Short Treatise on Dreams

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Gita Society of Belgium

Branch of International Gita Society (IGS/USA)

© 2001-2012

Short Treatise on Dreams

A Course on the Psychic Meaning of Dreams,

by Philippe L. De Coster, B.Th., D.D.

Gita Satsang Ghent, Belgium

© December 2012 – Philippe L. De Coster, B.Th., D.D., Ghent, Belgium

(Non commercial)



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Short Treatise on Dreams

A Course on the Psychic Meaning of Dreams,

by Philippe L. De Coster, B.Th., D.D.

First Discourse

Today’s dreaming is tomorrow’s reality, is often said. And, why is this? Simply

because a dream comes from a world which is living and flagrant. In fact, with

our limited consciousness we may not know this, but we meditate regularly, and

I mean every day, we consciously enter into many higher worlds. The reality of

these worlds enters into us in our dreams. Dreams are a reality, and during sleep



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we enter into the reality of the world of dreams. What we call “dream” is a

reality. It is a reality in its own right, but when it approaches us, we are a

stranger to it and the dream is a stranger to us. I mean by this, when we have a

dream it is as it were two strangers meeting for the first time. Since they do not

know each other, the may be confused or astonished by each other. But oncewith have made friends with this other world, which in fact, is part of our world,

we are no longer strangers anymore. After my night meditation, I always express

the desire to dream, and even impress on my mind in which direction, and it

works most of the time. The greatest benefactor is my meditation session beforegoing to sleep, having entered the world beyond the physical and the temporal.

If we meditate, we can consciously enter into the dream world. Up to now the

dream world may be for you something vague, uncertain and to a certain extent

obscure. But, if you study your dreams, you can know many things about them.

Dreams are a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious, as stated andbelieved by the Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung that everything that eventually

emerges into consciousness originates in the unconscious. The unformed

archetypes achieve form as we experience them in our outer lives and in ourdreams. It is not sufficient to look at the events of our lives causally; we also

have to look at them from a teleological point-of-view. That is, not only are we

pushed forward by our past actions, we are also pulled forward by the actions

we need to take, many of which are contained within the mind as archetypes.

Dreams are the most common and most normal expression of the unconscious

psyche teaches Jung, providing the bulk of the material for its investigation.1

Carl Gustav Jung in his practice as a psychoanalyst, dreams were readily

available as the primary raw materials he used to explore the unconscious.Jung’s discovery of mythological referents in dreams led to his concept of the

collective unconscious and its building blocks, namely the archetypes. Jung was

driven ineluctably to his model by the simple fact of his insistence on honouring

the dream and reporting what he found out.

Where do dreams come from? In the cosmos, there are many worlds which are

not visible to the human eye, and dreams come from those worlds. Anyway,dreams can often be confusing, because there is not much light in the vital,

physic world. Dreams that comes from the astral (the psychic), the higher worlds

are luminous, however devoid of sensations. When we get a dream from thevital plane, we will see constant movement. It will be like a battlefield where

everything is being broken and smashed, and people killed. When we have

dreams coming from the lower worlds, the subconscious, we have to feel that

1 Carl Gustav Jung, “The Collected Works”, Volume 8: “The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, © 1960,

1969, Princeton University Press, page 544.



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these dreams have no value. They cannot alter our nature, nor inspire us. They

cannot give us hope for our future fulfilments. The best thing we can do is forget

them, while profitable dreams should be written down to be remembered.

To return to the Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, the idea that there is a collective

underpinning to the psyche that interacts with consciousness, and which we canobserve in dreams, isolated Carl Gustav Jung from his peers. This was like the

psychologist’s experience with his fellow students in college with respect to

psychic phenomena. It is always easier to dismiss strange results than to look at

such material in a totally fresh light. Psychological reality is a good deal more

complex than supposed common sense would imagine it to be Animals

(including human animals like you and me) are born with the ability to access

behaviours and images that have evolved across the wide history of their species(and all the species that preceded them). And these are not just piled up

haphazardly in some dusty attic of racial memory, they are organised sodiligently that they can be activated at predetermined points in our mental

development. Carl Gustav Jung called these inherited behaviours and images

“archetypes”. He stressed that these archetypes are formless until they are

activated in our lives. Though we do not fully understand how this mechanism

operates, it is clearly highly efficient, as it means that a given archetype can

operate over a wide and spread variety of cultures in a wide variety of times and

places. Since the archetype seems essentially formless, one possibility is that an

archetype is stored as some kind of numeric algorithm, but that is no more than

speculation at this early point in understanding the nature of the mind.

