The Meaning of Happiness

4. THE RETURN OF THE GODS

Those powers of the human soul which the ancients called gods and demons are not deprived of their magic by changing their names. For they retain the same godlike and demonic characteristics, even though in fact they may not wear halos and wings or horns and spiked tails. In calling them gods and demons the ancients may have been fanciful, but at least they were aware of an important fact which we too often overlook, namely, that those powers have a life of their own which is altogether independent of our conscious desire and will. This is what we are so apt to forget when trying to deal with our moods—when, for instance, a powerful depression lays hold on us or when we are seized with a sudden, violent hatred. Such phenomena are not peculiar to individuals; whole nations or continents may be possessed in the same way, and a people may be led into war or other forms of political madness despite the strongest protests of conscious reason. Nowadays we say that such people have lost their self-control; the ancients would have said that they were possessed by devils, and between those two diagnoses there is all the difference in the world. For the former implies no more than a mere failure of conscious will, whereas the latter recognizes that many more factors than conscious will have to be taken into account in the ordering of human life.

The Language of the Unconscious

But, as we have already seen, there is a tendency among us to recognize our gods and demons again, a tendency represented by the growing popularity of the psychology of the unconscious. This new science has not only revealed the unconscious origin of such familiar states of mind as moods and phobias; it has also revealed gods and demons almost totally lost to consciousness, as for instance the Freudian Oedipus Complex and even more remote powers described by Jung as the anima, the animus, the Shadow, the Terrible Mother, the Wise Old Man, and the Mana-Personality.¹ Their very names call to mind the myths and legends of the ancient world. These “unconscious contents” are various aspects of what we have described as man’s unknown, inner universe, and the aim of psychological science is to bring them to consciousness in order that we may define a conscious relationship to them instead of being their unwitting instruments. This science originally came into being to assist in the cure of psychotic and neurotic conditions, but subsequently many of its followers have seen in it the possibilities of greater development of personality for so-called “normal” people as well. In cases of lunacy and psychosis we see the conscious ego completely overwhelmed by forces that enter but slightly or not at all into normal consciousness. At any moment a sudden shock may sweep the ego off its feet and leave any one of us a prey to mental mechanisms which in the ordinary way the ego keeps in their place. For it seems as if the ego were the organizing faculty whose function is to “make sense” out of a collection of chaotic powers. But when it is unaware of those powers it is liable at any time to surreptitious invasion or even to “open aggression,” and at the same time there is always the dim awareness of conflict between ourselves and our demons. This awareness becomes more acute when we are in the throes of a mood, but for the sake of comfort we usually do our best to banish the sense of conflict and to forget that our souls contain subversive elements which must constantly be kept in order.

But all attempts to ignore the internal conflict lead us into trouble. This may be clarified by a simple illustration, typical of many cases that come to the psychologist’s attention. A man finds himself unaccountably unhappy in his marriage and goes to a psychologist for advice. The psychologist asks him many questions about the situation, and discovers that the man is upset because there is a mysterious “something” which his wife fails to give him. Stimulated by discussing the problem with another person, he dreams the following night that he comes home from his office to find that his wife is out. He thinks he will take a bath while waiting for her to come back for dinner, but on going to the bathroom he finds the tub already filled with dirty, soapy water. He is just about to pull out the stopper when an octopus emerges and wraps its tentacles around his wrist. He wakes in terror. Questioned by the psychologist he remarks that his wife is often in the habit of taking a bath at the time he returns from work. Instead of her he finds the octopus, but does that mean that his marriage is unhappy because his wife is a vampire, is just out for his money, and will discard him when she has sucked him dry? On the contrary, the symbols of the unconscious which we meet in dreams refer to one’s own attitude to the situation, and in any case the man does not feel this to be at all true of his wife. The psychologist then asks him about his attitude to his mother, and discovers that he was very much attached to her and moreover that she was in the habit of protecting him as much as possible from responsibility—a protection which he secretly enjoyed. In fact, with his own connivance, his mother did not allow him to live his own life. Thereupon the psychologist suggests that the octopus represents his mother who virtually sucked away his manly virility, his capacity to face the world on his own feet. But why does he find the octopus where he would ordinarily find his wife? Perhaps this gives a clue to the mysterious “something” which he finds lacking in her, which he desires so much and the absence of which is making his marriage unhappy. Indeed it does, for the trouble is that his wife will not mother him and relieve him of responsibilities. He married her under the unconscious delusion that she would take the place of his mother, and the dream shows him his desire to return to maternal protection in the form of an octopus.

Now the octopus, the spider, and the crab are familiar symbols for the “Terrible Mother,” which is the name given to an irrational desire to regress to an infantile condition, to return to the protected irresponsibility of the infant or to the comfortable, sleepy darkness of the womb. The desire appears under these terrible symbols because, from the conscious standpoint, it is a demon which denies the power of the ego and the rational ideal of progress to greater and greater heights of independence and self-direction. Thus there is always a conflict between the ego and this regressive desire, this principle of inertia and backsliding which the Hindus called tamas. If that conflict is repressed and left unrecognized, the desire tricks the ego into situations where the conflict will be continued and intensified in various disguises. Thus, in the above case, the conflict between husband and wife was the continuation of an unresolved conflict between the husband and his desire to slip back to infantile irresponsibility, to the protection of the mother.

