3 INDIVIDUATION - On the Path To and Beyond One's Self

By Linda Vera Roethlisberger

In the Trilogos Beacon series, author Linda Vera Roethlisberger takes a nuanced look at individual aspects of the core competencies of being human.

The third Booklet of our »TRILOGOS Wegweiser« series is about Intuition. The author gives us insights of:

- What assistance might I need on the often challenging, difficult path to myself?

- How do I find out what to do or not to do as the next step?

- How can I trust my perception, emotional security or intuition? How can I assess them?

This booklet offers some explanations and thoughts on these topics as well as exercises that might prove helpful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: Sep 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9783347323247

Book preview

Introduction

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the great philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer sojourned in Dresden, where he worked on his main work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation). One day he visited the botanical gardens of the city. There he became so absorbed in his reflections that he, as he later confessed to a friend, displayed something so noticeable in his gestures and demeanor that one of the groundskeepers turned to him suspiciously and asked who he was. Schopenhauer replied: Well, if you could tell me who I am, I would be extremely grateful to you.

Consciousness is the mere surface of our

minds, of which, as of the earth, we do not

know the inside, but only the crust.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Presumably all of us ask ourselves that profound question Who am I? at some point in our lives.

The answer should be quite simple, seeing that we are quite literally at the source. Who could be closer to us than ourselves? Know us better? We know what we look like and are more or less aware of our thoughts and feelings. Our will and our actions are revelatory of our values, motives and ways of functioning. A look into our family structure gives insight into our dispositions and patterns, and our dreams, goals and visions tie in with our potential. All this sounds much more manageable than what Schopenhauer, decried as a pessimist and loner, expressed in the above quote.

Indeed, if we look deeper into the question of who we really are, we soon reach the limits of self-knowledge.

Most often, we define ourselves through values, qualities and dispositions, or through our function in society, our family and our profession. But all these are parameters that can change: over the course of time, under the influence of sudden events, on the testing grounds of everyday life. For this reason, crises are often turning points in life. Suddenly you are no longer who you thought you were. Something familiar breaks away, leaves chaos behind and with it the seed of a new order.

You must have chaos within you

to give birth to a dancing star.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Life challenges us again and again to adapt, to recognize our weaknesses and to develop strengths. Over the years, we realize that there is no permanent ego, which makes it difficult to give a comprehensive answer to the question Who am I? We also notice that our self-image is not as objective as we assumed: that we gloss over some things, repress others, and that the image we cultivate of ourselves may well be different from the one our fellow human beings have of us. Schopenhauer was of the opinion that the knowledge we have of ourselves is by no means complete and exhaustive, but is instead only superficial.

And yet we have a feeling for our own being: what makes us different, what distinguishes us from others despite all the similarities.

Like everything that exists, I and self are ultimately energy and vibration, not only from a spiritual but a quantum physical point of view as well. Vibration, for its part, becomes sound when ordered. This may sound abstract.

Joachim-Ernst Berendt, who had started studying physics during the Second World War and later worked as a producer for the German radio and television channel Südwestfunk, created a vivid image that can serve us in pursuing the question of who we are with his book Nada Brahma – Die Welt ist Klang (The World Is Sound, Nada Brahma). Let us imagine, for a moment, the universe as sound, and the individual as a manifestation of the universe. Each one of us is then a voice that vibrates and resonates within this acoustic universe. To make it even more vivid, let us imagine that we are an orchestra musician. The more precisely we tune our instrument, the better we play and understand the music, the more we engage with the piece, and the more we contribute to the harmony of creation. Every note we play is significant, is part of the whole, which in turn feeds on us.

The same applies to life: if we plunge into the depths of ourselves – into our heart, our soul, conscious and unconscious, our potential – we are completely our own selves. This experience of getting to the core of things describes the process of individuation as C. G. Jung, in particular, had framed and defined it: the path to becoming an individual, one’s own self.

The process of realizing our personality always leads us to the interface between our true and lived potential. We can only vibrate within our wholeness if we bring all areas of ourselves to sound and resonate. And here we are faced with both task and challenge at once, namely that there is a lot within us that lies hidden and idle, yet that we are unaware of, that we repress or split off, or that cannot freely unfold due to our dispositions and patterns. A gifted violinist, it is said, can even make a shoebox sing. That may be so. But how much more beautiful is the sound when the instrument is well cared for, the cracks in the body repaired and all the strings well-wound? We are no different. Let us allow ourselves to heal and unfold again and again.

One does not become enlightened

by imagining figures of light,

but by making the darkness conscious.

C. G.Jung

The process of individuation extends over one’s entire life and goes through different stages of development. According to C. G. Jung, the first half of life usually