According to Carl Gustav Jung, it is only our conscious mind that does not

know; as the unconscious seems already informed, and to have submitted thecase to a careful prognostic examination, more or less in the way consciousness

would have done if it had known the relevant facts. However, precisely because

they are sublimal, they can be perceived by the unconscious and submitted to a

sort of examination that anticipates the ultimate result.2

Dream research has indicated that dreaming is hardly confined to humans. Even

an animal as primitive as an opossum, which has changed little in sixty-fivemillion years dreams. With the exception of the spiny anteater, a very primitive

mammal, all mammals dream. Birds also dream, though they spend less time

each day dreaming than mammals. Even reptiles sometimes exhibit symptomsof dreaming.

Anyway, animal lovers have observed their favourite creatures sniffing,whining, yelping, miaowing, wagging or flapping their tails, moving paws,

2 Carl Gustav Jung, “The Collected Works”, Volume 18: “The Sym bolic Life”, © 1980, Princeton University

Press, page 545.



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sucking, licking chops, breathing heavily and evincing a gamut of emotions that

suggest dreaming.

How do we learn from our dreams? The dreams that come to us from a more

sublime plane, good dreams, divine dreams we have to treasure. When we

experience this kind of dream, we can try to expedite their transformation intoreality. As spiritual seekers, create peace should be our highest dream. Weevoke peace from above and subsequently offer peace to mankind. So our

highest dreams are most welcome, but destructive dreams, lower dreams, have

to be discarded as if they never happened.

In fact, your inner being, and the entire universe inside your “Higher Self”

determine what you dream. If you are insufficiently spiritually developed to

identify with the Universal and Collective Consciousness, then you will feel that

things are coming from the outside. There will come a time when throughmeditation when your mind consciousness becomes one with the Collective andUniversal Consciousness, which is flooded with light and delight (the

Abrahamic faiths would call it heaven or paradise not yet taking place, but this

is nonsense). We are the eternal “Self”, fully explained in “Who Am I?” (Nan

Yar?), by Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi: “When the world which is what-is-

seen has been removed, there will be realization of the Self which is the seer. ” The “Self” can be the dreamer’s deepest personality, the process of

development, and the goal of the process, all wrapped up in one entity. Equally,

the “Self” transcends all limits of the outer, visible life, and of the personalmorality, while the ethics of the “Self” possess a rightness at the highest level

that can never be denied.

Here ends the first discourse.



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Second Discourse

What happens when deprivation of dreams is through one way or another

activated? Dream researchers have experimented with animals, often taking the

period of sleeplessness far beyond the limits of human endurance. Like humans,animals kept from dreaming long enough, become disoriented, lose motor

abilities, and eventually exhibit symptoms which, for their particular species,

could be considered psychotic. But, why do we dream?

When we sleep, often our highest consciousness continues to operate and

sometimes it does not. It depends on whether the Higher Self (the Self) wants

the highest consciousness to operate or whether “It” wants the highest

consciousness to sleep while the physical is taking rest. This is pure spirituality,I’m afraid! There are many seekers who meditate with intent every day. And,

this is by all means a must. Just because they have been meditating during theday or night, it pleases the Higher Self (the Self) within us to say, “Body you

have worked very hard” you need a complete rest. Now, there are other forcesthat can work on your behalf.”

On the contrary, if you awaken with a feeling of elation and joy, does this mean

you had a spiritual experience during a dream while sleeping, although your

physical mind may not remember it? This is quite possible. You may notremember the dream because your physical consciousness may not have a free

access to the particular plane of consciousness where you have had the



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experience. Far too often ignored, that our dream experience in awareness or

not, is every bit as real to us as our daytime experience! It is absolutely true that

dreams take place in a phantasmagorical landscape where daytime rules cease to

apply – except one: with few exceptions, our dreams evoke the same feelings of

happiness, sadness, fear, lust, envy, hunger, thirst, exultation, awe, as similarexperiences do in everyday life. Dreams are centred on emotional accuracy, and

in no way on physical accuracy. It is only afterward, in the cold light of day that

people condemn dreams as absurd. While they are taking place, they can be all

too real, as anyone would acknowledge who has ever awakened in a cold sweatfrom a nightmare.

