Psychology & The Cross

 So well, it's great to see you again, Jason. It's been a while since we spoke last. I've been following you from the sidelines, , seeing that you've been, you know, quite busy. I've been listening to your podcast when I've had a chance. I've seeing that you've been doing reading groups

. Developing your thoughts and bringing people into the conversation the reason for me reaching out to you this time was that I saw you doing a reading group on the book, The Secret of the Golden Flower. Right. And I was first thinking like, oh, that's interesting.

Why is he doing a reading group on that? Because before that it wasn't Eddinger. And I think, , you stayed still with the Christian theme. Also given our last conversation, when you spoke a bit about your own journey around going east and going Back to look at Christianity.

So I got curious. And at the same time, I had picked up The Secret of the Golden Flower when I was in a bookshop in Sweden, in Stockholm visiting. And yeah, like, when did I actually read this book? And realizing I think I only read Jung's commentary before. So I've been in the last month also spending some time with the book and been, yeah, quite moved and taken somehow by reading it.

So , that's why I thought I'd reach out to you and have a conversation about it, . So maybe you start by asking, , how came about that you started reading or working on the secret of the golden flower? Yeah, I'm glad we have this chance to reconnect around this too.

Yeah, it is interesting because I hadn't thought of it in those terms. We had talked about my moving from east to west, so to speak, from. An interest in Buddhism and Taoism to Christianity. And this does seem like it goes in the other direction. But what's interesting in the book is or about the book is, or at least for me initially I was curious about its connection with alchemy for Jung.

So I had been doing a a number of different things, particularly with the podcast around alchemy and, and exploring that world of Jung. And I got really interested in it and I remember Jung talking about how, in a sense, it was this text, the Golden Flower text, that helped him find his way in, in a sense, to alchemy and so I just I, I think it was sort of a natural, , exploration, and I've been doing a number of these online reading groups, and one of the ways that I think about them is that if there's something I want to, you know, learn more about and understand more.

It's great to just sort of read these and teach these because then it really requires that you dig deeply into it and not just kind of scan the scan superficially over it. So that was a, it was a great opportunity to really dig into the text and like you say, go beyond just the commentary into the actual text and try to understand what's there.

Yeah. Well, I look forward to, to weave together with you today between Jung's commentary, Wilhelm's commentary and, and the actual texts. Yeah. Thank you. Could you give us a little bit of context for this book in Jung's life and how it came about that he wrote a commentary for it? Yeah, you know, it's, it's really, it's an interesting, it has an interesting place in Jung's one of the things he says in his own forward, he writes about says I'd been occupied with the investigation of the processes of the collective unconscious since the year 1913, right?

That's the period of time when he's doing his confrontation. With the unconscious from 1913. That's the period of time of the black books and the red books and and all of that material. And he writes that he says, I had obtained results that seem to me questionable in more than 1 respect. So he's having these experiences and he doesn't know what to do with them.

He doesn't know if they have any value, they're questionable, like where do they fit in the whole history of ideas and thought. He says they lay not only far beyond everything known to academic psychology, but also Overstepped the borders of medical, strictly personal psychology. These findings had to do with an extensive phenomenology to which hitherto known categories and methods could no longer be applied.

Hitherto known categories and methods couldn't be applied. So he's, he's out on a limb. He's in this, feels in this territory where he doesn't know what to do with all of this. And at least this. Book and, and the, the commentary he writes, I think has to be understood in context of that confrontation with the collective unconscious his experience of his own active imagination, even though maybe at that time he didn't call it.

Active imagination. All of those things that he says formed the prima materia of his life's work. You know, it's all there. And you know, there are a number of texts right at this time around the same time as this. He's writing. The first drafts of collected work seven, two essays on analytical psychology, the early drafts where he's really starting to put together the first kind of descriptions of something like active imagination.

He's written the essay on the transcendent function, which is all about active imagination, but that sits in a drawer for. like 42 years before it's found by his students and published. And then he does in 1925, he does a seminar on analytical psychology where he offers his first sort of tentative descriptions of his experiences with the material of the, the Red Book.

