But the finite will never be able to grasp the infinite.
Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche CW 8
The psyche, as a reflection of the world and man, is a thing of such infinite complexity that it can be observed and studied from a great many sides.
It faces us with the same problem that the world does: because a systematic study of the world is beyond our powers, we have to content ourselves with mere rules of thumb and with aspects that particularly interest us.
Everyone makes for himself his own segment of world and constructs his own private system, often with air-tight compartments, so that after a time it seems to him that he has grasped the meaning and structure of the whole.
But the finite will never be able to grasp the infinite.
Although the world of psychic phenomena is only a part of the world as a whole, it may seem easier to grasp precisely for that reason.
But one would be forgetting that the psyche is the only phenomenon that is given to us immediately and, therefore, is the sine qua non of all experience. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Para 283
The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not?
Memories Dreams Reflections A Biography by Aniela Jaffe
The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life.
Only if we know that the thing which truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interest upon futilities, and upon all kinds of goals which are not of real importance.
Thus we demand that the world grant us recognition for qualities which we regard as personal possessions: our talent or our beauty.
The more a man lays stress on false possessions, and the less sensitivity he has for what is essential, the less satisfying is his life.
He feels limited because he has limited aims, and the result is envy and jealousy.
If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change.
In the final analysis, we count for something only because of the essential we embody, and if we do not embody that, life is wasted.
In our relationships to other men, too, the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship.
The feeling for the infinite, however, can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost.
The greatest limitation for man is the “self”; it is manifested in the experience: “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, Memories Dreams Reflections, Page 325
Chaos: Then you need the message of the old tamer of chaos.
The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition (Philemon)
If you remain within arbitrary and artificially created boundaries, you will walk as between two high walls: you do not see the immensity of the world.
But if you break down the walls that confine your view, and if the immensity and its endless uncertainty inspire you with fear, then the ancient sleeper awakens in you, whose messenger is the white bird.
Then you need the message of the old tamer of chaos.
There in the whirl of chaos dwells eternal wonder.
Your world begins to become wonderful.
Man belongs not only to an ordered world, he also belongs in the wonder-world of his soul.
Consequently you must make your ordered world horrible, so that you are put off by being too much outside yourself.
Your soul is in great need, because drought weighs on its world.
If you look outside yourselves, you see the far-off forest and mountains, and above them your vision climbs to the realms of the stars.
And if you look into yourselves, you will see on the other hand the nearby as far-off and infinite, since the world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer.
Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul.
This inner world is truly infinite, in no way poorer than the outer one.
Man lives in two worlds.
A fool lives here or there, but never here and there.
Perhaps you think that a man who consecrates his life to research leads a spiritual life and that his soul lives in / larger measure than anyone else’s.
But such a life is also external, just as external as the life of a man who lives for outer things.
To be sure, such a scholar does not live for outer things but for outer thoughts-not for himself but for his object.
If you say of a man that he has totally lost himself to the outer and wasted his years in excess, you must also say the same of this old man.
He has thrown himself away in all the books and thoughts of others.
Consequently his soul is in great need, it must humiliate itself and run into every stranger’s room to beg for the recognition that he fails to give her. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 264.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
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