Neurosis and Genius

That very desire may often lie behind religious feeling when people seek a substitute for the mother in God or in the Mother Church, but it would be absurd to suggest that such desires are the raison d’être of religion. The suggestion is rather that genuine religion is difficult to achieve until these conflicts have been recognized, for religion becomes too easily an escape from the awareness of the war in the soul. This is why it is most important for us to be careful when our culture is being invaded by new and captivating religious forms from the Orient. If we are to make proper use of those forms it is essential that we use them for their correct purpose—to resolve the conflict, not to hide it—and this is more important than ever in an age which is particularly blind to its gods and demons.

But now as to practical ways and means, how is this recognition of the inner conflict to be achieved, and how is it to be resolved? Should we turn from priest and philosopher to doctor and psychologist, should we watch our dreams and fantasies, learn the meaning of their symbols, and become intimately acquainted with the unconscious universe? In the present state of psychological practice I would hesitate very much to advise any great reliance upon its technique except in cases of a specific psychological difficulty or an insupportable neurosis. In dealing with such matters it is of the greatest use, but beyond this its technique is at present somewhat inadequate and unless supported by other factors, such as religion, might well do more harm than good. In any case, no competent psychologist will allow his patient to “indulge” in analysis as a substitute for actual life.

From one point of view it is true that almost everyone suffers from some form of neurosis, however mild, but the cure of neurosis by itself is not generally desirable unless one of two other conditions is involved: first, that the neurosis is unbearable, and second, that the psychology can supply a source of creative energy to take the place of the neurosis. In fact, we have neurosis to thank for some of the greatest human genius, for the very motive of escape from conflict has provided a driving force for artistic and scientific accomplishments very worthwhile in themselves, and possession by unconscious forces is the secret of many a creative genius. It may indeed be possible to attribute the masterpieces of Leonardo da Vinci² to unresolved problems of infantile sexuality, and maybe the sonnets of Shakespeare were the work of a homosexual. It is also possible that if they had been psychoanalyzed their names would never have been remembered, and some of us would prefer all manner of secret vices to cultural and spiritual impotence. Almost everyone can number among his friends people who have achieved greatness out of an “inferiority complex” or repressed sexuality; such greatness is not invariably beneficial, but who would see the world deprived of its great saints and its great sinners just for the sake of “normality”? It is true, of course, that in later years many of the world’s geniuses have been overtaken and ruined by the conflict they struggled so hard to escape; yet it should be remembered that we pay for the beauty of the rose with the rottenness of the manure. It is the old story of the pairs of opposites.

Jung’s Analytical Psychology

But, on the other hand, there have lived men of genius who in some way resolved this opposition, whose creative power had no roots in neurosis. Can the psychology of the unconscious reveal their secret? Does it offer any source of energy to take the place of the neurosis it cures? So far the most serious attempt to tackle this problem is the work of Jung. Others, partly allied to his school and partly independent, have contributed—notably Heyer and Prinzhorn in Germany, Assagioli in Italy, Hadfield, Graham Howe, and the Pastoral Psychologists in England, and Beatrice Hinkle in America.³ The system of Jung in particular deserves careful attention because it provides an important link with the psychology of the Orient. Generally speaking, we may say that his system of analytical psychology falls into two departments which, to some extent, overlap. One is the cure of neurosis and the other the re-creation of the individual. In many cases the one follows the other, so that a Jungian analysis is more than often not just the solution of a particular problem but a radical “overhauling” and remaking of the personality, and I have known cases where the analysis has been carried on for from ten to twenty years. This is not surprising, for radical changes in the spiritual life are not achieved in from ten to twenty months; often it is the work of a lifetime.

There is no hard-and-fast technique for the re-creation of the individual on Jungian lines, but the process usually follows certain general principles.⁴ By various means, including attention to dreams and fantasies and discussion with the analyst, the symbols of the unconscious are brought to light and the individual endeavors to discover their meaning for himself and define his attitude to them. These symbols are the forms or “archetypes” under which the gods and demons appear, and as the individual comes to terms with them he brings about certain psychological changes in himself. There appears to be almost a hierarchy of these archetypes, for when one is consciously assimilated another appears, and the situations resulting from this assimilation are represented in key dreams. These key dreams differ from ordinary dreams in their obviously symbolic character, for the figures which appear bear the closest resemblance to archaic religious and mythological forms. Frequently the dreamer witnesses forms and symbols of which he has never had any conscious knowledge, and it is not uncommon for a series of key dreams to bear close resemblance to the stages of ancient initiation rites.

But the process does not consist simply in watching over one’s dreams; it is fundamentally a question of the conscious assimilation and acceptance of hitherto unconscious processes, in spite of their seeming irrationality and independence of the ego. When this has been carried out successfully for some time, a fundamental change is said to take place in the psyche. This Jung describes as a shifting of the center of personality from the ego to the self, a term which, in his system, has the special meaning of the center of the whole psyche as distinct from the center of consciousness, which is the ego. He explains the self as a “virtual point” between the conscious and the unconscious which gives equal recognition to the demands of both. Dreams representing this situation usually appear in the form of the mandala, the magic circle, the golden flower, the rose at the center of the cross and similar figures representing wholeness, balance, and attainment of a spiritual center.⁵

An interesting feature of these mandala is that the divisions of the circle or the petals of the flower are usually four or multiples of four. This is explained as a sign of the complete development of the individual in all his four faculties or functions—intuition, sensation, intellect, and feeling. Jung maintains that generally speaking only one, two, or three of these faculties are active; the dormant faculties are “contaminated” by the unconscious, which is to say identified with an archetypal form. (Of course, those who pay no attention to their dreams see no archetypal forms with which their dormant faculties can be identified. For them we may say that the faculty is just undeveloped and so unconscious.) Thus in dreams the inferior faculty is often personified by the anima figure in men, which is to say the female image (usually a goddess) in whose form the unconscious is liable to appear and make its pronouncements. In women its place is taken by the animus—a male figure.

