Direct pointing to reality

Essentially the Jungian idea of wholeness /wellness /health /wholth expresses in psychological language what is also the philosophical substructure of all polytheistic traditions, namely that we become one by digesting & assimilating what is diverse – ie, that as we can accept antitheses (perceive the underlying unity of cognitive dissonances) we come to see the nature of existence.

On the inner path the reward for resolving one (existential) paradox is a bigger one(!)

One of our biggest hindrances to self-realisation /achievement of power-full integration is that we project those very hindrances onto an external reality – which /whom we suppose is itself the hindrance. Jung has a useful phrase 'the [personal] unconscious always first manifests in a hostile form.' IE, while our consciousness is a stranger to our unconscious it perceives the latter as something other: the more alienated we are from our true self, the more hostile we perceieve this otherness. Which explains Horror movies.

Part of the great game of a successful life is to engage with this inner otherness (which is sometimes called the shadow) so that by assimilating rather than rejecting what is unattractive about ourselves we actually release its inhibited power to integrate within the natural diversity of our personality.

Often when we achieve what we think of peace /stasis in life it is by blanking elements which disfigure our concept of it. IE by a philosophical trick we place them outside our charmed circle where all is light. Monotheists for instance think that by focusing exclusively on the 'saviour' they can consign all their unintegrated elements to a 'devil' for which /whom they do not have to take responsibility.

To achieve full personhood we have to acknowledge & accommodate within ourselves all that we dislike – so that we no longer have any illusions. To use an eco metaphor, we become our own compost. That way the flowers grower stronger and more vivid. In Von Franz's books she speaks of a recurrent experience as a therapist of finding that within every client there seems to be an inner otherness (manifesting particularly in dream) with whom the therapist can create the conditions for a self-healing dialog to take place, and that when this does it invariably produces a holistic self-realisation which Jungians call the [true] Self – but which in traditional language might be called the soul. Jungians call this journey individuation.

This is contemporary language for the nature of the perennial search for wisdom ['direct pointing to reality' as the Buddhists call it] which is embodied in every religious /philosophical tradition worth the name. Some people personalise this as G/god, others don't. Yet we can never achieve full inner awareness without the integration of the otherness-within-us. In other words the I (ego) has to explore, discover & befriend the not-I (id) so that we achieve a consciousness balanced between egoic awareness & intuitive 'alter-egoic' perception – & in the position we become equipt to unleash the magical powers entrusted to us. But, this is the fascinating double-lock on esoteric reality, they are only fully open to the human mind when the possessor of that mind has consciously & profoundly renounced the personal advantage that such power offers.