East is East and West is West

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

What about magnetic pole shifts?

 

Oh yes, I forgot to include you Taoist Immortals in this - those  that live long enough to experience a magnetic pole shift . I imagine its a slow circular  rotation of the LDT with a slight up and down oscillation 

 

Magnetic pole reversal would be more interesting, Some have  postulated that it could happen  rather swiftly when it does  so us mere mortals might be able to experience it in our brief life times - if it happens ...... but it is actually a 'patchy process '  * so even Taoist Immortals will be effected differently depending on their location WITHIN the same hemisphere  

 

 

*

[Nungali]

Also, regarding these 'subtle energies'   -  that some consider too subtle to really be effecting us , consider .....

 

The 'external driver'

 

 

The 'internal driver '

 

 

 

(I could not find the pic I wanted to use , its a lot better graphic than this one  - there are these spiral forces in the inner mantle that cause the molten, electric, radio - active 'super magma, down there to twist into rotating interlaced super magma tornadoes , driven by some dynamics in the super condensed and pressurised core . These are transferred through the media of the outer core , more of a transference zone than a 'production one ' .

 

And those tow forces meet  around the surface zone  .... and flow though our own personal  energy system .

 

[Apech]

Dear Everyone,

 

Thanks to everyone who's contributed - all very interesting.

 

Just a few points/queries:

 

1 ) yes western psychology may be different to Eastern - in fact it obviously is - but this could just be due to an accumulation of sanskaras or karmic patterns - or even parasitic entities in the subtle body - in other words we have a different veil through which to view the world ... but the question remains ... are there any fundamental different features of the subtle body West - East (or North to South for that matter).

 

2  ) I think that it is legitimate to distinguish between the north - south polarity ... as this is based on fixed points (and East West).  The North/South poles on earth which are physically locatable points and astronomical north and south which are (more or less by discounting precession) also fixed points.  While East and West only has meaning through rotation - left and right hand spin (?) - which can lead to some strange anomalies eg.  we think of China as East but it is actually West of the USA.

 

3 ) Words like orient for East and 'origin' are related ... so we tend to regard the East as where things arise and the West where things disappear - I wonder if there is something here about 'leaning in' to the originating energy (the source) or leaning in to it's most overt manifestation.  Which way are we spinning this?

 

4  ) Rationality - rationalism - is an attempt by humans to get security by fixing the world.  This has had a tremendous effect during the globalisation of mankind since the late 18th century.  The western scholars have made demands on say, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism and the response has been to produce west-friendly versions stripped of their magic to avoid the harsh critique of academia.  

 

(Just as a side note, thanks to @dwai I recently read a large chunk of Wendy Doniger's 'Hindus an alternative history' - I didn't finish it because its quite long and I got bored so skipped ahead to the chapter on the Raj.  I didn't like her writing style as she jumps about and cuts up sentences with asides in brackets but she did say some interesting things.  She mentioned Edward Said's 'Orientalism' which I also tried to read - but I'm not keen on post-modernism or the general idea of decolonising history which I think is ridiculous.  But he did make the reasonable point that 'the West' does/did have a weird half romantic/half racist view of the East.  But I concluded after a little reading that as a practitioner my concerns lie elsewhere).

 

 

[dwai]

5 minutes ago, Apech said:

Dear Everyone,

 

Thanks to everyone who's contributed - all very interesting.

 

Just a few points/queries:

 

1 ) yes western psychology may be different to Eastern - in fact it obviously is - but this could just be due to an accumulation of sanskaras or karmic patterns - or even parasitic entities in the subtle body - in other words we have a different veil through which to view the world ... but the question remains ... are there any fundamental different features of the subtle body West - East (or North to South for that matter).

 

2  ) I think that it is legitimate to distinguish between the north - south polarity ... as this is based on fixed points (and East West).  The North/South poles on earth which are physically locatable points and astronomical north and south which are (more or less by discounting precession) also fixed points.  While East and West only has meaning through rotation - left and right hand spin (?) - which can lead to some strange anomalies eg.  we think of China as East but it is actually West of the USA.

 

3 ) Words like orient for East and 'origin' are related ... so we tend to regard the East as where things arise and the West where things disappear - I wonder if there is something here about 'leaning in' to the originating energy (the source) or leaning in to it's most overt manifestation.  Which way are we spinning this?

 

4  ) Rationality - rationalism - is an attempt by humans to get security by fixing the world.  This has had a tremendous effect during the globalisation of mankind since the late 18th century.  The western scholars have made demands on say, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism and the response has been to produce west-friendly versions stripped of their magic to avoid the harsh critique of academia.  

