“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”–Carl Gustav Jung

The truth often lies within us. This reminds me of a course that included the Romantic era, Renaissance, Restoration era, etc, where I learned that during a certain era many seemed to want to be close to nature. They searched for it, needed it to be whole as this meant they were closer to God. Their true awakening could only be achieved once one was away from society and from influences. Many looked within themselves to become awake, but this included being one with nature because, if you look at today’s culture, it is difficult to become awakened by looking within ourselves as we have technology tempting us. We have our phones, the t.v., games, and, certainly, our computers, influencing us and telling us who and what we are and should be; it is there to tell us what we should find to be acceptable and great today. It is trend driven and many find it difficult to be true to ourselves with such influences. This type of influence has always been a problem. Man-kind has always been influenced by others and the sense of agency has always been marginalized as rulers have always inhabited in many forms, such as the head of tribes, cultures, etc. To find yourself, you must search within yourself. Meditation, quite time, alone time, reflection time, all of these may be a great ways of looking inside to become awake.

I was looking through an old Psychology textbook called “Essentials of Psychology” by Berstain and Nash (I took this class 13 years ago), I found a great tidbit about Jung:

“Jung (1916) argued that people are born with a general life force that includes a drive for creativity, for growth-oriented resolution of conflicts, and for the productive blending of basic impulses with real-world demands” (381).

Have a great weekend.