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\u201cThe body is merely the visibility of the soul, the psyche; and the soul is the psychological experience of the body<\/i>\u201d \u2014C.G. Jung<\/p>\n
\u201cYoga is most often understood as the union of the individual with the transcendental self, with what Jung terms the Self.\u201d\u00a0<\/i>\u2014Judith Mills<\/p>\n
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In recent years, the practice of yoga has made headlines in the mainstream media as parents in U.S. school districts challenged its inclusion in the curriculum at public schools, insisting it amounts to religious indoctrination and that it violates religious freedom.[1]<\/a>\u00a0In the U.S. today, while mainstream yoga is largely focused on physical poses and breath work, historically it evolved over millennia in the context of the spiritual and religious traditions of India. As such, it is not a religion, but rather a philosophy that enables mindfulness and a sense of well-being, among other benefits. No matter where you fall in the debate on whether\u2014and\u00a0where<\/i>\u2014it should be taught to children, practitioners of depth psychology and those seeking positive transformation appreciate yoga for its powerful potential to heighten spirituality and increase consciousness.<\/p>\n C.G. Jung, who valued yoga for its evidence-based experiential approach, perceived \u201cimportant parallels\u201d with psychoanalysis. He made a comprehensive study of yoga, delivering multiple lectures over the course of several years focusing on a psychological interpretation of kundalini yoga. He asserted that as yoga, being the oldest practical philosophy of India, is the mother of psychology and philosophy (which are one and the same thing in India) and therefore the foundation of everything spiritual.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n Yoga, meaning\u00a0union\u00a0<\/i>in Sanskrit, seeks to create awakening through somatic experience, cultivating states that connect us more wholly with something larger than our ego selves\u2014the ground of being, the web of life, or what Jung termed the \u201cSelf\u201d\u2014effecting a transmutation of consciousness that stems from attention to inner experience. The experiential, embodied practice puts us in touch with our physical being and grounds us more fully in the earth, anchoring us to something immutable, even as our breath and movement serve to make us more consciously aware and to shift inherent patterns and blocks we may be experiencing.<\/p>\n AVENUES OF HEALING<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYoga teachers are well aware of how the practice of yoga brings awareness through the layers of the body, often dredging up previous traumas and somatic awakenings,\u201d notes Cheri Clampett, who is a certified yoga therapist with over 25 years of teaching experience, and the co-author of The Therapeutic Yoga Kit<\/i>. \u201cWhen these two complimentary fields come together, they offer\u00a0deep\u00a0avenues of\u00a0healing for\u00a0the soma and psyche.\u201d<\/p>\n What are those avenues of healing, exactly? While yoga serves to balance and unite opposing forces to create a harmonious being, Jung went as far as to describe the intersection between depth psychology and yoga as the capacity for liberation, for each to lead to a \u201cdetachment of consciousness\u2026a freeing from the passions and from the entanglement with the realm of objects\u2026a psychical experience, which in practice is expressed as a feeling of deliverance.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n Practitioners have long reported the capacity for yoga to evoke the\u00a0numinous<\/i>, a term Jung borrowed from psychologist Rudolf Otto to describe something beyond the ordinary; inexpressible or mysterious\u2014something spiritual or sacred that carries us past the ego experience of the everyday self and reveals our divine belonging, our wholeness\u00a0in potentia<\/i>.[4]<\/a>\u00a0Indeed, yoga has been known to lead to the awakening of\u00a0Kundalini<\/i>, a force described as primordial energy, Shakti or universal power, which can be constellated a combination of ritual spiritual and somatic practices. When its ascent culminates in the topmost chakra in a \u201cblissful union of Shiva and Shakti,\u201d it leads to a \u201cfar-reaching transformation of the personality.\u201d[5] JUNG AND YOGA<\/strong><\/p>\n For Jung the Kundalini is the\u00a0anima,\u00a0<\/i>or “<\/i>soul“<\/i>. \u201cFrom the standpoint of the gods, this world is less than child\u2019s play; it is a seed in the earth, a mere potentiality,\u201d Jung wrote. \u201cOur whole world of consciousness is only a seed of the future. And when you succeed in the awakening of Kundalini, so that she beings to move out of her mere potentiality, you necessarily start a world which is a world of eternity, totally different from our world.