REFLECTIONS On The SPIRIT

"Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them
to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom"
........Henri Bergson.

"Since we have literally no idea of the way in which what is psychic can arise from
physical elements, and yet cannot deny the reality of psychic events, we are free
to frame our assumptions the other way about for once , and to hold that the
psyche arises from a spiritual principle which is as inaccessible to our
understanding as matter.
For better or worse, therefore, we must turn back to the teachings of our forefathers ,
for it was they who made such assuptions. The ancient view held that the Spirit was
essentially the life of the body, the life-breath, or a kind of life-force which assumed
spacial and  corporeal form at birth or after conception, and left the dying body again
after the final breath. The Spirit in itself was considered as a being without extension,
and because it existed before taking corporeal form and afterwards as well, it was
considered as timeless and hence immortal.".....Jung

The most difficult and essentially incomprehensible metaphysical concept is the concept of Spirit.

It is a concept that cannot be conceptualised. The most obvious thing about the Spirit is that it

is not at all obvious, for it needs a certain minimum quantum of Spirit and a certain minimal

action reflecting it, that one can even know that there is such a thing as Spirit. It is both personal

as well as impersonal. It has a quantum attribute and yet it cannot be quantified. It is absolute

and yet it is the most fleeting of all manifestations. It contains all knowledge but no one can

"know" the Spirit.

It is useless and demeaning to speculate on it, and yet the Spirit demands creative expression,

and therefore its expression must be artistic : either as a story that illustrates its manifestation

or as poetry that evokes a stirring response, or as a rhetoric-dialectic exchange in which key

moral issues of a time and place are tackled in a decisive manner, or certain attitudes and values

of a society or culture are critically scrutinized. In all cases the Spirit cannot be referred to directly

as the agent of action. The Spirit is not a direct agent of action. The agent of action that must be

referred to has to be a person who's acts and experiences ( expressions of ) are being referred to :

either living or have lived at a time or place in this world.  The Spirit cannot be referred to in

hypothetical terms, for there is nothing hypothetical about it, for it contains in it the entire

reality of the world.

The reference to the Spirit in no case can be a subject of agreement or consensus. The Spirit can only be

referred to in a personal context, where certain actions and experiences are involved. The Spirit cannot

be directly unraveled, and yet the Spirit in its manifestations must be interpreted and acted upon or

expressed.

The Spirit always manifests as a paradox ; as a trick ; as an omen or indication

and finally also as magic.  It is then up to a subject's  ( a subject of Nature - the

domain of  the  Spirit's  manifestation  )  developed  ability   and  knowledge to

discern the design of the Spirit, to interpret the omen, to unravel the paradox,

to act decisively upon the indications, to see the trick

and to marvel in the magic.

"The  so-called   civilized  man  has  forgotten  the  trickster.  He remembers  him  only
figuratively  and  metaphorically,  when,  irritated  by his own ineptitude,  he speaks
of  fate  playing  tricks on him or of things being bewitched.  He never suspects  that
his own hidden and apparently harmless shadow has qualities whose dangerousness
exceeds his wildest dreams.  If we take the trickster  as a parallel to the   individual
shadow, then the question arises whether the trend towards meaning, which we saw
in the trickster myth , can be observed in the subjective and personal shadow.
Experience confirms this. The trickster is a collective shadow figure. And since the
individual shadow is never absent as a component of personality, the collective
figure can construct itself out of it continually"......C G Jung.

An exploration into the mysterious leads to paradoxes and from each

paradox resolved, comes a deeper mystery. The mystery and the paradox

is timeless, but the resolution of any paradox is valid only for the present,

and for the person that unravels it.

" The primitive mentality finds it quite natural to personify the invisible presence

as a ghost or demon.   The  souls  or  spirits  of the dead are identical with the

psychic activity of the living, they merely continue it. The view that psyche is

a spirit is implicit in this. When therefore something psychic happens in the

individual which he feels as belonging to himself, that something is his own

spirit. But if anything psychic happens ( to him ) which seems to him strange,

then it is somebody else's spirit."

" The special development in man's idea of spirit rests on the recoginition that

its invisible presence is a psychic phenomenon, i.e., one's own spirit, and that

this consists not only of uprushes ( primary manifestation ) of life but of formal

( secondary or derived ) products too. Among the first, the most prominent are

the images and shadowy presentations that occupy our inner field of vision ;

among the second, thinking and reason, which organise the world of images.

The hallmarks of Spirit are, firstly, the principle of spontaneous movement

and activity ; secondly the capacity to produce images independently of

sense perceptions ; and thirdly, the autonomous and sovereign

manipulation of these images." ......C. G.  Jung.

" Mana is not simply a force, a being, but also an action, a quality and a

state.  The word is at one and the same time 'a noun, an adjective, a

verb'. Mana can take on a multiplicity of meanings , it is a 'floating sig-

nifier' - an indefinable 'X ' analogous to the zero phenome brought to

light by structural linguistics.  Such a phenome has no meaning in it-

self, but can take on a variety of meanings, depending upon the con-

text, and its differential relationship with other terms.

"This implies that Mana can only be interpreted synchronically, at a

given moment, rather than in an evolutionary sense where meaning

would be derived from the past - that is, diachronically".......Mauss

        SPIRIT and PARADOX

Any paradox or contradiction or dilemma that presents itself under

certain conditions that demand a decisive response is crucially

indicative of a fundamental moral or ethical issue involved.

This situation demands a response in which not only Spirit, but

also intelligence becomes necessary. And in an exceptional case, a

broad based knowledge structure as well as knowledge relevant

to the situation.

A paradox or contradiction arises when one is confronted with two

opposing points of view, both valid within the given context and yet

seemingly irreconcilable.

And if the situation demands that a definitive course of action is

needed, a moral dilemma arises.

This almost never happens when a person goes along with the socially

acceptable norms and behavior.  For example, a person's country may

go to war with another, and if that person is in full conformity with

the society of that country, especially in such matters, no dilemma

or question about choice or descision arises, and there is no contra-

diction, no conflict that takes place, even if the person has to die

as a result.

In general, no conflict, contradiction or paradox arises when there

is no point of deviation between an individual and the society in

which the individual lives, that is, when an individual is in full

( or nearly full ) conformity with the norms of the family and

society or culture.

"The action of the Holy Spirit does not meet us in the atmosphere of
  a normal, bourgeois ( or prolitarian ), sheltered regular life, but only
in the insecurity outside the human economy, in the infinite spaces,
where one is alone with the provdentia Dei...........Jung

It is only when an individual feels strongly uneasy, disturbed,

and upset about certain conditions, happenings or values of  the

family, society, religion or culture, that an individual experiences

a conflict.   This first experience of a conflict is the indication of

the deeper self of the individual that manifests in a manner that

indicates that its source is beyond the neuro-physiology

of the person.

As a matter of explanation, it can be said that the source of

such a conflict is in the non-physical component of the self.

( among the possible terms : the psyche or the soul of the

person )  

It is only in the process of expressing this deep felt conflict that

the resolution of the conflict takes place through the realisations

attained through the process.  But the conflict may resolve in a

manner that is detrimental to the Self, when a wrong choice has

been made.   In this case the failure of the Spirit of the person

leads to a state of a loss of the Spirit and thus the loss of the

person's very core  or essence.

This leads to a deceptive state of existence that even goes un-

noticed by the person - the ultimte loss of  individuality -

the loss of Selfhood