must offer a ransom in place of himself, that is, he must bring forth values which are an equivalent substitute for his absence in the collective personal sphere.
The paradox of individuation is that we best serve intimate relationship by becoming sufficiently developed in ourselves that we do not need to feed off others.
Similarly, we best serve our society by being individuals, by contributing to the dialectic necessary for the health of any group.
Each chip in the social mosaic contributes best by the richness of its own unique colouration.
We remain most socially useful when we have something unique, our fullest possible selves, to offer.
It is the duty of one who goes his own way to inform society of what he finds on his voyage of discovery, be it cooling water for the thirsty or the sandy wastes of unfruitful error.
The one helps, the other warns. Not the criticism of individual contemporaries will decide the truth or falsity of his discoveries, but future generations.
There are things that are not yet true today, perhaps we dare not find them true, but tomorrow they may be.
So every man whose fate it is to go his individual way must proceed with hopefulness and watchfulness, ever conscious of his loneliness and its dangers.
Individuation is the sea to which all rivers wend their way, the prize which the hero wrests from the fight with the dragon.
The hero's main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness: it is the long-hoped-for triumph of consciousness over the unconscious.
The myth of the hero is first and foremost a self-representation of the longing of the unconscious, of its unquenched and unquenchable desire for the light of consciousness.
In Jung's view, the unconscious itself wishes to be understood and wishes to help both individuals and culture heal and grow. In other words, it wishes to be manifested and lived.
One of the main tasks in the individuation process is the reconciliation of opposites in our psyches,
Especially the opposition between the conscious and the unconscious mind.
Dreams create a bridge between these two worlds.
For Jung, salvation means that the personality becomes involved
In the reconciliation of the opposites and the recognition of the Self as the master of life.
People must know they are in conflict. They must be able to carry the conflict.
That is consciousness. They must stand between that which is in opposition.
The self is the union of opposites, as well as the center of the psyche.
This center grows by organizing the archetypal forces around itself
Through the union of the ego and the unconscious.
The inferior function is the door through which all the figures of the unconscious come into consciousness.
Our conscious realm is like a room with four doors and it is the fourth door by which the shadow, the animus or the anima and personification of the Self come in.
The door should be lifted off its hinges to provide a free passage between here and there,
between yes and no, between above and below, between left and right.
Airy passages should be built between all opposed things.
This need for wholeness seems to be an inherent function of the human psyche;
When there is too large an imbalance between the ego and the Self,
The shadow appears as the first step toward rejoining us with Self.
When Jung spoke of "The Self' he was referring to the indescribable.
The Self is the total personality, the sum of all the aspects, all parts & all bits of us.
It contains victim/victimiser/ego/shadow. It cannot be understood by intellect alone; it is beyond definition.
So the Self is part of the collective unconscious, but it is not the collective unconscious;
It is that unit which apparently comes from the union of the ego and the shadow.
If the Self's quest for relationship and union with the ego is blocked the result is neurosis, depression, illness, and suffering
Which may, in time, lead the afflicted individual and the afflicted culture to seek healing, relationship with the transpersonal self & wholeness.
It is through the dark side of the psyche that the Self is first manifest, for the realization
Of psychological wholeness requires a unification of spirit and instinct, the divine and the bestial.
The Self embraces both conscious & unconscious elements in our psyche. However, as an archetype,
It is nevertheless located in the unconscious. Jung noted that "the Self" is our life's goal,
For it is the completest expression of fateful combination we call individuality.
The actual realisation or living incarnation of the Self requires the presence of a disciplined ego
To function as a responsible and conscious executor,
In the limited world of the here and now, of the Self's intentions and visions.
The price of wholeness is nothing less than a total commitment to being whole
And an unswerving belief in your capacity to embody it in any moment.
C.G. Jung put it this way: The attainment of wholeness requires one to stake one’s whole being.
Jung’s individuation process is usually experienced after middle age or toward the end of life.
It is not a withdrawal from life, but life itself a way between man-the-seen and his soul-the-unseen.
It is a way of transformation toward experiencing the wholeness.
The underlying principle of Jungian psychology is that our life story, if it is truly lived, brings about the realization of our inner and often unconscious potentials.
There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection.
When it is understood that trying to have good without evil is as absurd as trying
To have white without black, all that energy is released for things that can be done.
The most important act for the future is to become aware of our darkness, to lower our moral sights,
Resist the desire to be perfect, recognize our complexity, become critical of conventional morality
And search for a new balance that includes our dark side as well as the light.
Yang means the positive, and yin, the negative.
Yang is identified with the south or sunny side of a mountain;
Yin, with the north or shady side.
And note, this moment,
That you cannot have a one-sided mountain.
Self-actualising people are, without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin, in something outside of themselves.
They are devoted, working at something, something which is very precious to them-some calling or vocation in the old sense, the priestly sense.
They are working at something which fate has called them to somehow and which they work at and which they love, so that the work-joy dichotomy in them disappears.
One devotes his life to the law, another to justice, another to beauty or truth. All, in one way or another, devote their lives to the search for what I have called the being values,
The ultimate values which are intrinsic, which cannot be reduced to anything more ultimate.
It is highly interesting that classical literature, whether the author is Dante or Shakespeare,
Has no sympathy with the sentimental or superficial idea of human perfection.
Any character who is neither good nor evil is simply not living an authentic life.
We are not yet attuned to language of soul; we are not comfortable thinking metaphorically.
There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind
You are the one who hears it.
The ancients called internal longing for wholeness “fate” or “destiny,” the “inner voice” or the “call of the gods.”
It has an inevitability, authority & finality to it and was at the heart of almost all mythology.
Almost all heroes heard an inner voice that spoke to them.
Soul speech carries one’s individuality, and for this reason psyche’s speech is unique.
Until you hear this unique speech in yourself, you are hearing only the collective language of the time
And speaking ego’s relationship to collective images and values.
Examine the spirits that speak in you. Become critical.
The modern man must be fully conscious of the terrific dangers that lie in mass movements.
Listen to what the unconscious says.
All my writings may be considered tasks imposed from within; their source was a fateful compulsion.
What I wrote were things that assailed me from within myself. I permitted the spirit that moved me to speak out.
My speech is neither light nor dark, since it is the speech of someone who is growing.
The language I speak is ambiguous, or two-faced, in order to do justice to the dual aspect of our psychic nature.
I constantly and deliberately strive for ambiguity of expression,
Because it is superior to unequivocalness and more in keeping with the nature of life.
More Quotes:
General
Unconscious
Synchronicities
Dreams
Active Imagination
Mythology
Shadow
Anima
Individuation