This article attempts to understand certain aspects of the personality development process, which is also called self-realization or the individuation process. Certain theoretical elaborations of the complex psychology of CG Jung are explored in order to have a clearer notion about the structure of our psyche, about the expansion of consciousness and about the integration of the opposing elements of the psyche. The factor called normality and its relationship with the notion of mental health is also explored. It is observed how immersion in the inner world and the experience of the expansion of consciousness can involve certain dangers when undertaking the work of personality development. However, a profound need for the evolution of consciousness could be perceived in our current civilization, and access routes could be discovered that allow individuals to enjoy existential plenitude and mental health.
Keywords: Self, individuation process, evolution of consciousness, transformation, psychological development.
The individual who is searching for a life that provides emotional, mental and spiritual health often feels lost in the drama of daily life in the modern world, and feels that the world around him is going in the opposite direction to his search or simply goes on without meaning. For this, there is a deep need to heal, since it has become unbearable to continue living under the dominion of the demons of depression, anxiety, anguish, frustration, pessimism and apathy; but unfortunately everything that surrounds him keeps him in that pathological and desperate state, since the only thing the world offers him is misery or a enjoyment of the senses that only superficially and fleetingly relieves his almost permanent suffering. The individual in contemporary societies looks outside, externally, for what he should look for within himself, because he has forgotten that the energy of vitality is found as a germ deep within himself and that it is the only thing that can lead him towards a process of healthy development and growth.
Nowadays, thanks to the expansion of the Internet and due to the effects of globalization, knowledge has become easily accessible to anyone who is searching, and thus, many traditions of wisdom that in the past only a few had accesses to, and which were little known by the common population, today are widely disseminated. For this reason, an interest has been awakened in a large number of people to follow a spiritual path that helps them get out of the existential malaise of modern civilization. However, it is common for individuals to try to move from the pathological state in which they are living to a state of bliss and spontaneous plenitude, without knowing that obtaining this state requires arduous work that does not always reach its end. Psychological development or psychological maturity that takes the individual out of existential discomfort and allows him to experience a life of plenitude requires going through a long journey that not everyone is willing to walk, since it implies that the individual commits to a discipline and a deep work on himself. It is evident that there is a tendency to wish quick enlightenment, an express spirituality.
On the other hand, it is important to consider that the path of development or path of self-realization is a path that is full of obstacles and dangers, and some of them are terrible, because if the path is walked without responsibility there is always the possibility of getting lost, being stagnate or shipwreck, and the individual, instead of reaching a state of integrity of his psyche, ends up experiencing a state of dissociation and illness.
It is incredible the degree of existential incoherence that a human being can reach when he ventures into a process of spiritual development without being really prepared for it, without having had a true and constant confrontation with his shadow, without having integrated the opposites of his psyche into personal level, without having sufficiently strengthened his self and without being aligned with his spiritual being or self, since the individual often ends up experiencing a process of inflation and dissociation that, in addition to affecting the same person, often affects others human beings who are under its influence as in the case of certain cult leaders. The human being apparently begins to ascend along a path of developing virtues such as compassion and love, but in the darkness of his being a calamity is incubating that devours the individual little by little until he becomes a servant of the dark forces of mental illness. It is as if they were two people in one body, a dissociation. Sometimes, that has been observed in certain spiritual leaders.
Here we will review some elaborations from the complex psychology of C.G. Jung regarding the process of individuation, which is precisely that process that an individual enters on his path to awakening consciousness and integrating his being. This process, in general, is not an easy path that leads to immediate happiness but, on the contrary, it is a difficult path that usually begins involuntarily, as if responding to a call that is sensed in the depths of oneself and that pushes the human being to begin a journey through the interior of himself with the intention of integrating the individual through a process of personality transformation, towards an expansion of consciousness which, when produced in a healthy way, provides a deep experience of meaning of existence.
It is understood that the path to realizing potential is possible, but that it requires hard work, responsibility, commitment and ethical development, as well as courage, discipline and determination to create the necessary conditions that allow the flowering of the wonderful that exists within us.
