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VII
SERMONES AD MORTUOS - C G JUNG
Sermo I
The dead came back from Jerusalem, where they found not what they sought.
They prayed me let them in and sought my word, and thus I began my
teaching.
I begin with nothingness. Nothingness is the same as fullness. In infinity
full is no better than empty. Nothingness is both empty and full. One
might as well say anything else of nothingness, for instance, that
it is white or black, or it is or is not. A thing that is infinite
and eternal has no qualities, since it has all qualities.
This nothingness or fullness we call the PLEROMA. Therein both thinking
and being cease, since the eternal and infinite possess no qualities.
It contains no being, for it would then be distinct from the pleroma,
and would possess qualities which would distinguish it as something distinct
from the pleroma.
In the pleroma there is nothing and everything. It is quite fruitless to think about the pleroma, for this would mean self-dissolution.
CREATURA is not in the pleroma, but in itself. The pleroma is both beginning and end of created beings. It pervades them as light pervades the air. Although the pleroma pervades everywhere, yet it has no share of created being, just as a transparent body becomes neither light nor dark through the light which pervades it. We are, however, the pleroma itself, for we are a part of the eternal and infinite. But we have no share in it, as we are infinitely removed from the pleroma; not spiritually or temporally, but essentially, since we are distinguished from the pleroma in our essence as creatura, which is confined within time and space.
Yet because we are parts of the pleroma, the pleroma is also in us. Even in the smallest point is the pleroma endless, eternal, and entire, since small and great are qualities which are contained in it. It is that nothingness which is everywhere whole and continuous. Only figuratively, therefore, do I speak of created being as a part of the pleroma. Because, actually, the pleroma is nowhere divided, since it is nothingness. We are also the whole pleroma, because, figuratively, the pleroma is the smallest point in us and the boundless firmament about us.
But wherefore, then, do you speak of the pleroma at all, since it is thus everything and nothing?
I speak of it to make a beginning somewhere, and also to free you from the delusion that somewhere, either without or within, there stands something fixed, or in some way established, from the beginning. Every so-called fixed and certain thing is only relative. That alone is fixed and certain which is subject to change.
What is changeable, however, is creatura. Therefore it is the one thing which is fixed and certain; because it has qualities : it is even quality itself.
How then did creatura originate?
Created beings came to pass, not creatura; since created being is the very quality of the pleroma, as much as non-creation which is the eternal death. In all times and places is creation, in all times and places is death. The pleroma has all, distinctiveness and non-distinctiveness.
Distinctiveness is creatura. Distinctiveness is its essence, and therefore it distinguishes. Therefore man discriminates because his nature is distinctiveness. Therefore he also distinguishes qualities of the pleroma which are not. He distinguishes them out of his own nature. Therefore must he speak of qualities of the pleroma which are not.
What use, then, to speak of it? You said there is no profit in thinking upon the pleroma?
I said that to free you from the delusion that we are able to think about the pleroma. When we distinguish qualities of the pleroma, we are speaking from the ground of our own distinctiveness and concerning our own distinctiveness. But we have said nothing concerning the pleroma. Concerning our own distinctiveness, however, it is necessary to speak, so that we may distinguish ourselves enough. Our very nature is distinctiveness. If we are not true to this nature we do not distinguish ourselves enough. Therefore we must make distinctions of qualities.
What is the harm in not distinguishing oneself?
If we do not distinguish, we get beyond our own nature, away from creatura. We fall into the indistinctiveness, which is the other quality of the pleroma. We fall into the pleroma itself and cease to be creatures. We are given over to dissolution in the nothingness. This is the death of the creature. Therefore we die in such measure as we do not distinguish. Hence the natural striving of the creature goeth towards distinctiveness, fightes against primeval, perilous sameness. This is called the PRINCIPIUM INDIVIDUATIONIS. This principle is the essence of the creature. From this you can see why indistinctiveness and non-distinction are a great danger for the creature.
We must, therefore, distinguish the qualities of the pleroma. The qualities are PAIRS OF OPPOSITES, such as -
The Effective and the Ineffective
Fullness and Emptiness
Living and Dead
Difference and Sameness
Light and Darkness
The Hot and the Cold
Force and Matter
Time and Space
Good and Evil
Beauty and Ugliness
The One and the Many
The pairs of opposites are qualities of the pleroma which are not, because
each balances the other. As we are the pleroma itself, we also have all
these qualities in us. Because the very ground of our nature is distinctiveness,
therefore we have these qualities in the name and sign of distinctiveness,
which means -
1. These qualities are distinct and separate in us one from the other;
therefore they are not balanced and void, but are effective. Thus are
we the victims of the pairs of opposites. The pleroma is rent in us.
2. The qualities belong to the pleroma, and only in the name and sign
of distinctiveness can and must we possess or live them. We must distinguish
ourselves from qualities. In the pleroma they are balanced and void;
in us not. Being distinguished from them frees us.
When we strive after the good or the beautiful, we thereby forget our
own nature, which is distinctiveness, and we are delivered over to the
qualities of the pleroma, which are pairs of opposites. We labour to
attain to the good and the beautiful, yet at the same time we also lay
hold of the evil and the ugly, since in the pleroma these are one with
the good and beautiful. When, however, we remain true to our own nature,
which is distinctiveness, we distinguish ourselves from the good and
the beautiful, and, therefore, at the same time, from the evil and the
ugly. And thus we avoid falling into the pleroma, namely, into nothingness
and dissolution.
But difference and sameness are also qualities of the pleroma. How would it be, then, if we strive after difference? Are we, in so doing, not true to our own nature? And must we none the less be given over to sameness when we strive after difference?
You must not forget that the pleroma has no qualities. We create them through thinking. If, therefore, you strive after difference or sameness, or any qualities whatsoever, you pursue thoughts which flow to you out of the pleroma; thoughts, namely, concerning non-existing qualities of the pleroma. In as much as you run after these thoughts, you fall again into the pleroma, and reach difference and sameness at the same time. Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness. Therefore not after difference, as you think it, must you strive, but after your YOUR OWN BEING. At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving, namely, the striving after your own being. If you had this striving you would not need to know anything about the pleroma and its qualities, and yet would you come to your right goal by virture of your own being. Since, however, thought estranges from being, that knowledge I must teach you with which you may be able to hold your thought in leash.