Naturally the unconscious is an unfamiliar realm and for most people the descriptive language of Jungian psychology is so much mysterious jargon. We read a lot about animus, anima, inferior functions, archetypes, mandala, key dreams, and so forth, and begin to wonder whether someone is not a little crazy. Of course, to understand these various “denizens of the deep” we have to have personal experience of them, and this is most effectively had in dreams and in the conscious assimilation of dream symbols. For in dreaming the conscious is a little sleepy and incompetent; it is not interfering so efficiently with other mental processes, and, as everyone knows, between sunset and dawn is the ghosts’ playtime. But does this mean that before ordinary men and women can achieve any genuine spiritual development they must take careful notes of all their dreams, learn the meaning of their symbols, and even go to an analyst for assistance? I know someone who has been instructed by her analyst to set her alarm clock to ring every hour during the night so that she can wake up and write her dreams in a notebook. Yet it is very easy to be unfair in this matter for the whole technique lends itself to caricature in the hands both of analysts and of hostile satirists. The only important question is not whether the process is a nuisance but whether it works. Does it make possible the re-creation of the individual?

The Meaning of Individuation

First of all, we must ask what, in plain language as distinct from jargon, it proposes to do. It proposes to adapt the individual to his inner universe, to the unconscious natural urges within himself in such a way that his entire being is made into a total, related organism with a conscious center of gravity and balance. It presupposes that the unconscious, being nature in man, is the source of vitality, and assumes that its creative power can be most effectively handled when the ego provides it with an unobstructed but nevertheless directed channel. Whereas the neurotic genius finds his energy in escape and the natural genius in “possession” by unconscious forces (“which is to madness close allied”), the integrated genius would supposedly be able to draw upon the unconscious life-sources quite freely and consciously. I do not know how this can be expressed more concretely, and I believe this language must remain an utter mystery to those who have no feeling whatever of an unconscious life within themselves. When your life is centered wholly in consciousness it is naturally impossible to understand the meaning of another kind of center. If you were aware only of your head, it would be impossible to have any feeling for your solar plexus.

But there is, perhaps, one other way in which it may be related to ordinary, everyday experience. Many people feel at times that they have more than one soul; this is particularly true of children and primitives. Lafcadio Hearn describes a conversation on this subject with a Japanese peasant who tells him that a man may have as many as nine souls, the number varying in accordance with his spiritual perfection. The more souls the better, but it is important that however many souls you may be given you should keep them together. “Sometimes,” he says, “they may be separated. But if the souls of a man be separated, that man becomes mad. Mad people are those who have lost one of their souls.”⁶ This feeling of a multiplicity of souls seems to be a rudimentary awareness of the unconscious and more especially of the independent character of its forces. Children feel changes in their personality from day to day; in many cases one finds, for instance, the most remarkable changes in their handwriting, and it is marvelous to see how sincerely they can play at being other people and things. But as adults we are apt to forget our many souls, and in passing from adolescence to adulthood become more settled and centered in our mental behavior. I think the re-creation of the personality might fairly be described as becoming conscious again of our plurality, of our many souls, and having them all contribute to our being instead of one at a time. “Genius,” said Novalis, “is perhaps nothing more than the result of inward Plurality.” One is reminded, too, of the words of Shakespeare’s Richard II:

My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father: and these two beget

A generation of still-breeding thoughts,

And these same thoughts people this little world,

In humors like the people of this world,

For no thought is contented. The better sort,—

As thoughts of things divine,—are intermixed

With scruples, and do set the word itself

Against the word.

The Danger of Bewitchment

But now we are left with the question: Does this method of analytical psychology work? Have the symbols of spiritual attainment which may be experienced in dreams any relation to actual fact, to the individual’s deepest responses to life—in short, to his happiness? Actually this is not quite a fair question, because it is never just to judge a system by all the people who follow it. I have no doubt at all that it works, with the right people. The Chinese have a saying that “when the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.”⁷ Jung himself is the first to admit the truth of this saying, for, in his own words, “when it comes to things like these, everything depends on the man and little or nothing on the method.” But the system of analytical psychology does not always seem to attract the right people, and this is often true of those who go into it with a view to becoming analysts.

Fortunately, however, there are those in Jung’s school who are keenly aware of this danger, and it is well that they should watch it, not only for their own sake, but also because similar difficulties lie in the path of every other venture into the unconscious mind, and for that matter in the path of every human being who seeks adaptation to his inner universe. Jung has gone far more deeply into the nature of the unconscious than did Freud,⁸ and his system is bound up with aspects of the human soul which have a peculiar magic. Indeed, he goes so deeply that to follow him, not in ideas alone but in experience, is an extremely serious undertaking which involves the gravest risks for those whose feet are not planted on solid earth. And here “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” The deeper images and forces of the unconscious have a fascination, an irresistible glamour which casts a spell on those who are not, as we say, “plain tough.” I believe Jung himself to be very conscious of this danger, and were he a less competent man his work might have the most unfortunate results. For he is open to the same dangers of personal adulation and misuse of his discoveries that threaten the work of all great leaders in spiritual adventure. These dangers are somewhat intensified by the nature of analytical work, but nothing worthwhile was ever achieved without risk. As long as he and his immediate colleagues continue to insist, as they do, that analysis is no substitute for actual living, and that it certainly must not be indulged in for the sake of its powerful glamour, they will be doing all in their power to rid the system of its abuses. Every system, whether of psychology or religion, has its abusers, but analytical psychology contains particularly strong dynamite which it will always do well to guard.

