Daily Wisdom-isms: Memories, Dreams, Reflections 2

Another great quote from Jung. In it, he muses on the lack of spirituality and neurotics in modern society. I’m telling you, this guy was on to something! Enjoy!

“I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success or money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis generally disappears.

The majority of my patients consisted not of believers, but of those who had lost their faith. The ones who came to me were the lost sheep. Even in this day and age the believer has the opportunity, in his church, to live the symbolic life. We need only to think of the experience of Mass, of baptism, of the imitatio Christi, and many other aspects in religion. But to live and experience symbols presupposes a vital participation on the part of the believer, and only too often is this lacking in people today. In the neurotic it is almost always lacking.”

Daily Wisdom-isms: Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Sorry for the absence. I was down with a sickness! I wanted to post, I really did. But I couldn’t form coherent thoughts through the fever fog clouding my head. I tried typing up a random post and it turned into an incoherent treatise on the virtues and vices of Dayquil mixed with several other anti-sick meds and the effect said cocktail has on a person’s sanity.

So, today, I stumbled across something in Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Carl Jung. Jung is hands down my favorite historical shrink EVER. I think his unique blend of psychology and spirituality is right on time. Here, he reflects on the story of Adam and Eve. Enjoy!

“I mentally ran through the long procession of unknown ancestors until finally I arrived at Adam and Eve. And with them came this decisive thought: Adam and Eve were the first people; they had no parents, but were created directly by God, who intentionally made them as they were. They had no choice but to be exactly as God had created them. Therefore, they did not know how they could possibly be different. They were perfect creatures of God, for He creates only perfection, and yet they committed the first sin by doing what God did not want them to do. How was that possible? They could not have done it if God had not placed in them the possibility of doing it. That was clear too, from the serpent, whom God had created before them [Adam and Eve–J], obviously so that it could induce Adam and Eve to sin. God in His omniscience had arranged everything so that the first parents would have to sin. Therefore it was God’s intention that they should sin.[Italics author’s–J]”—Memories, Dreams, Reflections p.38

Faith, Belief and Creating your World

Faith. Faith in God. What is that? What is the “faith of a mustard seed” that is supposed to move mountains? Make no mistake, people have constructed innumerable notions as to what faith is and how one acquires it. And this is my notion. My truth that I have discovered through intensive spiritual questing and soul searching.

Most notions of faith involve the blind and quasi-fanatical belief in a deity who is dictated into the minds of the people by authoritative figures pushing doctrines of dogmatic servitude as a means to salvation.

This is not faith. Well, it is, but not the faith that Christ was referring to. This type of faith is more of a faith in dogmatic structure as opposed to a faith in God. You see, true faith supercedes all of that crap; it dwells on a level that is unattainable through mundane focus. And church has become a mundane focus. Something to put faith in instead of using it to extract faith from the Holy Spirit of God.

What is true faith then? Where does it come from?

These are admittedly hard questions to explain. However, there is a basic concept to grasp and then explore and finally think on:

Belief dictates reality.

More and more “brains” and “thinkers” in both the scientific and religious communities are finding this to be true. People are constantly (re)creating the world as they believe it to be. Note the word here is believe not hope.

Belief is the key factor in the reconstruction of reality. Without belief change is static and remains unfulfilled. Hope is an important catalyst. It can set things in motion by initiating the reinforcement of belief on an unconscious level. Meaning that hope is like a seed. It plants itself in your unconscious memory and slowly begins to grow. Eventually, it can flower into an actual affirmation of the initial desire. Hope has the opportunity to turn into belief, but it must be acted upon. Belief without action never comes to fruition. Hope is a basic building block of faith. It is faith that is realized, but not yet believed in.

After hope has transformed into belief within your subconscious, the next step is to notice the conscious manifestations. I believe this is what Jung called “synchronicity.” Synchronicity is a lot like coincidence in that it is a meeting of two events in time. However, synchronicity is not random as is coincidence. Synchronicity is an actual unconscious manifestation that is attempting to incite some desired change. Unlike coincidence, instances of synchronicity tend to build upon one another the more you recognize them. These instances must not be ignored for they can act as signposts pointing you in the direction that is necessary for the evolution or restructuring of your reality. It guides your hope into belief. And leads your belief to fruition. Every thought is a creation. Every word a pronouncement of your world. Everything you do manifests around you.

The Universe As I See It

An autobiography is so difficult to write because we possess no standards, no objective foundation, from which to judge ourselves. There is really no proper basis for comparison. I know that in many things I am not like others, but I do not know what I am really like. Man cannot compare himself with any other creature…I am a man…Like every other being I am a splinter of the infinite deity…only a mythical being has a range greater than man’s.

Carl Jung. “Memories, Dreams and Reflections.”

This is a letter or something. It’s to you, but not specifically to you. It’s to you and others. Mannerisms, like fractions of memory, become me. I am one with IT and one without IT. I am all IT ever needed and all IT ever feared. People scream and people yell and it makes no difference. They still wind up in hell. That’s the sadness. That’s what makes us think IT is hopeless. That IT has no real meaningbeyondthesocialconstructionweorchestrateforit. In IT’s honor do we pray now. I find it hard to write of spiritual matters. What’s the point of telling a story when there is no story to tell? I understand now. God must be experienced to be understood. It’s like the Tao says. The more you speak of it the less you understand. How do you explain the universe to people when they refuse to believe in anything past the big blue sky?

Check this out:

Mystery and Manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.
–From the Tao Te Ching

But wait, there’s more!

There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally present. It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao. It flows through all things, inside and out and returns to the origin of all things.
–From the Tao Te Ching Ch. 25

You see, the thing is, is that I’ve been there. I’ve seen that darkness. Experienced it. Been consumed by it. It was terrifying and beautiful all at the same time. But sadly, no one can actually understand that by my meager verbal depictions. There are no words in existence that could accurately manifest that feeling in the human psyche. To understand you must experience. And to experience is to reject all preconceived notions of life, of reality, and most importantly, of yourself. When God begins to flip through the pages of your soul every page turned is a self annihilating exercise in humility. You literally feel naked in the most absolute sense of the word. Part of me wants to believe that is what Judgment feels like…what Adam and Eve felt like after they screwed it all up for the rest of us.