And so there's all of this stuff that's bubbling, but he's not talking about it so much publicly. And In the middle of all of that, the text of the golden flower comes to him. Richard Wilhelm sends him the golden flower in 1928. And he says that it allowed him to find his way back to the world.

And now he starts to write about his ideas. It gives his ideas some in his own mind confirmation. And one of the things he talks about. In a number of different places in his work is experiences of, you know, people like the mystics who have these intense inner experiences. And he says if they can't link their experiences somehow with the world, with their tradition, with something that can be communicated, it will change the world.

Essentially destroy them that that finding the link back to the world becomes important. Otherwise you are isolated and you're in this realm that separates you from life. And so the golden flower is that link for young and I find that fascinating. His commentary is really one of the first formulations of a real union.

psychology. It's not symbols of transformation where he's separating from Freud, but it's like his statement of this is what what modern psychology is. That's, and he's starting to publicly talk about his understanding of things like the self and anima and animus and all of these things that have been formulating over the years.

So I think it's, it's, it's In many ways, a seminal moment in which something like what we understand of Jungian psychology kind of starts in many ways.

These texts that that makes up the book and that Jung is commenting on. Could you say something short about what, what, what type of text is this?

Secret of the golden flower? Yeah. Well, it's a, it is a religious text and it's a text of a certain kind of meditation, and I believe it's from around the 17th century. 17th century. Yeah.

I can't remember all that Wilhelm says about it his translation is, I think, the first to to appear and it's interesting because it has. It's this meditation text, but it has many images and it's an it's an alchemical text. So it's Taoist Eastern alchemy, and that actually forms a link for Jung with his own relationship to alchemy, because alchemy becomes the The main field that helps Jung link his own ideas with the history of Western thought, right?

And so this text is in many ways his entry into alchemy. And so it's a, it's an inner alchemical process in many ways more, , psychological and symbolic than some of the Western alchemical texts which have the quality of you know, recipes for producing certain substances. So this text does have its own kind of literal quality.

There's an element in the text about, , life after death, right? Extending life and immortality. And I think on, on one hand, it's understood concretely and literally. And on the other hand, it's understood symbolically. And it kind of overlaps those two. Yeah, I think you mentioned to me when we wrote before.

When Richard Wilhelm talks about these texts, he, he makes some interesting analogies also between, , Christianity and Christian texts, and this particular text of sort of esoteric Chinese tradition. Yeah, right, he says it's interesting in his own discussion of the text, right, he points out that there are these overlapping images He's talking about the various influences of the text.

He notes that it's got Buddhist influences, Confucian influences, Taoist influences, and it takes from these various traditions. And then he notes that it's got this familiar Right. He talks about as you say that there it says it will strike many a European reader as remarkable that there appear in the text sayings familiar from Christian teaching.

And he says that Those things which in Europe are very often taken only as ecclesiastical phrase phrasing are here given a psychological connection. So he sees them as being presented more psychological, but he lists a few, he says in the book. Golden flower text. You have phrases like light is the life of man.

The eye is the light of the body. Man is spiritually reborn out of water and fire. And then he compares them to the sayings of the gospel of John. I will baptize you with water. And after me shall come one who will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire, so rebirth through fire and water, or except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

So these overlapping images. He doesn't necessarily imagine that there are explicit Christian influences. As much as there's just this interesting parallel to the text, and it speaks to that idea of the collective unconscious and Jung's notion of the archetypal Symbolic dimension.

MUSIC BREAK

That which exists through itself is called the way. Tao. Tao has neither name nor shape. It is the one essence, the one primal spirit. Essence. And life cannot be seen. They are contained in the light of heaven. The light of heaven cannot be seen. It is contained in the two eyes.

. So this is a quote from the actual text itself. What comes to your mind or, reading this why does this touch you?

