Accepting People are in All Stages of Development

Be wary of those who approach with hollow intentions. Choose your companions with infinite care. Know the difference between an acquaintance and a friend or spiritual ally. Are you hanging out with people with whom you would trust your life? Life is too short to spend in hollow company when it could be lived with true friends, soulmates, spiritual allies, or creative solitude. Some people approach us with hollow intentions; they seek us for pleasure, manipulation, money, power or just out of impulsive, neurotic chaos. We must be discriminating and set strong boundaries between those who approach with unworthy intentions and ourselves. T.S. Elliot wrote a haunting poem entitled “The Hollow Men.” Here are a couple of excerpts: We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless… The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley You are not the first to notice that there are amazing numbers of hollow people. Lacking a strong individual core, hollow folk are inevitably determined by outside conditioning. Hollow folk in the Fifties lived [...]

View the light and dark aspects of humanity with clarity and compassion. Jung once said that when walking down the street of a big city you will encounter every sort of human type, from the caveman to the man of the future. Respect and honor those below you, those at your level and those above. It is so easy (I know from my own experience) to fall into sarcastic disdain for unconscious people, but this is an example of our own unconsciousness. The individualized mutant will tend to view collective energy and what Jung called “mass man” with disdain and irritation. I have certainly been guilty of this. It is so easy to be annoyed or even horrified by the bustling, buzzing, acting-out energy of mass humanity. Mass man is composed of people who don’t really know themselves, or their moment in history, and yet seem to be completely defined by the present era. They are person-shaped creatures who seem to be living stereotypes. They aggregate together and produce much sound and fury signifying nothing. And yet they are as much a part of nature as stars, trees or viruses. They are part of the cosmic design and must be [...]

What you see may not be what others see. Remember that you are the star of your movie, while other people are the stars of their movies, therefore the same scene could look very differently from another set of eyes. Also, what people see is based on their level of development. As someone once pointed out, “When a pickpocket looks at a saint, he sees only his pockets.”

Be wary of those who approach with hollow intentions. Choose your companions with infinite care. Know the difference between an acquaintance and a friend or spiritual ally. Are you hanging out with people with whom you would trust your life? Life is too short to spend in hollow company when it could be lived with true friends, soulmates, spiritual allies, or creative solitude. Some people approach us with hollow intentions; they seek us for pleasure, manipulation, money, power or just out of impulsive, neurotic chaos. We must be discriminating and set strong boundaries between those who approach with unworthy intentions and ourselves. T.S. Elliot wrote a haunting poem entitled “The Hollow Men.” Here are a couple of excerpts: We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless… The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley You are not the first to notice that there are amazing numbers of hollow people. Lacking a strong individual core, hollow folk are inevitably determined by outside conditioning. Hollow folk in the Fifties lived [...]

The individualized mutant will tend to view collective energy and what Jung called “mass man” with disdain and irritation. I have certainly been guilty of this. It is so easy to be annoyed or even horrified by the bustling, buzzing, acting-out energy of mass humanity. Mass man is composed of people who don’t really know themselves, or their moment in history, and yet seem to be completely defined by the present era. They are person-shaped creatures who seem to be living stereotypes. They aggregate together and produce much sound and fury signifying nothing. And yet they are as much a part of nature as stars, trees or viruses. They are part of the cosmic design and must be accepted as such. Like many natural forces, they can be extremely dangerous. Easily manipulated, mass man has been used to create many of the bloody tsunamis of history. More often mass man is merely mundane and a somewhat appalling spectacle to those of individualized consciousness. The mutant must, of course, be alert to the many dangers and hazards created by mass man. You don’t want to get trampled by a mob, and so it is best to keep your distance. When traveling [...]

