jung on yoga

Carl Jung:

The official example of Yoga in the West is the exercitia spiritualia of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

Taoism has also a kind of Yoga but it is less well known than the Indian. The Chinese Yoga is very much less founded on dogma, the Yogin is left to find his own way through his difficult experiences.

In alchemy there lies concealed a Western system of yoga meditation, but it was kept a carefully guarded secret from fear of heresy and its painful consequences.

The spirit of Europe is not helped merely by new sensations or titillation of the nerves. What it has taken China thousands of years to build cannot be acquired by theft. If we want to possess it we must earn the right to it by working on ourselves… Of what use to us is the wisdom of the Upanishads, or the insight of Chinese Yoga, if we desert our own foundations as though they were errors outlived and settle with thievish intent on foreign shores like homeless pirates?


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