There are those who go a long way in the re-creative work of analytical psychology and yet have all spoiled by their inability to shake off the spell of the unconscious and its mystical figures. When this happens the process defeats its own purpose. It is intended to make the individual a free, genuine person in his own right; but under the spell he becomes utterly dependent on the system as such, goes in for the study of psychology in a big way, and generally wallows around in its captivating atmosphere. Certainly it provides glamour and mystery which seem rather lacking in the stark realities of ordinary life, but when the system becomes an end instead of a means it is a millstone about one’s neck instead of a liberator. At this point the analyst has to bring his patient back to earth with a bump. This fascination is a danger constantly besetting the professional teacher or practitioner of religion or psychology. The study of the unconscious for its own sake is only safe for those who can forget the subject completely without feeling that they are suffering any loss. A Chinese allegory of the spiritual life known as the Ten Oxherding Pictures represents the use of religion in the form of catching and herding an ox.⁹ But when the herdsman has caught it and ridden home on its back, he does not take it into his house with him; he puts it away and forgets it. The commentary to the picture reads: “When you know that what you need is not the snare or setnet but the hare or fish, it is like gold separated from the dross, it is like the moon rising out of the clouds.” The system, which carries you on its back for a while, is the ox, but if you can’t get rid of it you would have done better never to have gone after it, unless, of course, you are compelled to accept this thralldom as the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately the mysteries of analytical psychology so captivate certain types of people that they mistake such bewitchment for the feeling of a vocation to be a psychologist.

As now practiced, psychology is no more a way of life than medicine and surgery. Physicians and surgeons have to know the structure of the body down to the last detail, but it is not necessary to have that knowledge to lead a healthy physical life. In the same way, the practicing psychologist has to know the psyche just as thoroughly; it does not follow that the same intimate knowledge is necessary for mental health. No sensible doctor who is not a shark advises the removal of a patient’s appendix, tonsils, adenoids, teeth, ovaries, and anything else that may occur to him just in case they might give trouble. Only a faddist goes to his doctor every day to discuss his insides and make sure that he is living in accordance with the rules of health. Nevertheless, both the doctor and the psychologist are in a position to make certain observations about healthy living, to lay down certain principles which do not involve constant preoccupation with the more intimate details of the internal organs. Therefore it seems most unwise to make any deliberate attempt to bring the deeper contents of the unconscious to light, unless for strictly scientific and professional reasons—which are not the same as spiritual reasons. For one’s degree of spirituality does not depend on how much of your unconscious you have assimilated; it depends on how ready you are to accept and assimilate it when it comes in its own time. Which is another way of repeating that knowledge and experience are not to be confused with wisdom.

The Aims of Psychotherapy

This is where the psychology of the West can take a lesson from the psychology of the East, which pays more attention to the way of acceptance and less to the things to be accepted. It is interested in creating a state of mind that will be prepared for all eventualities, all surprises from both the outer and from the inner universes. It does not go out of its way, looking for things to accept. Far too little emphasis is laid on this aspect of the work by ill-advised practitioners of the psychology of the unconscious, and as a result analysis can easily have a certain remoteness from life. Analysis is not something on which one can work only at night, in dreamland, and psychological health cannot be bought at ten dollars a visit every Thursday afternoon. A friend who called on me one evening suddenly announced that he had to go home early because his analyst had instructed him to “face a problem.” When the facing of problems and the acceptance of life is too studied, when it requires that you go home early, shut yourself in your room, and solemnly sit down, take the problem out of a drawer and face it, we begin to wonder what has become of a certain indispensable quality called humor. Analysis is not intended to be remote from life at all, but when overmuch emphasis is laid on the dream, on unconscious symbolism, unconscious drawing and painting, and on the life of fantasy in general there is a danger of dividing life into two halves and neglecting the relations between them, as if the whole process required nothing more than development in the dream and fantasy world.

Many of these difficulties would be overcome by a clear understanding of the aims of psychological work by those who are unable to avail themselves of a wise analyst, and here again the view of such Oriental systems as Taoism and various forms of Buddhism is very suggestive. For here the object is not to reach any particular stage; it is to find the right attitude of mind in whatever stage one may happen to be. This, indeed, is a fundamental principle of those forms of Oriental psychology which we shall be considering. In the course of his evolution man will pass through an indefinite number of stages; he will climb to the crest of one hill to find his road leading on over the crest of another and another. No stage is final because the meaning of life is in its movement and not in the place to which it moves. We have a proverb that to travel well is better than to arrive, which comes close to the Oriental idea. Wisdom does not consist in arriving at a particular place, and no one need imagine that it is necessarily obtained by climbing a ladder whose rungs are the successive stages of psychological experience. That ladder has no end, and the entrance to enlightenment, wisdom, or spiritual freedom may be found on any one of its rungs. If you discover it, it does not mean that you will not have to go on climbing the ladder; you must go on climbing just as you must go on living. But enlightenment is found by accepting fully the place where you stand now. Modern man finds himself in the stage of human evolution where there is a maximum division between his ego and the universe; for him, enlightenment is the complete acceptance of that division. Psychological techniques may fail because people do not accept fully the various stages involved; they accept them with the sole object of reaching a certain goal, as for instance the state of “individuation” symbolized by the mandala. In such circumstances they may indeed reach that state, but without finding what they inwardly desire. As a result, some people who imagine that they have completed that phase of psychological work are often as unhappy as ever.¹⁰

Mere exploration of the unconscious is no road to wisdom, for a fool may learn much and experience much but still be a fool. He becomes wise only when he has the humility to let himself be free to be a fool. As Chuang Tzu says, “He who knows he is a fool is not a great fool.” For the fool always gives himself away by his pride, by the delusion that greatness is to be measured by mere psychological bulk, and that by loading himself with new experiences he will become a sage. The psychology of the unconscious is his happy hunting ground. “After some five years of analysis,” he thinks, “if I work very hard and go through all the necessary stages, I shall become a real person, a genuine, free man.” Indeed, that five years’ work (the attainment of which will necessitate fooling the analyst too) may teach him something if it happens to show him that he is like the dunce who looked for fire with a lighted lantern. Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home.