Well, one of the things that struck me about this particular passage, and it comes right at the beginning of the, of the text itself it sounds very familiar to similar passages in the Tao Te Ching but it's phrased in a particular way and reminded me

What I think of as Jung's koan, and Jung's koan is this idea that

the psyche itself is indistinguishable from its manifestations, that we, the ego lives in the world, or the psyche is a world in which the ego lives and when we look at the psyche, we are looking at the psyche through the lens of the psyche, right? And so it's a little bit like an eye trying to look at itself.

Right? We can't see it directly. There's no point outside with which we can get a direct view. It has to be reflected through something. And the Tao, in that sense, like the Psyche, is not so much what we see, but the way by which we see or that through which we see. And so the language in the text is, , that the light of heaven is contained in the two eyes, right?

It's the way that we see, or it's a state of consciousness, a way of, of perceiving. And I imagine Jung experiencing the idea or the, the psyche itself. Something like that, as that which exists through itself, that which is the reality in which we live. And, and later on in his commentary, he will talk about perhaps there are fishes who don't recognize that they are contained within the sea.

That's our experience of the psyche. We don't recognize that we are within it, not. outside and observing it.

MUSIC BREAJ

What does hearing mean? It is the spontaneous hearing of the light of the ear. The ear listens inwardly only, and does not listen to what is outside. To sense brightness. Without listening to what is outside is to listen inwardly. It has nothing to do with actually listening to what is within.

Yeah, it sounds truly psychological, can imagine, you know, you reading this or just reading this oneself and, and connecting a lot I find to one's, one's own process. Also in the work of a therapist or as an analyst, it hits home and that type of listening, what is that type of listening that that type of contemplation that happens in a, in a true encounter with someone or with oneself.

Right, right. I mean it. It's an interesting distinction that the text makes. First of all, we're not listening to what's outside. We're listening to what's within. But we're also not listening to what's within. It's a different kind of listening. And in the text, they call it something like listening with the heart.

So it's not listening with the ears. It's not trying to hear sounds. It's really, um, almost a state of waiting, right? It's a state of holding open a kind of pregnant space into which something can emerge that has its own initiative, right? It has its own energy. The text also talks about it as or compares it to a hen brooding on its eggs.

Right. And in brooding on its eggs and, and, and sitting the eggs, it generates the quality of heat. But it's not physical heat, right? It's the heat that comes from listening, of paying deep attention. And even when the hen goes away from the eggs, it's still listening, says the text, deeply.

And there's a sense that that listening fertilizes the eggs, and at the same time allows them to be what they are and not something imposed. There's a holding open for what really is there and, and what can be allowed in a sense to emerge in its own in its own form. And it's really lovely.

It's really lovely. And in fact, it's interesting because this idea of brooding. Is an idea that Jung talks about in his work on symbols of transformation collected works five, he talks about introversion as an act, not as a temperament, not being an introvert, but the introversion of energy. And he talks about it as brooding, a kind of accumulating of heat, and in directing the energy within, something takes shape.

And in fact, he uses the language of, , something becomes fertilized, right? He says, through introversion, as numerous historical witnesses testify, One is fertilized, inspired, regenerated, and reborn. So it's that kind of energy, that listening. Yeah,

hearing you speak of this and again, reading this text, I, again, it resonated so much with my experience in, in the therapeutic room on both sides of both chairs, really, but that type of, that type of waiting and that type of pregnancy and that type of Like being this active passivity or the brooding or the eggs, warming the eggs, it's it's very present,

I can imagine Jung sort of trying to find a language for this experience. And as you say, he had found his language, he had done symbols of transformation, but here also finding language for this very particular type of experience.

Where do we go to find this type of language to try to somehow describe experiences like this. You're right, how do you find the language? It's so important to, the image says so because the experience And I think therapy is the, is the perfect experience where you're kind of waiting on something that is separate from whatever good ideas you might have or whatever kind of your own frame of reference might want to impose.

And that can be a very It can be a challenging moment. It can be challenging to wait in that space in a kind of not knowing what's going to come forward and it requires a lot of, Patience and even courage to sit in those spaces.