 

for that last point I’d say, spiritual texts and commentaries have really not been “stripped” of their magic, so much as the magic is lost due to the limitations of the English language. That makes me wonder how much difference in psychology exists within the western world between Russian speakers, German, French, Spanish etc vs English speakers? I suppose language does have a role to play in the way the mind operates...

5 minutes ago, Apech said:

 

(Just as a side note, thanks to @dwai I recently read a large chunk of Wendy Doniger's 'Hindus an alternative history' - I didn't finish it because its quite long and I got bored so skipped ahead to the chapter on the Raj.  I didn't like her writing style as she jumps about and cuts up sentences with asides in brackets but she did say some interesting things.  She mentioned Edward Said's 'Orientalism' which I also tried to read - but I'm not keen on post-modernism or the general idea of decolonising history which I think is ridiculous.  But he did make the reasonable point that 'the West' does/did have a weird half romantic/half racist view of the East.  But I concluded after a little reading that as a practitioner my concerns lie elsewhere).

 

 

Good for you (and of course if I’ve mentioned that author, it is with great derision alone).  I’d have lost all hope for you if did actually like it  

[Master Logray]

3 hours ago, Apech said:

1 ) yes western psychology may be different to Eastern - in fact it obviously is - but this could just be due to an accumulation of sanskaras or karmic patterns - or even parasitic entities in the subtle body - in other words we have a different veil through which to view the world ...

 

Western psychology, if it means mental, emotions, trauma...., is not common in the east.  I am surprised that people here often refer to things like energy causing emotion release or trauma during Taoist training.  These are not important and kind of harmful for even positive emotions.  These are better to get rid of instead of being a new way for psychotherapy, as seen in a master's website.

 

[Taomeow]

13 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

What about magnetic pole shifts?

 

 

8 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

Oh yes, I forgot to include you Taoist Immortals in this - those  that live long enough to experience a magnetic pole shift . I imagine its a slow circular  rotation of the LDT with a slight up and down oscillation 

  

You also forgot to include commercial and military pilots, navigators, sailors, and geophysics scientists.  The majority of them are not taoist immortals, to my knowledge, and yet...

 

https://www.businessaircraftcenter.com/articles/north-pole-compass-pilots-aircraft-navigation-navigate-art0211.htm

 

https://america.cgtn.com/2019/04/07/scientists-scramble-to-keep-up-with-earths-changing-magnetic-north-pole 

 

[manitou]

There's such a simple answer to all this, guys.

 

When you're in the Northern hemisphere, toilets flush counter-clockwise.  In the Southern hemisphere, they flush clockwise.  My tour guide from Costa Rica said so.  I just checked again and, being in the Northern hemisphere, my toilet does indeed flush counter-clockwise.  I would need further confirmation from someone living in the southern hemisphere.

 

So I'm guessing the dantien can be equated to a toilet bowl.  Clockwise or counterclockwise, it seems to work.

[Taomeow]

39 minutes ago, manitou said:

There's such a simple answer to all this, guys.

 

When you're in the Northern hemisphere, toilets flush counter-clockwise.  In the Southern hemisphere, they flush clockwise.  My tour guide from Costa Rica said so.  I just checked again and, being in the Northern hemisphere, my toilet does indeed flush counter-clockwise.  I would need further confirmation from someone living in the southern hemisphere.

 

So I'm guessing the dantien can be equated to a toilet bowl.  Clockwise or counterclockwise, it seems to work.

 

Well, not exactly "equated."  The toilet bowl only sucks in whatever it receives.  A well-developed dantien, on the other hand, can also shoot outward.  High level taijiquan, e.g., utilizes a sudden explosive outward-bound force discharge (or, preferentially, deflect -- depending on what you're going to use, your opponent's contribution or your own) known as fajin, originating in the LDT.  You hit the opponent with the spiraling force that you direct to the extremity of your choice or a part of your body you can use as a "hand" or the whole "body-as-hand" -- depending on the situation, you can peng (spirally rotate) this force in the direction of your choice too, clockwise or counterclockwise.  I shudder at the vision of a toilet bowl with this kind of abilities.  

[Geof Nanto]

12 hours ago, Apech said:

1 ) yes western psychology may be different to Eastern - in fact it obviously is - but this could just be due to an accumulation of sanskaras or karmic patterns - or even parasitic entities in the subtle body - in other words we have a different veil through which to view the world ... but the question remains ... are there any fundamental different features of the subtle body West - East (or North to South for that matter).

 

 

 

4  ) Rationality - rationalism - is an attempt by humans to get security by fixing the world.  This has had a tremendous effect during the globalisation of mankind since the late 18th century.  The western scholars have made demands on say, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism and the response has been to produce west-friendly versions stripped of their magic to avoid the harsh critique of academia.  