The way of acceptance and spiritual freedom is found not by going somewhere but in going, and the stage where its happiness can be known is now, at this very moment, at the very place where you happen to stand. It is in accepting fully your state of soul as it is now, not in trying to force yourself into some other state of soul which, out of pride, you imagine to be a superior and more advanced state. It is not a question of whether your present state is good or bad, neurotic or normal, elementary or advanced; it is a question of what it is. The point is not to accept it in order that you may pass on to a “higher” state, but to accept because acceptance in itself is that “higher” state, if such it may be called. By way of illustration, here is the story of how the Buddhist sage Hui-neng enlightened Chen Wei-ming who had chased him in order to steal the robe and begging bowl of the Buddha. Hui-neng had put them both down on a rock, and when Chen tried to lift them he found that they were immovable. At once Chen was terrified, and protested that he had not come for the robe and bowl, but for the wisdom they represented. “Since the object of your coming is for the Dharma,” said Hui-neng, “think not of good, think not of evil, but see what your true nature [literally, ‘original face’] is at this moment.” At this Chen was suddenly enlightened; breaking out into a sweat and saluting Hui-neng with tears of joy he asked, “Besides these secret words and hidden meanings which you have just given me, is there anything else which is secret?” Hui-neng replied, “In what I have shown you there is nothing secret. If you reflect and recognize your own true nature, the secret is within you.”¹¹

Practical Essentials

At this time in human history the unconscious becomes a problem because the conflict between nature and the ego is at its height. But this does not mean that for modern man a full exploration of the unconscious is necessary for spiritual freedom. This freedom is attainable now, but the unveiling of the unconscious as a special undertaking is a matter of our future evolution and at the present time I do not feel that it should be taken up seriously until the second half of life—a point upon which Jung himself lays particular emphasis.¹² It appears that at the middle of life certain people are ready to undertake a task which in terms of evolution will take them a stage beyond the present historical development of civilized man. But this is outside our scope, for here we are concerned with the present rather than the future. This is not to say that there can be no freedom of spirit for young people or for those unready to penetrate the deeper strata of the unconscious. Thus we have to bear in mind always the distinction between the attainment of freedom in regard to present conditions, and the future evolution of human consciousness and its faculties. Just because the unconscious has become a problem in present conditions, our more superficial gods and demons demand immediate attention if we are to be free. But, especially for those who have not reached the middle of life, any deeper exploration is out of time and is looking for a problem where none exists.

For all practical purposes it seems important to concentrate less on exploring and unveiling the inner universe and more on the working relationship between that universe (as it now presents itself) and the conscious ego. The essentials are that the individual should know that an inner universe exists, that he should have some idea of its general character, and that he should be ready to assimilate and accept it as and when it makes itself felt. Only harm can result in most cases from digging up its contents for the sake of spiritual development. In other words, when your gods and demons present themselves in emotions, moods, and the like, recognize that they are gods and demons, that they have a life of their own, and that you cannot just will them out of the way with impunity. In ordinary conditions there is no need to make a special search for the powers of the unknown psyche; they will come of their own accord, and they will be enough of a problem then without looking for more. But when they do come they have to be received, for their power over us is proportionate to the power we use against them.

We have mentioned three essentials in understanding and coming to terms with the inner universe: the knowledge of its existence, the understanding of its general character, and the capacity to accept it. These must be considered in more detail, and from the practical standpoint. Many people have no feeling at all of an unconscious mind, much less of an inner universe; others believe intellectually in its existence, but have no experience of it. It is important at the start not to have a misleading conception of it; the unconscious has, so far as we know, no definite location and is not strictly speaking a thing. It is rather a process. The internal universe is not actually located inside the human being; it is, as it were, the relationship between impersonal, natural forces and the unconscious processes of the mind. There is probably no real difference between the internal and external universes; it may be more correct to say that the same universe affects us in two different ways—physically and mentally. In both ways we are unconscious of the greater part of these influences. Thus, if we follow the physical body to its origins, we are led to the universe; the same is true when mental processes are traced to their source, and we find that the connection is both historical and immediate. It is historical as mental heredity, and immediate as mental vitality, for all life is ultimately derived from the mysterious, universal energy that vibrates in the electron.

These, however, are metaphysical considerations, and the psychologist must think in terms of experience. Anyone who is at all aware of himself knows at least something of his many souls, of the deep instinctual and emotional urges which to some extent govern his life. It matters not whether we call them mental or physical; these are only words to describe mysteries whose behavior we know but of whose substance we are utterly ignorant. But our deep urges have undoubtedly a power of their own which, in the long run, is beyond conscious control. No one, for instance, can absolutely stifle the sexual instinct, and however much you may wish to economize by doing without food, your whole being will demand to eat by afflicting you with a savage hunger. It is, for instance, quite beyond our power to control the sex of an unborn child; this matter is wholly in the charge of unconscious factors, as are also the digestion of food and the circulation of the blood. In like manner there are aspects of our psychological life which function instinctively and beyond conscious control.

