And how can we know the whole of which we are only a part?

Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group

So the Self is part of the collective unconscious, but it is not the collective unconscious; it is that unit which apparently comes from the union of the ego and the shadow.

We designate that totality as the Self, where everything conscious is united with everything unconscious, with the exception of those things that reach beyond our limitation in time and space.

The Self is in its structure like the collective unconscious, and it is also a non-ego because it is beyond our grasp; it reaches over our heads.

We can never say: “I know this Self of mine.”

We don’t know it, we can never know it because it is the bigger circle that includes the smaller circle of our consciousness.

Just as the Self is a unit in the collective unconscious, so we are units in the Self.

And how can we know the whole of which we are only a part? ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, 15 June 1932, Page 754