The Red Book: A Reader’s Edition (Philemon)
We think that there is singleness within us, and communality outside us. Outside of us is the communal in relation to the external, while singleness refers to us. We are single if we are in ourselves, but communal in relation to what is outside us. But if we are outside of ourselves, then we are single and selfish in the communal. Our self suffers privation if we are outside ourselves, and thus it satisfies its needs with communality Consequently; communality is distorted into singleness.
If we are in ourselves, we fulfill the need of the self we prosper, and through this we become aware of the needs of the communal and can fulfill them. If we set a God outside of ourselves, he tears us loose from the self since the God is more powerful than we are. Our self falls into privation. But if the God moves into the self he snatches us from what is outside us. We arrive at singleness in ourselves. So the God becomes communal in reference to what is outside us, but single in relation to us. No one has my God, but my God has everyone, including myself. The Gods of all individual men always have all other men, including myself So it is always only the one God despite his multiplicity You arrive at him in yourself and only through your self seizing you. It seizes you in the advancement of your life.
The hero must fall for the sake of our redemption, since he is the model and demands imitation. But the measure of imitation is fulfilled. We should become reconciled to solitude in ourselves and to the God outside of us. If we enter into this solitude then the life of the God begins. If we are in ourselves, then the space around us is free, but filled by the God.
Our relations to men go through this empty space and also through the God. But earlier it went through selfishness since we were outside ourselves. Therefore the spirit foretold to me that the cold of outer space will spread across the earth. With this he showed me in an image that the God will step between men and drive every individual with the whip of icy cold to the warmth of his own monastic hearth. Because people were beside themselves, going into raptures like madmen.
Selfish desire ultimately desires itself You find yourself in your desire, so do not say that desire is vain. If you desire yourself you produce the divine son in your embrace with yourself Your desire is the father of the God, your self is the mother of the God, but the son is the new God, your master. If you embrace your self then it will appear to you as if the world has become cold and empty The coming God moves into this emptiness.
If you are in your solitude, and all the space around you has become cold and unending, then you have moved far from men, and at the same time you have come near to them as never before.
Selfish desire only” apparently led you to men, but in reality it led you away from them and in the end to yourself which to you and to others was the most remote. But now, if you are in solitude, your God leads you to the God of others, and through that to the true neighbor, to the neighbor of the self in others.
If you are in yourself you become aware of your incapacity. You will see how little capable you are of imitating the heroes and of being a hero yourself So you will also no longer force others to become heroes. Like you, they suffer from incapacity Incapacity; too, wants to live, but it will overthrow your Gods. [Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 245.]