The Technique of Acceptance

If you sit still for a while, completely relaxed, and let your thoughts run on, let your mind think of whatever it likes, without interfering, without making suggestions, and without raising any kind of obstacle to the free flow of thought, you will soon discover that mental processes have a life of their own. They will call one another to the surface of consciousness by association, and if you raise no barriers, you will soon find yourself thinking all manner of things both fantastic and terrible which you ordinarily keep out of consciousness. Over a period of time this exercise will show you that you have in yourself the potentiality of countless different beings—the animal, the demon, the satyr, the thief, the murderer—so that in time you will be able to feel that no aspect of human life is strange to you—humani nihil a me alienum puto. In the ordinary way consciousness is forever interfering with the waters of the mind, which are dark and turbulent, concealing the depths. But when, for a while, you let them take care of themselves the mud settles and with growing clarity you see the foundations of life and all the denizens of the deep. You may see other things as well. “Two men looked into a pond. Said the one: ‘I see a quantity of mud, a shoe, and an old can.’ Said the other: ‘I see all these, but I also see the glorious reflection of the sky.’” For the unconscious is not, as some imagine, a mental refuse-pit; it is simply unfettered nature, demonic and divine, painful and pleasant, hideous and lovely, cruel and compassionate, destructive and creative. It is the source of heroism, love, and inspiration as well as of fear, hatred, and crime. Indeed, it is as if we carried inside of us an exact duplicate of the world we see around us, for the world is a mirror of the soul, and the soul a mirror of the world. Therefore when you learn to feel the unconscious you begin to understand not only yourself but others as well, and when you look upon human crime and stupidity, you can say with real feeling, “There but for the Grace of God go I.”

Beyond this it is irrelevant and useless to “prove” the existence of the unconscious. It can only be proved by personal experience, and as a mere conception it is almost valueless. The important thing is to have some feeling, however rudimentary, of its existence and of its potentialities for good and for evil. And, after all, to say that we have an unconscious is only another way of saying that mentally and physically we are children of nature and that our lives have roots which go beyond our ken. Sometimes it seems quite impossible that there are those who simply cannot grasp it.

There remains now the question of the capacity to accept the unconscious, and this involves three things: firstly, the capacity to accept its “dark” aspect, secondly, the capacity to accept the independence of its “gods and demons” from the ego, and thirdly, the capacity to accept the conflict between some of those gods and demons and the ego. It need hardly be said that these capacities are not different; they are the same capacity working in three different but related directions. The process is best shown by a concrete illustration. Let us take, for example, a mood of acute depression. Three things may be said of it: firstly, that it is unpleasant in itself, secondly, that it comes without our consent and does not leave at our command, and thirdly, that we have some reaction to it, a reaction of impatience, disgust, of wishing to be rid of it—which is a factor distinct from and in addition to the feeling of depression itself.

We may call this mood a demon out of the unconscious which has “possessed” us. The way of acceptance begins by giving it our attention. Instead of trying to forget about it and repress it we make up our minds to deal with it consciously, almost as man to man. Instead of allowing our servant at the door (the Freudian “censor”) to send it away, we invite it to come in and have a cup of tea. Yes, it would perhaps be better to offer it a Scotch and soda—and I mean this in all seriousness, because the idea is to encourage it, to invite it to be itself with a vengeance, really to be a depression. For this is accepting its independence of the ego, that is, allowing it to behave as it wills, or, as the Chinese say, to follow its own tao, because if we do not allow all other things their tao we cannot expect to have our own tao. In our own language we might say that to be in accord with nature is to allow everything to follow its own nature. As Lieh Tzu remarked, in explaining the secret of his mysterious capacity to ride on the wind, “I allowed my mind to think without restraint of whatever it pleased and my mouth to talk about whatever it pleased.” So here, we allow the depression to take whatever course it pleases; instead of denying it, we affirm it. This requires that we feel our way into its very heart and experience it to the full—one might almost call this a “higher masochism”—and though, to all common sense, it seems the most absurd thing to do, it results in the discovery that even the blackest mood has a profound meaning for us and is a blessing in disguise. It was not without reason that the Egyptians called the demons the mediators between gods and men.

If, however, the conflict between the depression and the ego is particularly strong, we have first to deal with another mediatory demon in the shape of the conflict itself, the feeling of impatience, disgust, and wishing to be rid of it. Sometimes the actual depression is too tough a proposition to tackle directly, and so we have to allow the reactionary feeling of disgust to be itself and behave as it pleases. To this we give full rein in the same way, telling it to be as disgusted, impatient, and angry as it likes. This, of course, affords an immense psychological relief. For it means that the conscious ego has divested itself of the unnecessary and impertinent responsibility of thinking it essential to direct and interfere with all that goes on around it. It is this very sense of false responsibility which disturbs its peace of mind. This is particularly noticeable in cases of insomnia in which people are kept awake by such minor irritations as night noises, doors slamming, trains crossing bridges, cars changing gear, and people moving about the house. The sleepless one immediately assumes a responsibility for these noises in his very wish to interfere with them, and the tension of this responsibility keeps him awake. But if he can allow them to go ahead and clamor as much as they like, he will at once feel relieved, relaxed, and ready for sleep. In such matters it is well to follow the example of one of Edward Lear’s inimitable creations:

There was a young lady whose bonnet

Came untied when the birds sat upon it.

But she said, “I don’t care,

For the birds of the air

Are welcome to sit on my bonnet.”

