In the book of C.G.Jung "Psychology and Western Religion" the fourth and final part is devoted to Jung's view on religion. I shall take parts of it and append them with comments of my own from the understanding I have gained through the study of the Tamil Saiva classical texts and empirical studies of the Unconscious. For bibliographical details, please see the original.
Question: You say religion is psychically healthy and often for the latter part of life essential, but is it not psychically healthy only if the religious person believes that his religion is true?
Do you think that in your natural wish to keep to the realm of psychology you have tended to underestimate man's search for truth and the ways in which he might reach this as, for example, by inference?
Jung: Nobody is more convinced of the importance of the search for truth than I am. But when I say: something transcendental is true, my critique begins. If I call something true, it does not mean that it is absolutely true. It merely seems to be true to myself and/or to other people. If I were not doubtful in this respect it would mean that I implicitly assume that I am able to state an absolute truth. This is an obvious hybris. When Mr. Erich Fromm criticizes me for having a wrong idea and he demonstrates how illogical his standpoint is, i.e... truths contradict each other………………. truth is relative and not absolute-------- if you put them on the same level, as Mr Fromm does……. To make absolute statements is beyond man's reach, although it is ethically indispensable that he gives all the credit to his subjective truth, which means that he admits being bound by his conviction to apply it as a principle of his actions. Any human judgements, no matter how great its subjective conviction, is liable to error, particularly judgements concerning transcendental subjects…….. Facts are facts and contain no falsity. It is our judgement that introduces the element of deception………….
Loga: What Jung is trying to grapple with is the same problem that Meykandar deals with in his magnificent Civanjana Botham.
There are the notions of asaththaRivu which contrasts with saththaRivu and another CivasaththaRivu that transcends the previous too.
It is the CivasathaRiu that is not only transcendental but also Absolutistic and is said to be the Civanjaanam that is understood because it shines forth on its own when the obscurants in the psychic interiority is gradually wiped out and the psyche is made totally CLEAN and TRANSLUCENT.
The asaththu is the HISTORICAL, that which comes always with TEMPORALITY i.e. times consciousness and because of which it is also called cuddaRivu or cudduNarvu by MeykaNdar.
It is not the false and the constructive but that which is understood as TRUE and lived with as such till it is displaced with another and because of which it is realized now not as untruth but rather that which is NOT THE ABSOLUTE.
Such forms of understanding is called Asaththu and that which stands in contrast to it the Saththu. The Saththu and Asaththu are dichotomies, one unthinkable without the other. The understanding that serves the foundations of all religions and which are verbalized in the sacred literature is Asaththu, precisely in this sense and which Jung takes it as "subjective", something true only for the individual but not true objectively. Asaththu may be objectively true in the sense that it is a metaphysical apprehension that is NOT simply mental constructions, expressive of the DESIRES of an individual.
They are objectively true but only that because they emerge within temporality of TIME CONSCIOUSNESS stands to be DISPLACED and TRANCENDED.
We can illustrate this with an example.
The visions that we have as we climb up a mountain changes with each step we climb. If we remain fixated at a particular step, the visions remain static and undissolving . At that state of Being we can never know that those visions are displacable. However the moment we move ahead and climb up to the next step. Lo! The whole vision changes and we also realize that what was enjoyed before this is displacable only to have a better vision perhaps more comprehensive and what not .
The understanding that appeared solid and permanent now all of a sudden appears flid and changing.
Such forms of understanding is Asaththu according to Meykandar and Jung is struggling to say in saying the understanding of the historical religions are only relatively true.
Now the SaththaRivu is like the vision that one gets on reaching the peak. While climbing and while aware of the changing nature of the visions, the POSSIBILITY of the peak vision as that which is TERMINAL and BEYOND which there is NO MORE CHANGE is already there. In accessing, any form of religious understanding as asaththu, there is ALREADY there buried in it that there is also the SATHTH, the peak vision.
All religions contain within themselves the Saththu but which is realized only when the currently flourishing and which gives the cultic identity is actually Asaththu, not false but NOT the TERMINAL, something the cultic religious individuals refuse to acknowledge and because of which emerges religious intolerance.
Now Jung also draws a distinction between facts and judgments , notions which are not sufficiently clear. And here again we fall back on Meykandar.
There is SEEING only because there is SHOWING. Man can understand only because his understanding is LIGHTED UP or illuminated. As Meykandar says : kaaddu odungka (aanmaak) kaaNaathu: the psyche cannot see anything at all when the showing is withdrawn. That's the source of the LIMITEDNESS of man; no man can acquire any form of understanding unless there is a showing , a disclosure.
Such disclosures are Agamam, that which emerge as if on their own and of which dreams are good examples. They are disclosures BEYOND the mental fabrications of the individual who dreams. But so are even the wakeful, all are products of such agamams. Because of this all are TEXTS with a duality of structure-- the Surface structure and Deep Structure. The surface structure, like the descriptive account of dreams are simply facts either to be accepted or rejected but not judged as true of false. This is the FACTS of JUNG , they exist and are true in that sense but NOT judgments that either valid or invalid.
However when we move from the Surface Structure to Deep Structure that lies beneath as the Agentive Cause then we enter into JUDGEMENT and what is uttered at this point, the meta-textual statements can be valid or invalid.
The movement of understanding that moves from the Surface Structure to the Deep Structure is what is called "judgement" by Jung where else I have called it "ontopretation" elsewhere, as a variant of "interpretation".
With this clarification we must point out something Jung fails to grasp but which Meykandar makes the foundational idea of his treatise:
The Absolute Understanding, the limiting point of all such metaphysical inquires , cannot be LINGUISTICALIZED for all linguistic utterances presuppose Time consciousness and the terminal absolute understanding is trans-temporal, it is that which shines forth only when TIME consciousness as such is transcended. But that does not mean that it is incommunicable.
The language of absolute understanding is the body language of DEEP SILENCE, the silence that the Siddharta Gautama Buddha showed when questions about God and soul were raised but which took the Saivites from the days of Tirumular to unravel the real meaning.
Communication is not limited to the linguistic. Over and above the linguistic and paralinguistic, there is also the language of Mudras, symbolic gestures and among which the cinmudrai is said to communicate the Absolute Understanding. The verbal gradually subsides and gives way to the nonverbal language of mudras .
Loganathan @ Ullaganar
23-7-99
( photo of C G Jung taken from Wikipedia,with thanks )