You're right. At times I feel, you know, maybe from the outside Jungian psychology or Jungian psychotherapy seems like, you know, yeah, I don't know, explosive material archetypes and imagery, you know, we have the great imagery of Jung, you know, like, wow, aesthetically, it's so well. It's a lot. It's a very, the static.

But again, yeah, coming back, I mean, you know, I do my particular form of Jungian analysis. But those experiences, what really makes it work, it has more to do with entering this meditation with oneself or with another person and meeting in that space. When, you know, You, you, yeah, things start to work, energy starts to work, and then, of course, the imagery can get very dramatic and, but holding that empty space and working with that empty space and trying to put language to that.

Yes. What is being formatted for, seems to be where, where the actual development is happening. Without question. It, it, I'm convinced more and more that it happens in those spaces, beyond the words and even beyond the images. The images are helpful and like you say, they can get dramatic, but those silences, those places where people feel met are so.

valuable or where the, the, the very tentative parts of someone can come forward and you have to kind of sit back and allow it to poke its head out rather than get in there and, and, and explain it. One of the things I love, one of the an idea that I love that Jung writes about is the idea that It's not all that important for the analyst to understand something coming from the analysand, an image or a dream symbol.

It's important that they get it. They come into some relationship with it. Whether I as an analyst understand it and can name it is not the, the, the, the heart of it. It's the experience. And that's, that's where the, the, Emptiness and holding that empty meditative space is so important. Yep.

It would be interesting to spend some time talking about this bridge between East and the West. Last time we spoke, we spoke a little bit about your own journey that you also share in your, in your book, Religious But Not Religious, East and the West. And and Jung spends also time on that in his commentary, as well as Willem, he also spends time on that, as we spoke of in the beginning.

My sense is it's not like trying to take, you know, Eastern thought and squeeze in some sort of Western idea or, or vice versa. But there's an interest in this book is, as you described before, it's like a meeting point.

It's a link in Jung's own journey. And we will see a bit later in Jung's life, how he really turns to it. Back into his Christian tradition with his dream after India about the Holy Grail and how he starts to also do lectures at Ithaca about St. Ignatius of Loyola, but this is before that. This is before that.

And yeah, could we, could you say something about this, the bridge or the link between East and West and how, how Jung is talking about that in the book? Yeah. One of the things that he says. At the beginning of his commentary

is that he talks about the importance of approaching a text like this with living sympathy, and he says that that is frightening to the Western scientific mind, right? That wants to be able to stand back and categorize this and think about it. ethnological categories or comparative religion. But he says one needs to come with a living sympathy, but the danger Of that, or the Western mind is that you might experience that it has some value and reality and seriousness to it.

And that's, you know, the part of us that wants to remain at a distance and be an observer. Of events, which is kind of characteristic, we might say, of the western mind, right? The scientific viewpoint. Raymond Kar, who's a, a philosopher and a theologian, talks about how the scientific experiment presupposes a distorted image of the human being.

And that distorted image essentially is that we're separate from the thing we're observing. That we can stand apart, observe nature, perform operations on it, and we're not affected in some way. And Jung, in his own way, is, I think, trying to restore some of that sense of our participation in life. So he's trying to recover the non rational together with the rational.

The scientific mindset is important, it's valuable but it is help and a, and a a tool in a sense. And it, it does damage to the spirit when it usurps the the, the realm of the spirit or the throne of the spirit, he says. So this is really it's an interesting bridge that Jung is trying to make.

He's also very wary of just adopting the material of the East and sort of grafting it on to one's own experience. And he talks about it a a kind of appropriation. That happens that, and he says, you know, the, those experiences that took China thousands of years to build said they can't be grasped by theft.

We can't just take them and, and possess them. He says, we, we have to earn it in order to possess it. It has to be organic to us. So we have to go through the process. So the text like this is a way of Guiding us or, or can give us support in guiding ourselves through some kind of interiorization practice.

