Carl Jung: "The Secret of the Golden Flower" - Quotations

The unity of these two, life and consciousness, is the Tao. ~Carl Jung; The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 103

Science is not, indeed, a perfect instrument, but it is a superior and indispensable one that works harm only when taken as an end in itself. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 78.

Scientific method must serve; it errs when it usurps a throne. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 78.

Is it that our eyes are opened to the spirit only when the laws of earth are obeyed? ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Pages 80-81.

Intellect does, in fact, harm the soul when it dares to possess itself of the heritage of the spirit. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 81.

…it must be pointed out that just as the human body shows a common anatomy over and above all racial differences, so, too, the psyche possesses a common substratum transcending all differences in culture and consciousness. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 84.

The various lines of psychic development start from one common stock whose roots reach back into all the strata of the past. This also explains the psychological parallelisms with animals. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 84.

Consciousness thus is torn from its roots and no longer able to appeal to the authority of the archetypal images; it has Promethean freedom, it is true, but also a godless hybris. It does indeed soar above the earth, even above mankind, but the danger of an upset is there, not for every individual, to be sure, but collectively for the weak. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 85.

I always worked with the temperamental conviction that fundamentally there are no insoluble problems, and experience justified me in so far as I have often seen individuals simply outgrow a problem which had destroyed others. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 88.

I had learned in the meanwhile that the greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 89.

The new thing came to them out of obscure possibilities either outside or inside themselves; they accepted it and developed further by means of it. It seemed to me typical that some took the new thing from outside themselves, others from within; or rather, that it grew into some persons from without, and into others from within. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 89.

If it arose from outside, it became a deeply subjective experience; if it arose from within, it became an outer event. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 89.

The art of letting things happen, action through non-action, letting go of oneself, as taught by Meister Eckhart, became for me the key opening the door to the way. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 90.

One man will chiefly take what comes to him from without, and the other what comes from within, and, according to the law of life, the one will have to take from the outside something he never could accept before from outside, and the other will accept from within things which would always have been excluded before. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 92.

Everything good is costly, and the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 92.

Whether a person's fate comes to him from without or from within, the experiences and events of the way remain the same. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 93.

'The subtlest secret of the Tao is human nature and life.' ~Hui Ming Ching, Cited Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 94.

If thou wouldst complete the diamond body with no outflowing, Diligently heat the roots of consciousness and life. ~Hui Ming Ching, Cited Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 95.

According to the Hui Ming Ching, the ancient sages knew how to bridge the gap between consciousness and life because they cultivated both. In this way the shelf, the immortal body, is 'melted out', and in this way 'the great Tao is completed'. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 95.

Without doubt, also, the realization of the opposite hidden in the unconscious, i.e. the 'reversal', signifies reunion with the unconscious laws of being, and the purpose of this reunion is the attainment of conscious life or, expressed in Chinese terms, the bringing about of the Tao. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Pages 95-96.

Among my patients I have come across cases of women who did not draw mandalas but who danced them instead. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 97.

One source is the unconscious, which spontaneously produces such fantasies; the other source is life, which, if lived with complete devotion, brings an intuition of the self, the individual being. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 99.

Human nature [hsing] and consciousness [hui] are expressed in light symbolism, and are therefore intensity, while life [ming] would coincide with extensity. The first have the character of the yang principle, the latter of the yin. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 101.

If tendencies towards disassociation were not inherent in the human psyche, parts never would have been split off; in other words, neither spirits nor gods would ever have come to exist. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Pages 109-110.

That is the reason, too, that our time is so utterly godless and profane, for we lack knowledge of the unconscious psyche and pursue the cult of consciousness to the exclusion of all else. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 110.

Our true religion is a monotheism of consciousness, a possession by it, coupled with a fanatical denial that there are parts of the psyche which are autonomous. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 110.

In this respect our time is caught in a fatal error: we believe we can criticize religious facts intellectually; we think, for instance, like Laplace, that God is a hypothesis which can be subjected to intellectual treatment, to affirmation or denial. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 110.

