Purification of the senses:
Psychology of Yoga and Meditation
Purification of the Senses:
As one desires a precious object by exclusive means of which one can acquire merits the purification and mental transmutation of all
the aggregates the elements, and the functions of the various organs of the senses into Devata furnish such an object. [SCST, p. 8]
When one succeeds through active imagination in making the various intellectual and sensory functions autonomous by saying: seeing is not my function but rather it is a devata, i.e., an autonomous being, then this is a great gain. Now what is the psychological benefit of such a way of behaving?
That is hard to discern.
We have already encountered the idea that one should imagine the four basic functions of our consciousness as Buddha, and thus as a being in our consciousness, as if the various functions were beings in their own right.
If you imagine this, then it boils down to the idea that through this imagination, every psychic action is transformed into a distinct entity: the process of imagination, of thinking, feeling, etc., this is a distinct entity. In this way the entire character of the psychic process is somehow objectified, it takes on a life of its own.
With it, the activity is sort of distanced from consciousness.
If you imagine that the thinking of the I is no longer your own activity but an autonomous being, then the entire psychic process is completely cumbersome as if I were to dissolve myself into separate parts.
I delegate the parts.
I must sort of call upon the gentleman who represents thinking:
Please say this and that, or upon the young woman who represents feeling:
Please smile now.
In this way, one empties oneself of these functions.
One no longer has them.
One pushes them away. Instead of being a personality one is now an entire theater represented by a troupe of actors who are these distinct functions.
The whole personality, all my functions, are paraded before me as autonomous figures.
Through this I have become completely empty.
One achieves that with this meditation, and that is also the purpose, that emptiness, shunyata is created and one finally owns nothing any longer.
Everything is external, it is “the others.” ~Carl Jung, Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, Page 96-97
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog