Saturday, February 25, 2012

Carl Jung quotes on Holistic Health

“The excessive importance attached to objects give rise in science to a certain kind of theory favoured by specialists, which for instance cropped up in psychiatry in the form of “brain mythology”…In all such theories an attempt is made to elucidate a very wide range of experience in terms of principles which, though applicable over a small area, are wholly inappropriate for other fields.”

Carl Jung pg 306 Personality Types

 “If the attainment of the middle path consisted in a mere surrender to instinct, as the bewailers of "naturalism" suppose, the profoundest philosophical speculation that the human mind has ever known would have no raison d'etre [rationale]. But, as we study the philosophy of the Upanishads, the impression grows on us that the attainment of this path is not exactly the simplest of tasks. Our Western superciliousness [arrogance] in the face of these Indian insights is a mark of our barbarian nature, which has not the remotest inkling of their extraordinary depth and astonishing psychological accuracy.

“We are still so uneducated that we actually need laws from without, and a task-master or Father above, to show us what is good and the right thing to do. And because we are still such barbarians, any trust in the laws of human nature seems to us a dangerous and unethical naturalism. Why is this? Because under the barbarian's thin veneer of culture the wild beast lurks in readiness, amply justifying his fear. But the beast is not tamed by locking it up in a cage. There is no morality without freedom. When the barbarian lets the beast within him, that is not freedom but bondage. Barbarism must first be vanquished before freedom can be won.
In order to help him out of this conflict, another attitude than the aesthetic is needed. This is shown no-where more clearly than in the parallel with Oriental ideas. The religious philosophy of India grasped this problem in all its profundity and showed the kind of remedy needed to solve the conflict. What is needed is a supreme moral effort, the greatest self-denial and sacrifice, the most intense religious austerity and true saintliness.

No comments:

Post a Comment