CG JUNG - Countryside Anarchist

LECTURE 4
cries. It becomes conscious of its own life, of its own ego, and has then
left mÖlvdhvra. Its own life now begins: its consciousness begins to separate
itself from the totality of the psyche, and the world of the primordial
images, the miraculous world of splendor, lies behind it forever.
Mrs. Crowley: Is there any connection between citta8 and Kundalini?
Dr. Jung: Citta is the conscious and unconscious psychic field, collective
mentality, the sphere in which the phenomenon of Kundalini takes
place. Citta is simply our organ of knowledge, the empirical ego into
whose sphere Kundalini breaks. 9 Kundalini in essence is quite different
from citta. Therefore her sudden appearance is the coming-up of an element
absolutely strange to citta. If she were not entirely different from
citta she could not be perceived.
But we ought not to speculate too much about these concepts, because
they belong to a field of thought which is specifically Eastern.
Therefore we have to be very sparing in our use of these concepts. In
general our psychological terms are quite adequate for our use. It is better
for us to make use of the tantric concepts only as technical terms,
when our own terminology falls short. Thus, for instance, we are obliged
to borrow the concepts mÖlvdhvra, orsthÖla and sÖküma aspects, from
tantric yoga, because our own language has no expressions for the corresponding
psychic facts. But a concept like citta we do not need. Also, the
concept of Kundalini has for us only one use, that is, to describe our own
experiences with the unconscious, the experiences that have to do with
the initiation of the suprapersonal processes. As we know from experience,
the serpent symbol then occurs very often.
8 Woodroffe stated: “Citta in its special sense is that faculty (Vùtti) by which the Mind first
recalls to memory (Smaraõa) that of which there has been previously Anubhava or pratyaüka
Jñvna—that is, immediate cognition.” In Arthur Avalon (pseud. Sir John Woodroffe),
The Serpent Power (London, 1919), 64. For Hauer, “Citta is absolutely everything that
is in our inner world. . . . Everything is under the power of citta and therefore citta is ‘soul’
is the sense of being the complete inner cosmos. . . . If I understand the psychology of
Dr. Jung deeply enough, I feel that his conception of soul has something of this conception
of citta” (HS, 33). Zimmer defined citta as “whatever is experienced or enacted through the
mind.” In Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India, edited by Joseph Campbell (London,
Bollingen Series XXVI, 1953), 321. Surendranath Dasgupta stated, “The states or vùttis of
citta are described as of five kinds: (1) right cognition, (2) illusory knowledge, (3) imagination,
(4) sleep, and (5) memory.” In Dasgupta, Yoga Philosophy in Relation to Other Systems of
Indian Thought (Calcutta, 1930), 273. Feuerstein stated, “The word citta is the perfect passive
participle of the verbal root �cit, meaning ‘to recognize, observe, perceive’ and also ‘to
be bright, to shine.’ It is applied wherever psychomental phenomena connected with conscious
activity are expressed.” The Philosophy of Classical Yoga (Manchester, 1980), 58. Fora
commentary on the difficulties of translating this term, see Feuerstein, The Philosophy of
Classical Yoga; and Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (London, 1992), 44–47.
9 In his commentary on Pantajali’s Yoga Sutra, Jung translated citta as consciousness. Modern
Psychology 3, 122.
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