Introduction
Leanne Whitney spent a decade and a half studying the work of Carl Jung and Patañjali. Whitney shares her research findings in Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali. It’s an interesting book. Comparing the work of Jung and Patañjali “offers a rich source of deep discussion in relation to the nature of consciousness, the reality of thought, dualistic and nondualistic worldviews, and religious experience”.1
If we ”want to understand consciousness”, then we must be ”aware in every moment of what we are doing and how we are drawing conclusions”.2 We know ”very little about how thought is produced”.3 ”With too heavy a focus on the obviously visible, the subtle and invisible become neglected.”4 The ”subjective and qualitative nature of conscious experience resists the objectivity of orthodox scientific inquiry”.5 Whitney writes,
”It is a massive assumption that the subject–object relation is capable of accounting for life or of understanding it.”6
Constructed knowledge is constrained by the ”human thought processes that isolate and choose which parts to relate”.7 Relationships are ”context dependent”.8 ”The overall integrity of life is compromised when we are only focused on its parts.”9 It is a huge assumption that ”we can pull apart life”, and that we can separate the parts ”from the awareness in which they arise”.10
The Yoga Sūtras
Classical Yoga ”developed over a length of time” and ”was then compiled by Patañjali in the Yoga Sūtras”.11 Sūtras are ”extremely concise aphorisms”.12 The ”sūtras were designed to aid easy memorization”.13 ”As much information as possible is packed into the smallest amount of words.”14 Commentaries were added over the centuries to clarify the meaning of the text.
”A large portion of Patañjali’s text focuses on the methods that assist one in cultivating the ability to perceive pure consciousness.”15 The text is a practice. Direct experience plays a primary role before argument. Whitney writes,
”With the mind stabilized and free of conditions, pure consciousness has no alternative but to be revealed and directly experienced.”16
Patañjali’s ”ideas about consciousness must”, in other words, be ”understood through direct experience”.17 The ”subtlest movements of matter and mind can lead to pure consciousness, at the level of human awareness, being lost”.18 Movements give rise to the Seen. When ”the Seen is the focus, pure Seeing is concealed”.19 Whitney explains,
”Although the Seer is pure consciousness, […] what we most often see is distortion brought about by mind patterns.”20
Pure consciousness is realized ”when we stabilize awareness and still the states of mind”.21 ”Patañjali suggested that one can focus on whatever object or principle that is suitable”.22 ”When the mind has come under control through the practice of concentration, the mind has the ability to be stable”.23 Perception in Yoga is based on what is present.
”The entirety of reality is compressed and encapsulated in each moment.”24
—Edwin Bryant
Depth Psychology
Depth psychology arose in an ”attempt to grasp the human experience”.25 Jung ”attempted to look at things from multiple angles” and ”found myth to be an indispensable intermediate stage between conscious and unconscious knowledge”.26 Jung writes,
”Myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science. Science works with concepts of averages which are far too general to do justice to the subjective variety of an individual life.”27
—Carl Jung
Jung believed that unconscious emotions were the ”road to the unconscious” and that ”archetypes are pre-existent to consciousness and condition it”.28 He also believed that consciousness ”without an ego or without contents” would lead to ”complete unconsciousness”.29
The aim in Jungian psychology is to transform ”unconscious contents into conscious ones”.30 Separation from ”who we truly are at our core, plunges us into conflict”.31 ”Individuation embraces our uniqueness, the vocation for which we are destined.”32
Jung vs. Patañjali
Leanne Whitney points out that Jung worked with feelings and intuitions, but, in the end, ”put tremendous faith in the rational mind”.33 There is no pure consciousness for Jung, only different ”states of consciousness”.34 Jung believed that ”we can construct accurate knowledge of our world without acknowledging any metaphysical foundation to that knowledge”.35
”Patañjali’s process of radical discernment” results in ”embodied knowledge”.36 Patañjali viewed ”the human mind and body as instruments of perception”.37 Blocked vision distorts the perception. Remove the blockages and the view clears.
Patañjali emphasized the mind’s ”habitual tendencies”, which are brought about through ”primary imprints”.38 Jung represented imprints as ”archetypes”, while Patañjali represented imprints as the ”result of past and present action”.39 Patañjali emphasized that knowledge is linked to stillness. Jung ”never speaks to pure stillness”.40
Patañjali’s Self is ”pure seeing”.41 It can never ”make an object of itself”.42 Identification with an ego ”obscures the Self”.43 ”The Self can be realized by releasing the grasp of objectifying thought and by seeing through the concepts”.44 Jung’s ”Self is not the Seer”, but more comparable with ”what we can see”.45
The aim of Patañjali Yoga is ”an experience that ultimately cannot be explained”.46 ”It is understood only by relinquishing all reduction, objectification, and knowledge construction.”47 Jung’s notion of consciousness is ”fundamentally linguistic and conceptual in nature”.48
It is through practice that ”the fluctuations of the mind are mastered in Yoga”.49 This is ”similar to the function that allows us to learn how to stabilize the body, attain balance, and walk”.50 ”Through consistent Yoga practice and the process of cleaning the lens of perception, practitioners learn how to see differently.”51 ”Consciousness is all there is whether manifest or unmanifest.”52
Patañjali recognizes that ”there is being and there is learning about being”.53 Jung’s ego, ”by appropriating consciousness”, gets in the way being.54 Jung’s confusion, in this respect, is his greatest blind spot compared to Patañjali. Whitney writes,
”Patañjali may explain his philosophy to Jung in the following way: The mind that perceives the obstacle Is. The. Obstacle.”55
Patañjali instructs us to ”breath in and out evenly, still the mind, and See”.56 The ”understanding of pure consciousness is beyond conception”.57 It’s about being able ”to rest in the silent stillness underpinning the images and forms”.58 ”Any kind of representation is a form of distance, a form of separation from pure consciousness.”59 ”Neither reflection nor representation can ever portray the actuality”.60 The map is not the territory.
