Tag Archives: C.G.Jung

Don’t lead, don’t follow

“Believe me: It is no teaching and no instruction that I give you. On what basis should I presume to teach you? I give you news of the way in this man, but not of your own way. My path is not your path, therefore I cannot teach you. The way is within us, but not in Gods, nor in teachings, nor in laws. Within us is the way, the truth, and the life.
Woe betide those who live by way of examples! Life is not with them. If you live according to an example, you thus live the life of that example, but who should live your life if not yourself? So live yourselves.
The signposts have fallen, unblazed trails lie before us. Do not be greedy to gobble up the fruits of foreign fields. Do you not know that you yourselves are the fertile acre which bears everything that avails you?
Yet who today knows this? Who knows the way to the eternally fruitful climes of the soul? You seek the way through mere appearances, you study books and give ear to all kinds of opinion. What good is all that?
There is only one way and that is your way.
You seek the path? I warn you away from my own. It can also be the wrong way for you.
May each go his own way.
I will be no saviour, no lawgiver, no master teaching unto you. You are no longer little children.
Giving laws, wanting improvements, making things easier, has all become wrong and evil. May each one seek out his own way. The way leads to mutual love in community. Men will come to see and feel the similarity and commonality of their ways.
Laws and teachings held in common compel people to solitude, so that they may escape the pressure of undesirable contact, but solitude makes people hostile and venomous.
Therefore give people dignity and let each of them stand apart, so that each may find his own fellowship and love it.
Power stands against power, contempt against contempt, love against love. Give humanity dignity, and trust that life will find the better way.” (C.G.Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus, cca. 1913)

“What we are now going to do, therefore, is to learn about ourselves, not according to me or to some analyst or philosopher – because if we learn about ourselves according to someone else, we learn about them, not ourselves – we are going to learn what we actually are. […]
I do not demand your faith; I am not setting myself up as an authority. I have nothing to teach you – no new philosophy, no new system, no new path to reality; there is no path to reality any more than to truth. All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple.” (excerpt of talks by Jiddu Krishnamurti, cca. 1963-1967)

“You’ve got no one to follow and no one will follow you… ain’t that a relief,
That everything and everyone
Must grow in opposition to resistance
And contradiction
This ain’t no time to go to sleep” (Tina Dico No time to sleep, cca. 2007)

Redemption in Danny Boyle’s “Frankenstein”

When people find out I already saw Danny Boyle’s “Frankenstein” five times, not to mention that this is only a broadcasted movie version of the original live recording, they raise their eyebrows and ask me, ‘Is it that good?!’. My answer to them is: Yes, it is that good. Then again, there are probably better stories, better actors, better stage plays, better directions. I’m not saying this is the Most Successful Play in the Universe. But it speaks to me. And I will watch it again, twice, later on this summer.

It spoke to me already when I was reading C. G. Jung’s “Answer to Job”, a highly controversial treaty on God’s complex character in the light of how He treats Job. Some thoughts stayed with me and reverberated off the emotional network of “Frankenstein”. I am not ashamed to say I shed tears when I first saw the play. Not because of the brilliant acting of both Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, which is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the production, but because there are several moments in the play that resonated with me. When the Creature thinks Frankenstein is dead, he cries, he feels lost, he says, ‘don’t leave me alone… can I die? what will it be like?… if you go, I will go, too’. I have been there. Oh, that harrowing, terrible, empty feeling… when there is nothing to wake up for. Nothing to continue for. The tears shed for the Creature were tears shed for myself, too. ‘The only thing I wanted was your love… I would have loved you so much’, he says, and kisses the temple of the unconscious Frankenstein. No human heart can stay unmoved… ‘My poor Creator’, he adds, heart-broken. He knows what Victor and the audience knew a while back: the Creature has surpassed the Creator. This is the fate of parents and children, this is how the world evolves. But the Creature has surpassed his Creator in a very important way: he has learnt how to love, he, the one put together from dead tissue, he, the one without a name, he, the one who never got to hold a woman in his arms – while Victor, the scientific genius, remained unable to love, because all his life he considered science and progress to be more important than being close to people. read more »

Válasz Jóbnak, avagy Frankenstein ma

A londoni National Theatre 2009-ben úgy döntött, hogy néhány színdarabját élőben leközvetíti a világ számos városának filmszínházaiban. Ez a kezdeményezés töretlen sikereket élvez a mai napig, ami, tekintve a felvételek hibátlan minőségét, teljes mértékben érthető. Abban a kiváltságos helyzetben vagyok, hogy két napja egy prágai fimszínházban (vajon a budapesti Uránia Filmszínház miért nem hozta be Magyarországra?) tekinthettem meg a Nick Dear forgatókönyve alapján készült “Frankenstein, avagy a modern Prométheusz” című színdarabot, melyet tavaly már vetítettek számos országban, de melyet közkívánatra idén ismét levetítettek szerte a világon. A prágai vetítés hibátlan volt, hangzásban, látványban egészen döbbenetes módon szárnyalta túl a britek produckiója bármelyik színpadi előadást, amit idehaza volt szerencsém látni. Ami pedig a színészi játékot illeti, az külön bejegyzést érdemelne, de ettől most eltekintek, ugyanis a darab mondanivalója sokkal fontosabb számomra. read more »