I am a nameless one, one of the many who lived and died in solitude.
I see an old man with a beard standing in front of me.
He is like one of the old saints, one of the :first Christians who lived in the desert.
His face is drawn and haggard. What do you want, speak
I am a nameless one, one of the many who lived and died in solitude.
The spirit of the times and the acknowledged truth required this from us. look at me- you must learn this.
Things have been too good for you. Only solitude can grant depth. The Black Books, Vol. V, Page
But is this still a necessity in our so very different time?
“It is as true today as it was yesterday.”
That is terrible.
“Never forget that you are a man and therefore you must bleed for the goal of humanity. listen, you are still too juvenile for your age.
You should get older, the years are dwindling and yet your work has not been accomplished.
Practice solitude assiduously without grumbling so that everything will in time become ready. You should not die unfulfilled.
Your years are numbered and many years are still needed for your fulfillment.
You should become serious and your word sink heavy as iron into the ground of mankind.
Let go of too much science. There lies the way that is not your way.
Your way goes toward the depths, toward the rarest and deepest.
Science is surface, instrument, language. You have yet to perceive this childishness in science.
Am I scholastic?
“Not that, but scientific; science is a new version of scholasticism. It needs to be surmounted.”
Is it not enough yet?
Do I thus not counter the spirit of the time if I dissociate myself from science?
You are not supposed to dissociate yourself, but consider that science is merely your language.
What kind of depths
are you driving me to approach?
“Forever above yourself and the present.”
I want to, but what should happen?
Often I feel I’m no longer able.
“You must put in extra work. Provide respite. Too many take up your time.”
Will this sacrifice come too?
“You must, you must.”
~The Black Books, Vol. V, Page 231-232
Solitude is a Source of Healing
Dear Schmaltz,
I understand your wish very well, but must tell you at once that it does not fit in with my situation.
I am now getting on for 82 and feel not only the weight of my years and the tiredness this brings, but even more strongly, the need to live in harmony with the inner demands of my old age.
Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often are a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.
I have got my marching orders and only look back when there’s nothing else to do.
This journey is a great adventure in itself, but not one that can be talked about at great length.
What you think of as a few days of spiritual communion would be unendurable for me with anyone, even with my closest friends.
The rest is silence!
This realization becomes clearer every day as the need to communicate dwindles.
Naturally I should be glad to see you one afternoon for about two hours, preferable in Kusnacht, my door to the world. Around August 5th would suit me best, as I shall be at home then in any case.
Meanwhile with best greetings,
Yours ever, Jung. [Letter written May 30, 1957]
Note: Schmaltz an old acquaintance of Jung’s asked if he could spend a few days with him at Bollingen for an exchange of ideas.
Carl Jung on “Solitude.” [Anthology]
Everyone who becomes conscious of even a fraction of his unconscious gets outside his own time and social stratum into a kind of solitude. ~Carl Jung; Mysterium Coniunctionis; CW 14: Page 258.
I am no longer alone with myself, and I can only artificially recall the scary and beautiful feeling of solitude. This is the shadow side of the fortune of love. ~Carl Jung; ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Introduction, Page 196.
It is always important to have something to bring into a relationship, and solitude is often the means by which you acquire it. ~Carl Jung; Letters, Vol. II, Page 610.
Everything to come was already in images: to find their soul, the ancients went into the desert. This is an image. The ancients lived their symbols, since the world had not yet become real for them. Thus they went into the solitude of the desert to teach us that the place of the soul is a lonely desert. ~Carl Jung, Red Book, Page 236.
You should call me if you want to live with men, but the one God if you want to rise above the human world to the divine and eternal solitude of the star. ~Carl Jung’s Soul, The Red Book, Page 371.
In this bloody battle death steps up to you, just like today where mass killing and dying: fill the world. The coldness of death penetrates you. When I froze to death in my solitude, I saw dearly and saw what was to come, as clearly as I could see the stars and the distant mountains on a frosty night. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 274, Footnote 73.
The individual must now consolidate himself by cutting himself off from God and becoming wholly himself Thereby and at the same time he also separates himself from society: Outwardly he plunges into solitude, but inwardly into Hell, distance from God” ~Carl Jung, CW 18, §1103.
We should become reconciled to solitude in ourselves and to the God outside of us. If we enter into this solitude then the life of the God begins. If we are in ourselves, then the space around us is free, but filled by the God. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 245.
But now, if you are in solitude, your God leads you to the God of others, and through that to the true neighbor, to the neighbor of the self in others. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 245.
What occurs between the lover and the beloved is the entire fullness of the Godhead. Both are unfathomable riddles to each other. For who understands the Godhead? / But the God is born in solitude, from the secret / mystery of the individual. / The separation between life and love is the contradiction between solitude and togetherness. ~Carl Jung, The Black Books, Feb. 23, 1920, Page 88.
No one besides you has your God. He is always with you, yet you see him in others, and thus he is never with you. You strive to draw to yourself those who seem to possess your God. You will come to see that they do not possess him, and that you alone have him. Thus you are alone among men-in the crowd and yet alone. Solitude in multitude-ponder this. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 329.
I am no longer alone with myself, and I can only artificially recall the scary and beautiful feeling of solitude. This is the shadow side of the fortune of love. ~Carl Jung; ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Introduction, Page 196
1 alone craig
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