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Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Civilization in Transition CW 10
My attitude, it may be objected, is empirical in the extreme, but we need such an attitude in order to find a solution.
When we observe how people behave when they are faced with a situation that has to be evaluated ethically, we become aware of a strange double effect: suddenly they see both sides.
They become aware not only of their moral inferiorities but also, automatically, of their good qualities.
They rightly say, “I can’t be as bad as all that.”
To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light.
Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self.
Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.
That is the secret of the Eastern attitude: observing the opposites teaches the Easterner the character of Maya.
It gives reality the glint of illusion.
Behind the opposites and in the opposites is true reality, which sees and comprehends the whole.
The Indian calls this Atman.
Reflecting on ourselves we can say, “I am he who speaks good and evil,” or better, “I am he through whom good and evil are spoken.
The one who is in me, who voices the principles, uses me as a means of expression.
He speaks through me.”
This corresponds to what the Indian calls Atman—that which, figuratively speaking, “breathes through” me.
Not through me alone, but through all; for it is not only the individual Atman but Atman-Purusha, the universal Atman, the pneuma, who breathes through all.
We use the word “self” for this, contrasting it with the little ego.
From what I have said it will be clear that this self is not just a rather more conscious or intensified ego, as the words “self-conscious,” “self-satisfied,”
etc. might lead one to suppose.
What is meant by the self is not only in me but in all beings, like the Atman, like Tao.
It is psychic totality. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 872-873
