The Red Book – C. G. Jung
The spirit of this time would like to hear of use and value. I also thought this way, and my humanity still thinks this way. But the other spirit forces me nevertheless to speak, beyond justification, use and meaning…. The spirit of the depths from time immemorial and for all the future possesses a greater power than the spirit of this time, who changes with the generations. The spirit of depths let devotion to the ideals of this time die out in me. He forced me down to the last and simplest things.
My speech is imperfect. Not because I want to shine with words, but out of the impossibility of finding those words.
One should not turn people into sheep, but sheep into people. The spirit of the depth demands this, who is beyond present and past. Speak and write for those who want to listen and read. But do not run after men, so that you do not soil the dignity of humanity – it is a rare good. A sad demise to dignity is better than an undignified healing. Whoever wants to be a doctor of the soul sees people as being sick. He offends human dignity. It is presumptuous to say that man is sick. Whoever wants to be the soul’s shepherd treats people like sheep. He violates human dignity. It is insolent to say that people are like sheep. Who gives you the right to say that man is sick and a sheep? Give him human dignity so he may find his ascendancy or downfall, his way.
I did not consider that my soul cannot be the object of my judgement and knowledge, much more are my judgement and knowledge the objects of my soul.
And you, my soul, I found again, first in images within men and then you yourself.
I belonged to men and things. I did not belong to myself…. Look, I bear a wound that is as yet not healed: my ambition to make an impression.
Where I sowed, you robbed me of the harvest, and where I did not sow, you give me fruit of a hundredfold.
I shall learn that my soul finally lies behind everything, and if I cross the world, I am ultimately doing this to find my soul.
I thought you (my soul) were lost. I went on the way of the day. You went invisibly with me and guided me step by step, putting the pieces together meaningfully.
I must return to myself, to my smallest things. I saw the things of my soul as small, pitiably small. You force me to see them as large, to make them large.
Nothing will deliver you from disorder and meaninglessness, since this is the other half of the world. Disorder and meaninglessness are the mother of order and meaning. Order and meaning are things that have become and are no longer becoming.
You are full, yes, you teem with intentions and desirousness! – do you still not know that the way to truth stands open only to those without intentions? We tie ourselves up with intentions, not mindful of the fact that intention is the limitation, yes, the exclusion of life. We believe that we can illuminate the darkness with an intention, and in that way aim past the light. How can we presume to want to know in advance, from there the light will come to us?
Incapacity will overcome us and demand its share of life. Our ability will desert us, and we will believe, in the sense of the spirit of this time, that it is a loss. Yet it is no loss but a gain, not for outer trappings, however, but for inner capability.
The one who learns to live with his incapacity has learned a great deal. This will lead us to the valuation of the smallest things, and to wise limitation, which the greater height demands.
Take seriously every unknown wanderer who personally inhabits the inner world, since they are real because they are effectual.
My spirit reflected on everything rare and uncommon, it pried its way into unfound possibilities, toward paths that lead into the hidden, toward lights that shine in the night. And as my spirit did this, everything ordinary in me suffered harm without my noticing it, and it began to hanker after life, since I did not live it.
If you look outside yourselves, you see the far-off forest and mountains, and above them your vision climbs to the realms of the stars. And if you look into yourselves, you will see the other hand the nearby as far-off and infinite, since the world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer. Just as you become part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul. Men lives in two worlds, a fool lives here or there, but never here and there.
I went into the inner death and saw that outer dying is better than inner death. And I decided to die outside and to live within. For that reason, I turned away and sought the place of the inner life.
Silence and peace come over you if you begin to comprehend the darkness. Only he who does not comprehend the darkness fears the night. Through comprehending the dark, the nocturnal, the abyssal in you, you become utterly simple.
He wanted to find what he needed in the outer. But you find manifold meaning only in yourself, not in things, since the manifoldness of meaning is not something that is given at the same time, but is a succession of meanings. The meaning that follows one another do not lie in things, but lie in you, who are subject to many changes, insofar as you take part in life. Things also change, but you do not notice this if you do not change. But if you change, the countenance of the world alters. The manifold sense of things is your manifold sense. It is useless to fathom it in things.
Did you ever think of the evil in you? Did you know what evil is? That stands precisely right behind your virtues. That it is also your virtues themselves, as their inevitable substance?
Joy at the smallest things come to you only when you have accepted death. But if you look out greedily for all that you could still live, then nothing is great enough for your pleasure, and the smallest things that continue to surround you are no longer a joy. Therefore I behold death, since it teaches me how to live.
I did not live, but was driven; I was a slave to my ideals.