The psychology developed by Jung has certain characteristics that make it a knowledge that is difficult to access for the vast majority of people. Even the vast majority of psychology students, upon completing their studies, know only a rather limited and superficial aspect of the psychological approach constructed by the Swiss psychiatrist. For many, it is unclear to know exactly what the psychology established by Jung was pursuing. As Shamdasani (2018) indicates, knowing or understanding the so-called Jungian psychology does not necessarily mean knowing the intentions that led Jung to develop the type of psychology that he developed, since the psychology developed by Jung does not even bear the name that he assigned it. Initially, Jung called it analytical psychology, but later, between the 1930s and 1940s, he renamed it “complex psychology”. And he gave it this name because he understood that it was a psychology that addressed complex aspects of the psyche, compared to other aspects of the psyche that are more basic. In this sense, Jung's complex psychology includes concepts that are very difficult to grasp when having a first contact with them, since they require certain philosophical understandings and having lived certain types of internalization experiences to which the vast majority do not commonly access. Many of these concepts were designed by Jung after a very difficult stage of his existence, a critical stage that occurred in the middle of his life and which prompted him to explore his inner world and come into contact with the inner forces of his being. From there comes the inspiration to develop the idea of a collective unconscious and its inhabitants: the archetypes. As Jung explains time and again throughout his work, the collective unconscious corresponds to the deepest stratum of the unconscious, “where the primitive images common to all humanity slumber” (Jung, 2007, p. 77). Other very important concepts of Jung's complex psychology are the concepts of Self and individuation. Precisely, in these lines that follow we will try to understand with some precision what the idea of the Self corresponds to.
As Jaffé (1995) mentions, “the collective unconscious is a realm of being, hidden and transcendental, a reality that is impossible to know” (p. 39). For this reason, it is inaccessible to know exactly how it works, and impossible to know directly the forces that act on it. Jung never sought to describe the nature of transcendental reality, since he knew very well that it constitutes an unfathomable mystery. His interest lay mainly in understanding the psychic image that we experience through experiences, and therefore he understood his study as a phenomenology of the psyche. If religious or mythological language is used, the so-called collective unconscious could be called the numinous world, since it is a reality that contains the archetype of the Self, an archetype that represents the essence of psychic totality. This archetype is symbolized in our psyche as an imago Dei, that is, an image of God, but great care must be taken not to identify this image with God, much less replace him.
Edinger (2018) mentions that: “when the collective psyche is stable, each individual projects his inner image of God (the Self) onto the religion of his community” (p. 129). Under these conditions, the imago Dei or the Self has not yet become conscious, which means that for the individual this image is not yet recognized as an internal psychic entity. This is what happens to the members of a religion, they all share a projection. The members of the religion are in a kind of collective identification or mystical participation, without having established a unique and individual relationship with the Self. However, it is necessary to note that in a society like ours, in which for many God has died, when the shared projection is eliminated, all the psychic energy that had previously been contained by religion begins to be directed towards the interior of the individual, causing a series of problems, such as the devaluation of the sacred in the world and in oneself, a desacralization that leads the individual towards a state of alienation and lack of meaning in existence.
Another possibility is that the individual assumes as his own all the psychic energy that previously belonged to the deity, thus producing inflation. Another possibility is that the suprapersonal value previously projected in religion begins to be projected towards some social or political movement, such as the extreme right or the radical left, and in this way the social or political acts, which ultimately come from of an unconscious religious force, end up leading individuals towards fanaticism with all its destructive consequences.
Edinger (2018) considers that a fourth way to treat the loss of religious projection is when, after it happens, the individual can face the fundamental questions of existence and begin to work consciously and responsibly with the contents that emerge from the unconscious. “The connection between the ego and the Self is now consciously realized” (Edinger, 2018, p. 133). In the latter case, the loss of a religious projection leads the individual towards a state of psychological health, propelling him towards the development of an individuated personality, towards the process of individuation.
It is not so easy to understand what exactly Jung was referring to when he spoke of the Self, since it is a symbolic notion that refers to complex aspects of the human psyche. When Jung mentions the Self, he is not referring to the Self, but to an internal, deep and encompassing aspect of our psychic constitution, since the Self is a symbol of totality that includes the unconscious and the conscious of human nature. The Self is present inside all human beings, but it is not always realized. For the Self to be realized, it is necessary for the individual to be able to translate and integrate the symbolic contents that emerge from the unconscious, either in dreams or in visionary experiences that occur during non-ordinary states of consciousness, such as those induced by the use of entheogenic substances or those produced by the use of active imagination. As Von Franz (2019) says: “When the Self has been realized, it incarnates itself, so to speak, in the mortal life of the Self… Only the conscious Self can realize psychic contents. Even something as great, as divine as the Self can only be realized by the Self. That is self-realization from a Jungian perspective, the realization of the Self” (p. 9).
