COMMENTS ON C.G.JUNG 1

For anyone interested in recapturing the essence of Tantric/Agamic Psychology from the ancient Indian/Chinese and Sufi Islamic traditions and give it a modern garb, the study of the Analytical Psychology especially that of Jung, would be a great help. It is the study of Jung that helped me considerably the Tantric Psychology of the Tamil Siddhas and my independent studies of the Human Mind through Access Tests only reconfirmed these ancient findings.  But a comparative study also disclosed vital difference and because of which I dared to call the psychology I am developing Agamic Psychology and for a good reason. The Tamil 'aakamam' means that which emerges and forms  itself into a coherent theme with the message or meaning that can be understood only through interpretations, the dreams being a good example of this.  Such AGAMAS are a piramANam,  RELIABLE texts for understanding truths. The Freudian and Jungian psychology or in fact any human science for that matter,  can succeed only as Hermeneutic Sciences and it is unfortunate that these Western analytical psychologist, I think,  did not grasp the methodological issues that clearly. Thus there exists some confusion and I want to attend to some of these  in this series. In the book of C.G.Jung "Psychology and Western Religion" the fourth and final part  is devoted to Jung's view on Religion. I shall take parts of it and append them with comments of my own  from the understanding I have gained through the study of Saiva classical texts and empirical studies  of the Unconscious using Access Tests. For bibliographical details, please see the original.

Question:  You say religion is psychically healthy and often for the latter part of life essential, but is it not psychically healthy only if the religious person believes that his religion is true?
 Do you think that in your natural wish to keep to the realm of psychology you have tended to underestimate man's search for truth and the ways in which he might reach this as, for example, by inference?

Jung:  Nobody is more convinced of the importance of the search for truth than I am. But when I say: something transcendental is true, my critique begins. If I call something true, it does not mean that it is absolutely true. It merely seems to be true to myself and/or to other people. If I were not doubtful in this respect it would mean that I implicitly assume that I am able to state an absolute truth. This is an obvious hybris.   When Mr. Erich Fromm criticizes me for having a wrong idea and quotes Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism he demonstrates how illogical his standpoint is, as are the views of those religions themselves, i.e. their truths contradict each other………………. Their truth is relative and not absolute-------- if you put them on the same level, as Mr Fromm does……. To make absolute statements is beyond man's reach, although it is ethically indispensable that he give all the credit to his subjective truth, which means that he admits being bound by his conviction to apply it as a principle of his actions. Any human judgements, no matter how great its subjective conviction, is liable to error, particularly judgements concerning transcendental subjects……..  Facts are facts and contain no falsity. It is our judgement that introduces the element of deception………….

Loga:   What Jung is trying to grapple with is the same problem that Meykandar deals width in his Magnificent CivanjanabOtham that I have translated into English as Metaphysica Universalis. There are the notions of asaththaRivu which contrasts with saththaRivu and another CivasaththaRivu that transcends the pervious too.  It is the Civasathu that is not only transcendental but also Absolutistic and is said to be the Civanjaanam that is understood because it shines forth  on its own when the obscurants in the psychic interiority is gradually wiped out and the psyche is made totally CLEAN and TRANSLUCENT.
The asaththu is the HISTORICAL, that which comes always with TEMPORALITY i.e. times consciousness and because of which it is also called cuddaRivu  or cudduNarvu by MeykaNdar. It is not the false and the constructive but that which is understood as TRUE and lived with as such till it is displaced with another and because of which it is realized now   not as untruth but rather that which is NOT THE ABSOLUTE.  Such forms of understanding is called Asaththu and that which stands in contrast to it the Saththu. The Saththu and Asaththu are dichotomies, one unthinkable without the other. The understandings that serves the foundations of all religions and which are verbalized in the sacred literature is Asaththu precisely in this sense and which Jung takes it as "subjective", something true only for the individual but not true objectively.  Asaththu may be objectively true  in the sense that it is a metaphysical apprehension that is NOT  simply mental constructions expressive of the DESIRES of an individual. They are objectively true but only that because they emerge within temporality of TIME CONSCIOUSNESS stands to be DISPLACED and TRANCENDED. We can illustrate this with an example. The visions that we have as we climb up a mountain changes with each step we climb. If we remain fixated at a particular step, the visions remain static and undissolving .  At that state of Being we can never know that those visions are displaceable. However the moment we move ahead and climb up to the next step. Lo! The whole vision changes and we also realize that what was enjoyed before this is displaceable only to have a better vision perhaps more comprehensive and what not . The understanding that appeared solid and permanent now all of a sudden appears flid and changing. Such forms of understanding is Asaththu according to Meykandar and Jung is struggling to say in saying the understanding of the historical religions are only relatively true.

Now the SaththaRivu is like the vision that one gets on reaching the peak. While climbing and while aware of the changing nature of the visions, the POSSIBILITY of the peak vision as that which TERMINAL and BEYOND which there is NO MORE CHANGE  is already there. In accessing any form religious understanding as asaththu, there is ALREADY there buried in it that there is also the SATHTH, the peak vision. All religions contains within themselves the Saththu but which is realized only when the currently flourishing and which gives the cultic identity is actually Asaththu, not false but NOT the TERMINAL, something the cultic religious individuals refuse to acknowledge and because of which emerges religious intolerance.

Now Jung also draws a distinction between facts and judgements , notions which are not sufficiently clear. And here again we fall back on Meykandar. There is SEEING only because there is SHOWING. Man can understand only because his understanding is LIGHTED UP or illuminated. As Meykandar says : kaaddu odungka (aanmaak) kaaNaathu: the psyche cannot see anything at all when the showing is withdrawn.  That's the source of the LIMITEDNESS of man; no man can acquire any form of understanding unless  there is a showing , a disclosure. Such disclosures are Agamam, that which emerge as if on their own and of which dreams are good examples. They are disclosures BEYOND the mental fabrications of the individual who dreams. But so are even the wakeful, all are products of such agamams. Because of this all are TEXTS with a duality of structure-- the Surface structure and Deep Structure. The surface structure, like the descriptive account of dreams are simply facts either to accepted or rejected but not judged as true of false. This is the FACTS of JUNG , they exists and are true in that sense but NOT judgements that either valid or invalid. However when we move from the Surface Structure to Deep Structure that lies beneath as the Agentive Cause then we enter into JUDGEMET and what is uttered at this pint, the meta-textual statements can be valid or invalid. The movement of understanding that  moves from the Surface Structure to the Deep Structure is what is called "judgement" by Jung where else I have called it "ontopretation" elsewhere, as a variant of "interpretation".

With this clarification we must point out something Jung fails to grasp but which Meykandar makes the foundational idea of his treatise:  The Absolute Understanding, the limiting point of all  such metaphysical inquires , cannot be LINGUISTICALIZED for all linguistic utterances presuppose  Time consciousness and the terminal absolute understanding is trans-temporal, it is that which shines forth only when TIME consciousness as such is transcended.  But that does not mean that it is incommunicable.  The language of absolute understanding is the body language of DEEP SILENCE the silence that the Siddharta Gautama Buddha showed when questions about God and soul were raised but which took the Saivites from the days of Thirumular to unravel the real meaning.

Communication is not limited to the linguistic. Over and above the linguistic and paralinguistic there is also the language of Mudras, symbolic gestures and among which the cinmudrai is said to communicate the Absolute Understanding.  The verbal gradually subsides and gives way to the nonverbal language of mudras .

DrK.Loganathan, 23-7-99



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