LECTURE 1
12 October 1932
Dr. Jung: Ladies and gentlemen, we have just had a seminar about tantric yoga,1 and as there are always misunderstandings in the wake of such an event, I am devoting some time to the discussion and elucidation of any questions that you may have. Even those who were not there will be interested, I suppose, because I have spoken of the cakras before.2 Moreover, in the pursuit of our visions we have now reached the stage where symbols analogous to those of tantric yoga are beginning to operate. You remember, we have seen how our patientâs visions in their natural and quite uninfluenced development brought the first mandala. In the last hour of our spring seminar I showed you a mandala that created itself, the mandala of the child within the circles, and the patientâs attempts to unite with the child.3 That is entering the mandala, and there already the symbolism of tantra yoga begins. So it is not irrelevant that we discuss this subject now; it fits in well with what we have done here. As a matter of fact, our former seminar has led us up to the psychology of tantric yoga, what I have hitherto called mandala psychology.
I shall take first this question by Mrs. Bailward: âI understand that the
kleĆa asmitÄ âcontains the germ of being a personalityâ and the
kleĆa dvea âthe wish to be two,â or hatred.
4 Does Professor Hauer mean personality or individuality here? When it has built up the individuality, how would hatred be torn out by the roots?â
Well, there is the kleĆa of dividing and discrimination, of becoming a personality, an ego, where there is also the aspect of hatred. The kleĆas are urges, a natural instinctive form in which libido first appears out of the unconscious; that is the psychological energy, or libido, in its simplest form of manifestation.5 Now, according to tantric teaching, there is an urge to produce a personality, something that is centered, and divided from other beings, and that would be the kleĆa of discrimination. It is what one would describe in Western philosophical terms as an urge or instinct of individuation.
The instinct of individuation is found everywhere in life, for there is no life on earth that is not individual. Each form of life is manifested in a differentiated being naturally, otherwise life could not exist. An innate urge of life is to produce an individual as complete as possible. For instance, a bird with all its feathers and colors and the size that belongs to that particular species. So the entelechia, the urge of realization, naturally pushes man to be himself. Given a chance to be himself, he would most certainly grow into his own form, if there were not obstacles and inhibitions of many descriptions that hinder him from becoming what he is really meant to be. So the kleĆa that contains the germ of personality can be called just as well the kleĆa of individuation, because what we call personality is an aspect of individuation. Even if you donât become a complete realization of yourself, you become at least a person; you have a certain conscious form. Of course, it is not a totality; it is only a part, perhaps, and your true individuality is still behind the screenâyet what is manifested on the surface is surely a unit. One is not necessarily conscious of the totality, and perhaps other people see more clearly who you are than you do yourself. So individuality is always. It is everywhere. Everything that has life is individualâa dog, a plant, everything livingâbut of course it is far from being conscious of its individuality. A dog has probably an exceedingly limited idea of himself as compared with the sum total of his individuality. As most people, no matter how much they think of themselves, are egos, yet at the same time they are individuals, almost as if they were individuated. For they are in a way individuated from the very beginning of their lives, yet they are not conscious of it. Individuation only takes place when you are conscious of it, but individuality is always there from the beginning of your existence.
Mrs. Baynes: I did not get where the hate,
dvea, came in.
Dr. Jung: Hatred is the thing that divides, the force which discriminates. It is so when two people fall in love; they are at first almost identical. There is a great deal of participation mystique, so they need hatred in order to separate themselves. After a while the whole thing turns into a wild hatred; they get resistances against one another in order to force each other offâotherwise they remain in a common unconsciousness which they simply cannot stand. One sees that also in analysis. In the case of an exaggerated transference, after a while there are corresponding resistances. This too is a certain hatred.
The old Greek put phobos, fear, instead of hatred. They said that the firstborn thing was either Eros or phobos; some say Eros and others phobos, according to their temperaments. There are optimists who say the real thing is love, and pessimists who say the real thing is phobos. Phobos separates more than hatred, because fear causes one to run away, to remove oneself from the place of danger.
I was once asked a philosophical question by a Hindu: âDoes a man who loves God need more or fewer incarnations to reach his final salvation than a man who hates God?â Now, what would you answer? I gave it up naturally. And he said: âA man who loves God will need seven incarnations to become perfect, and a man who hates God only three, because he certainly will think of him and cling to him very much more than the man who loves God.â That, in a way, is true; hatred is a tremendous cement. So for us the Greek formulation phobos is perhaps better than hatred as the principle of separation. There has been, and is still, more participation mystique in India than in Greece, and the West has certainly a more discriminating mind than the East. Therefore, as our civilization largely depends upon the Greek genius, with us it would be fear and not hatred.
Mrs. Crowley: Yet in the cakras apparently the most important gesture is that of dispelling fear.
Dr. Jung: Yes, but the gods are always carrying weapons also, and weapons are not an expression of any particular love.
Miss Wolff: I have my notes here, and I think I see what caused Mrs. Bailwardâs confusion. Professor Hauer said in German hasserfĂŒllte Zweiung, but it does not mean to become two, exactly; it means to become a subject against an objectâthere are two things.6 The English translation is not so clear.
Dr. Jung: Entzweiung means separation. Now the rest of the question?
Mrs. Bailward: I mean, would the yogi consider the state of hatred a necessary condition in building up individuality?
Dr. Jung: Yes, he cannot help considering it so, for the whole yoga process, whether classical or Kundalini yoga, naturally has a tendency to make the individual one, even as the god is one, like brahman, an existing nonexisting oneness.
The question continues: âAnd when it had built up the individuality, how would hatred be torn out by the roots?â
Miss Wolff: Professor Hauer spoke of the two aspects of the
kleĆa.
7 In the imperfect conditionâthe
sthĆ«la aspectâthe urge to be a subject over against an object is mingled with hatred. But in the
sƫkma aspect the same urge is the power to become a personality.
Dr. Jung: Yes, it is an important and very bewildering thing in this whole terminology that one always must make the distinction between the
sthƫla and
sƫkma aspects.
8 I do not speak of the
parÄ aspect because
that is what Professor Hauer calls the metaphysical. I must confess that there the mist begins for meâI do not risk myself there. The
sthƫla aspect is simply things as we see them. The
sƫkma aspect is what we guess about them, or the abstractions or philosophical conclusions we draw from observed facts. When we see people who make efforts to consolidate themselves, to be egos, and therefore resist and hate one another, we see the
sthƫla aspect, and we are only aware of the
kleĆa...