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PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
ambitions of which we know little or nothing. They are
‘subconscious’ or ‘unconscious’. These wishes, tendencies and
motives cannot find expression and satisfaction through the
conscious personality because they are immoral or anti-social.
But while they are thrust out of consciousness and repudiated
by it, they remain part of the personality. If any intimation of
their existence rises to consciousness it is at once expelled
again. According to Freud, therefore, we have to do with a
subconscious which is working: an active element in the mental
life.
In a legend, Pilgrim Kamanita, Karl Gjellerup has strikingly
emphasised the importance of mastering the unconscious or
half-conscious. Vassitthi, who has become a disciple of the
Buddha, believes that she has already conquered earthly love;
but Buddha, who sees through her self-deception, advises her to
turn her attention to the enemy she thought she had conquered.
She says: ‘I thought that I was on the straight road to perfect
peace, and that I had left passionate love and its excitements
far behind me. But the incomparable connoisseur of hearts has
seen that I had in no way conquered love. It has merely been
biding its time, frightened into a dark corner by the powerful
rivalry of my new enthusiasm. Now I must call it from its
hiding-place by turning my attention to it. Then I can conquer
it:
Contact with the Unconscious
What is to be done to call forth from the ‘dark corner’ of the
unconscious the powers which are ‘biding their time’ and must
be conquered for the sake of mental balance and spiritual
development? It is not enough for the spiritual adviser, like the
Buddha in the legend, to see and understand. The confidant
must learn how to see with his own eyes. It must be made
possible for him to look into the dark corners of his mind and
observe the inner activities, the dim relations. It must be made
clear to him that the suppressed is an unconquered enemy that
cannot be overcome until it is enticed into the open and met
face to face.
The Buddhist nun, Vassitthi, made contact with her own
unconscious by patiently and diligently meditating on a word
given to her by her master. Mysterious mental processes can be
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