The following words are from C.G. Jung’s newly released Red Book, which consists of his personal writings from 1914-1930. These words have never before been available to be read, pondered and appreciated. For me, they are a beautiful expression of our journey to reclaim all aspects of ourselves:
“My soul, where are you? Do you hear me? I speak, I call you—are you there? I have returned, I am here again. I have shaken the dust of all the lands from my feet, and I have come to you, I am with you. After long years of long wandering, I have come to you again. Should I tell you everything I have seen, experienced, and drunk in? Or do you not want to hear about all the noise of life and the world? But one thing you must know: the one thing I have learned is that one must live this life.
This life is the way, the long sought-after way to the unfathomable, which we call divine. There is no other way, all other ways are false paths. I found the right way, it led me to you, to my soul. I return, tempered and purified. Do you still know me? How long the separation lasted! Everything has become so different. And how did I find you? How strange my journey was! What words should I use to tell you on what twisted paths a good star has guided me to you? Give me your hand, my almost forgotten soul. How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul. Life has led me back to you. Let us thank the life I have lived for all the happy and all the sad hours, for every joy, for every sadness. My soul, my journey should continue with you. I will wander with you and ascend to my solitude.”
“How warm the joy at seeing you again, you long disavowed soul.” Wow! Do you suppose we ever get more than the most fleeting of glimpses of “the I behind the eye”? Or as David Hawkins holds it in the title of his book: “The Eye of the I”? Or is it simply enough to be aware and honoring of its presence? That it may be too much in our daily life to be able to do more than acknowledge that there is, indeed, an eye behind the eye with which we perceive our existence? I sometime stop myself in mid-thought (or far more likely mid-words to another) to recognize that I am speaking from behind nothing more than a lens of my own devising (knowingly or unknowingly). That my reality, me reaction, my truth is not someone else’s except with their agreement — and even that is most tenuous at best. I look forward to more of Jung!