Carl Jung

The contradiction, the paradoxical evaluation of humanity by man himself is in truth a matter for wonder ...
in other words ...'man is an enigma'. (Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self)

What will the future bring? From time immemorial this question has occupied men's minds, though not always to the same degree. Historically, it is chiefly in times of physical, political, economic, and spiritual distress that men's eyes turn with anxious hope to the future, and when anticipations, utopias, and apocalyptic visions multiply. (Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self)

Introduction
How we behave as individuals in regard to our inner world is just as important and may even be more important than how we behave in regard to our outer world. Jung's psychological theory is based upon the primary assumption that the human mind has both a conscious or outer realm and an unconscious or inner realm. Because we tend to live and function in our conscious world, it is here that we try to resolve our individual and societal problems using the same behaviour patterns over and over until they no longer fit the situation. Because of this, Jung believes that the resolution to conscious problems lies in the unconscious realm and as long as humans deny the contents of the unconscious they are also denying a fundamental part of themselves and society.

Our conscious mind is limited to the sequential flow of words and their corresponding ideas which arise from our subconscious. Our self-conscious mind being formed from knowledge gathered over our lifetime. Thus if we are to have harmony between our conscious and sub-conscious minds and the external world we experience, we must unite these apparently separate things. To do to this at a fundamental level requires understanding what matter is and thus what we are (as humans) and how we are necessarily connected to all other matter in the universe.

P.S. I read Carl Jung's The Undiscovered Self several years ago and have subsequently lost my book with all my notes and relevant passages to quote. So for now, this page is a collection of Carl Jung quotes from other sources.

What makes humans behave the way they do? Are we aware of the underlying reasons for our behaviour.? Are some people naturally good and others naturally evil or do both aspects exist within each individual? These are the essential questions that C. G. Jung addresses in his work, 'The Undiscovered Self' and in addressing these individual aspects he sets the stage for a critical analysis of the factors that plague our human society. Although Jung published this book in 1957, it has the enduring qualities that make it applicable to the global state of affairs that exist now in the last decade of the twentieth century, as well as our past and our possible futures.

How we behave as individuals in regard to our inner world is just as important and may even be more important than how we behave in regard to our outer world. Jung's psychological theory is based upon the primary assumption that the human mind has both a conscious or outer realm and an unconscious or inner realm. Because we tend to live and function in our conscious world, it is here that we try to resolve our individual and societal problems using the same behaviour. patterns over and over until they no longer fit the situation. Because of this, Jung believes that the resolution to conscious problems lies in the unconscious realm and as long as humans deny the contents of the unconscious they are also denying a fundamental part of themselves and society.

That the gods of Buddhist iconography and their symbols and functions do not belong in the realm of metaphysics, but to that of psychology, has been correctly pointed out by C.G. Jung in his Commentary on the Secret of the Golden Flower. Carl Jung speaking of the great Eastern philosophers: 'I suspect them of being symbolical psychologists, to whom no greater wrong could be done than to take them literally. If it were really metaphysics that they mean, it would be useless to try to understand them. But if it is psychology, we can not only understand them, but we can greatly profit greatly by them, for then the so-called ‘metaphysical’ comes within the range of experience. If I accept the fact that a god is absolute and beyond all human experiences, he leaves me cold. I do not affect him, nor does he affect me. But if I know that a god is a powerful impulse in my soul, at once I must concern myself with him, for then he can become important… like everything belonging to the sphere of reality.' (Jung, Psyche and Symbol, 1958)