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Darshan with Swami Krishnananda during 1997
by Swami Krishnananda


45. Freud, Adler and Jung

(Darshan given on August 31st, 1997.)

Swamiji: ...another is Adler, and a third is Carl Jung. They were supposed to be Freud's disciples, but they were not just saying what he says. They have gone very deep into psychological structures.

Freud's doctrine is that there is an inborn pressure in every living being towards some end which the society will not permit to express itself. There is a clash between this impulse and society. He calls it 'conflict with reality'. By 'reality' he does not mean God, so society is the reality. Every person has a conflict with society. Society will not permit the expression of every kind of impulse. The impulse says, “I am perfectly right in expressing myself.” But the society says, “I shall see that you should not express yourself.”

Now, the pressure of society often is more intense, and a war takes place between the impulses and society, the social norms. Social society will never permit a person to behave as he likes or she likes. Now, whether society is in the wrong in doing that or the impulse is foolish, that is for God only to decide. Anyhow, there is a conflict. Then there is a repression for fear of any onslaught from society. The society can do anything, so the impulse is frightened. It goes back. Many complexes arise due to that. It wants something. It cannot get it because of the pressure from society. Then it says, “Okay, I will not ask for it, I will ask for the next best. If that also is not permitted…” Suppose you say, “I want this.” It is not allowed. “Another thing I want.” That also is not allowed. Then it will be satisfied with a third thing, much lesser than that, until it is forced to go down and down in asking for smaller and smaller things because society does not permit anything. Then it becomes what is called narcissistic. A psychological malady arises in the mind. The love for something gets converted into the love for one's own self, not in a spiritual sense but in a morbid, sick sense. Then they will suck their own thumb afterwards. That itself is sufficient for them. It ends in catastrophe. Now, how to get out of this conflict is a huge history of psychoanalytical psychology. This is Freud, briefly.

Adler says what Freud says may be partially true, but it is not the whole truth. There is an inferiority complex in everybody. “There is somebody better than myself. I cannot tolerate that. I want to compete with the best of things. So many great people are there. They are superior. Why should I remain as a humble nobody?” There is struggle for power, authority. It is the desire of the impulse to become equal to others, if not more than others. Everybody feels inferior before a larger body. Even before an elephant you cannot go. You feel very humiliated before that elephant. You would like to become that elephant itself, if possible. You are frightened by the ocean, frightened by the elephant. You envy the moon for its beauty. So everybody feels small in the presence of something great. This conflict between what you ought to be and what you are is the cause of all psychological maladies. What you are and what you ought to be, what you would like to be, clash with each other. This is Adler.

Carl Jung is a more philosophical man. There is conflict between the inner and the outer. People plunge themselves into activity of the outer world, like the modern social welfare workers. “I do work for other people, I do work for other people, I do work for other people,” and all that. Just now I was telling some friend, “You are doing work for other people, and what are you doing for your own self?” This person who works for other people is also included in humanity. Actually, social work is not work for other people. It is work for humanity. There is no such thing as 'other'. You should not use such words. It is a total humanity. The whole humanity rises up. You need not have to think of yourself separately when you think of humanity, but people cannot think like that. They make a distinction between the outer and the inner.

The balance that is required to be set between the inner need and the outer duty, this is the Bhagavadgita practically. Yoga is the balancing of the inner needs with the outer need. Neither of them is unimportant. As this balance is not easy to maintain between the outer compulsion for duty and the inner needs, it creates a complex, and they become psychopaths. This is Carl Jung.

But all these three people are partially right, not wholly right. The truth about it we have in the Upanishads. When the Universal multiplied itself – this is mentioned in the Aitareya Upanishad – a catastrophe took place. We should not imagine that we are one fraction of God. We should not think like that because if God has become many, we are one among the many, so we should be thinking like mini-gods. It is not merely one becoming the many. Each one that has become the many becomes topsy-turvy in its perception. Headlong one falls, so that the outer looks like the inner, the inner looks like the outer. The world, which is prior to you, looks like the object of perception. Though you came later, you think you are the subject.

Because of this wrong perception, the universe, of which everyone is a part, gives a kick, like this. That kick firstly manifests itself as an inability to bear or tolerate the operations of earth, water, fire, air and ether. Hunger and thirst, heat and cold, they manifest themselves the moment this takes place. The outer looks like inside, inside looks like outside. When you see yourself in a mirror, the right eye looks like the left eye, the left eye looks like the right eye. If you see yourself as a shadow on the bank of the Ganga you will find your head, which is uppermost, will look lowermost, and the feet, which are the lowermost, will look uppermost. This is what has happened to us. The whole thing is chaos.

So we are not thinking like gods. We are completely torn individuals, into pieces. We are not only thinking upside down, but thinking as a reflection thinks and not as an original thinks. The fraction aspect and the reflection aspect, both have joined and spoiled everything so that nothing that we do is a correct action. The whole thing is chaos. This is called samsara. So this is much more than Carl Jung and Adler and Freud. They are telling something, but greater trouble has taken place than what these people are telling.

The only method is not to see yourself with head below and legs up or right becoming left and left becoming right, but standing erect and attuning yourself to the Virat consciousness. With great effort the consciousness should identify itself with everything at one stroke, as Virat feels. The moment this is attempted, fear will start because the attempt to be united with the Virat consciousness will abolish individual assertion. Individual personality will vaporise itself and vanish like mist before the sun.

Nobody will do such a meditation. Even Arjuna, who saw this Cosmic Form, could not tolerate it. He said, “Sufficient! I don't want this anymore.” The personal ego tells, “I do not want the Virat because you are trying to abolish my existence. Nothing is more dear than my existence. If I myself am not to be, then what is the good of anything else being? Let the Virat be there, but I am not there.” This fear catches hold of us. Therefore, this meditation should not be attempted by anybody unless there is a competent teacher. This is the solution for the problem finally, and it is a much greater solution than suggested by Freud, Adler and Jung.