It is important to note that it is difficult to have a clear notion of what we really mean when we say “I”, since it is common to confuse our family and social roles, our gender or our names with who we really are. For Jung (2011), the I or ego must be understood as a complex factor of the human psyche associated with all the contents of consciousness. Jung says that the ego “constitutes in a sense the center of the field of consciousness and, to the extent that this field comprises the empirical personality, the ego is the subject of all conscious acts” (p. 17). In this sense, as Jung explains, the ego is the center only of what happens in the field of consciousness, and that represents the limitation of the conscious subject. However, the field of consciousness has no defined limits, since there is always the possibility of an indeterminate expansion of the field of consciousness. According to Jung, this expansion of consciousness empirically finds its limits in the realm of the unknown. There is that which is unknown in the external material world, and there is the unknown of the inner, psychic world. The unknown of the inner world is the unconscious. Therefore, the total personality has a conscious side and an unconscious side, and therefore it is impossible to accurately describe the personality, since the inner world is unknown and indescribable. This is why Jung decided to call the total personality, which exists, but cannot be fully known, Self. When the contents that emerge from dreams or visions are managed to assimilate, what happens is an expansion of the field of consciousness, but this expansion has a danger, because it happens that, sometimes, the personality is possessed by the emerging contents, that is, an inflation of the ego occurs when it is not possible to discern between the reality of the figures of the unconscious and the reality of the ego, and this constitutes a catastrophe on a psychic level, since the ego assigns or attributes qualities that it does not. They belong, and the individual can begin to consider himself a chosen one of divinity, a prophet, a guru or simply someone superior to ordinary mortals. One becomes a victim of delusions of grandeur or delusions of persecution, and mental illness develops.
A healthy relationship between the ego and the Self promotes a transformation process that is called by Jung: individuation process. As Edinger (2018) mentions, “the individuation drive promotes a state in which the Ego relates to the Self without identifying with it” (p. 170). Individuation constitutes an integration of the opposites of the psyche, a coniunctio oppositorum, where the dichotomy between the reality of the external world and the reality of the internal world is replaced by a sense of unitary reality. Edinger mentions that in individuation “the images and attributes of the Self are now experienced as separate from the ego and at a higher order” (p. 171). Therefore, individuation is considered an innate impulse of the human being to consciously realize oneself. Individuation is a process of transformation towards a meaningful life, which does not exactly mean a life full of enjoyment and happiness, nor achieving great intellectual understanding, nor acquiring fame or achieving success in material life or at an economic level. As Jaffé (1995) says, the sense of individuation “flows from the numine quality of the Self. To put it in religious terms, individuation must be understood as the realization of the divine in human being” (p. 76).
It is important to understand that not only the Self manifests itself through images, visions or voices, since all the unconscious autonomous forces of the inner world can be personified as images and communicate with the ego, which can mean a confusing mass of information coming from the unconscious that can trigger inner chaos that leads to mental illness. Raff (2022) mentions that this inner chaos can be balanced only by the active presence and ordering power of the Self, which, precisely, represents the principle of order and harmony. Raff reminds us that the Self should constitute the center of the entire psychic entity, around which all archetypes are grouped, which can be represented by the symbol of the mandala. It happens that many times individuals become confused and think that certain images and voices they hear during expanded states of consciousness come from the Self; however, these images and voices are often produced by a constellation of complexes and archetypes. The work of individuation consists, precisely, of ensuring that the Self acquires the position of dominant spiritual force within the inner world of the psyche. As Raff mentions, work aimed at spiritual development consists of working with the Self so that it “becomes a powerful and dominant force within the psyche” (p. 45), so the Self can go from a latent state to a manifest state and, as a consequence, transform the entire personality, including the Self and the unconscious.
Talking about mental health is not so simple, since what is called mental health depends, to a large extent, on the paradigm from which we are speaking. Many attitudes and behaviors that are seen as normal within a given context could be considered pathological if viewed from a different perspective. In the same way, certain behaviors or ways of living life that from one point of view could be seen as pathological, for a certain group of people could be something natural and even normal. Therefore, when talking about mental health, it is crucial to take into consideration the factor called “normality.”
Fromm (1995) considered that the ideas of mental health and normality were related to the criterion of adaptability of individuals to the society to which they belong. In that sense, within a given population, the majority of people who behave and think in a similar way tend to be considered not only “normal” but also mentally “healthy.”
