filozofia

Synchronicity – An Acausal Connecting Principle Carl Gustav Jung

All the events in a man’s life would accordingly stand in two fundamentally different kinds of connection: firstly, in the objective, causal connection of the natural process; secondly, in a subjective connection which exists only in relation to the individual who experiences it, and which is thus as subjective as his own dreams.

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The writer Wilhelm von Scholz 1)↓ has collected a number of stories showing the strange ways in which lost or stolen objects come back to their owners. Among other things, he tells the story of a mother who took a photograph of her small son in the Black Forest. She left the film to be developed in Strassburg. But, owing to the outbreak of war, she was unable to fetch it and gave it up for lost. In 1916 she bought a film in Frankfurt in order to take a photograph of her daughter, who had been born in the meantime. When the film was developed it was found to be doubly exposed: the picture underneath was the photograph she had taken of her son in 1914! The old film had not been developed and had somehow got into circulation again among the new films. The author comes to the understandable conclusion that everything points to the “mutual attraction of related objects,” or an “elective affinity.” He suspects that these happenings are arranged as if they were the dream of a “greater and more comprehensive consciousness, which is unknowable.

synchronicity

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Decisive evidence for the existence of acausal combinations of events has been furnished, with adequate scientific safeguards, only very recently, mainly through the experiments of J. B. Rhine and his fellow-workers, 2)↓ who have not, however, recognized the far-reaching conclusions that must be drawn from their findings. Up to the present no critical argument that cannot be refuted has been brought against these experiments. The experiment consists, in principle, in an experimenter turning up, one after another, a series of numbered cards bearing simple geometrical patterns. At the same time the subject, separated by a screen from the experimenter, is given the task of guessing the signs as they are turned up. A pack of twenty-five cards is used, each five of which carry the same sign. Five cards are marked with a star, five with a square, five with a circle, five with wavy lines, and five with a cross. The experimenter naturally does not know the order in which the pack is arranged, nor has the subject any opportunity of seeing the cards. Many of the experiments were negative, since the result did not exceed the probability of five chance hits. In the case of certain subjects, however, some results were distinctly above probability. The first series of experiments consisted in each subject trying to guess the cards 800 times. The average result showed 6.5 hits for 25 cards, which is 1.5 more than the chance probability of 5 hits. The probability of there being a chance deviation of 1.5 from the number 5 works out at 1 : 250,000. This proportion shows that the probability of a chance deviation is not exactly high, since it is to be expected only once in 250,000 cases. The results vary according to the specific gift of the individual subject. One young man, who in numerous experiments scored an average of 10 hits for every 25 cards (double the probable number), once guessed all 25 cards correctly, which gives a probability of 1 : 298,023,223,876,953,125. The possibility of the pack being shuffled in some arbitrary way is guarded against by an apparatus which shuffles the cards automatically, independently of the experimenter.  Czytaj dalej

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1. Der Zufall: Eine Vorform des Schicksals.
2. J. B. Rhine, Extra-Sensory Perception and New Frontiers of the Mind. J. G. Pratt, J. B. Rhine, C. E. Stuart, B. M. Smith, and J. A. Greenwood, Extra-Sensory Perception after Sixty Years. A general survey of the findings in Rhine, The Reach of the Mind, and also in the valuable book by G. N. M. Tyrrell, The Personality of Man. A short résumé in Rhine, “An Introduction to the Work of Extra-Sensory Perception.” S. G. Soal and F. Bateman, Modern Experiments in Telepathy.

Possibility of Understanding C. G. Jung

The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They must be so because they express the necessary polarity inherent in every self-regulating system. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.

I have often seen individuals simply outgrow a problem which had destroyed others. This ‘outgrowing’, as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose on the person’s horizon, and through this widening of his view the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency. It was not repressed and made unconscious, but merely appeared in a different light, and so did indeed become different. What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to panicky outbursts of emotion, viewed from the higher level of the personality, now seemed like a storm in the valley seen from a high mountain-top. […] One certainly does feel the affect and is shaken and tormented by it, yet at the same time one is aware of a higher consciousness, which prevents one from becoming identical with the affect, a consciousness which takes the affect objectively, and can say, ‘I know that I suffer.’ What our text 1)↓ says of indolence: ‘Indolence of which a man is conscious and indolence of which he is unconscious are a thousand miles apart’, holds true in the highest degree of affect also…

It would be simple enough, if only simplicity were not the most difficult of all things.

What did these people do in order to achieve the development that liberated them? As far as I could see they did nothing wu wei 2)↓ but let things happen. As Master Lü-tsu teaches in our text, the light rotates according to its own law, if one does not give up one’s ordinary occupation. The art of letting things happen, action through non-action, letting go of oneself, as taught by Meister Eckhart, became for me the key opening the door to the way. We must be able to let things happen in the psyche. For us, this actually is an art of which few people know anything. Consciousness is forever interfering, helping, correcting, and negating 3)↓, and never leaving the simple growth of the psychic processes in peace. It would be simple enough, if only simplicity were not the most difficult of all things…
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1. The Secret of the Golden Flower
2. Action through non-action. [C. F. B.]
3. Often a veritable cramp of consciousness exists.

Moralna percepcja Rudolf Steiner

Rozpoznawać i widzieć Życie poza materialnym wymiarem istnienia jesteśmy w stanie, gdy zaczynamy nabierać moralnej percepcji otaczającego nas świata.

