Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Carl Jung: On Man's Existence

"The decisive question for a man is this: Is he related to something Infinite or not?"
-- Carl G. Jung --

"I tried to find the best truth and the clearest light I could attain to. And, since I have reached my highest point and cannot transcend anymore, I am guarding my light and my treasure. It is most precious not only to me but, above all, to the darkness of the Creator who needs man to illuminate his creation. If God had foreseen his world it would be a mere senseless machine and man's existence a useless freak.  My intellect can envisage the latter possibility, but the whole of my being says "no" to it."

(Carl G. Jung, correspondence dated September 14, 1960)

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Says the mystic poet, Rumi:
"Consider the difference
in our actions and God's actions.

We often ask, "Why did you do that?"
or "Why did I act like that?"

We do act, and yet everything we do
is God's creative action.

We look back and analyze the events
of our lives, but there is another way
of seeing, a backward-and-forward-at-once
vision, that is not rationally understandable.

Only God can understand it.
"

[Coleman Barks, "The Essential Rumi," page 28.]

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