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Carl jung and eastern thought

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How odd ... just yesterday while i was showering this very issue popped into my head :)

 

I will be following this one.

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Have you read his books ? I have. After much consideration I decided the guy was off his trolley. A complete fruitcake as was Freud.

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What was the main , or some of the main , thing/s that led you to this conclusion ? 

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What was the main , or some of the main , thing/s that led you to this conclusion ? 

 

I don't know where to start to answer that. It was a few years ago now that I read them. I formed that opinion because the guy was clearly exploring his own psychosis. No problem with that, but it has been adopted into recruitment and other walks of life. I ran a Myers Briggs testing operation as a service to employers until I read his books and I scrapped it immediately. I wouldn't have anything more to do with these charlatan products. This is what happens with all these kinds of books. People extract the bits as factual evidence instead of simply the subjective ramblings of a manic depressive.

 

 

 

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Great man and a great thinker in the west, at least.  He was the first psychotherapist to move away from the sexual nature of mental disorders of the modern man.  I would have considered him my early mentor if he was alive.  :)  My early psychological issues with my early childhood was literally cured from reading his work.  He is a agnostic Christian, fyi.  He later developed interests in Chinese philosophy because his friend Richard Whilem was a sinologist.  He literally westernized Chinese Taoism and Chinese philosophy to some extend.  I won't consider him an expert in Eastern thoughts and religions.  However, he paved the way for the west to develop interests in myths and slowly moving away from dogmatic Christianity and "rationalism."  Frankly, if your dreams are still sexual in nature, he isn't for you, fyi.  :)  You should stick with Freud.  

 

His role as the head of the psychoanalysis association during the Nazi era was dubious.   

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What was the main , or some of the main , thing/s that led you to this conclusion ? 

He does not know....heheheh....:) 

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Jung paved the way for so much of what is called modern religion. His essential insight is that the material world and the mental world are a seamless whole. He was the most important religious thinker in the 20th century, and he understood that all human suffering is alienation from the divine.

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Jung paved the way for so much of what is called modern religion. His essential insight is that the material world and the mental world are a seamless whole. He was the most important religious thinker in the 20th century, and he understood that all human suffering is alienation from the divine.

 

Exactly. New Ageism. I've swum in that ocean, so I know it's attractions. Reality beats it into powder on the face of a pig.

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Exactly. New Ageism. I've swum in that ocean, so I know it's attractions. Reality beats it into powder on the face of a pig.

Those ideas aren't really New Age, though. It's a fundamental point of nearly all spiritual learning.

 

In my mind, negative aspects of New Age are more about preaching without proper understanding. The lessons are mostly the same, but new agers usually lack the foundations that pave the path to real progress. That often leads to masking wounds that turn ugly and fester, instead of facing and resolving them.

Edited by Silent Answers
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Karl,

 

I agree that Jung is the father of New Age religion.  And I don't think his offspring are all bad.

 

I always think synchronicity is a good place to access Jung.  It's something we've all experienced and the uncanniness requires some kind of explanation.

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Those ideas aren't really New Age, though. It's a fundamental point of nearly all spiritual learning.

 

All learning is the result of conscious experience.

 

The lesson of reality is to show you that 'spiritual learning' is no different from any other type of learning. It isn't special in some way.

It's because you are adding this idea that it is somehow intrinsically different that creates a schism. It is illusion, false self, gliding gold and painting the Lilly.

 

I tell you this as a matter of factual reality. It is neither judgement nor analysis. In other words use the drugs, have a good time, get high, laugh, love, sing and dance, but tomorrow you will be sober.

 

 

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Hi Karl,

 

All learning is the result of conscious experience. 

The lesson of reality is to show you that 'spiritual learning' is no different from any other type of learning. It isn't special in some way. 

If by this you mean all the theologies, doctrines, philosophies that go alongside the 'spiritual' then I completely agree.  One of the most unfortunate delusions is that science and theology are different epistemological enterprises.  It creates the delusion that some methods approach reality better than others.

