CG JUNG - Countryside Anarchist

INDIAN PARALLELS
Mahayana teaches that all things are embryos of the Buddha; they are
embryos of the tathvgata, the complete. All things are formed out of the
same energy; vajra is immanent in everything. Thus also the fourth body
(subtle body) of the Buddha is a manifestation of the lightening power
in the form of bliss; it is vajrasattva or vnanda—bliss. (Nietzsche: “Since
all pleasure wants eternity, wants deep, deep eternity.” 3 ) In this state of
bliss and in the form of vajra the tathvgata embraces its åakti. This is the
eternal cohabitation of the god with its female form, its offspring, its emanation,
its matter. This belief occurs above all in Shivaism. 4 The worshiped
god is åiva, the many-armed. He is the hunter on the mountains,
the lightening, the hidden power of creation. He is purely contemplative.
His spouse is åakti, the emanation of power, the active creative
power. This idea corresponds to an old Upanishad concept of puruüa
and prakùiti. (åiva and åakti = puruüa; andprakùiti = li´ga and yoni.) åiva
is also conceived and portrayed in images of worship as çiva-bindu (bindu
= point), that is, as the latent point-shaped power of creation. Surrounding
çiva-bindu, around the center, rests the åakti in the shape of a wheel
or cakra. This is the primal form of the mandala. Such a cakra is also
called a padma-lotus. To this relate the mystical syllables Om mani padme
hum, which are best translated as something like: “Oh, by the gem in the
lotus.” They mean the highest perfection and the first beginning at the
same time. Contained therein is everything that can be said. For us such
speculations are the ultimate point at which one may arrive, whereas for
the Indian they are simply the starting point, or point of departure. He
begins with the internal, whereas we constantly live in the external. The
visible world is for him Mvyv, appearance, illusion, Mvyv-çakti, that is, the
product of åakti. 5 Consciousness is Mvyv, a veil which consists of the projection
of earlier experience (saôskvras). The tabula rasa of childlike
consciousness is predetermined through the experience of foresight—
through the collective unconscious, we would say. But the Indian says:
åakti has consciousness in itself. (Herein lies a key to the inconceivable.)
The first childhood dreams contain the saôskvras, the archetypes. It is
thus in no way surprising that we find obvious cakras or mandalas in chil-
3 Richard Hollingdale renders this sentence as “Joy wants the eternity of all things,
wants deep, deep, deep eternity!” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (London, 1985),
332.
4 [Note to the 1932 edition: In 1910 there were approximately three million followers,
particularly in South India.]
5 [Note to the 1932 edition: Excentric spirituality as well as raw sexuality are to the insightful
Mvyv, appearance. Buddha therefore begins one of his sermons by speaking of the
two ways that exist: that of worldliness and that of ascetism. But both are false: the middle
way is true, the eightfold way of right thinking and right action. But what is “right” in each
case he does not say, for that can emerge only from the respective situation.]
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