Jung’s References to the Self.

 

Jung’s References to the Self

Jung refers to the self in ways that are very similar to Ramana's teaching of Self Enquiry. Jung says:

An Indian guru can explain everything and you can imitate everything. But do you know who is applying the yoga? In other words, do you know who you are and how you are constituted?

 And we must need to revise our somewhat old-fashioned prejudice that man is nothing but his consciousness. This naïve assumption must be confronted at once with the critical question: Whose consciousness?

A rare philosophic passion is needed to compel the attempt to get beyond intellect and break through to“knowledge of the knower.” Such a passion is practically indistinguishable from the driving force of religion; consequently, this whole problem belongs to the religious transformation process, which is incommensurable with intellect. [Beyond our concepts]

[Foreword to DT Suzuki’s Introduction to Zen Buddhism and in the same Foreword to DT Suzuki, Jung says, “Find him who seeks.”

Now these statements by Jung sound sound surprisingly like Ramana. Is it possible that Jung knew of Ramana? It is not only possible, it is certain. Jung was aware of Ramana and of Ramana’s teachings. He obtained this knowledge from Paul Brunton and from Heinrich Zimmer. Let us look at Brunton and Zimmer.

Jung and Paul Brunton (See chart of relationships)

Paul Brunton was an English writer on Yoga and related subjects. Brunton kept details of his own past as something of a mystery. We know that Brunton’s original name was Raphael Hurst. He was a bookseller and journalist. Brunton wrote under various pseudonyms, including Raphael Meriden and Raphael Delmonte. He changed his name when he visited India and decided to write on spiritual matters. At first, he chose the pen name Brunton Paul. He later changed this to Paul Brunton.

Brunton was the one who made Ramana well-known to the Western world. Brunton met Ramana in 1931 [6 years before his meeting with Jung], and in 1934, he published a bookabout his meeting with Ramana.

The book was called A Search in Secret India  Even Indian writers refer to Brunton’s works. For example, Yogananda visited Ramana in 1935 after reading Brunton’s books. He met Brunton at Ramana's ashram, and he praised Brunton's writing. There are several reference to Brunton’s book by Ramana. Ramana expressly says that Brunton's book is useful for Indians  I have already referred to Jung's meeting with Brunton in 1937. In 1937, Jung met Brunton, together with V. Subrahmanya Iyer, who represented India at the International Congress of Philosophy at the Sorbonne. Jung invited Iyer and Brunton to Küsnacht, where they discussed problems of Indian philosophy. It was at this meeting that Jung told Brunton that he was a mystic but that he could not acknowledge this because he hadto protect his scientific reputation.

Jung and Zimmer (See chart of relationships)

Jung was also made aware of Ramana through the Indologist Heinrich Zimmer. Jung met Zimmer in the 1930’s when Zimmer was Professor of Sanskrit at Heidelberg.

Zimmer attended some of the meetings at Eranos. Most importantly, Zimmer translated some of Ramana's writings into German, in a book entitled Der Weg zum Selbst [the Way to the Self]. The book was published in 1954, and Jung wrote an introduction to it. In 1946, the book came to the attention of Ramana Maharshi. Dr. B.K. Roy reviewed Zimmer's book and advised Ramana it was only a translation.

Jung's Introduction to Zimmer's book is included in Jung's Collected Works as "The Holy

Men of India." (CW volume 9). The introduction makes it clear that Jung had read the translated ideas of Ramana. Zimmer urged Jung to visit Ramana on his trip to India.

 Zimmer was greatly disappointed when Jung did not do so. Clarke speculates why Jung did not see Ramana: It may be that Jung, in order to maintain his stance of independence, felt it necessary to avoid a man who, by repute, may well have been able to penetrate his defences, for just as he had since his boyhood refused to bend his knee to the Christian way of faith, so with regard to Eastern spirituality his attitude remained one of guarded objectivity. He could not, as he expressed it, “accept from others what I could not attain on my own, or make any borrowings from the East, but must shape my life out of myself'.”

 Zimmer himself never traveled to India. Jung’s failure to meet Ramana greatly disappointed Zimmer. Jung says: Heinrich Zimmer had been interested for years in the Maharshi of Tiruvannamalai, and the first question he asked on my return from India [in 1939] concerned this latest holy and wise man from southern India.

In a letter to Gualthernus H. Mees, a Dutch sociologist whom Jung had met in India, and who was a disciple of Ramana, Jung comments on Zimmer's book: Concerning Zimmer's book I must say that I had no hand in its publication except that I took it in hand to be published by my Swiss publisher. Thus I was fully unaware of how the text came into existence or what its defects 17are. I had to leave the entire responsibility to my friend Zimmer who was a great admirer of Maharshi Jung’s introduction to Zimmer’s book is still referred to today. Parts of it have been reprinted as an introduction to Ramana’s teachings. The book The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi  includes excerpts of Jung's introduction.

