Carl Jung on “Brahman” – Anthology
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If you are a dualist like Lao-tse, and concerned chiefly with the opposites, all you will find to say about what is between might go into his words, “Tao is so still.” But if, on the other hand, you are monistic like the Brahmans, you can write whole volumes about Atman, the thing between the opposites. ~Carl Jung, 1925 Seminar, Page 86
Brahman requires that external opposites, such as heat and cold, first be denied participation in the psyche, and then extreme fluctuations of emotion, such as Fluctuations of emotion are, of course, the constant concomitants of all psychic opposites, and hence of all conflicts of ideas, whether moral or otherwise. We know from experience that the emotions thus aroused increase in proportion as the exciting factor affects the individual as a whole ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 329
The Indian purpose is therefore clear: it wants to free the individual altogether from the opposites inherent in human nature, so that he can attain a new life in Brahman, which is the state of redemption and at the same time God. It is an irrational union of opposites, their final overcoming. Although Brahman, the world-ground and world-creator, created the opposites, they must nevertheless be cancelled out in it again, for otherwise it would not amount to a state of redemption ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 329
Brahman is the union and dissolution of all opposites, and at the same time stands outside them as an irrational factor. It is therefore wholly beyond cognition and comprehension. It is a divine entity, at once the Self (though to a lesser degree than the analogous Atman concept) and a definite psychological state characterized by isolation from the flux of affects ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 330
Since suffering is an affect, release from affects means deliverance. Deliverance from the flux of affects, from the tension of opposites, is synonymous with the way of redemption that gradually leads to Brahman ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 330
Brahman is not only the producer but the produced, the ever-becoming. The epithet “Gracious One” (vena), here bestowed on the sun, is elsewhere applied to the seer who is endowed with the divine light, for, like the Brahman sun, the mind of the seer traverses “earth and heaven contemplating Brahman.” The intimate connection, indeed, identity, between the divine being and the Self (Atman) of the man is generally known ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 332
Brahman is also prana, the breath of life and the cosmic principle; it is vayu, wind, which is described in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (3.7) as “the thread by which this world and the other world and all things are tied together, the Self, the inner controller, the immortal” ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 334
Brahman is conceived in the Atharva Veda as the vitalistic-principle, the life force, which fashions all the organs and their respective instincts ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 335
Even man’s strength comes from Brahman. The Brahman concept, by virtue of all its attributes and symbols, coincides with that of a dynamic or creative principle which I have termed libido ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 336
The word Brahman means prayer, incantation, sacred speech, sacred knowledge (Veda), holy life, the sacred caste (the Brahmans), the Absolute ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 336
Brahman is thus not only a state but also a process, a durée créatrice. It is therefore not surprising that it is expressed in the Upanishads by means of symbols I have termed libido symbols ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 330
The brahman concept contains the idea of rta, right order, the orderly course of the world. In brahman, the creative universal essence and universal Ground, all things come upon the right way, for in it they are eternally dissolved and recreated; all development in an orderly way proceeds from brahman ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
The Indian purpose is therefore clear: it wants to free the individual altogether from the opposites inherent in human nature, so that he can attain a new life in Brahman, which is the state of redemption and at the same time God. It is an irrational union of opposites, their final overcoming. Although Brahman, the world-ground and world-creator, created the opposites, they must nevertheless be cancelled out in it again, for otherwise it would not amount to a state of redemption ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 329
The sort of demons that introversion and extraversion may become is a daily experience for us psychotherapists. We see in our patients and can feel in ourselves with what irresistible force the libido streams inwards or outwards, with what unshakable tenacity an introverted or extraverted attitude can take root. The description of manas and vac as “mighty monsters of Brahman” is in complete accord with the psychological fact that at the instant of its appearance the libido divides into two streams, which as a rule alternate periodically but at times may appear simultaneously in the form of a conflict, as an outward stream opposing an inward stream ~Carl Jung, CW 6. Para 347
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. ~Carl Jung, Kundalini Seminars, Page 59.
The brahman concept also contains the concept of rta, right order, the orderly course of …., be a vain speculation were it not for the fact that it designates symbols of unity that are found to occur empirically in the world. In brahman, the creative universal essence and universal Ground, all things come upon the right way, for in it they are eternally dissolved and recreated; all development in an orderly way proceeds from brahman. The concept of rta is a stepping-stone to the concept of Tao in Lao-tzu. Tao is the right way, the reign of law, the middle road between the opposites, freed from them and yet uniting them in itself. The purpose of life is to travel this middle road and never to deviate towards the opposites. The ecstatic element is entirely absent in Lao-tzu; its place is taken by sublime philosophic lucidity, an intellectual and intuitive wisdom obscured by no mystical haze—a wisdom that represents what is probably the highest attainable degree of spiritual superiority, as far removed from chaos as the stars from the disorder of the actual world. It tames all that is wild, without denaturing it and turning it into something higher. ~Carl Jung, CW 6, Para 192
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