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