But it leaves out many passages expressing criticism of Ramana. Jung's introduction to Zimmer's book is reproduced in the Collected Works as "Holy Men of India." In his introduction, Jung says that Ramana's thoughts are "certainly beautiful to read" ("Holy Men" para. 955). He compares Ramana's method to that ofWestern mysticism, where there is a shift from the ego to the self:The goal of Eastern religious practice is the same as that of Western mysticism: the shifting of the center of gravity from the ego to the self, from man to God. This means that the ego disappears in the self, and man in God. It is evident that Shri Ramana has either really been more or less absorbed by the self, or has at least struggled earnestly all his life to extinguish his ego in it.

Jung refers to Ramana's ideas about the self: The Maharshi also calls the atman the 'ego-ego'--significantly enough, for the self is indeed experienced as the subject of the subject, as the true source and controller of the ego, whose (mistaken) strivings are continually directed towards appropriating the very autonomy which is intimated to it by the self. This conflict is not unknown to the Westerner: for him it is the relationship of man to God ("Holy Men" para. 955-56).

Jung says that Ramana equates Self and God, and that although this may seem shocking to Europeans, in fact psychology cannot distinguish them:

The equation self=God is shocking to the Europeans. As Shri Ramana's statements and many others show, it is a specifically Eastern insight, towhich psychology has nothing further to say except that it is not within itscompetence to differentiate between the two.

 Psychology cans only establish that the empiricism of the 'self' exhibits a religious symptomatology, just as does that category of assertions associated with the term 'God'

now these quotations make it seem like Jung and Ramana's ideas about the self are very similar. But devotees of Ramana will be surprised to learn that these excerpts from the introduction by Jung do not tell the whole story. In fact, Jung was very critical of Ramana. Jung disagreed with what he saw as the message of Ramana. Jung says that Ramana is by no means unique: For the fact is, I doubt his [Ramana’s] uniqueness; he is of a type which always was and will be. Therefore it was not necessary to seek him out. Isaw him all over India, in the pictures of Ramakrishna, in Ramakrishna’s disciples, in Buddhist monks, in innumerable other figures of the daily Indian scene, and the words of his wisdom are the sous-entendu of India’s spiritual life. ("Holy Men" para. 952). andBut in India he is merely the whitest spot on a white surface (whose whiteness is mentioned only because there are so many surfaces that are just as black. ("Holy Men" para. 952).

Jung says that this longing for complete simplicity can be found in any Upanishad or any discourse of the Buddha. The goal of that kind of spirituality is the extinction and dissolution of the ego: "the ego struggles for its own abolition, drowning the world of multiplicity in the All and All-Oneness of Universal Being.” Ramana was just chiming in with this melody of extinction. And the consequence of this kind of spirituality is “the depreciation and abolition of the physical and psychic man (the living body and ahamkara) in favour of the pneumatic man.”

Jung disagrees with this a cosmic kind of spirituality. He says that without the ego or ahamkara, there is nothing to register what is happening. He is not interested in this kind of spirituality: The man who is only wise and only holy interests me about as much as the skeleton of a rare saurian” [lizard, dinosaur] ("Holy Men" para. 953).and Unadulterated wisdom and unadulterated holiness, I fear are seen to best advantage in literature, where their reputation remains undisputed.("HolyMen" para. 954).

Jung says that he ran into a disciple of Ramana in Trivandrum [actually it was a disciple of Ramakrishna]. Jung says this disciple was an unassuming little man, a primary schoolteacher, with innumerable children to feed. But he goes on to say, Be that as it may, in this modest, kindly, devout, and childlike spirit I encountered a man who had absorbed the wisdom of the Maharshi with utter devotion, and at the same time had surpassed his master because, notwithstanding his cleverness and holiness, he had “eaten” the world.("Holy Men" para. 953).

Jung refers to this disciple as "an example of how wisdom, holiness and humanity can dwell together in harmony, richly, pleasantly, sweetly, peacefully, and patiently, without limiting one another…"In his letter to Mees, Jung refers to this man, Raman Pillai, who was living so harmoniously in the world. Jung says,

I'm sorry that I was under the impression when we met in Trivandrum that you introduced your friend Raman Pillai [referred to in intro to Holy Men of India] as a remote pupil of Shri Ramana. This however doesn't matter very much, since the basic coincidence of most of the Indian teaching is so overwhelmingly great that it means little whether the author is called Ramakrishna or Vivekananda or Shri Aurobindo, etc. Jung seems to be saying "If you have seen one Indian holy man, you have seen them all."

That kind of arrogant generalization shows a distressing lack of knowledge on Jung's part, and reveals an impatience in him that is not at all in keeping with the psychological method of investigation, of circling around a theme without coming to any preconceived judgments about what it might mean.