Are you still with me?

Have been holding back from writing for a while now simply because there is just so much happening that I did not want to dive into the middle of it joining in the chaos and confusion that has engulfed the mass around the world with yet m ore to come. It is short of the declaration of WW3 that could top off this whole scenario that humanity is facing today. For once man has a common enemy which has just about brought him to his senses or at least to most as there are still those who whose pride and arrogance yet still held high against the unseen killer that has no discrimination  towards colors, creed or religious it denomination. However it is no sense into going into the details of it but needless to say mankind has been dealt a blow and is facing a catastrophic consequences if and when this pandemic ends.

With this ongoing scenario as a prop I have decided to take on reading C.G. Jung's, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious as a study. It is no easy read no doubt but I will try to make as much as much sense as I can as Jung's works has always been an intrigue to me. I believe that with a better understanding of the psychology of the 'unconscious' I will have a deeper understanding of  my quest for understanding who I truly am. Thus far having covered more than half the book I am just beginning to have a grasp on the nature of the unconscious and how i has the affect on my conscious mind as well as my dreams, perception and  my insights and instincts etc. Somehow I feel like this is the final cap to my quest for the answers to the question - who am I? A question that I have asked myself for over forty to fifty years of my life. It is not that I expect to find any easy answers or rational explanation as far from it seems the more I understand Jung the farther I find myself from reaching a conclusion. 

Instead of  finding a clear answer to my questions about who I am i find that I am being introduced to new and formative characters that I never knew existed in my psyche. Characters like the 'shadow', the animus and anima, the Dore,  the 'trickster' and a host of others that somehow and often time influences my the choices I make, the decisions, as I said before my dreams and imaginations etc. The influence of the unconscious upon my conscious or thinking mind may be subtle and imperceptible often times but I hope to become more aware and open to receiving these influences as much as I can such it will help transcend this phenomenal existence and reveal a deeper meaning to life than what i am being exposed to to be real. As when I say, I am whole, what does it truly mean to be whole, complete and perfect? I have had my own inkling as to how far or how deep the meaning can be but here is what Jung has to offer on this subject

"I use the term "individuation" to denote a process by which a person becomes a psychological in-dividual, that is a separate, individual unity or "whole." It is generally assumed that consciousness is the whole of the psychological individual. But knowledge of the phenomena that can only be explained on the hypothesis of unconscious psychic processes makes it doubtful whether the ego and its contents are in fact identical with the "whole." If unconscious processes exist at all, they must belong to the totality of the individual, even though they are not components of the conscious ego. If they were part of the ego they would necessarily be conscious, because everything that is directly related to the ego is conscious. Consciousness can even be equated with the relation between the ego and the psychic contents. But unconscious phenomena are so related to the ego that most people do not hesitate to deny the existences outright."

I realize that to understand Jung's works is no easy matter however I feel like most of what he has been saying thus far has some connection to my own studies and i have read Jung before while in college but never truly made it a study as I am trying to now. I have been trying to study my dreams too of late more so than in the past cause dreams intrigues me and sometime I look forward to going to bed simply because I looked forward to dreaming. There was a time in my younger days when I was able to practically orchestrate my own dreams like a movie director. I would dream of being a cowboy, or Tarzan of the Apes and so forth and true enough in my sleep I would be riding and running through the forest. Then in my adult life I had a few really serious dreams that I cannot forget so vivid and intense they were. If there is any issue that is recurring in my dreams of late, it is the fact that I will find myself trying to get home or somewhere and never making it. It is like I am lost along a long journey and finding it harder and harder to find my way home. However this does not mean that the journey itself is not interesting or even challenging.

In my last memorable a few nights ago I dreamed that I was ordained a Buddhist monk in the Zen Tradition and short while after still in the same dream I was also ordained in the Tibetan Tradition. I woke up feeling good about the dream but at the same time perplexed. I can understand being ordained a Zen Monk but why a Tibetan Monk? The ceremony was no small matter, it was an elaborate affair and i knew most of the people at the ceremony and felt being ther dressed in the Black Zen monk's robes and later the Safron and maroon colored robes of the Tibetan schools...I still maintain at heart I know i am a Muslim by faith and so the dream has thrown yet another curve ball for me to juggle with. 

Hence my dreams alone has made me wonder where does it all comes from, dreams, weird thoughts and images, crazy ideas and out of this world imaginings, where do they originate from? What makes one dwells more so on negative traits and thoughts than positive ones? Why does one assumes or even projects the worse towards our fellow man more so than wishing him the best of possibilities? What is fear? Why am I jealous? why do I envy? why do I steal and covet what does not belong to me even when i realize that it is wrong? What makes me say things i do not mean, think of the things that I never even dream of being capable of normally, why do I act in such a manner that hurt others and myself? 
to be contd...