 

But spiritual experience itself is different because it feels different to our normal everyday experiene.  Being an individual in time and space and being a pure transcendent self do feel different.

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Hi Karl,

 

 

If by this you mean all the theologies, doctrines, philosophies that go alongside the 'spiritual' then I completely agree.  One of the most unfortunate delusions is that science and theology are different epistemological enterprises.  It creates the delusion that some methods approach reality better than others.

 

But spiritual experience itself is different because it feels different to our normal everyday experiene.  Being an individual in time and space and being a pure transcendent self do feel different.

 

No, I do not mean that. I mean that all learning is conscious experience and nothing more. Our everyday experience is our everyday experience there is no other, there is not a different one.

 

While away your time with trinkets and daydreams if you want, take the Soma and everything feels so nice, but reality is truth. No more than that.

 

I'm a bore you see. I don't come with fireworks, lights or party tricks. I go to a barbecue and habitually point out the completely serviceable and infinitely better electric oven. "Come on Karl" they say, "it's fun to eat outdoors and cook on charcoal". I see no fun in that at all, it's like a weird kind of artificial wrapping. I suggest to them that we built dwelling places and created ovens specifically to avoid 'outside' and 'charcoal'. Now that's not to say I don't like 'outside' . I like it well enough to go walking and cycling in the mountains, scrabbling up rock faces or descending into holes in the earth. I don't need to do 'outside' if you see what I'm getting at. Outside is just outside I'm keen to keep it in perspective.

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Karl,

 

I agree that Jung is the father of New Age religion.  And I don't think his offspring are all bad.

 

I always think synchronicity is a good place to access Jung.  It's something we've all experienced and the uncanniness requires some kind of explanation.

 

There is no synchronicity, there is reality. I need no explanation for delusion I've experienced its raw force first hand and it hides the world from view. Delusion is delusion, it's the minds attempt to put a gloss on everything, or add spikes to an orange. It means you cannot determine what is real and what is illusion and that is an unpleasant state to be in. People have a habit of wanting to withdraw from reality, but it is not reality that they are withdrawing from, it is themselves. Playing hide and seek in your mind is unproductive and pretty bloody indulgent. It's cowardice really.

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All learning is the result of conscious experience. The lesson of reality is to show you that 'spiritual learning' is no different from any other type of learning. It isn't special in some way. It's because you are adding this idea that it is somehow intrinsically different that creates a schism. It is illusion, false self, gliding gold and painting the Lilly. I tell you this as a matter of factual reality. It is neither judgement nor analysis. In other words use the drugs, have a good time, get high, laugh, love, sing and dance, but tomorrow you will be sober.

 

Had my original post on edit mode for a while at work, added a bit more to it now (even this reply was started an hour ago).

 

I half agree with you. Spiritual learning is rather an unlearning and remembering process. But, first, that takes an amount of learning to reach this point.

 

This wasn't where I was going, but as you've brought it up:

 

How can you ever be sure that your facts are also not just part of the illusion, as they are equally a result of what you have learnt based on past experience. Where does false self end and true self begin?

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Had my original post on edit mode for a while at work, added a bit more to it now (even this reply was started an hour ago).

I half agree with you. Spiritual learning is rather an unlearning and remembering process. But, first, that takes an amount of learning to reach this point.

This wasn't where I was going, but as you've brought it up:

How can you ever be sure that your facts are also not just part of the illusion, as they are equally a result of what you have learnt based on past experience. Where does false self end and true self begin?

 

You have that ability. It is innate within you. However, it isn't something that will pop out like a genie from the lamp, it must be fought for and worked at. It is not easy. Sitting in meditation or gazing at flowers won't cut it. You have to work the muscle of critical reasoning. It's a part of the brain that gets cursory use these days.

