Carl Jung on “Prayer.”
Works of C. G. Jung: Volume I, 1906-1950 (Vol 1)
Anonymous
Dear N., Bollingen, 3 August 1953
Hearty thanks for your kind birthday wishes!
Unfortunately I can’t remember here in Bollingen what you sent me.
There was such a flood of letters, flowers, and things pouring in on me that I can remember absolutely nothing except your letter with its main point, the question of prayer.
This was and still is a problem for me.
Some years ago I felt that all demands which go beyond what is are unjustified and infantile, so that we shouldn’t ask for anything that is not granted.
We can’t remind God of anything or prescribe anything for him, except when he tries to force something on us that our human limitation cannot endure.
The question is, of course, whether such things happen.
I think the answer is yes, for if God needs us as regulators of his incarnation and his coming to consciousness, it is because in his boundlessness he exceeds all the bounds that are necessary for becoming conscious.
Becoming conscious means continual renunciation because it is an ever-deepening concentration.
If this is right, then it may be that God has to be “reminded.”
The innermost self of every man and animal, of plants and crystals, is God, but infinitely diminished and approximated to his ultimate individual form.
In approximating to man he is also “personal,” like an antique god, and hence “in the likeness of a man”
(as Yahweh appeared to Ezekiel).
An old alchemist formulated the relation to God thus: “Help me, that I may help you! ”
With cordial greetings,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 120.
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