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sorbed into the body of Christ. Then like St. Paul, I no longer live but Christ lives in
me. 22 Jung takes special care to urge that the preceding statement not be understood
to mean identity, that  I am Christ, but rather only that, as Paul said it in Galatians
2:20, that He lives in us. In terms of psychological dynamics, the finite ego has been
subordinated to the self.
A detailed description of the arising of the self in Jungian theory is rather com-
plex and difficult. It is Jung s view that each of us shares in three different levels of
consciousness: the conscious level of the ego; the dreams, memories, and repressions
which comprise the personal unconscious; and the predispositions to universal
human reactions, the archetypes, which compose the collective unconscious.23 It is
of course the notion of the archetypes and the collective unconscious which is the
trademark of Jung s thought, and it is the idea of a  master archetype, namely, the
 self or  God archetype, that is fundamental for Jung s analysis of mysticism.
Of all the archetypes, it is the self or God archetype which has the power to en-
compass all aspects of life in a way that is integrated and mature. To be comprehen-
sive, both conscious stimuli from the external environment and internal impulses
from within the personal and collective unconscious must be included. If one remains
fixated on the conscious ego, its limited internal and external awareness will result in
only a small portion of the stimuli available from all three levels of consciousness
being included. In most ordinary experience there is only experience of the conscious
level of ego awareness. Being grounded in the collective experience of humankind and
being present within the unconscious of each person, the archetypes are the psycho-
logical mechanisms which enable us to get out from the too-narrow encapsulation of
our conscious egos.
The archetypes are constantly trying to  raise up or  reveal some of the basic wis-
dom of humankind. But this requires the action of the thinking, feeling, sensing, and
intuiting functions of the psyche. First there is the encounter of some external stimuli,
for example, the seeing of an ordinary wooden cross on a building in a Christian cul-
ture. Initially the cross has no mystical significance and functions only at the ego-con-
scious level as a secular sign to designate the building as a church. But over the years as
one matures, the cross image gradually acquires more significance and is carried, by the
process of intuition, deeply into the psyche until the level of the collective unconscious
is reached. There the God archetype, which has all the while been struggling upward to
reveal itself, resonates sympathetically with the cross image and its Christian content of
the crucified Christ. With the help of the other psychic functions thinking, sensing,
and feeling the God archetype is given further individuation, using both the person s
76 YOGA AND PSYCHOLOGY
own creativity and the materials presented by a particular cultural tradition until the
mystical revelation occurs.
Jung observes that initial indications often appear in dreams,24 when the symbol
being created first reaches the level of the personal subconscious. One becomes
vaguely aware, perhaps for the first time, that the cross image is something much
more than merely a sign to indicate that a building is a church. Rather than the
church building, the cross and the figure of Christ simply being seen as routine parts
of everyday life to be manipulated by the ego for its own purposes, the cross is now
sensed as being numinous as having a power and meaning about it which causes the
conscious ego to pale by comparison. As the cross symbol becomes more complete,
and the God archetype achieves full individuation at the level of conscious awareness,
there occurs what Jung describes as a shift in the center of gravity within the psyche
from the ego to the self. This is the mystical moment of illumination when the ego
becomes aware of the larger and deeper collective dimension of consciousness and re-
ality. In religious terms it may be variously described as a sudden or a gradual awak-
ening in a moment of synchronicity.25 But the key is that whereas previously things
were experienced in a narrow egocentric way, now it is a sense of profound identity
with the universal self which dominates. One is simultaneously united on the vari-
ous levels within the psyche and taken out beyond the finite limitations of the ego.
Thus, the mystical character of Jung s self-realization experience.
Although the cross and the crucified Christ are expected symbols of mystical self-
realization in Christian cultures, Jung found the mandala to be the most universal. As
. .
an image, it is the mandala s characteristic of having an individualized center, yet ex-
. .
panding outward with the potential to include everything, that makes it a suitable
symbol for mystical experience. Jung puts it as follows:
The mandala s basic motif is the premonition of a center of personality, a kind of
central point within the psyche, to which everything is related, by which everything
is arranged, and which is itself a source of energy. . . . This center is not felt or
thought of as the ego, but if one may so express it, as the self. Although the center is
represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by a periphery containing every-
thing that belongs to the self the paired opposites that make up the total personal-
ity. This totality comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal unconscious,
and finally an indefinitely large segment of the collective unconscious whose arche-
types are common to all mankind.26
Two things about the mandala symbol impressed Jung. First, it occurred as a symbol
. .
for meditation in almost all great religions, and, in addition, it appeared indepen- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]