Insanity is possession by an unconscious content which, as such, is not assimilated to consciousness; nor can it be assimilated, since the conscious mind has denied the existence of such contents. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 111.

Clearly the veil of maya cannot be lifted by a mere decision of reason, but demands the most thoroughgoing and persevering preparation consisting in the full payment of all debts to life. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 113.

Thus hun [Animus] means 'cloud-demon,' a higher 'breath-soul' belonging to the yang principle and therefore masculine. After death, hun rises upward and becomes shen, the 'expanding and self-revealing' spirit or god. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

'Anima', called p'o, and written with the characters for 'white' and for 'demon', that is, 'white ghost', belongs to the lower, earth-bound, bodily soul, the yin principle, and is therefore feminine. After death, it sinks downward and becomes kuei (demon), often explained as the 'one who returns' (i.e. to earth), a revenant, a ghost. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

The fact that the animus and the anima part after death and go their ways independently shows that, for the Chinese consciousness, they are distinguishable psychic factors which have markedly different effects, and, despite the fact that originally they are united in 'the one effective, true human nature', in the 'house of the Creative,' they are two. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

'The animus is in the heavenly heart.' The animus lives in the daytime in the eyes (that is in consciousness); at night it houses in the liver. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

The anima, on the other hand, is the 'energy of the heavy and the turbid'; it clings to the bodily, fleshly heart. 'Desires and impulses to anger' are its effects. 'Whoever is sombre and moody on waking ... is fettered by the anima.' ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 114.

Hun [Animus], then, would be the discriminating light of consciousness and of reason in man, originally coming from the logos spermatikos of hsing, and returning after death through shen to the Tao. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 116.

Since the Western mind is based wholly on the standpoint of consciousness, it must define anima in the way I have done, but the East, based as it is on the standpoint of the unconscious, sees consciousness as an effect of the anima! ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page118.

The pupil is taught to concentrate on the light of the inmost region and, while doing so, to free himself from all outer and inner entanglements. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 121.

‘‘A halo of light surrounds the world of the law. We forget one another, quiet and pure, altogether powerful and empty. The emptiness is irradiated by the light of the heart of heaven. The water of the sea is smooth and mirrors the moon in its surface. The clouds disappear in blue space; the mountains shine clear. Consciousness reverts to contemplation; the moon- disk rests alone.’’ ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 121.

Thus consciousness is at the same time empty and not empty. It is no longer preoccupied with the images of things but merely contains them. The fullness of the world which heretofore pressed upon consciousness has lost none of its richness and beauty, but it no longer dominates consciousness. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 121.

The creation and birth of this superior personality is what is meant by our text when it speaks of the 'holy fruit', the 'diamond body', or refers in other ways to an indestructible body. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 123.

To the psyche death is just as important as birth and, like it, is an integral part of life. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 124.

I make a great effort to fortify the belief in immortality as far as I can, especially in my older patients, for whom such questions are crucial. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 124.

If viewed correctly in the psychological sense, death is not an end but a goal, and therefore life towards death begins as soon as the meridian is passed. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 124.

The Chinese philosophy of yoga is based upon the fact of this instinctive preparation for death as a goal, and, following the analogy with the goal of the first half of life, namely, begetting and reproduction, the means towards perpetuation of physical life, it takes as the purpose of spiritual existence the symbolic begetting and bringing to birth of a psychic spirit body ('subtle body'), which ensures the continuity of the detached consciousness. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 124.

The man who haves his instincts can also detach from them, and in just as natural a way as he lived them. ~Carl Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 125.

Essence (hsing), undoubtedly related to logos, appears closely knit with life (ming) when entering phenomena. ~The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 11.

The character ming really signifies a royal command then, destiny, fate, the fate allotted to a man, so too, the duration of life, the measure of vitality at one's disposal, and thus it comes about that ming (life) is closely related to Eros. ~The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 11.