Which, you know, Jung clearly sees his psychology in that realm with active imagination and attention to the symbol. And in that way, he sees, I would say his psychology as, as a In some way, an attempt to bridge those two worlds, East and West.

Speaking about, , the sort of the link between Christianity and integration of new values,, that we can, I think I will actually quote it here. Yet, though the new always seems the enemy of the old. Anyone with a more than superficial desire to understand cannot fail to discover that without the most serious application of the Christian values we have acquired, the new integration can never take place.

It's not a giving up of those treasures. Have been gained that, that it starts from that standpoint which I think is, that's an interesting, it's an interesting idea. We have to hold to what we have earned and build on to that foundation or add to it deepen it.

Yeah. Well, I think also when we spoke before this conversation, I think I asked you a little bit about what is the core of this text? What is this flower? What is this secret of the flower? And I think you pointed out, or you went to the final part of Jung's commentary called The Fulfillment, where he speaks about it is not I who lives, it lives me.

And this sort of transformation that can happen through this meditative practices. Yeah. And then also you made a link to a new, I believe also makes the link to St. Paul. Not I live, but Christ live in me. It seems a central point that I'm wondering about. . How could we speak about this?

Jung talks in his commentary about the subtle experience of something like the golden flower, the subtle experience which we could think of as, in Jungian terms, as the self and what that means and that it is something that is really beyond description, because It is a de centering of the ego it is not the ego kind of holding court or, or choosing or directing things and what he says in his commentary says, in a certain sense, the thing we are trying to express is the feeling of having been replaced, but without the connotation of having been deposed.

Next. Next. So the, the ego is replaced, but it's not wiped out. It's not deposed. And it's exactly that. Not I live, but it lives me not I, but Christ lives in me. But it's, it's very subtle in it. There's something of. What I think of is like the objective life. And what I mean by that is something that Jung says in his Kundalini seminar, where he talks about the self and he says it's very hard.

No one knows what the self is because the self is just the thing that you are not. The self is just the thing that you are not. And he says the ego. discovers itself as being a mere appendix of the self in a sort of loose connection. It says the self is exceedingly impersonal, exceedingly objective. If you function in yourself, you are not yourself.

That's how it feels. And so something meets you, life beats you, the experience of life happens, and The ego is in a more receptive, responsive mode. But life is the, is what's leading. And that's, that's what the self is. And he talks about this. He says you know, when you're, you're in the self. You don't feel like yourself.

He says, you buy as if you did not buy, and you sell as if you did not sell, right? You're still living life, but it's it. Life is the, the thing, not the I.

In that last chapter of Jung's commentary, there's also, connected to this, there's this quote, I'll read it connected to St. Paul and this question of not I, but Christ lives in me. Jung writes, in the Pauline Christ symbol, the deepest religious experiences of the West and of the East confront each other.

Christ, the sorrow laden hero, and the golden flower that blooms in the purple hall of the city of jade. What a contrast! What an infinity of difference! What an abyss of history! A problem fit! For the crowning work of a future psychologist.

, how do you understand this? Because it's working in me, but I don't fully yet understand it. Yeah, I, I mean, first of all, what a, an ecstatic paragraph, right?

What a contrast, what an infinity of difference, what an abyss of history. And yet, well, so a couple of things come to mind. One is that in Wilhelms discussion. He talks about the the character, the Chinese character for the golden flower, and it's made up of a couple of different elements, but when the, the top element meets the bottom element of the character, that connection, that meeting place forms the image for light. So the, the two coming together form the image for light, and he.

He suggests that it was kind of used as a secret symbol to indicate to other adepts within the tradition. You know, they were In safe territory or there, you know, they were among friends, very similar, right, to the, the Christian fish symbol, which was marked in, in areas. So there are these just interesting parallels, but the main thing that strikes me about that idea and, and the fact that they're different, but also they confront each other, the, the sorrow laden hero and the golden flower.

There is the sorrow laden hero, but there's also the experience of joy in Christianity, right? The fruits of the Spirit, says St. Paul right, are how does he describe them? There's the peace that passes understanding. And the, the idea of, , faithfulness, kindness, joy, love, all of these are fruits of the spirit in Christianity.

