How Carl Jung Found the Meaning of Life Many Other People Missed

As always, the devil was in the detail.

Carl Jung had an insatiable desire to understand life and his unique position in it all.

But after many years, he concluded: “Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life.”

That paradox, according to many other spiritual teachers, is a process of looking inside as much as it involves looking outside.

It’s this combination that seems to make life whole and there have been few people who have embraced the totality of life more than Carl Jung.

So how did the “Godfather of Psychology” find the meaning of life?

As any good psychologist will confess, the devil was in detail. And Carl Jung spent decades peeling away the layers of his subconscious mind to seek the truth of existence.

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being” — Carl Jung

What did Carl Jung mean by in the darkness of mere being?

For me, it’s twofold.

There’s the physical side of life, the part that involves getting old. The part that involves our teeth decaying, our joints calcifying, our hair greying, our eyes blurring, our muscles aching, and our slow and steady movement toward death.

Then there’s the troubled human psyche that contains all kinds of negative thoughts — jealousy, fear, sadness, shame, regret, guilt, greed, hate, selfishness, and more.

This is the darkness of mere being that I believe Carl Jung was getting at and unless we actively choose a different approach “it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” (Carl Jung)

So, how to kindle a light in the face of all this adversity?

Well, that brings me back to looking within.

Before I ever meditated or practiced breathwork I used to live in a world where I felt separate from others, where I measured, compared, and competed against others. Ultimately, this caused me to judge myself and others more and I often found myself walking around with lots of the negative emotions I mentioned above.

When I did my first breathwork session, however, my physical body dissolved yet “I” remained.

This not only broke down the idea of separation, but it also changed my beliefs around death. The “I” that remained was a universal I, one that contained all beings and had no start or end point.

In the months that followed, I had to consistently ask myself these two questions:

• How can I compete when there’s no one to compete with?

And:

• How can I die when my soul is eternal?

It was the first time in my life when I had experienced that everything in life was happening now, expressing itself through a billion different eyes in a billion different moments simultaneously. I was just one of those pairs of eyes witnessing life from my own unique perspective.

“You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop” — Rumi.

That doesn’t take away the aches, pains, and woes of being human, it just helps me become less attached to my physical body and mental emotions. This makes things less terminal and more transient and ultimately, creates less suffering.

This is one of the gifts of Carl Jung’s work because he highlighted this point repeatedly while reminding me that I am, like you, a vital part of this physical world but that I/we are also a part of something much bigger and more beautiful.

That’s why I continue to breathe every day as it reminds me of this truth.

This is how Carl Jung found the meaning of life many other people missed and luckily for us, he was willing to share his wisdom with the world.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung

How to make the darkness conscious?

This is an extremely personal question and luckily, there is no right or wrong answer.

If you choose to live your life in the beauty of the outside world, there will be a million and one adventures to go on. If you decide to go within, on the other hand, there will be a whole cosmos to explore.

My own personal preference is to dance somewhere in the middle. To sit in meditation and go on a road trip. To breathe a kaleidoscopic universe to life through my daily breathwork practice and keep my eyes wide open to the beauty all around me.

Another powerful way is the practice of 50/50. This practice works on the principle that both our internal experience and our external environment are of equal importance because both combine to make up the life that we know and love.

My external environment might be a conversation I’m having with a friend or a task I’m completing at work. My internal experience might be observing an emotion, sensation, or thought that’s arising in my body. Whatever it might be, the goal is to keep 50% of my awareness on both worlds simultaneously.

Try it for yourself and see how you go.

If 50/50 feels too much, try 70/30 instead or 80/20. Even 90/10 works. If some of your awareness remains on both worlds simultaneously, the percentage split doesn’t really matter.

So, as with all things in life, find your way, connect to your truth, and honor your needs. Because…“The privilege of a lifetime is to be who you truly are” — Carl Jung