What is the self? It is yourself and there is no excuse whatever.
[…] But it must be clear, if the unconscious flows in with our action and with our behaviour, that we assume responsibility.
Otherwise it would not be expressed, but would simply be an event that occurred, and it would occur just as well to fishes or plants. It would have no merit; it only becomes ethical inasmuch as we know.
If you know that a certain amount of unconsciousness, which means a certain amount of risk, comes in, and you stand for it, you assume responsibility: insofar is your action virtuous or ethical. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminar Page 1052-1053.
When you say you submit to the strength of God [it] sounds like something that is in a way very nice.
You have a form, you can even justify yourself apparently, particularly when that strength of God coincides with what is said in books, or with what the priests say, or public opinion says.
For instance, if you raise a fund for certain charitable purposes and […] call it the will of God and say you are obeying his strength, everybody will pat you on the back and call it nice and virtuous […]
Hosea could say it was the command of the Lord [to marry the whore] and there was no gainsaying it. But where are you if you say it is the command of the self? You are an egotist, you are excusing yourself.
What is the self? It is yourself and there is no excuse whatever. So you are absolutely in the frying pan.
That is what you come to when you say God is dead: you have no excuse any longer.
But there we are – we have lost every authority for what we do. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminars, Page 1054.
When you say you submit to the strength of God [it] sounds like something that is in a way very nice.
You have a form, you can even justify yourself apparently, particularly when that strength of God coincides with what is said in books, or with what the priests say, or public opinion says.
For instance, if you raise a fund for certain charitable purposes and […] call it the will of God and say you are obeying his strength, everybody will pat you on the back and call it nice and virtuous […]
Hosea could say it was the command of the Lord [to marry the whore] and there was no gainsaying it.
But where are you if you say it is the command of the self?
You are an egotist, you are excusing yourself. What is the self? It is yourself and there is no excuse whatever.
So you are absolutely in the frying pan.
That is what you come to when you say God is dead: you have no excuse any longer.
But there we are – we have lost every authority for what we do. ~Carl Jung, Zarathustra Seminars, Page 1054.