Man as a spiritual being is made human by essence (hsing). The individual man possesses it. but it extends far beyond the limits of the individual. ~The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 11.

Life (ming) is also super-individual in that man must simply accept a destiny which does not come from his conscious will and thus it comes about that ming (life) is closely related to Eros. ~The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 11.

In any case, animus (hun) is the light, yang-soul, while anima (p'o) is the dark, yin-soul. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 16.

If, on the other hand, it has been possible during life to set going the "backward-flowing, rising movement of the life-forces, if the forces of the anima are mastered by the animus, then a release from external things takes place. They are recognized but not desired. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 17.

The ego withdraws from its entanglement in the world, and after death remains alive because "interiorization" has prevented the wasting of the life-forces in the outer world. Instead of these being dissipated, they have made within the inner rotation of monad a centre of life which is independent of bodily existence. Such an ego is a god, deus, shen. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 17.

Eternal is the Golden Flower only, which grows out of inner liberation from all bondage to things. A man who reaches this stage transposes his ego; he is no longer limited to the monad, but penetrates the magic circle of the polar duality of all phenomena and returns to the undivided One, Tao. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 18.

In Buddhism, this return to Nirvana is connected with a complete annihilation of the ego, which, like the world, is only illusion…In Taoism, on the other hand, the goal is to preserve in a transfigured form, the idea of the person, the "traces" left by experience. ~Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 18.

A man who holds to the way of conservation all through life may reach the stage of the "Golden Flower” which then frees the ego from the conflict of the opposites, and it again becomes part of Tao, the undivided, Great One. ~The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 73.

Each individual contains a central monad which, at the moment of conception, splits into life and essence, Ming and Hsing. These two are super-individual principles, and so can be related to Eros and logos. ~The Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 73.

Laziness of which a man is conscious and laziness of which he is unconscious, are a thousand miles apart. Unconscious laziness is real laziness; conscious laziness is not complete laziness, because there is still some clarity in it. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 47.

In "The Secret of the Golden Flower" the "As Above, So Below" of the West is harmonized with the Taoism of the East ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 12

In his phenomenal form man develops into a multiplicity of individuals in each of whom the central monad is enclosed as the life-principle; but immediately, before birth even, at the moment of conception, it separates into the bi-polar phenomena of essence and life (hsing and ming). ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 13

Essence (hsing), undoubtedly related to logos, appears closely knit with life (ming) when entering phenomena. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 14

The anima was thought of as especially linked with the bodily processes; at death it sinks to the earth and decays. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 15.

The animus, on the other hand, is the higher soul; after death it rises in the air, where at first it is active for a time and then evaporates in ethereal space, or flows back into the reservoir of life. In living men, the two correspond in a certain degree to the cerebral and sympathetic nervous system. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 15

The animus dwells in the eyes, the anima in the abdomen. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 15

The animus is bright and active, the anima is dark and earth-bound. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 15

But, if the ego has made an effort to strive upward in spite of the process of " externalization, it maintains for a time (as long, in fact, as it is reinforced by the powers of sacrifice of its survivors) a relatively happy life, each according to its deserts. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Pages 16-17

The ego withdraws from its entanglement in the world, and after death remains alive because " interiorization" has prevented the wasting of the life-forces in the outer world. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 17

Instead of these being dissipated, they have made within the inner rotation of monad a center of life which is independent of bodily existence. Such an ego is a god, deus, shen. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 17

…If, on the other hand, it has been possible during life to set going the "backward-flowing, rising movement of the life-forces, if the forces of the anima are mastered by the animus, then a release from external things takes place. ~Carl Jung, Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 17.

On a low level the animus is an inferior Logos, a caricature of the differentiated masculine mind, just as on a low level the anima is a caricature of the feminine Eros. ~Carl Jung, Commentary Secret of the Golden Flower, Page 41.

The East teaches us another, broader, more profound, and higher understanding—understanding through life. “Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower” ~Carl Jung, CW 13, § 2.