”When looking at Jung through Patañjali’s lens, it appears that Jung was immersed in reflection, or reflective consciousness, to the extent that he was unable to understand our instruments of perception in the same way that Patañjali did.”61 This is to say that Jung ”remained in the knowledge structures brought about through subject–object distinction”. Jung’s theories rest upon ”the isolated mind, knowledge construction, and representation”.62
Although both Jung and Patañjali attempted to ground their work in the ”direct experience of life”, and ”guide us towards wholeness”, embodying wholeness appears beyond the reach of Jungian psychology.63 Jung believed understanding comes ”through objects of experience”, but it is ”objectification that leaves us bound to indirect knowledge and unable to embody our wholeness”.64 To ”fully experience anything, one has to be willing to submit to the experience in question without reservation.”65
If Patañjali is correct, then ”Jungian depth psychology may be building its discipline upon very shaky ground”.66 At the core of Jungian depth psychology lies a “conceptual problem”.67 What is ”pure consciousness for Patañjali” is ”Unknown for Jung”.68 Whitney writes,
”The enmeshment of the Seer and the Seen appears to be Jung’s blind spot in an embodied understanding of pure consciousness.”69
We need to fundamentally shift ”the way we perceive and experience reality”.70 Beyond the explicate order of ”discrete and independent objects” lies ”a completely different” implicate “order.”71 How the implicate translates to the explicate, and vice versa, are open questions.
A calm mind and a steady breath stabilize ”our psychophysical being”.72 ”Grounding is vital.”73 Viewing reality only ”through discrete observation” leads to ”a misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of reality”.74 Discrete observation blinds us ”to both gross and subtle aspects of the manifest world”.75 Whitney writes,
”The subject can never become objectified and be seen accurately. Ever.”76
Conclusion
Jung and Patañjali had fundamentally different worldviews. If pure consciousness is ”fundamental to the structure of the universe”, then the foundation of depth psychology lies on ”a profound misunderstanding of our true nature”.77
”Whether scientists are aware of it or not, their theories always rely on metaphysical ideas.”78
Jungian depth psychology has ”used derivative consciousness to re-present intrinsic consciousness”.79 But representation is ”a form of distance, a form of separation from pure being”.80 ”The actuality can only be lived, never re-presented.”81
Patañjali ”acknowledged that consciousness has both a conceptual and a linguistic nature as well as a non-conceptual and non-linguistic nature”.82 ”Jung never spoke of stilling the mind”, while Patañjali’s work depends on it.83
I find Leanne Whitney’s exploration of the visible and invisible worlds of Jung and Patañjali most fascinating and deeply insightful. Whitney’s argument that a “conceptual problem” lies at the core of Jungian depth psychology is compelling. The main non-wisdom, or blindness, is confusing something for something else. The enfolded becomes visible when we are grounded in silence before thought.
Notes
1. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Introduction
2. Ibid..
3. Ibid..
4. Ibid..
5. Ibid..
6. Ibid..
7. Ibid..
8. Ibid..
9. Ibid..
10. Ibid..
11. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Chapter 1 Patañjali
12. Ibid..
13. Ibid..
14. Ibid..
15. Ibid..
16. Ibid..
17. Ibid..
18. Ibid..
19. Ibid..
10. Ibid..
20. Ibid..
21. Ibid..
22. Ibid..
23. Ibid..
24. Edwin Bryant, The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, p. 399
25. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Chapter 2 Jung
26. Ibid..
27. Carl Jung, Memories, dreams, reflections, p. 17.
28. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Chapter 2 Jung
29. Ibid..
30. Ibid..
31. Ibid..
32. Ibid..
33. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Chapter 3 Jung and Patañjali: Back to back
34. Ibid..
35. Ibid..
36. Ibid..
37. Ibid..
38. Ibid..
39. Ibid..
40. Ibid..
41. Ibid..
42. Ibid..
43. Ibid..
44. Ibid..
45. Ibid..
46. Ibid..
47. Ibid..
48. Ibid..
49. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Chapter 4 Jung on Yoga
50. Ibid..
51. Ibid..
52. Ibid..
53. Ibid..
54. Ibid..
55. Ibid..
56. Ibid..
57. Ibid..
58. Ibid..
59. Ibid..
60. Ibid..
61. Ibid..
62. Ibid..
63. Ibid..
64. Ibid..
65. Ibid..
66. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Chapter 5 A synthesis of Jung and Patañjali
67. Ibid..
68. Ibid..
69. Ibid..
71. Ibid..
72. Ibid..
73. Ibid..
74. Ibid..
75. Ibid..
76. Ibid..
77. Leanne Whitney, Consciousness in Jung and Patañjali, Chapter 6 Conclusion
78. Ibid..
79. Ibid..
80. Ibid..
81. Ibid..
82. Ibid..
83. Ibid..