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n Jung believed that yoga originated as a \u201cnatural process of introversion,\u201d and that such introversions characteristically lead to personality changes. While Jung viewed these inner processes that evolved from yoga as universal, he felt the methods that led to them were culturally specific.[7]<\/a>\u00a0For this reason, Jung discouraged westerners, whose core beliefs are founded on a perception of separation\u2014of dual and opposing poles in the realms of mind and matter, nature and psyche\u2014 from practicing yoga, fearing it could lead westerners into territory they were not culturally prepared to encounter. He suggested the west would develop its own \u201cyoga\u201d to explain or engage the unconscious in due time, ideas now being debated in the field of Jungian psychology.<\/p>\n Indeed, yoga, like many eastern or mystical spiritual traditions, is rooted in the idea of non-duality; that is, that all creation, including humans, is an aspect of the divine and is not separate from it. While this kind of transcendent consciousness is potentially available to each of us at any given moment, our ego-identity often stands in the way of that sense of unity. Yoga, in part through enabling us to engage our bodies and to be more in the present moment, allows us to suspend the thoughts, ideas, concerns, and conditioning that typically stand in the way of our sense of the sacred.<\/p>\n Jung makes a compelling description of the kind of transcendence one might experience in awakening to these kind of psychological or spiritual truths. On the subject of freeing ourselves from outer and inner entanglements, Jung wrote that \u201cconsciousness is at the same time empty and not empty. . . . no longer preoccupied with compulsive intentions but turns into contemplative vision.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n Lionel Corbett, M.D., Jungian analyst and author of\u00a0Psyche and the Sacred<\/i>, writes about this apparent dissolution of boundaries, noting that \u201cinnumerable people have been able to \u2026have numinous experiences of union with the larger psyche. In such moments,\u201d Corbett suggests, \u201cthe world and the personal self seem to flow into each other, both part of a greater unity, with no sense of separation or personal unity\u2026. In such an experience, the personal self is lost in the larger Consciousness of the Self, revealing our essential continuity with it.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n Corbett points out that Jung, in many of his writings, displays a spiritual sensibility that is compatible with the great non-dual spiritual traditions, even while remaining dualistic in his thinking in other of his works. Both these approaches are valuable to psychotherapy, Corbett insists, yet most Jungian therapists ignore Jung’s non-dual thinking. Corbett intends to expand on some of the important implications of non-duality for psychotherapy at the Yoga Meets Depth Psychology program<\/a> offered by Pacifica Graduate Institute in July 2016.<\/p>\n Another Jungian analyst contemplating the value of the interface between yoga and psychotherapy is Dr. Joseph Cambray, who proposes that Jung\u2019s incorporation of yoga practices and principles in his version of depth psychology started largely with the\u00a0Red Book\u00a0<\/i>in which Jung\u00a0<\/i>documented his exploration of his unconscious and his active imagination encounters with various images and figures during that time. In fact, Jung\u00a0<\/i>revealed that during this intense period of confrontation with the unconscious,\u00a0<\/i>he frequently turned to yoga to eliminate powerful, wrought up emotions that had been stirred up.[10]<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n The correspondence between yoga and depth psychology emerged in subsequent theorizing that included references to the yogic literature, points out Cambray, including Jung\u2019s Kundalini seminars in which Jung endeavored a western symbolic analysis of the Chakra system. As a long time psychotherapist (and past President of the International Association for Analytical Psychology), Cambray asserts that the interface of these two approaches provides profound advantages for contemporary psychotherapy.<\/i><\/p>\n MINDFULNESS AND PLAY<\/strong><\/p>\n Similarly, the two clinicians are inquiring into the implications of “deep play\u201d\u2014a mind state comparable at an adult level to the meaningful childhood play of our past. \u201cDeep play experiences are capable of bringing us into healing contact with the numinous,\u201d writes Katsky. Indeed, in\u00a0Memories, Dreams, Reflections<\/i>, Jung recounted his own experience of how the act of play created a powerful psychic state in his own life. After spontaneously recalling a childhood memory of play, Jung felt compelled him to take it up again as an adult. Each day, before his patients arrived, Jung succumbed to the urge to \u201cplay,\u201d mindfully building a \u201csmall town\u201d of stones. For him, it released a \u201cstream of fantasies\u201d and led to an inner certainty that it was helping him to discover his own inner myth. \u201cIn the course of this activity my thoughts clarified, and I was able to grasp the fantasies whose presence in myself I dimly felt,\u201d he wrote.