 

 

Jung wrote at length about this split in the psyche between the East and West, or, more correctly the split rationality and the dominance of science had introduced into our western psyche that had not occurred  in the East.  Because of it, he was adamant that Westerner’s should not practice Eastern arts such as Indian or Chinese yoga. This was despite his great admiration for the fruits of Eastern spirituality. I get the impression you are also coming to some similar realisations about a fundamental problem with contemporary spirituality;  a problem that’s increasingly worldwide as the world becomes more and more homogenous. 

 

Jung has written many words on the subject. Here’s an essay of his titled Yoga and the West which he wrote in 1936. It's taken me decades of practice to feel within myself exactly what he's getting at and how fundamentally important it is.  Although some of it may read as dated, the crux of it is more relevant than ever.

 

Spoiler

 

YOGA AND THE WEST

 

Less than a century has passed since yoga became known to the West. Although all sorts of miraculous tales had come to Europe two thousand years before from the fabled land of India, with its wise men, its gymnosophists and omphalosceptics, yet no real knowledge of Indian philosophy and philosophical practices can be said to have existed until, thanks to the efforts of the Frenchman, Anquetil du Perron, the Upanishads were transmitted to the West. A general and more profound knowledge was first made possible by Max Müller, of Oxford, and the Sacred Books of the East edited by him. To begin with, this knowledge remained the preserve of Sanskrit scholars and philosophers. But it was not so very long before the theosophical movement inaugurated by Mme. Blavatsky possessed itself of the Eastern traditions and promulgated them among the general public. For several decades after that, knowledge of yoga in the West developed along two separate lines. On the one hand it was regarded as a strictly academic science, and on the other it became something very like a religion, though it did not develop into an organized Church—despite the endeavours of Annie Besant and Rudolf Steiner. Although he was the founder of the anthroposophical secession, Steiner was originally a follower of Mme. Blavatsky.

 

The peculiar product resulting from this Western development can hardly be compared with what yoga means in India. In the West, Eastern teaching encountered a special situation, a condition of mind such as the earlier India, at any rate, had never known. This was the strict line of division between science and philosophy, which had already existed, to a greater or lesser degree, for some three hundred years before yoga teachings began to be known in the West. The beginning of this split—a specifically Western phenomenon—really set in with the Renaissance, in the fifteenth century. At that time, there arose a widespread and passionate interest in antiquity, stimulated by the fall of the Byzantine Empire under the onslaught of Islam. Then, for the first time, knowledge of the Greek language and of Greek literature was carried to every corner of Europe. As a direct result of this invasion of so-called pagan philosophy, there arose the great schism in the Roman Church—Protestantism, which soon covered the whole of northern Europe. But not even this renewal of Christianity was able to hold the liberated minds in thrall.

 

The period of world discovery in the geographical and scientific sense had begun, and to an ever-increasing degree thought emancipated itself from the shackles of religious tradition. The Churches, of course, continued to exist because they were maintained by the strictly religious needs of the public, but they lost their leadership in the cultural sphere. While the Church of Rome, thanks to her unsurpassed organization, remained a unity, Protestantism split into nearly four hundred denominations. This is a proof on the one hand of its bankruptcy, and, on the other, of a religious vitality which refuses to be stifled. Gradually, in the course of the nineteenth century, this led to syncretistic outgrowths and to the importation on a mass scale of exotic religious systems, such as the religion of Abdul Baha, the Sufi sects, the Ramakrishna Mission, Buddhism, and so on. Many of these systems, for instance anthroposophy, were syncretized with Christian elements. The resultant picture corresponds roughly to the Hellenistic syncretism of the third and fourth centuries A.D., which likewise showed traces of Indian thought. (Cf. Apollonius of Tyana, the Orphic-Pythagorean secret doctrines, the Gnosis, etc.)

 

All these systems moved on the religious plane and recruited the great majority of their adherents from Protestantism. They are thus, fundamentally, Protestant sects. By directing its main attack against the authority of the Roman Church, Protestantism largely destroyed belief in the Church as the indispensable agent of divine salvation. Thus the burden of authority fell to the individual, and with it a religious responsibility that had never existed before. The decline of confession and absolution sharpened the moral conflict of the individual and burdened him with problems which previously the Church had settled for him, since her sacraments, particularly that of the Mass, guaranteed his salvation through the priest's enactment of the sacred rite. The only things the individual had to contribute were confession, repentance, and penance. With the collapse of the rite, which did the work for him, he had to do without God’s answer to his plans. This dissatisfaction explains the demand for systems that promise an answer—the visible or at least noticeable favour of another (higher, spiritual, or divine) power.

