Our text is concerned with this way, and this same problem comes up with my patients also.
There could be no greater mistake than for a Westerner to take up the direct practice of Chinese yoga, for it would be a matter of his will and his consciousness, and would only strengthen the latter against the unconscious, bringing about the very effect to be avoided.
The neurosis would then simply be intensified. It cannot be sufficiently strongly emphasized that we are not Orientals, and therefore have an entirely different point of departure in these things.
It would also be a great mistake to assume that this is the path every neurotic must travel, or that it is the solution to be sought at every stage of the neurotic problem.
It is appropriate only in those cases where the conscious has reached an abnormal degree of development, and has therefore
diverged too far from the unconscious.
This high degree of consciousness is the conditio sine qua non. Nothing would be more wrong than to wish to open this way to neurotics who are ill on account of an undue predominance of the unconscious.
For the same reason, this way of development has scarcely any meaning before the middle of life (normally between the ages of
thirty-five and forty); in fact, if entered upon too soon, it can be decidedly injurious. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower Commentary.
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