I Ching scholar Carol Anthony came up with the phrase “crescendo of awfulness situations” in her commentary on hexagram 26. We’ve all been through situations where relations with others spiral out of control, get worse and worse, and seem to have their own dark momentum. In various crescendo-of-awfulness situations we may be the prime instigator, someone else may be the prime instigator who pulls us in, or all parties contribute to the conflict. . Whatever the cause of the crescendo of awfulness we should tend to the basics: keep breathing, stay as calm as possible, keep up all disciplines, try to slow down the dark momentum if possible by being diplomatic, detached, impeccable, and centered on your own inner equilibrium. If possible try to be the calm center in the midst of the storm. Remind yourself of the classic phrase: “This too shall pass.” If you have been able to keep your inner dignity and disciplines and it seems like the other or others have been at fault, avoid becoming a righteous crusader. Have tolerance and patience for the mistakes of others. If possible, give a wrong doer a face-saving way out of the awful situation. If someone you are [...]

This card may apply to a self-obliteration urge in you and/or people you are close to. The urge toward self-obliteration is often quite mysterious. We can attribute it to particular causes, but that sort of view always seems superficial to me, and not the core of what’s happening. Some people seem to have a primal will toward self-obliteration that is as close to their core as is their eros, and sometimes that dark will coincides with eros. When self-sabotage is related to particular events in someone’s history, the links pointed out are likely to be relevant to the unfolding process of self-obliteration, but not necessarily the fundamental causes. I know two brothers who grew up in almost the same environment, but took very different life trajectories. The family was very loving and supportive of both, neither experienced any shattering trauma, but one of them, ever since puberty, consistently acted out a will toward self-destruction. One very literal form of this was a compulsion to slash himself, and once this was almost fatal. When not acting out such impulses he was charming, often genuinely loving, charismatic, good-looking, funny and fun to be with, etc. By his twenties he had totaled four [...]

M. Scott Peck has an interesting definition of love: “I define love thus: The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Someone once said that, “Love is cool, it is not hot.” It is crucial to distinguish love from passion, infatuation, codependence and sentimentality. It is also said that love is a verb, not a noun. What you love is what you spend time on. Sometime in the Nineties an eighty-year-old woman, who was a Jungian analyst, gave a talk I attended in Boulder. At the end of her talk there were questions from the audience and the first one came from a young woman. “Now that you are an elder,” asked the young woman, “what can you tell me as a young woman about love?” The elder woman replied, “When I was your age I was desperately trying to be loved. But now I know that it is better to simply be love.” A few love quotes: “In real love you want the other person’s good. In romantic love you want the other person.” — Margaret Anderson “You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing [...]

Often, when we think of the hazards of relationship, we think of the hazards that we perceive coming from others. We often neglect to notice the hazards that we create for others. Relationships can be hazardous in both directions, but they are often well worth the risks. We are the most dangerous known animal on the planet. For every person hurt by a wild animal, there are thousands who are hurt by members of their own species. Other people may misunderstand us, exploit us, abuse us in a million ways subtle and unsubtle. We should never ignore warning intuitions we have about particular people. There are many people, of course, that we should stay as far from as possible. On the other hand, we may also have an unfair and disproportionate view of the hazards of others. From the point of view of self-pity, we are innocent waifs trying to make our way in the world while we are being bullied and mistreated by a savage species. Sometimes, however, we have participated in the hazards created by others. We may set ourselves up for abuse by the other in all sorts of ways. When hazards occur in consensual relationships, we [...]

Be wary of the sweet candy of slippery scarecrows — the sly, seductive allure of those who approach with hollow intentions. Be wary of those who approach with hollow intentions. Choose your companions with infinite care. Know the difference between an acquaintance and a friend or spiritual ally. Are you hanging out with people with whom you would trust your life? Life is too short to spend in hollow company when it could be lived with true friends, soulmates, spiritual allies, or creative solitude. Some people approach us with hollow intentions; they seek us for pleasure, manipulation, money, power or just out of impulsive, neurotic chaos. We must be discriminating and set strong boundaries between those who approach with unworthy intentions and ourselves. T.S. Elliot wrote a haunting poem entitled “The Hollow Men.” Here are a couple of excerpts: We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless… The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley You are not the first to notice that there are amazing numbers of [...]