 

European science paid no attention to these hopes and expectations. It lived its intellectual life unconcerned with religious needs and convictions. This—historically inevitable—split in the Western mind also affected yoga so far as this had gained a footing in the West, and led to its being made an object of scientific study on the one hand, while on the other it was welcomed as a way of salvation. But inside the religious movement there were any number of attempts to combine science with religious belief and practice, as for instance Christian Science, theosophy, and anthroposophy. The last-named, especially, likes to give itself scientific airs and has, therefore, like Christian Science, penetrated into intellectual circles.

 

Since the way of the Protestant is not laid down for him in advance, he gives welcome, one might say, to practically any system which holds out the promise of successful development. He must now do for himself the very thing which had always been done by the Church as intermediary, and he does not know how to do it. If he is a man who has taken his religious needs seriously, he has also made untold efforts towards faith, because his doctrine sets exclusive store by faith. But faith is a charisma, a gift of grace, and not a method. The Protestant is so entirely without a method that many of them have seriously interested themselves in the rigorously Catholic exercises of Ignatius Loyola. Yet, do what they will, the thing that disturbs them most is naturally the contradiction between religious and scientific truth, the conflict between faith and knowledge, which reaches far beyond Protestantism into Catholicism itself. This conflict is due solely to the historical split in the European mind. Had it not been for the —psychologically speaking — unnatural compulsion to believe, and an equally unnatural belief in science, this conflict would have had no reason to exist. One can easily imagine a state of mind in which one simply knows and in addition believes a thing which seems probable for such and such reasons. There are no grounds whatsoever for any conflict between these two things. Both are necessary, for knowledge alone, like faith alone, is always insufficient.

 

When, therefore, a "religious" method recommends itself at the same time as "scientific," it can be sure of finding a public in the West. Yoga fulfils this expectation. Quite apart from the charm of the new and the fascination of the half-understood, there is good reason for yoga to have many adherents. It offers not only the much-sought way, but also a philosophy of unrivalled profundity. It holds out the possibility of controllable experience, and thus satisfies the scientist's need for "facts”. Moreover, by reason of its breadth and depth, its venerable age, its teachings and methods which cover every sphere of life, it promises undreamt of possibilities which the missionaries of yoga seldom omit to emphasize.

 

| will remain silent on the subject of what yoga means for India, because I cannot presume to judge something I do not know from personal experience. I can, however, say something about what it means for the West. Our lack of direction borders on psychic anarchy. Therefore, any religious or philosophical practice amounts to a psychological discipline; in other words, it is a method of psychic hygiene. The numerous purely physical procedures of yoga are a physiological hygiene as well, which is far superior to ordinary gymnastics or breathing exercises in that it is not merely mechanistic and scientific but, at the same time, philosophical. In its training of the parts of the body, it unites them with the whole of the mind and spirit, as is quite clear, for instance, in the Pränayäma exercises, where präna is both the breath and the universal dynamics of the cosmos. When the doing of the individual is at the same time a cosmic happening, the elation of the body (innervation) becomes one with the elation of the spirit (the universal idea), and from this there arises a living whole which no technique, however scientific, can hope to produce. Yoga practice is unthinkable, and would also be ineffectual, without the ideas on which it is based. It works the physical and the spiritual into one another in an extraordinarily complete way.

 

In the East, where these ideas and practices originated, and where an uninterrupted tradition extending over some four thousand years has created the necessary spiritual conditions, yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity that can hardly be doubted. They thus create a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness. The Indian mentality has no difficulty in operating intelligently with a concept like präna. The West, on the contrary, with its bad habit of wanting to believe on the one hand, and its highly developed scientific and philosophical critique on the other, finds itself in a real dilemma. Either it falls into the trap of faith and swallows concepts like prana, atman, chakra, samädhi, etc., without giving them a thought, or its scientific critique repudiates them one and all as "pure mysticism." The split in the Western mind therefore makes it impossible at the outset for the intentions of yoga to be realized in any adequate way. It becomes either a strictly religious matter, or else a kind of training like Pelmanism, breath-control, eurhythmics, etc., and not a trace is to be found of the unity and wholeness of nature which is characteristic of yoga. The Indian can forget neither the body nor the mind, while the European is always forgetting either the one or the other. With this capacity to forget he has, for the time being, conquered the world. Not so the Indian. He not only knows his own nature, but he knows also how much he himself is nature. The European, on the other hand, has a science of nature and knows astonishingly little of his own nature, the nature within him. For the Indian, it comes as a blessing to know of a method which helps him to control the supreme power of nature within and without. For the European, it is sheer poison to suppress his nature, which is warped enough as it is, and to make out of it a willing robot.

