Self Realization
"Their nature does not in the long run tolerate persistence in what is for them
an unnatural torpor. As a result of their narrow
conscious outlook and
their cramped existence they save
energy; bit by bit it accumulates in the
unconscious and finally explodes in the form of a more or less acute
neurosis.
This simple mechanism does not necessarily conceal a "plan". A perfectly
understandable urge towards self-realization would provide a quite satisfactory
explanation. We could also speak of a retarded maturation of the
personality."
Like
(a) tree, we should give in to this almost imperceptible, yet powerfully
dominating, impulse – an impulse that comes from the urge toward unique,
creative self-realization. And this is a process in which one
must repeatedly seek out and find something that is not yet known to anyone.
The guiding hints or impulses come, not from the
ego,
but from the totality of
the psyche: the
Self.
M&HS 167
It
is, moreover, useless to cast furtive glances at the way someone else is
developing, because each of us has a unique task of self-realization.
If
you have lived for a long time in complete introversion, only concentrating on
your unconscious, then
this flood of unconscious fantasy and dream life begins to recede, to decrease.
As the text says, you find at the bottom of the sea the corpse of the
dragon, which, when it meets the fire, becomes alive again, taking its wings
back and flying away again. In a way, that is just its return
to its former way of living, and you would say, “Yes, and so what?”
For a while you have meditated and concentrated and have experienced your
unconscious, and now
you return to the old way of life – but that is not quite true.
As Dorn says, a child remained at the bottom of the sea, where no fire
prevails, a child conceived by the insertion of the gold sperm.
Though the dragon escapes again, the child remains.
That would mean that of this constant repetition (as Dorn says) and devoted
concentration on the inner life of the soul, something is born within one,
namely, a relatively constant
realization of the Self.
AAI 49
As you all know, the experience of
the Self in the
beginning of analysis is generally a rare and brief moment of happy elation.
One day after having struggled with one’s
miseries, it happens that one feels inwardly at
peace, that one has connected
with one’s own inner center. In Chinese terms, one is in
Tao and one is happy; one
feels, “Now I understand what it all means and now I have it” – but two minutes
later the devil has won again, and it’s all lost once more.
However, the child would express that this inner experience has now become a
constant presence within oneself, even if the dragon flies away again; that is
to say, ordinary man gets going again with his own nonsensical thoughts and
actions, but in spite of that, inwardly there is now another entity at the
bottom of the soul, so to speak, which is a constant personification and
realization of the Self.
AAI 50