However, what is usually part of normality, in reality, is often very far from a state of psychological well-being, since this so-called mental health that the majority enjoys can become extremely harmful in many cases for individuals and society in general. That is why Fromm (1995) decided to call this collective state: pathology of normality. According to Fromm, the most obvious example would be war, where violence is seen on a large scale as something normal and millions of individuals act guided by irrational and completely destructive ideas. Fromm says that humans have found a way to murder millions of their fellow humans in such a way that individuals firmly believe that they are fighting in self-defense, for their honor, or with the help of God, considering their enemies to be evil and irrational beings. who must be destroyed to save the world.
War is an extreme case of pathology of normality, but it is not necessary to go that far to realize it. If you look at the modern Western world, it is normal to see individuals compulsively consume and discard natural resources, while in other places on the planet large numbers of human beings experience hunger and shortages. As Fromm (1995) refers, in large cities, where technological advancement has brought with it more free time for a large majority, individuals use this time not for the development of their own person or self-knowledge, but rather hedonically and for distraction. What the majority call normality or normal behavior corresponds to a lifestyle that cannot provide solutions to the fundamental needs and demands of human beings, which results in a deficient way of life.
For Maslow (1991), the health of the human organism consists of it achieving its own potential until reaching maturity. Mental health allows the human being to move towards the realization of inner human nature, thus developing its maximum potential. Maslow considered that psychopathology is anything that disturbs, frustrates or impedes the course of self-realization, he said that psychopathology is like a blockage or evasion or fear of development towards self-realization. A large majority of individuals in society do not exceed a level of childhood or adolescent psychological development and that is considered part of normality; this psychological immaturity is called healthy development. However, it is possible for the individual to continue developing and reach a state of mental health of an adult, which is known as: self-realization, psycho-emotional maturity, individuation, inner growth, personality integration, etc.
Psychopathology has severe forms in those cases in which the integrity of an individual's ego is shattered, producing a state of mental dissociation known as psychosis or madness. The inner reality overflows overwhelmingly and the ego becomes unable to differentiate between the internal and external world. As Laing (1978) indicates, there are many people who, when penetrating the inner world, unfortunately, do so “without guides, confusing external realities with internal ones, internal ones with external ones, and generally lose the ability to function properly in their normal relationships” (p. 110). Laing says that this should not be so, since the process of entering the inner world from this outer world should be a completely natural experience like death, giving birth or birth. However, in the contemporary world, the journey towards the inner world has become an almost unknown event, and in some cases it is even considered a terrifying experience. Therefore, when an individual feels fed up with the outside world and feels that it has no meaning, sometimes he begins to spontaneously experience access to the inner world, and when he immerses himself in it, he begins to feel lost, confused and terrified, and people around him stop understanding him and begin to see him as someone abnormal.
On certain occasions, individuals experience a sudden entry into the psychic reality of the inner world, being overwhelmed by a flood of unconscious contents, living in an internal time and space, in an unknown territory, and this makes them feel scared and confused, because They are lost. They don't know what is happening, and no one is prepared to light the way for them. Laing (1978) sees this penetrating into the inner world as a journey, during which “one is exposed to getting lost on numerous occasions, due to confusion, partial failure, or final shipwreck: we can encounter monsters, spirits and demons, which may, or may not, be defeated” (p. 111). It is a regrettable state when an individual becomes lost in the inner world and cannot return, considering that very few doctors or psychotherapists are prepared to accompany their patients in the inner world, walk with them through those places and help them return to those who are lost.
For Laing (1978), the process of penetrating the inner world should not be a pathological event; However, in the times in which we live, this journey inward that should conclude in a self-healing process, often ends disastrously, bearing the name of schizophrenia. People who get lost in the inner world cannot be helped and progressively the integrity of their ego is destroyed, leading the individual to an unfortunate state in their relationships with the outside world. Laing's position is very peculiar and goes against what is commonly accepted, which is why he was considered an anti-psychiatrist. He proposed that:
Instead of mental hospitals, sort of repair factories for human crises, we need a place where people who have traveled further and who, consequently, may be more lost than the psychiatrist and other healthy people, can find a way to go. further into inner space and time, and then back again. Instead of the ceremonial degradation of psychiatric examination, diagnosis and prognosis, we need, for those who are ready (in psychiatric terminology, those who are about to suffer a schizophrenic crisis), an initiation ceremony, whereby people who have already been there and have returned, can guide others towards internal space and time, with full social approval and authorization (Laing, 1978, p. 112).
The process that leads to the state of psychosis, but which should not end that way, as described by Laing (1978), could be developed as a journey from external reality to the inner world, from life to a kind of death, from mundane time to eonic time, from the conscious to the unconscious, from being outside (post-birth) to returning to the womb of all things (pre-birth). And subsequently make a return journey from the inner world to external reality, from death to life, from immortality again to mortality, from eternity to common time, from the unconscious to the conscious, from a generation cosmic to an existential rebirth.