 

It is said of the yogi that he can remove mountains, though it would be difficult to furnish any real proof of this. The power of the yogi operates within limits acceptable to his environment. The European, on the other hand, can blow up mountains, and the World War has given us a bitter foretaste of what he is capable of when free rein is given to an intellect that has grown estranged from human nature. As a European, I cannot wish the European more "control" and more power over the nature within and around us. Indeed, I must confess to my shame that I owe my best insights (and there are some quite good ones among them) to the circumstance that I have always done just the opposite of what the rules of yoga prescribe. Through his historical development, the European has become so far removed from his roots that his mind was finally split into faith and knowledge, in the same way that every psychological exaggeration breaks up into its inherent opposites. He needs to return, not to Nature in the manner of Rousseau, but to his own nature. His task is to find the natural man again. Instead of this, there is nothing he likes better than systems and methods by which he can repress the natural man who is everywhere at cross purposes with him. He will infallibly make a wrong use of yoga because his psychic disposition is quite different from that of the Oriental. I say to whomsoever I can: "Study yoga—you will learn an infinite amount from it—but do not try to apply it, for we Europeans are not so constituted that we apply these methods correctly, just like that. An Indian guru can explain everything and you can imitate everything. But do you know who is applying the yoga? In other words, do you know who you are and how you are constituted?"

 

The power of science and technics in Europe is so enormous and indisputable that there is little point in reckoning up all that can be done and all that has been invented. One shudders at the stupendous possibilities. Quite another question begins to loom up: Who is applying this technical skill? in whose hands does this power lie? For the present, the state is a provisional means of protection, because, apparently, it safeguards the citizen from the enormous quantities of poison gas and other infernal engines of destruction which can be manufactured by the thousand tons at a moment's notice. Our technical skill has grown to be so dangerous that the most urgent question today is not what more can be done in this line, but how the man who entrusted with the control of this skill should be constituted, or how to alter the mind of Western man so that he would renounce his terrible skill. It is infinitely more important to strip him of the illusion of his power than to strengthen him still further in the mistaken idea that he can do everything he wills. The slogan one hears so often in Germany, ' 'Where there's a will there's a way," has cost the lives of millions of human beings.

 

Western man has no need of more superiority over nature, whether outside or inside. He has both in almost devilish perfection. What he lacks is conscious recognition of his inferiority to the nature around and within him. He must learn that he may not do exactly as he wills. If he does not learn this, his own nature will destroy him. He does not know that his own soul is rebelling against him in a suicidal way.

 

Since Western man can turn everything into a technique, it is true in principle that everything that looks like a method is either dangerous or condemned to futility. In so far as yoga is a form of hygiene, it is as useful to him as any other system. In the deepest sense, however, yoga does not mean this but, if I understand it correctly, a great deal more, namely the final release and detachment of consciousness from all bondage to object and subject. But since one cannot detach oneself from something of which one is unconscious, the European must first learn to know his subject. This, in the West, is what one calls the unconscious. Yoga technique applies itself exclusively to the conscious mind and will. Such an undertaking promises success only when the unconscious has no potential worth mentioning, that is to say, when it does not contain large portions of the personality. If it does, then all conscious effort remains futile, and what comes out of this cramped condition of mind is a caricature or even the exact opposite of the intended result.

 

The rich metaphysic and symbolism of the East express the larger and more important part of the unconscious and in this way reduce its potential. When the yogi says "präna," he means very much more than mere breath. For him the word prana brings with it the full weight of its metaphysical components, and it is as if he really knew what präna meant in this respect. He does not know it with his understanding, but with his heart, belly, and blood. The European only imitates and learns ideas

by rote, and is therefore incapable of expressing his subjective facts through Indian concepts. I am more than doubtful whether the European, if he were capable of the corresponding experiences, would choose to express them through intuitive ideas like präna.

 

Yoga was originally a natural process of introversion, with all manner of individual variations. Introversions of this sort lead to peculiar inner processes which change the personality. In the course of several thousand years these introversions became organized as methods, and along widely differing lines. Indian yoga itself recognizes numerous and extremely diverse forms. The reason for this lies in the original diversity of individual experience. This is not to say that any one of these methods is suited to the peculiar historical structure of the European. It is much more likely that the yoga natural to the European proceeds from historical patterns unknown to the East. As a matter of fact, the two cultural achievements which, in the West, have had to concern themselves most with the psyche in the practical sense, namely medicine and the Catholic cure of souls, have both produced methods comparable to yoga. I have already referred to the exercises of Ignatius Loyola. With respect to medicine, it is the modern psychotherapeutic methods which come closest to yoga. Freud's psychoanalysis leads the conscious mind of the patient back to the inner world of childhood reminiscences on one side, and on the other to wishes and drives which have been repressed from consciousness. The latter technique is a logical development of confession. It aims at an artificial introversion for the purpose of making conscious the unconscious components of the subject.

