The Self and Ego

Originally posted by Rappa ↑

You have posted a lot of points and I will start with this post and maybe attempt to add more later.

What I was trying to say is that by having the coordinates of space and time we have a reference point to help us communicate—eg I went to the beach yesterday.

If I said---- I went to the beach--- it gets confusing.

For God there is the history of the universe jumbled together at the same time—including the future. How does any reasoning power deal with that?

Jung hints that God is a sea of consciousness or the collective unconscious—but God is only able to communicate via cryptic symbols of mythological images that contain elements of many images and thoughts that have merged

That is why God needs sentient beings like us—to know ‘Itself’

I used ‘Itself’ ---- instead of God here as Jung did not believe there is such a thing as an anthropomorphic being we identify as God

From what I’ve gathered ---God is a reservoir of knowledge, energy and forms that may swirl around in a gigantic psyche—the psyche of the universe or the Self!

The Self does not reside anywhere —the Self is the psychic substrate that makes up the totality of the universe.

Our individual unconscious is bathed in the Self and information can flow between the collective unconscious or the Self or God to our own unconscious.

Then in dreams, inspirations or visions--- the personal unconscious sends the messages it got from the collective unconscious to our ego or seat of awareness

We are then able to reflect on our dreams and decide what to make of the messages from our unconscious

Maybe the collective consciousness could be equated to the icloud we access when storing and accessing information via computers.

We have access to the totally of the cosmos, but we cannot get that information to consciousness easily ---- but that is where self-realisation or individuation comes into the picture

The individuation or self-realization process increases out level of access to the cosmic consciousness collective consciousness or God or the Self

Assuming the Buddha was fully individuated then he had access to the total consciousness of the universe.

Christian religions have raised Jesus to the status of a God because Jesus has been declared individuated –in a roundabout biblical sort of way!

As such-- Jesus has Divine understandings and powers and is called the Son of God

Jesus could also be called the Self of the cosmos or the Divinity within the cosmos

That is why Jung banged away in almost every piece he wrote about the need for us to look within and raises our level of consciousness

Everyone is somewhere on the individuation spectrum and in essence the goal of life is to get further down the individuation track

That is because the further down the track each individual gets--the more God knows about Itself--via our conscious thoughts that God must need to attain a knowledge of Itself

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"For God there is the history of the universe jumbled together at the same time—including the future. How does any reasoning power deal with that?

Jung hints that God is a sea of consciousness or the collective unconscious—but God is only able to communicate via cryptic symbols of mythological images that contain elements of many images and thoughts that have merged

That is why God needs sentient beings like us—to know ‘Itself’"

Interesting, but if you take even a moment to ponder the scale of the Universe it is unlikely Jung was referring to God the Creator of All.

It's possible, in fact IMO, likely that all humans have within them a drop of "God Consciousness" which partly manifests as the common human conscience. Unfortunately it is usually and easily swamped by the worldly personality ("ego"/self) which develops a sort of "fake" conscience made up from learned (learnt not learn-ed) cultural and other influences. Sometimes good, sometimes not.

Since this "droplet" is part of something greater, it could be described as part of a "sea of consciousness" or "collective unconsciousness".
It could even be described as (part of) "God" ... however, not God the Creator of All, but the local God of the Sol Solar System which includes Humankind.
A brief contact with this "Conscience" is sometimes described as a "voice" ... even the voice of God, depending on the state and preparedness of the person.

What Jung described was, naturally, heavily influenced by his particular cultural and personal beliefs and framework. Just as it is for those who try to interpret what he said or reported and add their own "twist".

I don't know of any "way" or religion that has found the study of dreams to be a useful and reliable means for developing understanding or consciousness.

Dreams that can be recalled are from periods of light sleep and mostly, if not exclusively, composed of various bits and pieces (both known and unknown) already in the brain, together with external factors (noises, partner, getting caught in bedclothes, hot, cold, bodily functions etc, etc) put together as a sort of narrative. Which is one of the functions of the brain.
As far as I can see, interpreting them adds nothing useful to simply interpreting one's waking intentional ponderings.

As for those who claim to be able to interpret dreams for you .... caveat emptor !

It goes without saying, this is just my view and not intended to deny what you may have experienced.

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