It is painful when an individual gets lost in the inner world and suffers a state of dissociation, since in most countries there are no places where there are people prepared to assist these people in a process that leads to healing. Conventional and current psychiatry is only limited to administering psychiatric medications that do not really help people on the return journey towards external reality and towards a state of health.
In the practice of transpersonal psychotherapy, the psychotherapist often has to attend to people who have a keen interest in starting a path of psychological development or evolution of consciousness, a path of self-realization or individuation; however, a large majority of individuals are not really prepared to begin this path. Furthermore, forcing the start of this path could be counterproductive and generate mental and emotional disturbances or even personality disorders, such as psychic inflation or dissociative states. It must be considered that a path of evolution of consciousness is a path of personality transformation, which can be very delicate, since a transformation does not always occur in an evolutionary manner. Let’s remember that schizophrenia is also a process of personality transformation, but with disastrous consequences for the individual. As Laing (1978) says, schizophrenia or what we call madness is not something completely negative, since it carries with it a germ, a potential for liberation and renewal; however, at the same time it entails slavery and existential death. When an individual experiences a state of mental illness, the ego is broken or destroyed, which is very sad, since the ego is that function of the psyche that allows us to live in this external world. Laing reminds us that the integrity of the ego can be destroyed by the insurmountable contradictions of certain life situations, by toxins, chemical changes and various aspects, and as a consequence the person ends up abandoned in other worlds, in the reality of an inner world that has flooded the field of consciousness.
The vast majority of individuals in Western civilization who live far from their inner world, who live focused on external reality, and who are adapted to external reality, the interpersonal world and the realm of human collectivities, are considered normal or healthy. Since most individuals live focused on the external world and almost completely and totally removed from the internal one, any direct personal knowledge of the internal world involves various risks. However, access to the inner world could also mean a natural healing process, a healing of the pathological state of normality, although this access requires preparation, training, knowledge and guidance. Access to the inner world can mean a path of self-knowledge and personality development, a path of transcendence, growth and evolution that implies a state of crisis or spiritual emergency, which unfortunately a large majority of psychologists and psychiatrists do not understand, and they attend to their patients guiding them towards a pathologically normal state. Certain wisdom traditions possessed or possess a corpus of ancestral knowledge that is used by the mystagogue or the healer, allowing him to access the other world, and then return from it in an enriched and healthier way.
To conclude this reflection, I consider it convenient to quote the following lines written by Laing (1978):
Everything is equivocal from the alienated beginning of our pseudosanity. Our sanity is not “true” sanity. His madness is not "true" madness. The madness of our patients is an artifact of the destruction that we unleash on them, and that they inflict on themselves. That does not mean that there is more "true" madness than true sanity. The madness that we find in "patients" is a crude disguise, a mockery, a grotesque caricature of what should be the natural result of this alienated integration that we call sanity. True sanity brings about, in one way or another, the dissolution of the normal ego, of this false ego perfectly adapted to our alienated social reality: the appearance of the "internal" archetypal mediators of divine power and through this death a rebirth, a eventual re-establishment of a new type of functioning of the ego, which would now be the servant of the divine, and not its betrayer (pp. 126-127).
For more than half a century, human society has been immersed in a global crisis that is becoming more and more aggravated as time goes by. Already in the 80s on the last century, Walsh (1994) denounced that human beings were facing a precipice created by themselves, where the human species faced threats such as overpopulation, malnutrition, lack of resources, pollution, ecological damage and nuclear weapons. Today, the vast majority of human beings are aware that constant human progress, all technological advances, the domination of nature and the increase in power, are accompanied by a constant threat that could lead humanity towards its own destruction. However, as happens in every crisis, there is a possibility of transformation, and humanity could overcome this crisis and take a leap towards the evolution of consciousness. The big question is: how could human beings get out of this global crisis? Apparently, human beings have the answer to this question within themselves, since it is their own evolutionary process that could lead them to find answers. And in this evolutionary process, which could lead to overcoming this crisis, the expansion of consciousness plays a very important role. Therefore, there is a deep need for change that allows the human species to grow and develop collectively.
If we are to get out of this crisis, it is imperative that the level of consciousness of humanity undergoes a mutation or transformation. It is necessary for at least a significant percentage of human beings to make an evolutionary leap at the level of consciousness. According to Grof (2005): “The global crisis is basically a psychospiritual crisis. It reflects the level of evolution of the consciousness of the human species. It is therefore difficult to imagine a resolution without a radical inner transformation of humanity. A large-scale transformation that raises the level of emotional maturity and spiritual consciousness” (p. 379).