 

A somewhat different method is the so-called "autogenic training" of Professor Schultz, which consciously links up with yoga. His chief aim is to break down the conscious cramp and the repression of the unconscious this has caused.

 

My method, like Freud's, is built up on the practice of confession. Like him, I pay close attention to dreams, but when it comes to the unconscious our views part company. For Freud it is essentially an appendage of consciousness, in which all the individual’s incompatibilities are heaped up. For me the unconscious is a collective psychic disposition, creative in character. This fundamental difference of viewpoint naturally produces an entirely different evaluation of the symbolism and the method of interpreting it. Freud's procedure is, in the main, analytical and reductive. To this I add a synthesis which emphasizes the purposiveness of unconscious tendencies with respect to personality development. In this line of research important parallels with yoga have come to light, especially with kundalini yoga and the symbolism of tantric yoga, Lamaism, and Taoistic yoga in China. These forms of yoga with their rich symbolism afford me invaluable comparative material for interpreting the collective unconscious. However, I do not apply yoga methods in principle, because, in the West, nothing ought to be forced on the unconscious. Usually, consciousness is characterized by an intensity and narrowness that have a cramping effect, and this ought not to be emphasized still further. On the contrary, everything must be done to help the unconscious to reach the conscious mind and to free it from its rigidity. For this purpose I employ a method of active imagination, which consists in a special training for switching off consciousness, at least to a relative extent, thus giving the unconscious contents a chance to develop.

 

If I remain so critically averse to yoga, it does not mean that I do not regard this spiritual achievement of the East as one of the greatest things the human mind has ever created. I hope my exposition makes it sufficiently clear that my criticism is directed solely against the application of yoga to the peoples of the West. The spiritual development of the West has been along entirely different lines from that of the East and has therefore produced conditions which are the most unfavourable soil one can think of for the application of yoga. Western civilization is scarcely a thousand years old and must first of all free itself from its barbarous one-sidedness. This means, above all, deeper insight into the nature of man. But no insight is gained by repressing and controlling the unconscious, and least of all by imitating methods which have grown up under totally different psychological conditions. In the course of the centuries the West will produce its own yoga, and it will be on the basis laid down by Christianity.

 

[Originally published in Prabuddha Bharata (Calcutta), February 1936, Shri Ramakrishna Centenary Number, Sec. Ill, in a translation by Cary F. Baynes, upon which the present translation is based.—EDIT0Rs.]

 

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Yueya

[Bindi]

I think humanity as a whole has gained a hard won rationality, West and East, and as a result we have all become imbalanced, and the way to gain balance is ultimately the same for us all. My split would be more along the lines of verbal and pre-verbal society, I imagine sophisticated communication allowed us to develop rationality, at the expense of a previous balance. The solution to me is that we retain our rationality, and boost its opposite whatever you might like to call that. I call it EQ. 

[Geof Nanto]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

I think humanity as a whole has gained a hard won rationality, West and East, and as a result we have all become imbalanced, and the way to gain balance is ultimately the same for us all. My split would be more along the lines of verbal and pre-verbal society, I imagine sophisticated communication allowed us to develop rationality, at the expense of a previous balance. The solution to me is that we retain our rationality, and boost its opposite whatever you might like to call that. I call it EQ. 

 

I agree with that about rationality and Jung definitely would too. His project was to boost conscious understanding of our human psyche through rational science to give us insight into our hidden selves so that our sense of self as individuals could withstand an encounter with what he calls the unconscious. He uses the term ‘unconscious’ to get away from language loaded with Christian baggage such as ‘Godhead.’ Another term for it could be ‘Dao’, Sunyata’, or the Divine. But whatever it is, it’s vast and powerfully alive with content foreign to our ego-bound rational selves, and hence dangerous territory for an unprepared human psyche.  It is infinitely greater than we humans and stands in opposition to the contemporary image of ourselves as rational beings fully in charge of our own destiny. That’s why culturally we’ve gone to so much trouble to suppress it. Yet that’s the world spiritual practice must open us to.  And that's the way he saw to heal the split within our psyche and regain wholeness. 