Meditation is absolutely essential as the physical consciousness must be

surcharged with the divine light, to make your dream world function properly.When you sleep, the “Higher Self”, the “I”, the “Self” moves freely in the

timeless and spaceless, and to all planes or spheres like a bird (humanlyspeaking). Meditation is necessary, if the physical wants to observe what the“Higher Self” is doing, then the physical has to be moulded and guided by the

Self’s light.

More often you cannot bring these experiences into your conscious memory

because you are not aware of all the stages that exist between the higher plane

and the physical plane. Therefore, the best way to become more conscious and

open is to spend more time in meditation. For example, if you meditate for thirty

minutes a day, then try to spend one hour a day; remember, you have twenty-four hours a day. Great things are done in silence. And remember, you as “Self”

are “the power, the glory, another god.”

How important are dreams in the spiritual life of the seeker? It entirely depends

on the necessity of each one of us personally. If we need a dream in order to

inspire us to go deep within or to go far beyond the mind, then dreams are of immense importance. Divine dreams, spiritual dreams, can play a considerable

role in our spiritual life. We have to know that everything is a dream before it ismanifested in the outer world. If we value “reality”, then we have to value the

dream as well. This does not mean that dreams lead us to God-realisation. Doremember that, if we have only a few significant dreams or even if we do not

have dreams at all, this will not stand in the way of our spiritual progress and

God-realisation. Hindu philosophy is also clear that the goal of human life isself-realization or enlightenment — and that it is a real blessing being born in

human incarnation. The aim of all mystical traditions is the same. It can even be

said of most major religions of the world that each one started off as a path to

the Cosmic Supreme (the Absolute), containing some esoteric knowledge, which

tends to get eroded over time.



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The seven steps to God-realisation which will improve your dreams as well:

To understand the importance of human life and the futility of the visible

and tangible world.

To desire to become a true devotee and recipient of a deity as Lord Shiva,Krishna or other. The longing to find a true Divine Saint in the Light as Bhagavan Sri

Ramana Maharshi, who will guide you all along, or a Guru still alive.

To surrender yourself to the Guru as Guru Ramana. To find the path and wholeheartedly practice devotion under his guidance. To purify heart and mind through spiritual discipline and meditation. To receive the Divine vision and love your chosen Deity as the Lord

Shiva.

We learn largely from doing. Since we experience dreams as real, it is goodto point out that we should be able to learn from our dreams in much thesame way that we learn from our day-time experience. Dreaming provides an

opportunity to try out our behaviour in advance, so that when necessity calls

for new behaviour we will already have perfected that behaviour. As an

example, since children have a greater need to learn future behaviours than

adults, children should, therefore, dream more than adults. In fact, in allspecies, the newborn dream much more than adults. A newborn human baby

experiences REM dreaming about eight hours of dreaming a day, four to five

times more than an adult. It is almost as if babies were dreaming themselvesinto existence.

There are four categories into which we might expect children’s dream to fall:

1. Experiences which they do or not know of already, and especially those

which as particular individuals might otherwise never get to know.

2. Experiences which they will not get to know of in reality until they have

grown older.

3. Experiences which they observe from other people to be going through nd

which are characteristic of our present Western community, and what theysee on TV and Internet.

4. Experiences which, whether they have had opportunity to observe or not,characteristics of human beings.

As a child grows into the adult state, there should become a greater need toincorporate actual life experiences into the learning development of dreams.

Adding to this, two other points to be noted:



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1. Experiences from our daytime life when everything seems to be

harmonious.

2. Experiences from our daytime life which is not so rewarding at all.

To note, that there is no single human being on earth who has not had anydreams. There are some people who say they do not have any dreams at all, but

they are mistaken. They do dream, but when they wake up they totally forget

them. Other people have the capacity to retain to memory of their dreams while

they are fully awake. The more one is interested in dreams, the better he willremember.

