Observations placeholder
Jung, C G - Memories, Dreams and Reflections - Annihilation
Identifier
003945
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
In Carl Gustav Jung’s book Memories, Dreams and Reflections, Jung describes what it felt like when he had a heart attack and nearly died. This description thus provides a good summary of the process that takes place when you die and also what the Higher spirit consists of:
It is difficult to assess from his description whether he had actually gone through annihilation, but his description covers moksha
A description of the experience
Carl Gustav Jung - Memories, Dreams and Reflections
‘I had the feeling that everything was being sloughed away, everything I aimed at or wished for or thought, the whole phantasmagoria of earthly existence, fell away or was stripped from me – an extremely painful process. Nevertheless, something remained; it was as if I now carried along with me everything I had ever experienced or done, everything that had happened around me. I might also say; it was with me and I was it. I consisted of all that, so to speak’
‘I consisted of my own history, and I felt with great certainty; this is what I am ‘I am this bundle of what has been and what has been accomplished’. This experience gave me a feeling of extreme poverty, but at the same time of great fullness. There was no longer anything I wanted or desired. I existed in an objective form. I was what I had been and lived. At first the sense of annihilation predominated of having been stripped or pillaged, but suddenly that became of no consequence. Everything seemed to be past; what remained was a fait accompli, without any reference back to what had been. There was no longer any regret that something had dropped away or been taken away. On the contrary I had everything that I was and that was everything