 

One of Jung’s points is that the spiritual practices of the East were developed by people whose psyche was still intimately connected with the world of the gods, of magic and superstition. Hence their practices didn’t need to develop these attributes but rather refine the real from the illusion. Whereas we contemporary people need practices to reconnect us with a genuine, felt connection with the Divine. Hence, he considers Eastern practices that tell people to cut off these connections because they are illusions are like poison for contemporary people who have only shadowy, suppressed inklings of these non-rational realties in the first place and would nothing better like to be told they don’t exist. 
 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Yueya

[Nungali]

12 hours ago, manitou said:

There's such a simple answer to all this, guys.

 

When you're in the Northern hemisphere, toilets flush counter-clockwise.  In the Southern hemisphere, they flush clockwise.  My tour guide from Costa Rica said so.  I just checked again and, being in the Northern hemisphere, my toilet does indeed flush counter-clockwise.  I would need further confirmation from someone living in the southern hemisphere.

 

So I'm guessing the dantien can be equated to a toilet bowl.  Clockwise or counterclockwise, it seems to work.

 

 

Okay ... I will nip out and check my southern hemisphere toilet  .....

 

 

 

 

........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

........

 

 

 

 

Nope .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll duck over and check the neighbours, theirs is much more civilised ....

 

 

 

 

...............

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

13 hours ago, Taomeow said:

 

 

  

You also forgot to include commercial and military pilots, navigators, sailors, and geophysics scientists.  The majority of them are not taoist immortals, to my knowledge, and yet...

 

https://www.businessaircraftcenter.com/articles/north-pole-compass-pilots-aircraft-navigation-navigate-art0211.htm

 

https://america.cgtn.com/2019/04/07/scientists-scramble-to-keep-up-with-earths-changing-magnetic-north-pole 

 

 

 

I forgot a LOT of stuff while on these drugs  .... but today is the last day .... after a short recovery period I shall be back - relatively speed free  ... with my normal  dickwit comments and mansplaining.

 

 

[Taomeow]

22 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

 

I forgot a LOT of stuff while on these drugs  .... but today is the last day .... after a short recovery period I shall be back - relatively speed free  ... with my normal  dickwit comments and mansplaining.

 

 

 

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. -- Heraclitus

[Nungali]

1 minute ago, Taomeow said:

 

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. -- Heraclitus

 

How did he get a name like that ! ?    You think he would have changed it 

 

 

Spoiler

 Ohhhhh .....  hɛː.rá.kleː.tos

 

[Taomeow]

9 hours ago, Nungali said:

 

How did he get a name like that ! ?    You think he would have changed it 

 

 

  Hide contents

 Ohhhhh .....  hɛː.rá.kleː.tos

 

 

It's all Greek to me.  Ἡράκλειτος.   

[Limahong]

19 hours ago, Yueya said:

Jung wrote at length about this split in the psyche between the East and West, or, more correctly the split rationality and the dominance of science had introduced into our western psyche that had not occurred  in the East.

 

19 hours ago, Yueya said:

I get the impression you are also coming to some similar realisations about a fundamental problem with contemporary spirituality;  a problem that’s increasingly worldwide as the world becomes more and more homogenous. 

 

Hi Yueya,

 

This is a Taoist forum and I wonder on the extent re the embrace of "The Tao is ONE" by its members.

 

 

If the extent of the embrace of "ONE" is broad ~ then why is there a divide between East and West if ever there is one?

 

 

"But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though

they come from the ends of the earth!"

 

A great weekend

- Anand

 

[manitou]

18 hours ago, Yueya said:

His project was to boost conscious understanding of our human psyche through rational science to give us insight into our hidden selves so that our sense of self as individuals could withstand an encounter with what he calls the unconscious.

 

 

Was Jung an enlightened one?  I don't know that much about him.  If he were enlightened, he would know that there wouldn't be a way for the human psyche through rational science could give us the ultimate insight.

 

But yet he ends with our sense of self withstanding an encounter with what he calls the unconscious.  Is he referring to the I Am?  Is having an encounter with the unconscious the same as self-realization?  Having an encounter could be bumping shoulders, or totally embracing and never being the same again.  That's a wide spectrum.

 

I think it would be interesting to know where Mr. Jung was coming from.  Anyone know?

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

4 hours ago, Limahong said:

 

 

Hi Yueya,

 

This is a Taoist forum and I wonder on the extent re the embrace of "The Tao is ONE" by its members.

 

 

If the extent of the embrace of "ONE" is broad ~ then why is there a divide between East and West if ever there is one?

 

 

"But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though

they come from the ends of the earth!"

 

A great weekend

- Anand

 

 

 

Am I reading you right here Limi ? 

 

The world is one and the Dao is one .

