Death is psychologically just as important as birth
Psychology and Religion: West and East (The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 11)
The integration and birth of this superior personality is the achievement meant by our text when it speaks of the “holy fruit” the diamond body or of any other sort of indestructible body.
These expressions are psychologically symbolical of an attitude which is invulnerable to emotional entanglements and violent upheavals; in a word, they symbolize a consciousness freed from the world.
I have reasons for believing that this is a natural preparation for death, and sets in after middle life.
Death is psychologically just as important as birth and, like this, is an integral part of life.
It is not the psychologist who must be questioned as to what happens finally to the detached consciousness.
Whatever theoretical position he assumed, he would hopelessly overstep the boundaries of his scientific competence.
He can only point out that the views of our text with respect to the timelessness of the detached consciousness, are in harmony with the religious thought of all times and with that of the overwhelming majority of mankind.
He can say, further, that anyone who does not think this way would stand outside the human order, and would, therefore, be suffering from a disturbance in his psychic equilibrium.
As physician then, I make the greatest effort to fortify, so far as I have the power, a belief in immortality, especially in my older patients to whom such questions come menacingly near.
If viewed correctly in the psychological sense, death, indeed, is not an end but a goal, and therefore life for death begins as soon as the meridian is passed. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower.
Images:
Meditation – Gathering the Light from The Secret of the Golden Flower.
The Immortal Soul of the Taoist Adept. The Immortal Fetus, from The Secret of the Golden Flower
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
