Thus the free man has the feeling of an unchanging center in himself—a center which is not exactly in his ego and not exactly in life, nature, or the unconscious as independent of the ego. It is the middle of the dance, the point around which the two partners revolve and in which they realize union. He is free because this center makes him feel absolutely secure and at home in the universe; he can take it anywhere, make it do anything, for, as Lao Tzu says of the Tao, “Using it, he finds it inexhaustible.” This center is the point on which his feeling of wholeness depends, and it develops out of faith—because he trusts and abandons himself to life on the one hand and to himself on the other, and also to the dance that is between them. God imparts His life and strength to all creatures, trusting them to use it as they will, because God is the principle of faith and love. When man can have that same faith and love for all the creatures of his mind, which are the states of his mind from moment to moment, then he becomes at one with God. Indeed, the kingdom of heaven is within us—microcosm of the macrocosm—and man finds his freedom through faith in his own universe, making the sun of his acceptance to rise on the evil and the good. Now in this there is profound humility, for as God knows Himself in the sinner as well as in the saint, in the slime as well as in the stars, so also man, in partaking of the freedom of God, must recognize himself in his depths as well as in his heights. For our true instructors in wisdom are not the sages and their writings but the creatures of our own minds, the gods and demons of thought and feeling and their reactions to the outer world of experience. And of these demons the blackest of all is called Lucifer, the bearer of light, for he is made to show us that there is light in the darkness as well as in the light. In the words of Monoimus the Gnostic:5
Cease to seek after God (as without thee), and the universe, and things similar to these; seek Him from out of thyself,…and learn whence is sorrow and joy, and love and hate, and waking though one would not, and sleeping though one would not, and getting angry though one would not, and falling in love though one would not. And if thou shouldst closely investigate these things, thou wilt find Him in thyself, one and many, just as the atom; thus finding from thyself a way out of thyself.
8. THE LOVE OF LIFE
Man’s life begins when he awakens to his freedom, and the earlier in life he discovers it, the better for him. Religion in this sense is not the goal of life; it is the entrance to it, and in freedom of the spirit man has the most glorious instrument of creation that he could desire. For he has discovered God not only in thoughts about God but also in thought itself, and knows himself to be thinking God even when his attention is absorbed in worldly affairs. To those affairs he brings a new power, zest, and spontaneity, for he can give himself to them unreservedly in the knowledge that spirituality is by no means confined to thinking about “spiritual” things. Thus he can devote himself to thoughts of people and things, of business, music, art, and literature, of science, medicine, and engineering, of eating and drinking, of walking, breathing, and talking, of swimming, running, and playing, of looking at the stars and of washing his hands; he has the freedom of God because he is free to think of everything and anything. For if it is true that the innumerable objects of the universe are the thoughts of God, this is what God Himself is doing. Now if his realization of freedom is genuine, it will have two important results—one of which will follow in its own time, and another which, coming immediately, will safeguard him against the abuses of freedom.
The Fulfillment of Personality
Those who realize their freedom early in life will probably not experience the first result until after the age of forty or some years, always provided that they do not allow the instrument of freedom to become rusty; it has to be cleaned and sharpened like any other tool. But there will ultimately come a time when this freedom will effect a change in their psychological structure which will be noticeable in their dreams and fantasies. For just as constant playing of the piano alters the structure of the hands, constant freedom alters the structure of the psyche. This change comes about gradually, whereas freedom itself is usually realized suddenly; but the psyche must then adapt its “organs” by slow growth to the use of its newly found instrument. When the psyche is fully adapted to its freedom we have the condition which Jung describes as “individuation”—a consequence and not a cause of spiritual freedom. The main features of this condition have already been described (see ch. 4, pp. 95–99), but certain aspects of it must be clarified. We spoke of freedom as the feeling of a center in one’s being, an unchanging point of balance which can enter into all circumstances without loss of stability. At first this center is “ideal” in the Platonic sense, and may be compared to the idea of a tune in the composer’s mind before it has been played on an instrument or set down on paper. But because it is ideal, it is nonetheless real; it is not an ideal in the sense of a mere wish for the future. When the composer thinks, “One day I shall compose a most glorious symphony,” he may be said to have an ideal. But when every note of it is heard in his mind and only remains to be given the vehicle of mechanical sound, it is then in the ideal state. To the composer, however, that symphony is very real and its beauty may possibly have a profound effect on his life. So also the ideal center of freedom may have a profound effect on one’s life, even before the faculties of the psyche are adapted to give it the fullest possible expression.
In fact, however, I would set no limits to the possibilities of expressing spiritual freedom, and a hundred lives would not be long enough to exhaust them. But just as music demands four voices for the full expression of melody and harmony, so the human being demands four fully grown faculties to express the complete possibilities of freedom—and even so they are still expressing only possibilities. Jung classifies the four faculties or functions of man as intuition, sensation, intellect, and feeling, and it is almost impossible that anyone should be awakened to all of them before the middle of life.1 These four form a cross with intuition opposite sensation and intellect opposite feeling, and as a rule we grow up and reach the middle of life with only two unopposed faculties developed. Thus, to return to the analogy of music, we can express freedom only with the treble and alto voices; we may feel the center of the cross, but not be aware of all its arms. These two voices or faculties may express the freedom perfectly well within their limits, but the composer will want to express his feeling more completely. Therefore in time we are able to add the more mature voice of tenor and ultimately reach the fully mature voice of bass. It is as if the four petals of a flower had opened one at a time: when all are open, it remains for the flower to grow. So, when the composer has expressed all four voices in solo instruments, he will begin to add to them so that string quartet becomes chamber orchestra and ultimately full-size symphony orchestra. Or we may take the musical analogy in another way and liken the four faculties to the four orchestral divisions—strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion.
We do not, however, achieve this fourfold development simply by seeking out the four individual parts. The petals of a flower grow from the center and the raison d’être of the orchestra is the symphony, and of the four voices, the tune. Spiritual freedom, therefore, gives us the consciousness of a center upon which and out of which these four faculties can grow, though the center is not fully a center until all four are equally developed. The center of a semicircle is only ideally the center of a circle. Therefore in youth we may achieve that center of freedom, but the psyche which hinges upon it will be somewhat lopsided and immature. With astonishing persistence the symbols of this fourfold development occur in religion and mythology the world over. In Christianity it is the Cross; in Buddhism the swastika, the fourfold mandala, and the crossed dorje round a circle; in early Chinese philosophy the four hsiang or emblems of the I Ching; in playing cards the four suits—the list might be elaborated indefinitely.2