CG JUNG - Countryside Anarchist

2 NOVEMBER 1932
we have then no consciousness there and can say nothing about it. I
began by saying that by means of culture we create suprapersonal values
and that by this means we can get an inkling of other psychological possibilities
and can reach another state of mind. In the creation of suprapersonal
values we begin with the sÖküma aspect. We see things from the
sÖküma aspect when we create symbols. We can also see our psyche under
the sÖküma aspect, and this is just what the symbols of the cakras are. Nor
can I describe this standpoint to you in any way except by means of a
symbol. It is as if we viewed our psychology and the psychology of mankind
from the standpoint of a fourth dimension, unlimited by space or
time. The cakra system is created from this standpoint. It is a standpoint
that transcends time and the individual.
The spiritual point of view of India in general is a standpoint of this
sort. Hindus do not begin as we do to explain the world by taking the
hydrogen atom as the starting point, nor do they describe the evolution
of mankind or of the individual from lower to higher, from deep unconsciousness
to the highest consciousness. They do not see humanity under
the sthÖla aspect. They speak only of the sÖküma aspect and therefore say:
“In the beginning was the one brahman without a second. It is the one
indubitable reality, being and not-being.” 4 They begin in sahasrvra; they
speak the language of the gods and think of man from above down, taking
him from the sÖküma or parv aspect. Inner experience is to them revelation;
they would never say about this experience “I thought it.”
Naturally we see the East quite differently. In comparison with our
conscious anvhata culture, we can truthfully say that the collective culture
of India is in mÖlvdhvra. For proof of this we need only think of the
actual conditions of life in India, its poverty, its dirt, its lack of hygiene,
its ignorance of scientific and technical achievements. Looked at from
the sthÖla aspect the collective culture of India really is in mÖlvdhvra,
whereas ours has reached anvhata. But the Indian concept of life understands
humanity under the sÖküma aspect, and looked at from that standpoint
everything becomes completely reversed. Our personal consciousness
can indeed be located in anvhata or even in vjñv, but nonetheless
our psychic situation as a whole is undoubtedly in mÖlvdhvra.
Suppose we begin to explain the world in terms of sahasrvra and
started off a lecture, for instance, with the words of the Vedanta: “This
world in the beginning was brahman solely; since brahman was alone it
was not unfolded. It knew itself only, and it realized: I am brahman. In
this way it became the universe.” We would rightly be taken for mad, or
4 Jung provided an extended commentary on brahman in Psychological Types, inCW, vol.
6,§§326–47.
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