The Red Book - Scrutinies
Thanks to a dear friend, I extricated my Red Book from the dustballs that are my bookshelf."Inside yourself you think unsparingly and coarsely only what always suits you, and with this you feel yourself above humanity and not in the least responsible. But you are responsible to humanity in everything that you think, feel, and do. Do not pretend there is a difference between thinking and doing. You rely only on your undeserved advantage, not to be compelled to say or do what you think and feel.But you are shameless in everything where no one sees you. If another said that to you, you would be mortally offended, despite knowing that it is true. You want to reproach others for their failings? So that they better themselves? Yes, confess, have you bettered yourself? From where do you get the right to have opinions of others? What is your opinion about yourself? And what are the good grounds that support it? Your grounds are webs of lies covering a dirty corner. You judge others and charge them with what they should do. You do this because you have no order within yourself, because you are unclean.And then - how do you really think? It appears to me that you even think with men, regardless of their human dignity; you dare think by means of them, and use them as figures on your stage, as if they were how you conceive them? Have you ever considered that you thus commit a shameful act of power, as bad as that for which you condemn others, namely that they love their fellow men, as they claim, but in reality exploit them to their own ends. Your sin flourishes in seclusion, but it is no less great remoresless, and coarse.What is concealed in you I will drag out into the light, shameless one! I will crush your superiority under my feet.Do not speak to me about your love. What you call love oozes with self-interest and desirousness. But you speak about it with great words, and the greater your words are, the more pathetic your so-called love is. Never speak to me of your love, but keep your mouth shut. It lies.I want you to speak about your shame, and that instead of speaking great words, you utter a discordant clamor before those whose respect you wanted to exact. You deserve mockery, not respect.I will burn out of you the contents of which you were proud, so that you will become empty like a poured-out vessel. You should be proud of nothing more than your emptiness and wretchedness. You should be a vessel of life, so kill your idols....You want to be understood? That's all we needed! Understand yourself, and you will be sufficiently understood. You will have quite enough work in hand with that Mothers' little dears want to be understood. Understand yourself, that is the best protection against sensitivity and satisfies your childish longing to be understood. I suppose you want to turn others into slaves of your desireousness again? But you know that I must live with you and that I will no longer tolerate such abject plaintiveness.
Isn't that beautiful? Reading Jung is such an experience for me. His other stuff is good, but The Red Book, in particular, is unreal. It literally makes my heart race. I need to catch my breath.It's like his words reach a place that is usually beyond reach. What is this place? I can feel it stirring in me as i take in his words. The struggle he feels between the tuggings of his soul and... and what? The dialogue often reminds me of the book of Job.As Rumi so magically stated, "When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy."