Will it be another blow?

[donq]

In the course of centuries the naïve self-love of men has had to submit to two major blows at the hands of science. The first was when they learnt that our earth was not the centre of the universe but only a tiny fragment of a cosmic system of scarcely imaginable vastness...The second blow fell when biological research destroyed man’s supposedly privileged place in creation and proved his descent from the animal kingdom and his ineradicable animal nature...But human megalomania will have suffered its third and most wounding blow from the psychological research of the present time which seeks to prove to the ego that it is not even master in its own house, but must content itself with scanty information of what is going on unconsciously in its minds...

— Sigmund Freud from Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1916)

Frankly speaking, some religions (and spirituality) have been talking about this for a long time (if not  a thousand year) before Freud. (for example, Alaya-vijnana--“storehouse consciousness” or Buddhist unconscious) But, at lest, he was the (famous) man of medical science who introduced the world about the other side of human mind, the unconscious. So yes, in this aspect, he really made the third major blow at the hands of science, indeed. (for example, a crazy person who committed a crime going to mental hospital instead. etc.).

Here's another proof.

A Goat Kneels

The inner being of a human being
Is a jungle. Sometimes wolves dominate,
Sometimes wild hogs.
Be wary when you breathe!

At one moment gentle, generous qualities,
like Joseph’s pass from one nature to another.
The next moment vicious qualities move in hidden ways.

Wisdom slips for a while into an ox!
A restless, recalcitrant horse suddenly becomes obedient and smooth-gaited.
A bear begins to dance. A goat kneels! . . .

At every moment a new species arises in the chest—
now a demon, now an angel, now a wild animal.

There are also those in this amazing jungle
Who can absorb you into their own surrender.
If you have to stalk and steal something, steal from them.
—Rumi (1207–1273)









 

[gruntal]

I remember even as a kid being enthralled with some movies and/or works of literature. Those that had hidden meanings or went beyond mere entertainment. I saw the movie Forbidden Planet on black & white TV but the message of the "monsters of the Id" came out as clear as if I was seeing it in Technicolor and CinemaScope at a movie theater. Not surprisingly in my old age I can grasp the concept of reincarnation as the fractured being seeking itself more easily. We are unique beings only in the way we assemble. The parts are generic. If it were any other way it would be impossible to ever understand the others. Everything we see in other people - from the sublime to the hideous - is our legacy to overcome or nurture. We can prune but grafting is a contradiction in terms.

It would seem human nature is really nothing less then the whole of Cosmic Ontology but that is another story. I do think the concept of alien is not really valid. Where ever we go - what ever we experience - not matter how hard we try to create: at our level it is always us staring back at ourselves. And who could have guessed so much was buried so deep inside ?

[donq]

Hi George:

Thanks for your post.

I read somewhere that:

"Sigmund Freud's investigations of the psychological states of one's mind were being published only after Dostoevsky had written many of his studies of the mental forces that drive a person to commit certain acts...As a psychologist, Dostoevsky was well ahead of Freud..."

And let's see what Dostoevsky admired:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone:
but if it dies, it bringeth forth much fruit.”

--John 12:24

He selected this verse as the epigraph for The Brothers Karamazov. It also appears on his tombstone in St.Petersburg.

Well, this reminds me of another saying:

From the first faint breath of the infant
to the last gasp of the dying man,
it is one long story of continued breathing.
Life is but a series of breaths
--from Science of Breath by Yogi Ramacharaka

I wonder how much more we yet to know in that one long stories of our continued breathings?
And if we died, could we bring forth much fruit?