Now, here we encounter the four elements which represent physical reality in that sensory world
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Psychology of Yoga and Meditation
The text continues.
The physical elements follow on from the senses:
The Earth element is Tung-bar-byed-ma [She who causes fall]; the water element is Sod-par-jed-ma [She who kills]; the fire element Gug-par-jed-ma [She who summons]; the air element Padma gargyiwang-chug [The lady of the dances] and the ether element is Padmai-dra-wa-Chan [net of Lotuses]. [SCST, pp. 7-8]
Now, here we encounter the four elements which represent physical reality in that sensory world. In the Middle Ages even here, these were still the four elements of physical reality, and the whole of existence, with everything that lived and moved, consisted of these four elements.
Therefore, they describe the physical reality of a thing.
Here we see that this is a fourfold feminine thing, with the quinta essentia that always stands as the ultimate, encapsulating everything.
The ether was still a metaphysical quinta essentia in the newer physics.
When I was a student, everything was explained by ether. One believed that it was a scientific term.
But that was not the case, for it was rather metaphysical, having precisely all the qualities that matter does not have.
In mediaeval alchemy too, the quinta essentia is described as blue ether.
Indeed, the philosopher’s stone is described as lapis aetherius. In our text here, this is a feminine being, she who has the Lotus net.
This term is not easy to flesh out.
However, one can assume that it is a net in which something is trapped.
For Buddhist psychology absolutely sees the world of the senses as a trap into which man falls and in which he is trapped.
A very good example of this is the psychology of Bardo Thodol where, after the forty-nine days of intermediary life, the yogi is suddenly snapped back into a uterus via sensual sexual fantasies, and then he’s right in it again. ~Carl Jung, Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, Page 94
‘Psychic reality” is a controversial concept, like “psyche” or “mind.”
‘Psychic reality” is a controversial concept, like “psyche” or “mind.”
By the latter terms some understand consciousness and its contents, others allow the existence of “dark” or “subconscious” representations.
Some include instincts in the psychic realm, others exclude them.
The vast majority consider the psyche to be a result of biochemical processes in the brain cells.
A few conjecture that it is the psyche that makes the cortical cells function.
Some identify “life” with psyche.
But only an insignificant minority regards the psychic phenomenon as a category of existence per se and draws the necessary conclusions.
It is indeed paradoxical that the category of existence, the indispensable sine qua non of all existence, namely the psyche, should be treated as if it were only semi-existent.
Psychic existence is the only category of existence of which we have immediate knowledge, since nothing can be known unless it first appears as a psychic image.
Only psychic existence is immediately verifiable.
To the extent that the world does not assume the form of a psychic image, it is virtually non-existent.
This is a fact which, with few exceptions—as for instance in Schopenhauer’s philosophy—the West has not yet fully realized.
But Schopenhauer was influenced by Buddhism and by the Upanishads. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 769
The German word ‘Seele’, which by no means is the same as the English word ‘Soul’, is an old word, sanctioned by Tradition, used by the greatest German mystics like Eckhart and poets like Goethe to signify the Ultimate Reality, but experienced under a feminine aspect. ~James Kirsch, Jung-Kirsch Letters, Page 179
