A major contribution of Carl Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist, was his work in the area of the unconscious and the collective unconscious. Jung defines the unconscious as the part of the mind of an individual that contains experiences, knowledge and personal motivations of which the individual is not consciously aware. He described the universal collective unconscious as a deeper level of unconsciousness which includes all the shared knowledge, experiences and collective wisdom of the whole of humanity. It is made up of archetypes which are innate and which refer to universal thought patterns common to all societies, such as the archetype of the mother and the archetype of religion, the search for a connection with a higher power. He also believed that the members of every society or culture share a collective unconscious, which includes all the particular understandings and meanings that have developed from their history and that enable people to react to situations in ways similar to their ancestors.
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi has developed a method by which it is possible to make the unconscious conscious. It involves gaining our Self-realisation, which Jung called “individuation” and which modern psychologists and psychiatrists call “self-actualisation” and which gives us complete psychological integration. Shri Mataji’s method is called Sahaja Yoga, and takes just ten minutes to work. “Sahaja” means “spontaneous” and “born with you”. The method allows us to go into a state of meditation known as “thoughtless awareness” in which we are awake and alert but are not thinking and are not affected by what is happening in our environment.
The Kundalini, which is the residual life force, lies dormant in the sacrum bone at the bottom of the spine. It is the spark of Divinity within us, known as the “Aatma” in India, and it records everything that we ever do and everything that ever happens to us, in our unconscious. The Kundalini is activated when we start seeking, when we develop a strong desire to become a better person, to know the ultimate truth about life, about the universe, or the meaning of life, and situations arise so that this desire can be fulfilled. The fulfilment of that desire is to have our Self-realisation.
During Self-realisation the kundalini rises up through the spine and through the limbic area, the old brain, which controls our heartbeat, our breathing, our digestion, and our instincts and intuition. It then flows out of the fontanelle bone area to unite with the universal life force, the creative power of the universe, known as the “Paramatma” in India, which does all the living work, making the seeds sprout in the ground and making the flowers fragrant.
After Self-realisation, in thoughtless awareness, we are able to feel the state of our being on our cental nervous system, through “vibratory awareness”. We are able to feel the state of our chakras on our fingertips as each of the seven chakras corresponds to a different finger or part of the hand. As each chakra corresponds to a different sphere in our psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual lives we can decode the messages and discover what we need to do to improve our lives. In this way, what was previously unknown to us in our unconscious, becomes conscious.
We also become collectively conscious. Just as we are able to know the state of our own being, we are able to know the state of the being of other people as well because we become connected to the collective unconscious during meditation. We can know in a conscious way what people are like because we can feel the state of their chakras on our fingertips and we have the knowledge to decode what it means. As a result of being collectively conscious we feel more compassionate and understanding towards others. This knowledge can never be used to harm others; it is only for the benevolence of ourselves, our societies and ultimately the whole world.
Kay Alford
(Photograph: academic.brooklyncuny.edu)