Carl Jung (1875 - 1961) is best known for his work in the field of psychology, although he was deeply involved in other areas as well including the study of dreams, myths, alchemy and Eastern religions or philosophy. He explored the relationship of the dualities within the human psyche and dared to accept the inherent darkness in himself as part of his whole being. What is so rare and invaluable about Jung is that his work, his life, his passions and his innermost thoughts converged so beautifully to support and prove the convictions by which he lived.
Perhaps this quote gives us an insight into his thinking:
“In actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple, and so acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one's whole outlook on life. That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ - all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself - that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved - what then? Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed: there is no more talk of love and long-suffering; we say to the brother within us, ‘Raca,’ and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world; we deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves, and had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form, we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed.” (C.G. Jung, CW 11, Psychology and Religion: West and East, Chapter V, "Psychotherapy or the Clergy," § 519-520)
A short video of Jung:
Quotes:
"He who looks outside, dreams; he who looks inside, awakes."
"Religion is a defense against the experience of God."
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
"I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors."
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
"Archetypes, in spite of their conservative nature, are not static but in a continuous dramatic flux. Thus the self as a monad or continuous unit would be dead. But it lives inasmuch as it splits and unites again. There is no energy without opposites!"
"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."
"You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it."
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