Duchowa nauka nie znaczy po prostu zdobywania wiedzy; duchowa nauka oznacza przede wszystkim osobistą edukację duszy. Gdy ktoś zanurzy się w duchową naukę, przyzwyczajenia i skłonności ku takim lub innym, pielęgnowanym wcześniej sposobom myślenia, zmieniają się. Stajemy się inni; zaczynamy mieć inne zainteresowania. To co kiedyś było w centrum naszej uwagi, naszego życia, przestaje nas interesować; a to co wcześniej było poza naszym światem, teraz wyznacza jego środek.
 Zwracam się tutaj do tych, co akceptują w pewnym stopniu duchową naukę. Stąd zakładam, że wiecie, iż tuż za naszymi wrażeniami, poza tym co widzimy naszymi oczyma, dotykamy naszymi dłońmi, i ogarniamy naszym rozumieniem w normalnej ludzkiej, anatomiczno-fizjologicznej postaci, poza tym co nazywamy fizycznym ciałem – rozpoznajemy pierwszą ponadzmysłową zasadę ludzkiego istnienia. Tę ponadzmysłową podstawę nazywamy ciałem eterycznym, lub „ciałem żywotnym”. […]
 Czegoś podobnego możemy dokonać wobec całej otaczającej nas natury. Dokładnie tak jak podczas analizy ludzkiej istoty, kiedy odnajdujemy, że poza ciałem materialnym jest ciało eteryczne, tak samo możemy przyjrzeć się zewnętrznej naturze w jej materialno-fizycznym aspekcie – w jej kolorach, kształtach, dźwiękach, w całych jej królestwach: mineralnym, roślinnym, zwierzęcym a także ludzkim. Jeżeli spojrzymy na to co nas otacza w odpowiedni sposób, zobaczymy, że dokładnie tak jak poza naszą ludzką cielesnością istnieje „ciało żywotne”, tak samo poza materialną naturą świata istnieje rodzaj jego eterycznego ciała – sfera Życia…
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Filozofia praktyczna B.K.S Iyengar

«Pomiędzy życiem filozoficznym a życiem praktycznym należy osiągnąć dużą równowagę. Jeśli uda wam się tego nauczyć, będziecie prawdziwymi filozofami praktycznymi. Nie jest wielkim osiągnięciem filozofować dla samej filozofii. Filozofowie są często oderwanymi od życia marzycielami. Ważne jest natomiast to, by wprowadzić naszą filozofię w codzienność w taki sposób, by życie ze swoimi przeciwnościami i swoimi uciechami mogło być kierowane filozofią. Czy można żyć z sukcesem w społeczeństwie bez rezygnowania z naszej wędrówki duchowej, zachowując wierność naszym przemianom i naszemu rozwojowi? Oto prawdziwa filozofia praktyczna.»
B.K.S Iyengar L’Albero dello yoga

l’uni­ver­so sem­pre gio­va­ne Marco Aurelio

23. La na­tu­ra uni­ver­sa­le con la pro­pria so­stan­za, come con la cera, mo­del­la un ca­val­lo, poi lo fon­de e uti­liz­za la sua ma­te­ria per mo­del­la­re un al­be­ro, quin­di un uomo e così via; e cia­scu­na di que­ste fi­gu­re non dura che un istan­te, di fron­te all’eter­ni­tà. Ma, come per un for­zie­re, così per qua­lun­que cosa o es­se­re vi­ven­te non c’è nul­la di ter­ri­bi­le nel fat­to che si dis­sol­va, come non c’è nel­la sua co­stru­zio­ne.

25. Tut­te le cose che vedi sa­ran­no ben pre­sto tra­sfor­ma­te dal­la na­tu­ra uni­ver­sa­le, che dal­la loro so­stan­za ne farà na­sce­re al­tre, le qua­li a loro vol­ta si tra­sfor­me­ran­no in al­tre an­co­ra e così via, e ciò af­fin­ché l’uni­ver­so ri­man­ga sem­pre gio­va­ne.
Marco Aurelio, Pensieri, Libro settimo

The Practice of the Wild Gary Snyder. excerpts from the first chapter: The Etiquette of Freedom

Creatures who have traveled with us through the ages are now apparently doomed, as their habitat—and the old, old habitat of humans—falls before the slow-motion explosion of expanding world economies. If the lad or lass is among us who knows where the secret heart of this Growth-Monster is hidden, let them please tell us where to shoot the arrow that will slow it down.

Instead of making the world safer for humankind, the foolish tinkering with the powers of life and death by the occidental scientist-engineer-ruler puts the whole planet on the brink of degradation.

To be truly free one must take on the basic conditions as they are—painful, impermanent, open, imperfect—and then be grateful for impermanence and the freedom it grants us.

Walking is the great adventure, the first meditation, a practice of heartiness and soul primary to humankind. Walking is the exact balance of spirit and humility.

The world is watching: one cannot walk through a meadow or forest without a ripple of report spreading out from one’s passage. The thrush darts back, the jay squalls, a beetle scuttles under the grasses, and the signal is passed along. Every creature knows when a hawk is cruising or a human strolling. The information passed through the system is intelligence.

Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?

Great insights have come to some people only after they reached the point where they had nothing left. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca became unaccountably deepened after losing his way and spending several winter nights sleeping naked in a pit in the Texas desert under a north wind. He truly had reached the point where he had nothing. („To have nothing, you must have nothing!” Lord Buckley says of this moment.) After that he found himself able to heal sick native people he met on his way westward. His fame spread ahead of him. Once he had made his way back to Mexico and was again a civilized Spaniard he found he had lost his power of healing—not just the ability to heal, but the will to heal, which is the will to be whole: for as he said, there were „real doctors” in the city, and he began to doubt his powers. To resolve the dichotomy of the civilized and the wild, we must first resolve to be whole.

wild_Snyder