A further illustration is found in the record of a conversation between a Chinese Buddhist teacher and his pupil, who asked the figurative question, “It is terribly hot, and how shall we escape the heat?” The teacher replied, “Go right down to the bottom of the furnace.” “But in the furnace,” persisted the somewhat baffled pupil, “how shall we escape the scorching fire?” “No further pains will harass you,” concluded the teacher. A story is told of a lunatic who used to hit himself on the head with a brick. When asked for an explanation of his peculiar behavior, he answered that it was such a pleasant feeling when he stopped. In the same way we might say that the spiritual raison d’être of suffering is the enlightenment that follows from its acceptance. For the way of acceptance is applicable to demons from both worlds, from the unconscious in the form of depressions, phobias, and the like, and from external circumstances in the form of physical pain and irritation. In this sense acceptance is the philosopher’s stone that “turneth all to gold”; it means putting our consciousness in the very core of whatever pain falls upon us and allowing that pain to do its worst. As to our reaction to the pain the same principle applies, for we allow the demon that wishes to scream, protest, and swear all freedom to have its way. As often as not it does not need it, for the very act of granting it the freedom is in itself a relief.

The Problems of Emotion

Western students are often disconcerted in their study of Oriental psychology by the capacity of some of the “wise men of the East” for violent emotions. We have the impression that Oriental sages should be utterly calm and “controlled” under all circumstances. But this expectation is something which a certain puritanic element in the Western mind, a certain cold, intellectual desire for superhumanity and ultraefficiency, has projected into Oriental psychology. That statement is made with certain reservations, for the same element undoubtedly exists in some of the philosophies of India, notably in Hinayana Buddhism. It must be remembered, however, that in a tropical climate vital energies, though abundant, are not particularly forceful. Chinese Buddhism is more lively, and its history contains innumerable instances of the capacity of its initiates for displays of almost elemental emotion, particularly anger. One has only to look at the demonic aspects of some of the gods and Bodhisattvas in Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese iconography. If anyone imagines Buddhism to be a religion of pure passivity, as we understand it, he should see some of the Chinese paintings of Achala! He might also do well to visit some of the living masters of Zen Buddhism. For the art of becoming reconciled to and at ease with those aspects of natural man which correspond to storm and thunder in the natural universe is to let them rage. Just as there is an incomparable beauty and majesty in thunder and lightning, so also there is something awe-inspiring in the abandoned and uninhibited anger of the sage, which is no mere loss of temper or petty irritability. We remember how Jesus cast the money changers out of the temple, and it was no cool tongue that scourged the Jews as a “generation of vipers” and the Pharisees as “whited sepulchres.” This is, indeed, lack of the wrong kind of self-control, for we have to judge it from a psychological and not from an intellectual-moral point of view.

Acceptance may be both passive and violently active, and to the demon (or it may be god) of anger we say the same thing as to depression and pain, “Go ahead as much as you like, do your worst and make it a good worst.” No one completely identified with his anger could ever say that, for the capacity to accept always implies a certain differentiation between the ego and the visiting demon, and thus is never the same thing as blind “possession.” Only when there is possession can we call anger or passion in a certain sense immoral. But there may not always be an outward manifestation of the emotion, for here again we see that the very feeling of being free to be as angry as you like is generally sufficient release of itself. Sometimes, however, it is useful to produce an outward manifestation for the sake of effect!

False Masculinity

But here we have to face the prejudice that it is weak and effeminate to give so free a rein to the demons of emotion, for there is still a powerful element of Stoicism in our civilization, especially in the male mentality. Men are particularly averse to displaying any of the more “feminine” emotions, which, according to their version, include emotional reactions to pain and sorrow such as crying, screaming, and suffering “turns of the stomach” at unpleasant sights. Personally, I should be the last to condemn the male dislike of being “sissy,” although, when carried to extremes, this dislike produces an acute “constipation” of the feeling nature which is a common complaint among men in America. For among certain large sections of American manhood this dislike is extended to include all interest in religious, cultural, and aesthetic matters, and I know many whose avoidance of these things is the purest affectation.

Inwardly this part of their being demands expression, and they deny it to their cost, for not only do they miss much that makes life more worth living; they also bring psychological ills upon themselves, the most serious of which is an abysmal failure to understand women. There is hardly another country in the world where there is so great a lack of real understanding between husbands and wives as in the United States. This is no mere empty generalization; thousands of women’s clubs and sewing circles testify to the fact, for there would be no need whatever for women to herd together in this way if their homelife were truly satisfactory. But the reason is an utterly false conception of manliness. When a man denies his feeling nature he not only drives his wife to seek “culture” in women’s clubs; he also drives her to seek sexual satisfaction in religion or in other men. Any primitive man would consider inability to give sexual satisfaction to his wife the greatest possible shame; but it is quite impossible to do this when one’s feeling nature is wholly repressed and when “manliness” demands that one’s breath smell constantly of whiskey and cigars, that one is able to make love only with phlegmatic grunts and to approach the sexual act with a directness and haste which cannot even be called bestial; it is simply thoughtless and futile, and as regards sexual relations is actually nothing more than masturbation.

To be a man at all, man has to recognize the female element in himself, for a man is no man unless he is able to give woman what she demands and needs. And she needs not just a breadwinner and a male body; she needs above all things a companion who can to some extent feel as she feels. This requires that the man combine in himself masculine strength and feminine grace. In this respect modern man could solve many problems of domestic life by taking a lesson from the Hindu “book of marriage,” the Kama Sutra.¹³ The art of Kama, the use of the senses, is an essential part of the old-fashioned Hindu education, but we fail almost completely to teach young men anything that will be of use in married life, quite apart from the art of sexuality. We cannot be strict Stoics without being celibate. But the Stoic philosophy does not recognize that control of the emotions is in no sense being without emotions; controlling an automobile is not keeping it locked up in the garage. You cannot begin to control emotions unless you first let yourself be free to use them, and the difficulty of keeping them within reasonable bounds is increased by merely repressive control. For this reason there are thousands of supposedly well-educated people who behave worse than children when moved by powerful emotion, having no understanding and above all no love for the feminine in themselves. Small wonder, then, that modern man has to become reconciled to his unconscious under the form of the feminine anima! His psychological problem is primarily to make a successful marriage within himself—a marriage between ego and anima, between conscious reason and unconscious nature, in which there must be love, companionship, and understanding. Failure to realize this inner relationship is always reflected outwardly in the divided home where man is man and woman is woman “and never the twain shall meet.” They have separate friends, separate interests, separate bedrooms, and separate souls; this is not marriage; it is a business partnership for manufacturing children.