 

You have been lazy so far, you have relied on copied knowledge and believed gut instinct/intuition/feelings has some sacred place in further knowledge. Now, you have a little boat, some oars and arms like spaghetti, legs like pipe cleaners and a back like jelly. You have dreamed many times that you have rowed across lakes and oceans, but you have barely ever pulled a stroke.

 

You have to want to know, you must fight for reality because it won't be given, you must meet it. No matter how caustic, how many blisters, how your muscles rebel you have to keep at it. You can of course go back to dreaming if you wish.

 

 

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You have that ability. It is innate within you. However, it isn't something that will pop out like a genie from the lamp, it must be fought for and worked at. It is not easy. Sitting in meditation or gazing at flowers won't cut it. You have to work the muscle of critical reasoning. It's a part of the brain that gets cursory use these days.You have been lazy so far, you have relied on copied knowledge and believed gut instinct/intuition/feelings has some sacred place in further knowledge. Now, you have a little boat, some oars and arms like spaghetti, legs like pipe cleaners and a back like jelly. You have dreamed many times that you have rowed across lakes and oceans, but you have barely ever pulled a stroke. You have to want to know, you must fight for reality because it won't be given, you must meet it. No matter how caustic, how many blisters, how your muscles rebel you have to keep at it. You can of course go back to dreaming if you wish.

You're right, apart from the size of my boat...but doing all of these things to what end, and for who? To dream is the false self and to experience things physically is true self?

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 "Come on Karl" they say, "it's fun to eat outdoors and cook on charcoal". I see no fun in that at all, it's like a weird kind of artificial wrapping.

All your words are the words of one stuck in emptiness.

 

Yes, there is something fake about the barbeque.

 

But the fun others have is genuinely felt.

 

You need to hold both in view and just go with the flow. Discerning the flow is discerning the ethical. The ethical is not being a killjoy at berbecues.

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You're right, apart from the size of my boat...but doing all of these things to what end, and for who? To dream is the false self and to experience things physically is true self?

 

End suffering. If there is no suffering then nothing need be done. You are as you are.

 

I can only provide approximations really, not solve it, nor provide the desire for it. Everyone has their own boats to row.

 

There is only self. Everything is experienced by self. Self has always had direct perception of the physical. It's more a way of seeing than it is a change, but effort has to be undertaken never the less.

 

You can try and stay in self, every hour of every day. If the effort is genuine, then all the rest follows.

 

I kept in mind. "If it is temporary it is false". If you think you have found it, then it's temporary, there is no finding what was never lost.

 

I don't know if that helps, hinders. I remember SRM giving these maddening answers to questions. I thought he was a fraud, a fake. His answers were cryptic and often had glaring inconsistenties.

 

Yet, there is no reason to do anything at all. There is no requirement to chase rainbows unless you are driven to chase them. Life is perfectly good as it is. It's only when there is something that needles that action is required.

 

 

 

 

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All your words are the words of one stuck in emptiness.

 

Yes, there is something fake about the barbeque.

 

But the fun others have is genuinely felt.

 

You need to hold both in view and just go with the flow. Discerning the flow is discerning the ethical. The ethical is not being a killjoy at berbecues.

 

Lets take that 'stuck in emptiness' and explore the concept.

 

What is emptiness ? Lack of fullness ? Can one mentally be inside fullness or emptiness ? Stuck-cannot move, but what needs to move. There is nothing to be stuck in and nothing that can stick. Emptiness is impossible.

 

It's the same as 'go with the flow' . It's a cliche. 'Don't follow the crowd' is it's cliche opposite. :-)

 

See, you are providing an analysis. You are intuiting from what I have written and referring it to your experience.

 

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More emptiness! 

 

But actually I'm sympathetic to what you did at the barbecue. People do need to be taught.

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Have you read his books ? I have. After much consideration I decided the guy was off his trolley. A complete fruitcake as was Freud.

very revealing post on your part. sad that you come to this conclusion because you lack the capacity to understand great minds like freud or jung. hint, they are still be studied intensely. their books are still being read.

what did you ever write that has reached a level of theirs?

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