Carl Jung on Chakras
The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga
[Carl Jung on Chakras]
This teaching of the chakras should not be misunderstood as concrete and corporeal like the Theosophers tend to do today.
These centers are not corporeal entities.
When one speaks of them, it is understood “as if” they were situated somewhere in the navel, and so on. ~Carl Jung, Kundalini Yoga, Page 75.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
7. Sahasrara Crown Chakra
Speaking of the Sahasrara, the lotus of a thousand leaves, is completely obsolete, because it’s a pure philosophical concept. Without any substance to us. It is above all experience. In Ajna there is still the experience of the self that is seemingly different from the object, the God. But in Sahasrara there is no difference. The next conclusion could be that there is no object, no God, there is nothing but Brahman. There is no experience because it is One, without a second. It is asleep, it is not, and that is why it is nirvana. (non-dual)
Sahasrara is positioned above the head or at the top of it and it has 1000 petals which are arranged in 20 layers each of them with 50 petals. For a discussion about the petal count see also petal (chakra) Sahasrara chakra symbolizes detachment from illusion; an essential element in obtaining supramental consciousness of the truth that one is all and all is one.
Often referred as thousand-petaled lotus, it is said to be the most subtle chakra in the system, relating to pure consciousness, and it is from this chakra that all the other chakras emanate. When a yogi is able to raise his or her kundalini, energy of consciousness, up to this point, the state of samadhi, or union with God, is experienced. In the West, it has been noted by many occultists[attribution needed] that Sahasrara expresses a similar archetypal idea to that of Kether in the kabbalistic tree of life, which also rests at the head of the tree, and represents pure consciousness and union with god. ~Carl Jung; Kundalini Yoga
Vishuddha Throat Chakra – Ether Element – White Elephant
- Vishuddha Throat Chakra – Ether Element – White Elephant [Not simply an Elephant but a white elephant
Here one rises above the emperic world, and lands into a world of concepts. With certainty we realise our psychic existence as the only reality through experience. Another way to look at the series of chakras would be that ist is like climbing form rude matter to a fine or psychic form. It is where Tantra Yoga and Western Alchemy intersect, the transmutation of crude matter to the subtle form of spirit.
As people learn in Anahata that their feelings should be based on facts and not on assumptions, people must un-learn this when passing to Vishuddha. One even would have to recognize that psychic facts have nothing to do with material ones. For instance the anger you feel toward someone or something, how justified it may be, is not caused by external causes. It is a phenomenon onto itself. In other words: Your worst enemy may be in yourself.
If you’ve reached this stadium, you’re leaving Anahata, because you have succeeded in loosening the absolute unification of the material external facts with the internal or psychic facts. Whatever you experience, whatever adventure you live in the external world: it is all your own experience. The entire game of the world is your personal experience.
In Vishudda we reach above our contemporary ideas of the world, in a certain sense we reach out to the etheric plane. It is as if a rocket has propelled us into space, a space where the psychic reality is the only reality. This world will be reached if we succeed to build a symbolic bridge between the most abstract ideas of physics and the most abstract ideas of analytical psychology.
Here the (white) Elephant reappears in Vishudda, where it does not carry the Earth but it supports the things we think are the most unreal, the most fleeting, namely human thought. It is as if the Elephant makes realities of concepts.
We recognize that our concepts are none other than our imagination, products of our feeling or reason, abstractions or comparisons that are not supported by any physical phenomenon. That what unites them all, what expresses them all, is the concept of energy. According to Chakra Symbolism, the power of the Elephant is now granted to psychic realities, that our reason would like to consider as pure abstractions.
For instance it is in reality impossible to bring forth a concept of God, because it is not a physical concept. It has nothing to do with experience in space and time, and because of that you can not expect an effect.
But if you have the psychic experience, if the psychic experience imposes itself on you, then you understand and you can make a concept out of it.
The abstraction, or projection, the concept of God, then comes from experience. And psychic facts are the reality tin Vishudda. ~Carl Jung, Kundalini Yoga.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
