Denise Grobbelaar:

Jung & Kundalini Yoga

Jungian Analyst, Psychotherapist & Clinical Psychologist.

Jung was profoundly influenced by Indian philosophy. He made a comprehensive study of yoga and delivered numerous lectures focusing on a psychological interpretation of kundalini yoga.

In the more introverted, meditative traditions of the East, Jung found a philosophical approach that gave priority to the exploration of human consciousness as opposed to the Western extroverted materialistic focus. His dialogue with Eastern spiritual traditions, spanning almost 50 years, profoundly influence the development of analytical psychology. Was Jung’s concept of the archetype of the Self modelled on the Indian concept of an all-encompassing, highest consciousness, namely Brahman? In Psychological Types, Jung uses the concept of Brahman to represent a meta-cognition that regulates the interplay of opposites in the psyche. (1)

Most ancient Indian traditions are based on the premise that Consciousness is the underlying fundamental building block of the Universe. “Yoga, meaning union in Sanskrit, seeks to create awakening through somatic experience, cultivating states that connect us more wholly with something larger than our ego selves—the ground of being, the web of life, or what Jung termed the ‘Self’”. (2)

Many mystical traditions speak of a transcendent consciousness rooted in non-duality - the premise bring that everything, including humanity, is an aspect of the divine and is not separate from it. Our ego-identity often stands in the way of this potential sense of unity. There is a resurgence in the world in searching for numinous experiences which will reveal our divine belongings or as Jung calls it our wholeness in potential. (3)

Jung wrote. “Our whole world of consciousness is only a seed of the future. And when you succeed in the awakening of Kundalini, so that she begins to move out of her mere potentiality, you necessarily start a world which is a world of eternity, totally different from our world”(4).

Written for @jungsouthernafrica

Image credit: Cocorrina & Co

References:

  1. Jung, Psychological Types §330
  2. Bonnie Bright. https://www.pacificapost.com/yoga-meets-depth-psychology-union-consciousness-healing
  3. “On Psychic Energy” in Jung’s Collected Works, Vol. 8.
  4. Jung, The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga, p. 26

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Posted in Archetype of the Self, Consciousness on Apr 05, 2022.