And the, the, the emergence of the golden flower in the text is an emergence of light and the confirmatory experiences, the text. Of the golden flower says there are confirmatory experiences and one of them is joy. You know that you are on the right path if you are experiencing joy, that is the golden flower opening.

And the golden flower opening is fills the world with light. And, and I understand that as the experience of meaning. And it reminds me of an idea that, that Edinger has, which is that for the person who is connected to the self. The, the notion of chance ceases to exist. Everything has meaning, and it's not that things happen for a reason it's not that kind of thing but it's things are meaningful they're filled with a certain meaning.

They're not just random and, and arbitrary and meaningless. And so I, this to me is sort of the overlap here, where opening to the light within things that is part of, The Christian tradition along with the sorrow laden hero. Yeah, it seems so. I'm a little bit surprised of him contrasting them. In this in this extreme way, and then he sort of throws this out a problem fit for the crowning work of a future psychologist.

But it's also it's after that. He, he contends, and he moves deeper into the question of the Imitatio Christi. And that's something that you and me discussed before. It's something that I discuss with other people on the podcast. It's something that will be a big part of the discussion in the book. I think this is, this is the text where Jung really makes clearest, , what he views as the dangers for Nemethatio Christi and, and, and, and where he also describes his own view of what Nemethatio Christi could mean. And I'd like to, to quote him here. It's a little bit long, but I think it's worth it also for the context for, for the listener.

So Jung writes here in the fulfillment, still the last chapter of his commentary, he writes that. The West emphasizes the human incarnation, and even the personality and historicity of Christ, while the East says, without beginning, without end, without past, without future. In accordance with this conception, the Christian subordinates himself to the superior divine person in expectation of his grace.

But the Eastern man knows that redemption depends on the work the individual does upon himself. The Tao grows out of the individual. And then the sentence, The imitator Christi has this disadvantage. In the long run we worship as a divine example a man who embodied the deepest meaning of life. And then, out of sheer imitation, We forget to make real our own deepest meaning, self realization.

, are you with Jung on this one, or you? Well, you know,

it's interesting. I'm, I'm, I'm on the fence a little bit, to be honest. He's making the same caution about Christianity as he does about Buddhism, right? We shouldn't imitate. Which is the same caution that he makes about Jungian psychology, right? Don't imitate me. I'd rather be Jung than a Jungian, the kind of thing.

So clearly this is a, it's a thing for him and a concern for him and, and the, the integrity of the individual, which is so core to his work, comes in here. At the same time, I think that there is something about. imitation as a stage in one's growth, right? Musicians imitate other musicians until they start to develop their own voice.

There's something initiatory about it that can be helpful.

So I think it's not, it shouldn't be too black or white here, though Jung does say, and I, and I think this is important as well, and it's a variation of this, right? In talking about his psychology in the commentary he says, I, I, I'm deliberately speaking vaguely. Because I don't want anybody to think they should go about making a method of this, like there's a, a technical mechanical way to to enact this that it's personal, and it's individual, which I think is, is a valuable way to think about it.

I think it's worth quoting also the second part where he then presents his own view on Imitatio Christi, he says, Imitation of Christ might well be understood in a deeper way. It might be taken as the duty to give reality to one's deepest conviction, always the fullest expression of individual temperament, with the same courage and the same self sacrifice.

As shown by Jesus.

So that's interesting. The way he describes it there, the imitatio is so similar to the way he speaks about the Tao in relationship to individuation. In a text that came shortly after this, an essay called The Development of the Personality, which he wrote around 1934, which is all about development.

Individuation, even though he doesn't use the term individuation at the time, he talks about it as the development of the personality. He he says the undiscovered vein within us. Well, he talked, first of all, he talks about, before I'll read that, he talks about how to unfold one's personality requires fidelity to the law of one's own being.

