“Within Be Rich, Without Be Fed No More”

That Shakespearean quip is a succinct summary of what Carl Jung offered us decades ago:

If you remain within arbitrary and artificially created boundaries, you will walk as between two high walls: you do not see the immensity of the world. But if you break down the walls that confine your view, and if the immensity and its endless uncertainty inspire you with fear, then the ancient sleeper awakens in you, whose messenger is the white bird.

Then you need the message of the old tamer of chaos. There in the whirl of chaos dwells eternal wonder. Your world begins to become wonderful. Man belongs not only to an ordered world, he also belongs in the wonder-world of his soul. Consequently, you must make your ordered world horrible, so that you are put off by being too much outside yourself.

Your soul is in great need, because drought weighs on its world. If you look outside yourselves, you see the far-off forest and mountains, and above them your vision climbs to the realms of the stars. And if you look into yourselves, you will see on the other hand the nearby as far-off and infinite, since the world of the inner is as infinite as the world of the outer.

Just as you become a part of the manifold essence of the world through your bodies, so you become a part of the manifold essence of the inner world through your soul. This inner world is truly infinite, in no way poorer than the outer one. Man lives in two worlds. A fool lives here or there, but never here and there.“ ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Page 264 |

2 thoughts on ““Within Be Rich, Without Be Fed No More”

  1. Anne-Marie's avatarAnne-Marie

    Straight after I read your blog, I read this from Ron Rolheiser. Uncanny! “One morning, however, Merton sensed that for this moment at least, he had found it. But what he experienced was somewhat of a surprise to him. Solitude, as he experienced it, was being fully inside his own skin, inside the present moment, gratefully aware of the immense richness that is contained inside of ordinary human experience. Solitude consists in being enough inside of your own life to actually
    experience what is there.”

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to literarylew Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.