MANY ARE CALLED, BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN
By Lewis Lafontaine, carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog
Publisher’s note: I don’t know where Dr Jung got this insight, but it validates my own mystical experiences of Reality about the supreme importance of the individual over mere social conventionality in the development of existence:
“The words “many are called, but few are chosen” are singularly appropriate here, for the development of personality from the germ-state to full consciousness is at once a charisma and a curse, because its first fruit is the conscious and unavoidable segregation of the single individual from the undifferentiated and unconscious herd. This means isolation, and there is no more comforting word for it. Neither family nor society nor position can save him from this fate, nor yet the most successful adaptation to his environment, however smoothly he fits in. The development of personality is a favor that must be paid for dearly. But the people who talk most loudly about developing their personalities are the very ones who are least mindful of the results, which are such as to frighten away all weaker spirits.
“Yet the development of personality means more than just hatching forth monsters, or of isolation. It also means fidelity to the law of one’s own being.
“For the word “fidelity” I should prefer, in this context, the Greek word used in the New Testament, nioris, which is erroneously translated “faith.” It really means “trust,” “trustful loyalty.” Fidelity to the law of one’s own being is a trust in this law, a loyal perseverance and a confident hope; in short, an attitude such as a religious man should have towards God. It can now be seen how portentous is the dilemma that emerges from behind our problem: personality can never develop unless the individual chooses his own way, consciously and with moral deliberation. Not only the casual motive – necessity – but conscious moral decision must lend its strength to the process of building the personality.
“If the first is lacking, then the alleged development is a mere acrobatics of the will: If the second, it will get stuck in unconscious automatism. But a a man can make a conscious decision to go his own way only if he holds that way to be the best. If any other way were held to be better, then he would live and develop that other personality instead of his own. The other ways are conventionalities of a moral, social, political, philosophical, or religious nature. The fact that the conventions always flourish in one form or another only proves that the vast majority of mankind do not choose their own way, but convention, and consequently develop not themselves but a method and a mode of life at the cost of their own wholeness.”Carl Jung; The Development of Personality.
Reblogged by Mysticexperiences.net, 2018
Mystical Experiences of Reality 