Carl Jung: Ramakrishna, also Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Indian mystic
Psychology of Yoga and Meditation
Ramakrishna (1836–1886), also Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Indian mystic, born Ramkrishno Pôromôhongśo into a poor orthodox Bengali Brahmin family, became a devotee and priest of the goddess Kâlî at the Dakshineswar Kâlî Temple.
Ramakrishna had mystical experiences from his childhood days on and attracted many followers throughout his life, among them his wife Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda.
His quest for God was not confined to Hinduism, but led him to contemplate other religions such as Christianity and Islam.
He concluded that the realization of God was the ultimate goal for any spiritual path. His legacy has lived on through the brotherhood known as Ramakrishna Math.
Though he himself did not write down his experiences and teachings, his disciple Mahendranâth Gupta noted down Ramakrishna’s conversations and published them under the pseudonym M.
The Sri Râmakrishna Kathâmrita [The gospel of Ramakrishna] consists of five volumes transcribed between 1897 and 1932.
The first complete English translation by Swami Nikhilânanda was published in 1942 (Gupta, 1942).
In his introduction, the translator expressed his gratitude to Joseph Campbell and Margaret Woodrow Wilson, the daughter of the U.S. president, for their help.
Jung’s library in Küsnacht contained the following books related to Ramakrishna: Life of Sri Ramakrishna.
Compiled from various authentic sources (1925) by Swami Madhavananda, Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna (1934),
Worte des Ramakrishna (Pelet, 1930), and Romain Rolland’s La vie de Ramakrishna [The life of Ramakrishna] (1929). ~Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, Page 20, fn 136
From perfect discipline of the strength of an animal such as an elephant, one gains that strength. [YS 3.24, p.66]
There is a whole further series of similarly amazing wonders.
There are many such texts that have been circulated today by the Ramakrishna order. Sri Ramakrishna—Sri means “his eminence,” “the great,” even “the holy one”—you may know him from Romain Rolland and Annie Besant.
In Bengal there is a large monastery where the order has its headquarters.
The order is well-provided for with American money and distributes all sorts of texts about yoga in Europe.
Here in Europe there are countless missionaries, some of whom have quite substantial followings.
In America these followers have three temples.
Hinduistic syncretism with Hindu-Buddhist religious services.
You can read these things there also.
One of these prophets, Vivekananda, says, among other things, that the practitioner would look beautiful, would find the right words, etc.
There is always this shameless advertising for the splendid power of yoga.
I don’t want to say the same about this ancient text.
For all these things that are naively said of the effect of yoga are simply symbolic statements, and people who are really familiar with yoga are completely aware of that.
But they say to themselves: Let’s make allowance for these ways of expressing things. It’s good for people.
Through this they will be enticed and thus live out their karma. ~Carl Jung, Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, Page 20-21
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
The concept of the unconscious posits nothing, it designates only my unknowing, …The unconscious is a piece of Nature our mind cannot comprehend. ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 305
It is the psyche which, by the divine creative power inherent in it, makes the metaphysical assertion … not only is it the condition of all metaphysical reality, it is that reality. ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 305.
That the world inside and outside ourselves rests on a transcendental background is as certain as our own existence. ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 305
I don’t by any means dispute the existence of a metaphysical God. I permit myself, however, to put human statements under the microscope. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 11
Go not outside, look into thyself: Truth dwells in the inner man… For the soul is created equal with the Godhead. ~Meister Eckhart, Was Jung a Mystic, Page 10
Everything living dreams individuation, for everything strives toward its own wholeness. Nevertheless, only the lending of depth to outer reality through knowledge. ~Carl Jung, Letters II, Apr 23, 1949
Life that just happens in and for itself is not real life; it is real only when it is known, ~Carl Jung, Letters II, Apr 23, 1949
You are quite right: the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis, but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experience, you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character.[~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Aug. 31, 1945
‘I am only that!’ Only consciousness of our narrow confinement in the Self forms the link to the limitlessness of the unconscious. In such awareness we experience ourselves concurrently as limited and eternal, as both the one and the other. In knowing ourselves to be unique in our personal combination, that is, ultimately limited, we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then!” ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 325
God is a contradiction in terms, therefore he needs man in order to be made One. God is an ailment man has to cure. ~Carl Jung, Letters II, Jan 5, 1952
All the endeavor of our human intellect must be concerned with these deep problems, that is, may rise to that simplicity where the opposites coincide. ~Carl Jung, CW16, Page 291, FN 29
All comprehension and all that is comprehended is, in itself, psychic, and to that extent we are hopelessly cooped up in an exclusively psychic world. Nevertheless, we have good reason to suppose that behind this veil there exists the uncomprehended absolute object which affects and influences us … ~Carl Jung, MDR, Page 352
It would be going perhaps too far to speak of an affinity; but at all events the soul must contain in itself the faculty of relationship to God, i.e., a correspondence, otherwise a connection could never come about. This correspondence is, in psychological terms, the archetype of the God-image. ~Carl Jung, CW 11, Para 11
All the endeavor of our human intellect must be concerned with these deep problems, that is, may rise to that simplicity where the opposites coincide.” ~Carl Jung, CW 16, par. 537 fn 29.
The voice of God can still be perceived, if one is only humble enough. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page Letters Vol. II, Page 630
God’ is a primordial experience of man, and from the remotest times, humanity has taken inconceivable pains either to portray this baffling experience, to assimilate it by means of interpretation, speculation and dogma, or else to deny it… ~Carl Jung CW 11, Para 480
The thought that we think … leaves us no peace until we enable it to appear in reality. The thought will become deed, the word will become flesh. And, wonderful! the human, like the God of the Bible, needs only to express his thought, and the world takes form, there is light, or there is darkness; the waters withdraw from the land, or even wild beasts appear. The world is the signature of the word. ~Heine, Was Jung a Mystic, Page 19