 

But what comes 'after' the Dao is one  ?   You just posted it :  One gives birth to Yin and Yang

 

Could that not be the east and the west  ? 

 

and out of that come all the people of the earth -  'all things' 

 

 of Yin and yang  / 'dark and light'

 

 

 

 

 

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

Was Jung an enlightened one?  I don't know that much about him.  If he were enlightened, he would know that there wouldn't be a way for the human psyche through rational science could give us the ultimate insight.

 

I think thats still mixing things up a bit . First, to answer your question I would need to know YOUR definition of enlightenment , and probably, more importantly, what you BELIEVE about it .

 

I think he was enlightened a lot about the human western mind and what we call the unconscious .

 

Even so , does someone have to be 'enlighened' to have valuable teachings ?  And further , are not many of these  so called 'enlightened one's '  often lacking in control and development of unconscious - drives , urges and hidden ego stuff  ?   But maybe thats a distinction between the real enlightened and those that claim it, or have it ascribed to them  ?

 

 

 

2 hours ago, manitou said:

 

But yet he ends with our sense of self withstanding an encounter with what he calls the unconscious.  Is he referring to the I Am?

 

No, he is referring to the unconscious . And to understand  what he means here , one has to understand HIS definition of it

 

2 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

 

  Is having an encounter with the unconscious the same as self-realization?  Having an encounter could be bumping shoulders, or totally embracing and never being the same again.  That's a wide spectrum.

 

Depends on what you mean by 'having an encounter with ' ?   In some cases , if that encounter is conscious , then  whatever it was has now moved out of the realm of the unconscious .  To have an encounter with something seems to imply you are conscious of it . o if you did have an encounter with it , it would not be the unconscious any more .

 

2 hours ago, manitou said:

 

I think it would be interesting to know where Mr. Jung was coming from.  Anyone know?

 

 

Maybe - a space of examining  others  unconscious drives  and his own at the same time   ( as opposed to some others that specialised in just other people and  shoved their own stuff under the carpet . I think thats why Jung is often unpop with pros and such . )

 

I had been having good converse with a psychiatrist  ( yeah, all right you lot !  Thats NOT what I mean !   - I mean chatting about human psychology and the like . I got on to  Jung  and he   " I dont do Jungian psychology and I  dont discuss it . "

 

[Cleansox]

7 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

Was Jung an enlightened one?  

Thomas Cleary says no. 

He has a bitchy footnote or so about Jung in his translation of the Golden Flower, if anyone is interested in that subject. 

[Apech]

@Yueya

 

You know a lot more about Jung than I do.  But he does seem to be a gateway for people in the West who are searching to find some kind of spiritual certainties.  I find the term 'unconscious' a bit unhelpful as it sounds a little like something without consciousness - while actually it probably means the opposite.  I suppose that the term arose because he was speaking of those things of which we are not usually conscious.  I think its very important to recognise that our conscious minds are maybe 1 - 10% of what is actually going on.

 

With regard to the magic, gods, spirits business - of course it is only in recent history that the West was not similarly engaged in such things.  Since the enlightenment and the rise of science they have been squashed out - erased from our account of reality - mainly I believe to remove our unease at the unknowable immensity in which we have our existence.  I think it is a mistake to think Eastern systems specifically target such things as a being unreal or empty - to the extent that they have done so has been just to please Westerners.  For instance to say they are 'empty' as per Buddhism is not to categorise them any differently to anything else which appears to exist independently.  So to say a God is sunya is just saying it is like everything else.  And because of this following the god will not lead to liberation ... but this is not the same as a modern atheist would say 'God does not exist'.

 

Where i do perhaps think there is a role in specifically Western thought and religion ... it is that of monotheism and specifically the Biblical sort (which is different to henotheism, monolatry and so on).  As far as I see it monotheism is a concealed dualism - which through the tradition of Western Judeo-Christian culture leads inevitably to the harsh objectivism of science.  Whereas dharmic and Daoist traditions don't do this.

 

 

[Apech]

6 hours ago, Cleansox said:

Thomas Cleary says no. 

He has a bitchy footnote or so about Jung in his translation of the Golden Flower, if anyone is interested in that subject. 

 

I don't know about you but having once enjoyed Cleary's translations I now find him a bit lacking in depth.

Edited April 18, 2021 by Apech
shocking english

[Cleansox]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

 

I don't know about you but having once enjoyed Cleary's translations I now find him a bit lacking in depth.

I prefer Pregadio. 

Being a practicing buddhist doesn’t qualify Cleary to translate classics from the southern lineage, and sometimes that shines through. 

Edited April 18, 2021 by Cleansox
Added stuff

[Taomeow]

Traduttore traditore applies in all cases.