[11].<\/a> Jung is also known to have written<\/p>\n In psychotherapy, Katsky proposes that the therapist mind state of \u201cevenly-hovering attention\u201d is one form of deep play, and submits that the practice of yoga can bring one to similar inner states of release and nourishment, leading us to rich self-reflections, creativity, greater contact with the imaginational world, and to deepened consciousness, including numinous experience.<\/p>\n Ultimately, yoga, like many of the world\u2019s wisdom traditions, can become a portal to the present moment, to being anchored in our bodies and on the earth through the embodied use of breath and movement. This, in turn, may give rise to a dissolution of boundaries, enabling us to feel more relaxed, connected, and unified with a larger ground of reality\u2014even ultimately awakening us to numinous experiences of the sacred. Depth psychology, with its emphasis on engaging the unconscious in order to achieve greater wholeness, can lead us to similar states.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cAt the intersection of yoga and depth psychology lies the threshold where\u00a0psyche<\/i>\u00a0meets\u00a0soma<\/i>,\u201d asserts David Odorisio, a depth practitioner who has created a professional practice that integrates the spiritual heritage of the world\u2019s wisdom traditions with Jungian and depth psychologies in an accessible and embodied way. \u201cThis mysterious meeting point between soul and body holds unlimited\u2014and often untapped\u2014 archetypal wisdom, vitality, healing, and wholeness.\u201d<\/p>\n Join these and other world-renowned scholars and practitioners July 15-17, 2016, for\u00a0Yoga Meets Depth Psychology: Embodying the Sacred, Encountering the Soul<\/a><\/strong>,<\/b>\u00a0an experiential, transformational weekend immersion at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. Pacifica faculty, including expert-level Jungian analysts and depth psychologists, will present alongside internationally recognized yoga teachers to highlight and illuminate the rich intersections of these diverse yet complementary fields.\u00a0Details and registration here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Recommended reading:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1932<\/i>\u00a0by C. G. Jung, edited by Sonu Shamdasani. Princeton University Press, 1996<\/p>\n Jung and India<\/i>. Spring Journal, Volume 90, Fall 2013, edited by Al Collins, Elaine Molchanov, and Nancy Cater<\/p>\n Jung and Yoga: The Psyche Body Connection<\/i>, by Judith Harris. Inner City Books, 2000.<\/p>\n \u201cJung\u2019s Encounter with Yoga,\u201d by Harold G. Coward,\u00a0Journal of Analytical Psychology<\/i>,\u00a023<\/i>(4), 1978, pp. 339-357,<\/p>\n Memories, Dreams, Reflections<\/i>\u00a0by C.G. Jung, edited by Aniela Jaffe (1961). Vintage Books, 1989.<\/p>\n Psyche and the Sacred: Spirituality Beyond Religion\u00a0<\/i>by Lionel Corbett. Spring Journal, 2007.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n NOTES<\/strong><\/p>\n [1]<\/a>\u00a0See \u201cBeyond ‘Namaste’: The benefits of yoga in schools\u201d by Dana Santas. CNN, May 10, 2016: http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2016\/05\/10\/health\/yoga-in-schools\/index.html<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a>\u00a0Jung and Eastern Thought<\/i>\u00a0by Harold Coward, State University of New York Press, 1985, p. 11<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [3]<\/a>\u00a0In\u00a0The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga<\/i>, C.G. Jung, p. 83<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [4]<\/a>\u00a0See \u201cOn Psychic Energy\u201d in Jung\u2019s Collected Works, Vol. 8.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [5]<\/a>\u00a0Sonu Shamdasani, in his introduction to Jung\u2019s\u00a0The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga,<\/i>\u00a0p. xxv<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [6]<\/a>\u00a0In\u00a0The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga<\/i>, p. 26<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [7]<\/a>\u00a0Sonu Shamdasani, in his introduction to Jung\u2019s\u00a0The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Mindfulness is another powerful tool for accessing states of unity and flow according to Dr. Patricia Katsky, psychotherapist and Vice-Provost at Pacifica Graduate Institute who, in conjunction with Dr. Juliet Rohde-Brown, Director of Clinical Training for the doctoral program in clinical psychology at Pacifica, and long-time Buddhist meditation teacher, is exploring the critical characteristics of the mind states that are common to the three fields of yoga, depth psychology, and Buddhist meditation.<\/p>\n\n
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