Apparently, humanity is a participant in two paradigms that walk together. As Tarnas (2009) indicates, on the one hand, there is a modern paradigm or myth in which humanity sees itself as part of a constant progress that has taken it from ignorance to a modern world of knowledge in continuous growth. , freedom and well-being. And, on the other hand, there is a vision in which humanity follows a predominantly problematic path, that is, it is heading towards a great fall, due to a split that has separated it from its original state of unity with nature and that has led to the predominance of a modern mentality that experiences a profound desacralization of the world. Human development is accompanied by a resounding decline. “This development coincided with a growing destructive exploitation of nature, the devastation of traditional indigenous cultures, the loss of faith in spiritual realities and an increasingly miserable state of the human soul, which feels increasingly isolated, superficial and unrealized” (Tarnas, 2009, p. 37).
Walsh (1994) was aware that a possible way out of the global crisis involves a process of psychological maturation, and understood that the crisis itself can function as an evolutionary catalyst, an impulse towards new evolutionary heights. Therefore, it is possible to see this crisis as a development opportunity that could lead us towards a healthier world. In this sense, the crisis can lead to a growing interest on the part of human beings towards a transformation that enables a process of evolution, expansion of consciousness, and reconnection with nature. And, precisely, as Vaughan (1994) indicates, transpersonal psychology provides a new vision of reality, where it is possible to see the world as a whole, from an integrative and holistic vision, letting us know the need for a consciousness that transcends cultural distinctions, which is vital for the survival of the human species. Transpersonal psychology helps us see the need for self-transcendence as a way to overcome the current crisis. “It is our capacity for vision and self-transcendence that must be recognized if we are to transform the current danger into an opportunity for renewal” (Vaughan, 1994, p. 36).
Therefore, humanity requires psychological growth, an evolution or mutation of consciousness that leads human beings to interpret reality in a different way, that helps them find a higher meaning, as Tarnas (2009) says, “a vaster, adequate and publicly accessible order of purpose and meaning, an orienting metanarrative that transcends different cultures and subcultures” (p. 19), a kind of collective modern myth. It is about the emergence of a new form of consciousness, a transformation that occurs as a quantum leap, “or if we do not want to formulate it with an expression taken from physics, but apparently from biology, let's say that it happens through mutations” (Gebser, 2011, p. 73). It is appropriate to use the term mutation of consciousness, because, as Gebser says, said transformative process would be a sporadic event, an event that emerges abruptly, and it would be a possible intensification of latent possibilities, existing since the origin of the species. Although the transformation is sporadic, the individual can work in the conditions that would allow the emergence of said mutation or development. And this work consists mainly of a progressive distancing from selfishness. As Wilber (2001) explains, this development requires, mainly, an expansion of consciousness and a correlative decrease in narcissism.
It is evident that the adventure that leads human beings to the optimal development of their potential, towards self-realization or individuation, is a journey that is not free of dangers, since getting lost along the way could lead to a truly disastrous end. This process of evolutionary mutation of the personality is a process of amplification of consciousness and harmonization of the contents of the psyche that opens the experience of a deep state of mental health free of confusion, depression, anguish or existential emptiness, since a human being who is on the path towards individuation has achieved a deep understanding with himself, giving meaning to the symbolic contents of his own existence.
On the other hand, it is also evident that there are false paths that have become popular in recent decades due to widespread confusion regarding spirituality. There are many who have renounced traditional religions but would like to have a spiritual life and that is why they turn to movements of the New Age type, where various philosophical currents, scientific knowledge and spiritual systems merge in an often incompatible way, resulting in a confusing disorienting belief system. Furthermore, there is a tendency to look for quick answers or easy solutions that do not involve too much effort or discipline, and as a consequence individuals fall into a pseudo-spirituality without assuming true responsibility for their own growth, since many followers of these currents or movements forget completely aware of the existence of the shadow, and they have the belief that with the help of a guru or spiritual teacher or with the use of some technique they will be able to reach higher levels of consciousness without having to confront the shadow aspects of their own personality and without having to abandon their most unpleasant negative habits or emotional attachments.
It is possible to live life fully, but this does not happen spontaneously or for free, it requires commitment, determination, responsibility, discipline and hard work on oneself, a work that does not end until the end of our life on this level. of existence.
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