Being faithful to the law of one's own being. And then he says at the end of that essay. He says, the undiscovered vein within us is a living part of the psyche. Classical Chinese philosophy names this interior way Dao, and likens it to a flow of water that moves irresistibly towards its goal. To rest in Dao means fulfillment, wholeness, one's destination reached, one's mission done.

All of those things that he just described. In terms of the imitatio, right? And then he says, the last sentence of the essay, the beginning, end, and perfect realization of the meaning of existence, innate in all things, personality is Tao.

So really he's he's saying the same thing about Tao, personality is Tao. It's the fulfillment of one's being that he's saying about the imitatio Christi. It is the fulfillment of one's being. So it's interesting how he is speaking of it on both sides of the East West divide, in a sense, he's speaking of it as, as a reflection of Tao, he's speaking of it as a reflection of the imitatio.

MUSIC

There's a, so there's a There's a section of the of the text where it says when one begins to apply oneself to the work, one should put aside household affairs. And then it goes on and says, but when the work is so far advanced that secret confirmations are experienced, it does not matter if, at the same time, one's ordinary affairs are put in order.

So that one can fulfill one's karma. This means the living manner of the circulation of the light.

And there's another phrase don't remember exactly how it goes, but essentially that talks about the, um, holding to one's ordinary occupations. You know, one of the warnings in probably most mystical traditions is against making use of them for the gaining of special powers, right? Of assimilating that energy to the purposes of one's desires or, or something like that.

And I think it's a danger in psychology, particularly, maybe, maybe particularly Jungian psychology where we can go to things like our dreams in order to achieve goals, to optimize Ego life to be a better lover to be stronger to, to, you know, achieve this goal or that goal or and it keeps us at a distance from the objective life to the, the life that's around us.

The life that comes towards us. Which these days, the image that really stays with me is the simple image of tending one's garden, of, of just doing something that's grounded, that's immediate, that is tangible and real and, and, and simple. And there's a, there's a parallel to the golden flower text in Meister Eckhart.

Eckhart in one of his sermons talks about, um holding an external solitude, right? He says that you can't experience everything as divine by running away. You can't experience life as divine by running away, by shunning things or shutting things out and, and, holding this sort of solitude that keeps everything else at bay.

He says one has to practice a solitude of the spirit wherever and with whomever one is, so wherever and with whomever. So in the midst of your ordinary life elsewhere, he says, before that happens, one has to give care and attentiveness. like a schoolboy setting out to learn. So one has to kind of withdraw and do the learning and focus.

But once you have it, now you need to live in the world.

And it, you know, it, it reminds me of the, the 10 oxherding pictures, right? There are these 10 oxherding pictures which kind of depict this development. Of the spirit, and one of them is an empty circle, and one might think that's the end. That's the achievement of emptiness, but it's not.

That's only the eighth circle. And the ninth is a return to the source where the natural world becomes important, and there are growing trees in the picture. And then the final one is called the return to the marketplace. Thank you. And it's the person who enters into the world as it exists amongst their fellows, buying but buying as if they did not buy and selling as if they did not sell with sort of boon bestowing hands, but in the world as it is not some fantasy of the perfect world that we would have it be.

Well, and that, that reminds me of one of my favorite. lines from the Bible and when, when Jesus, when he's asked, , how should we, how should we practice or how should we live in this world, but not of this world? We need to live in this world, but not off this world, but also a little bit earlier what you said the sort of warnings around inflation or, you know, the inflatory aspect of, of union work or this type of spiritual work, there's this, there's this little paragraph in the red book where Jung says, just because you have special experiences, it doesn't mean you're special.

Yes. Yeah, I feel that more and more, how valuable. Being simple is and the, the specialness that comes in the ordinary, it can be very alive and it doesn't require like ecstatic states as much as it requires a, a, a real presence to what is. And I think if our work is not aimed towards. If our work is aimed towards promoting Jungian psychology or Christianity is aimed towards promoting Christianity, it is not functioning properly.

If it doesn't move us towards life, it's not working.

Sounds like a good place to end. All right. Thank you. Good.