Woman Unsatisfied

The problem for modern woman is rather different. There is a powerful male element in her, and the danger is not that she may repress it but that she may be possessed by it. For the result of our current lack of relationship between the sexes is not, as one might expect, that men become increasingly manly and women increasingly womanly. Both tend to become neuter, but in different ways. When men have no real use for femininity women forget their arts; they cultivate one another’s company to the virtual exclusion of men, and this can only be done safely by those who have fulfilled their life with men and by children. The result is masculinity among women, feminism (a gross misnomer), a tendency to intellectualism, competition with men in business, and that hard-boiled bridge-playing, cocktail-drinking mentality which is only golf, whiskey, and cigars wearing skirts. Thus the drift in both sexes is to a false masculinity for which absence of feeling among men is very much to blame; and absence of feeling is simply the lack of recognizing one’s own gods and demons. When conscious reason is predominant all values become strictly “practical” and intellectual, while feeling is degraded to mere sensation. It would not be so bad, however, if this cult of the “practical” and intellectual were what it tries to be. But when women try to be practical in this new sense they lose their inborn reason which, in the past, has always kept men with their feet on the earth and made them realize their responsibilities to their homes and their children.

Indeed, we call the unconscious irrational, but really it is so-called reason that is crazy. The fault is not with reason in itself but with the conscious, intellectual idea of what reason ought to be, namely a mathematical operation which excludes feeling and the demands of physical being. True woman understands these things; if she did not the children would never be fed (much less the husband) and the home would never be habitable—which may be proved by visiting the homes of those “practical” wives who go into business, socialism, cultural ideals, and other idealistic, theoretical, and nebulous matters. The curious thing is that such behavior never achieves the desired result, and it is not uncommon that real women converse far more intelligently about literature, music, the arts, politics, religion, and all cultural affairs than their home-neglecting sisters who go out to acquire these very things. They are so busy trying to be clever that they have no time simply to be clever.

The Feminine Principle

It is almost as if our civilization were suffering from an eclipse of the feminine principle, and it is no mere chance that this coincides with the extreme of self-consciousness. Traditionally, the dark side of life, the unknown, the mysterious was always female; its great symbol is water, the mysterious depth out of which life appears, and because of its passivity and depth, water has always been accounted feminine. Therefore for us the words of Lao Tzu have a special point:¹⁴

He who knows the masculine and yet keeps to the feminine Will become a channel drawing all the world towards it.

And again:

Man when living is soft and tender; when dead he is hard and tough. All animals and plants when living are tender and fragile; when dead they become withered and dry. Therefore it is said: the hard and tough are parts of death; the soft and tender are parts of life. This is the reason why the soldiers when they are too tough cannot carry the day; the tree when it is too tough will break. The position of the strong and great is low, and the position of the weak and tender is high.

In other words, acceptance as a feminine technique reawakens our lost “better half” and makes us whole, for acceptance is the way of the tree that is weak and tender—like the willow. Under the weight of snow its boughs bend down and cast the snow off; but on the boughs of the knotted, rigid pine the snow piles up and up until they crack. This is called stooping to conquer.

The best soldier is not soldierly;

The best fighter is not ferocious;

The best conqueror does not take part in war;

The best employer of men keeps himself below them.

This is called the virtue of not contending;

This is called the ability of using men;

This is called the supremacy of consorting with heaven.

Every true woman knows the virtue of not contending by which she gets her own way, for

The highest goodness is like water. Water is beneficent to all things but does not contend. It stays in places which others despise. Therefore it is near Tao.

Cutting it, you can leave no wound because it always yields; grasping it, you cannot hold it because it always falls through your fingers. You can only hold it by making a cup of your hands. Now water is a symbol of life and a cup of acceptance and a sword of aggressiveness. The cup is also a feminine symbol, and of this Lao Tzu says:

Clay is moulded into vessels

And because of the space where nothing exists we are able to use them as vessels.

Doors and windows are cut out in the walls of a house.

And because they are empty spaces, we are able to use them.

For acceptance is emptiness in the Buddhist sense of sunyata, which is sometimes likened to a crystal or a mirror. “The perfect man,” says Chuang Tzu, “employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep.” So, too, a crystal takes into itself whatever lies around it. When you hold it up before a busy street, it holds the busy street; when you hold it up before the empty sky, it seems to hold nothing—but only because it is reflecting the emptiness of the sky. What is its own real nature? It is neither full nor void; it is beyond all opposites, and thus is a symbol of spiritual freedom. This reminds me of the conversation between the Buddhist sage Tozan and one of his disciples. Said the disciple, “Cold and heat alternately come and go, and how can one escape them?” Tozan answered, “Why not go where there is neither cold nor heat?” “Where,” persisted the disciple, “is the place where there is neither cold nor heat?” “When the cold season is here, we all feel cold. When the hot season is here we all feel hot.”¹⁵