Beyond this it is irrelevant and useless to “prove” the existence of the unconscious. It can only be proved by personal experience, and as a mere conception it is almost valueless. The important thing is to have some feeling, however rudimentary, of its existence and of its potentialities for good and for evil. And, after all, to say that we have an unconscious is only another way of saying that mentally and physically we are children of nature and that our lives have roots which go beyond our ken. Sometimes it seems quite impossible that there are those who simply cannot grasp it.
There remains now the question of the capacity to accept the unconscious, and this involves three things: firstly, the capacity to accept its “dark” aspect, secondly, the capacity to accept the independence of its “gods and demons” from the ego, and thirdly, the capacity to accept the conflict between some of those gods and demons and the ego. It need hardly be said that these capacities are not different; they are the same capacity working in three different but related directions. The process is best shown by a concrete illustration. Let us take, for example, a mood of acute depression. Three things may be said of it: firstly, that it is unpleasant in itself, secondly, that it comes without our consent and does not leave at our command, and thirdly, that we have some reaction to it, a reaction of impatience, disgust, of wishing to be rid of it—which is a factor distinct from and in addition to the feeling of depression itself.
We may call this mood a demon out of the unconscious which has “possessed” us. The way of acceptance begins by giving it our attention. Instead of trying to forget about it and repress it we make up our minds to deal with it consciously, almost as man to man. Instead of allowing our servant at the door (the Freudian “censor”) to send it away, we invite it to come in and have a cup of tea. Yes, it would perhaps be better to offer it a Scotch and soda—and I mean this in all seriousness, because the idea is to encourage it, to invite it to be itself with a vengeance, really to be a depression. For this is accepting its independence of the ego, that is, allowing it to behave as it wills, or, as the Chinese say, to follow its own tao, because if we do not allow all other things their tao we cannot expect to have our own tao. In our own language we might say that to be in accord with nature is to allow everything to follow its own nature. As Lieh Tzu remarked, in explaining the secret of his mysterious capacity to ride on the wind, “I allowed my mind to think without restraint of whatever it pleased and my mouth to talk about whatever it pleased.” So here, we allow the depression to take whatever course it pleases; instead of denying it, we affirm it. This requires that we feel our way into its very heart and experience it to the full—one might almost call this a “higher masochism”—and though, to all common sense, it seems the most absurd thing to do, it results in the discovery that even the blackest mood has a profound meaning for us and is a blessing in disguise. It was not without reason that the Egyptians called the demons the mediators between gods and men.
If, however, the conflict between the depression and the ego is particularly strong, we have first to deal with another mediatory demon in the shape of the conflict itself, the feeling of impatience, disgust, and wishing to be rid of it. Sometimes the actual depression is too tough a proposition to tackle directly, and so we have to allow the reactionary feeling of disgust to be itself and behave as it pleases. To this we give full rein in the same way, telling it to be as disgusted, impatient, and angry as it likes. This, of course, affords an immense psychological relief. For it means that the conscious ego has divested itself of the unnecessary and impertinent responsibility of thinking it essential to direct and interfere with all that goes on around it. It is this very sense of false responsibility which disturbs its peace of mind. This is particularly noticeable in cases of insomnia in which people are kept awake by such minor irritations as night noises, doors slamming, trains crossing bridges, cars changing gear, and people moving about the house. The sleepless one immediately assumes a responsibility for these noises in his very wish to interfere with them, and the tension of this responsibility keeps him awake. But if he can allow them to go ahead and clamor as much as they like, he will at once feel relieved, relaxed, and ready for sleep. In such matters it is well to follow the example of one of Edward Lear’s inimitable creations:
There was a young lady whose bonnet
Came untied when the birds sat upon it.
But she said, “I don’t care,
For the birds of the air
Are welcome to sit on my bonnet.”
A further illustration is found in the record of a conversation between a Chinese Buddhist teacher and his pupil, who asked the figurative question, “It is terribly hot, and how shall we escape the heat?” The teacher replied, “Go right down to the bottom of the furnace.” “But in the furnace,” persisted the somewhat baffled pupil, “how shall we escape the scorching fire?” “No further pains will harass you,” concluded the teacher. A story is told of a lunatic who used to hit himself on the head with a brick. When asked for an explanation of his peculiar behavior, he answered that it was such a pleasant feeling when he stopped. In the same way we might say that the spiritual raison d’être of suffering is the enlightenment that follows from its acceptance. For the way of acceptance is applicable to demons from both worlds, from the unconscious in the form of depressions, phobias, and the like, and from external circumstances in the form of physical pain and irritation. In this sense acceptance is the philosopher’s stone that “turneth all to gold”; it means putting our consciousness in the very core of whatever pain falls upon us and allowing that pain to do its worst. As to our reaction to the pain the same principle applies, for we allow the demon that wishes to scream, protest, and swear all freedom to have its way. As often as not it does not need it, for the very act of granting it the freedom is in itself a relief.
The Problems of Emotion
Western students are often disconcerted in their study of Oriental psychology by the capacity of some of the “wise men of the East” for violent emotions. We have the impression that Oriental sages should be utterly calm and “controlled” under all circumstances. But this expectation is something which a certain puritanic element in the Western mind, a certain cold, intellectual desire for superhumanity and ultraefficiency, has projected into Oriental psychology. That statement is made with certain reservations, for the same element undoubtedly exists in some of the philosophies of India, notably in Hinayana Buddhism. It must be remembered, however, that in a tropical climate vital energies, though abundant, are not particularly forceful. Chinese Buddhism is more lively, and its history contains innumerable instances of the capacity of its initiates for displays of almost elemental emotion, particularly anger. One has only to look at the demonic aspects of some of the gods and Bodhisattvas in Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese iconography. If anyone imagines Buddhism to be a religion of pure passivity, as we understand it, he should see some of the Chinese paintings of Achala! He might also do well to visit some of the living masters of Zen Buddhism. For the art of becoming reconciled to and at ease with those aspects of natural man which correspond to storm and thunder in the natural universe is to let them rage. Just as there is an incomparable beauty and majesty in thunder and lightning, so also there is something awe-inspiring in the abandoned and uninhibited anger of the sage, which is no mere loss of temper or petty irritability. We remember how Jesus cast the money changers out of the temple, and it was no cool tongue that scourged the Jews as a “generation of vipers” and the Pharisees as “whited sepulchres.” This is, indeed, lack of the wrong kind of self-control, for we have to judge it from a psychological and not from an intellectual-moral point of view.