The Final Spiritual Mission
" I am not what happened to me but what I choose to become."
C.G. Jung. (Poet of the Mind.)
This morning I came across a YouTube presentation titled "The Final Spiritual Mission", inspired by the philosophy of Carl Jung and addressed to those born between 1945 and 1965. It landed with full impact upon my journey thus far.
Jung has long been one of my quiet spiritual guides in helping me unravel the psychological and spiritual questions that have accompanied me throughout my life.
As I reflected on his words, I remembered the famous statement often attributed to him:
"I'd rather be whole than good."
It resonated deeply.
Wholeness demands that we embrace every fragment of ourselves—the seen and the unseen, the sacred and the shadowed. To know the One Mind is not to escape the world, but to integrate it; to live fully conscious of both our humanity and our divinity.
For those who wish to explore this bridge between Eastern and Western understandings of the soul, I would highly recommend Psychology and the East by Carl Jung. It is especially valuable for Western seekers who wish to understand the different perspectives of Eastern spirituality, and perhaps cultivate Right Understanding through that encounter.
I will not venture too deeply into Jung's work for now. I have yet to fully grasp its depths, and I prefer to move slowly and carefully rather than rush toward conclusions I may later discover to be incomplete. Better to walk with humility than with certainty.
Still, I have been granted a small realization—a glimpse of what I have been searching for all these years: an understanding of the workings of my own mind.
Mine is a mind that has embraced both East and West—not merely through study, but through life itself. I do not think of myself as either an Eastern or a Western thinker. Rather, I have become something of a bridge between the two. Years of living, learning, and wandering through both worlds have gradually dissolved that old division within me.
My three years in Japan became a pivotal transition before I finally returned to the East after twenty-one years in the United States. Looking back, every step seems to have prepared me for the next.
Perhaps my mind itself was destined to become an experiment in contrast.
I was born a twin. My brother remained with our parents, while I was given away at birth and raised by my uncle, who was a Buddhist, within a family of Muslim relatives. To belong, I quietly practiced Islam while outwardly living as a Buddhist. My childhood became a spiritual labyrinth, filled with contradictions, concealments, and silent questions that would take a lifetime to explore.
At the risk of repeating myself, I shall say no more except this:
I am who I am because I was exposed to faith, religion, and spirituality from a very young age—not as abstract philosophies, but as living realities that I had to navigate, reconcile, and ultimately integrate.
In that light, the path toward understanding one's own mind is not a journey toward perfection.
It is a journey toward wholeness.
The sacred reunion of all that we are.
Wallahu A'lam.
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