Quotes About Individuation

This shift from automatic living to awakening parallels Carl Jung's Individuation, Dada Bhagwan's Self-realization, Dr. Abraham Mazlow's Self-Actualization, G.I. Gurdjieff's Self-Work and other related approaches to differentiating the innate being from the unconscious complexes we have mistaken for identity.

Self-preservation warned some of us that we could not afford to settle for one easy definition, one nearrow individuation of self. At the Bag, at Hunter College, uptown in Harlem, at the library, there was a piece of the real me bound in each place, and growing

I am empty only in the sense that there is nothing fixed or intrinsically real at the core of my identity as a person. Recognition of such emptiness therefore liberates one to change and transform oneself. And this, it seems, is precisely what the Jungian theory of individuation describes, yet in a language that is affirmative rather than negative.

Centroversion persistently strives to ensure that the ego shall not remain an organ of the unconscious, but shall become more and more the representative of wholeness. That is to say, the ego fights against the unconscious tendency that seeks to master it, and instead of allowing itself to be possessed, learns to keep its independence in relation to both inside and outside.

Ego formation can only proceed by way of distinction from the nonego and consciousness only emerge where it detaches itself from what is unconscious; and the individual only arrives at individuation when he marks himself off from the anonymous collective.

The work of a lifetime, the process of individuation, is widening of that spotlight so much that everything is illuminated and you are conscious of and can see your All.

Perhaps Jung's most compelling contribution is the idea of individuation, that is, the lifelong project of becoming more nearly the whole person we were meant to be—what the gods intended, not the parents, or the tribe, or, especially, the easily intimidated or the inflated ego. While revering the mystery of others, our individuation summons each of us to stand in the presence of our own mystery, and become more fully responsible for who we are in this journey we call our life.

I have not the slightest doubt that this form of individuation represents a higher stage in the evolution of mankind.

Freud made the discovery- quite genuinely, simply through working on his own material- that the more deeply one explores the phenomena of human individuation, the more unreservedly one grasps the individual as a self-contained and dynamic entity, the closer one draws to that in the individual which is really no longer individual.

Nor is it automatic that once a person becomes acclaimed or powerful, the voice of the inner tyrant will be stilled. The work of individuation is internal. We all have to do it unless we prefer to remain very old children. Even when we do finally claim the authority formerly wielded by that inner custodian, we are not only freed but also bereft. We have lost the inner companion who for so many years also made us feel watched over and safe.

The journey of individuation is in this sense a continuous coming home to ourselves that gives us the ongoing courage to face the suffering involved in allowing our buried talents to emerge, and to realize the innate wisdom within us—that can only be forged by the fires of feelings and passion that bring our soul to an inner glow.

If you sum up what people tell you about their experiences [on the path of individuation], you can formulate it this way: They came to themselves, they could accept themselves, they were able to become reconciled to themselves, and thus were reconciled to adverse circumstances and events.

Individuation means becoming an "in-dividual," and, in so far as "individuality" embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one's own self. We could therefore translate individuation as "coming to selfhood" . . .

Man becomes whole, integrated, calm, fertile, and happy when (and only when) the process of individuation is complete, when the conscious and the unconscious have learned to live at peace and to complement one another.

If man no longer finds any meaning in his life, it makes no difference whether he wastes away under a communist or a capitalist regime. Only if he can use his freedom to create something meaningful is it relevant that he should be free. That is why finding the inner meaning of life is more important to the individual than anything else, and why the process of individuation must be given priority.

the goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self.

The essential thing is to differentiate oneself from these unconscious contents by personifying them, and at the same time to bring them into relationship with consciousness. That is the technique for stripping them of their power.

One cannot individuate as long as one is playing a role to oneself; the convictions one has about oneself are the most subtle form of persona and the most subtle obstacle against any true individuation. One can admit practically anything, yet somewhere one retains the idea that one is nevertheless so-and-so, and this is always a sort of final argument which counts apparently as a plus; yet it functions as an influence against true individuation.

Individuation means becoming a single, homogeneous being, and, in so far as 'individuality' embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one's own self. We could therefore translate individuation as… 'self-realization.

How are you fulfilling your life's task ([your] "mission"), your raison d'être, the meaning and purpose of your existence? This is the question of individuation, the most fateful of all questions. . .

To put it in modern psychological language, this projection of the hieros gamos signifies the conjunction of conscious and unconscious, the transcendent function characteristic of the individuation process. Integration of the unconscious invariably has a healing effect.

But this one-sided development must inevitably lead to a reaction, since the suppressed inferior functions cannot be indefinitely excluded from participating in our life and development. The time will come when the division in the inner man must be abolished, in order that the undeveloped may be granted an opportunity to live.

I had the distinct feeling that they were something central, and in time I acquired through them a living conception of the self.

It had been proved to me that I had to abandon the idea of the superordinate position of the ego.