Carl Jung: To the Hindu the elephant functions as the symbol of the domesticated libido
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
If you can see that, you are on your way to vissuddha, because in vissuddha the whole game of the world becomes your subjective experience.
The world itself becomes a reflection of the psyche. For instance, when I say that the world consists of psychical images only—that whatever you touch, whatever you experience, is imaged because you cannot perceive anything else; that if you touch this table, you might think it substantial, but what you really experience is a peculiar message from the tactile nerves to your brain; and even this you may not experience because I can cut off your fingers, you still experience your fingers only because the cut-off nerves cannot function in any other way; and your brain even is also only an image up here—when I say such a heretical thing I am on the way to vissuddha.
If I should succeed—and I hope I shall not—in taking all of you up to vissuddha, you would certainly complain; you would stifle, you would not be able to breathe any longer, because there is nothing you could possibly breathe.
It is ether. In reaching vissuddha, you reach the airless space, where there is no earthly chance for the ordinary individual to breathe.
So it seems to be a very critical kind of adventure.
Now, in talking about these centers, we must never omit the actual symbols; they teach us a great deal.
I want to call your attention to the animal symbolism of which I have not yet spoken.
You know that the series of animals begins in muladhara with the elephant that supports the earth, meaning that tremendous urge which supports human consciousness, the power that forces us to build such a conscious world.
To the Hindu the elephant functions as the symbol of the domesticated libido, parallel to the image of the horse with us.
It means the force of consciousness, the power of will, the ability to do what one wants to do. ~Carl Jung, Kundalini Yoga, Pages. 50-51