Indeed, our dreams can repeat and even improve upon our actions in order to use

them again profitably in the future. In the latter case, dreams can try out

alternative actions until something finally works successfully. All six of above

types of dream experiences (4 + 2) would allow not only children, but all of us,in perfecting and extent the long list of instinctual behaviours available at birth,

as well as the new behaviours we learn over the course of life.

Dreams are central part of the total system of consciousness, rather than some

vestigial anomaly. A wide range of future behaviours could be tried out during

dreams. Dreams with unresolved conclusions would be repeated with variations

until some resolution see the daytime. Dreams having led to unsatisfactoryconclusions would present itself less often than those that seemed to work would

very likely occur over time.

There are two main reasons why one does not remember dreams. One is that the

person may not give adequate importance to them. You have lost something and

you wish it back, but you are not trying your best. When you have a dream, you

may feel that it is only your mental hallucination and nothing more. Also, you

may feel that these experiences are nothing unusual, and that others also get

them. Whether others have dreams or not is not your business. Your business is

only to have good dreams; and, with the help of these dreams, to get a renewedlife and run toward your destined Goal, the answer to “Who Am I?” (Nan Yar?).

In fact, if you do not give due attention to your dreams, the dreams find that theyare not needed even wanted, so they do not come on, and you may have

sleepless nights. It is true, that when we give adequate value to something or

someone, that person or thing remains with us, in us and for us. You will

remember your dreams only if you feel that these dreams are of tremendous

value. If you have that kind of feeling, then when you forget your dreams, youwill feel a sense of great loss, even irreparable loss. This is how next time you

will not forget your dream experiences. When you become a mature tree full of



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delicious fruits having learned of your experiences, you will humbly bend down

and offer these fruits to others in selfless service.

Third Discourse

Actions were never invented,they were done. Thoughts on

the other hand, are of a later

discovery. In the first instance,

man was moved to actions byunconscious factors, and only

a very long time afterwards

did he begin to think and

reflect on the causes that had

moved him; then it took himan ever long time to arrive atthe preposterous idea that he must have moved himself, because his mind was

unable to see any other motivating force than his own.3

Indeed, consciousness is a very recent phenomenon of modern psychologists asCarl Gustav Jung, Dr. Roberto Assagioli, even Teilhard de Chardin and others.

For millions of years, animals and even humans have managed to be born, liveand die without the full awareness of the “Self” within, brain functions and

consciousness in its different phases. We can feel joy and sadness, hope and

fear, without being conscious of ourselves experiencing those emotions. Thelack of consciousness does not create robots, moving inexorably to a pre-defined

plan; the dynamics of the unconscious are much more complex than that.

Carl Gustav Jung reports as found in “Collected Works, Volume 8”, page 695:

“The reason why consciousness exists, and why there is an urge to widen

and deepen it, is very simple: without consciousness things go less well.

This is obviously the reason why Mother Nature deigned to produce

consciousness, that most remarkable of all nature’s curiosities.”

Whether or not consciousness is nature’s crowning achievement, it is certainly

its newest novelty. No one respected consciousness, and the individual’s heroic

attempts to increase that consciousness, more than Carl Gustav Jung and later

Roberto Assagioli, founder of psychosynthesis.

The individuation process which they carefully studied is the process of

extending consciousness, the ultimate mother of all that lives. Dreams stand at

that magical boundary between consciousness and the unconscious.

3 Carl Gustav Jung in “Collected Works, Volume 18, page 553 to read what he exactly wrote.



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Because of this, major changes in our lives are mirrored in symbolic form in our

dreams long before they are evidenced in outer life. This, now and again,

becomes clear after the fact, when a long series of dreams can be examined.

Quite often, in the period immediately before a major change is going to take

place, a single dream will appear which depicts symbolically the entire course of someone’s later development. The dream may be so rich of meaning that it is

impossible to fully understand at the time what the message is. Later, smaller

dreams pick up the individual strands of the changes that are coming. Slowing

they evolve as consciousness grows. Every conscious shift, every consciousresistance can be followed in the cycle of dreams: We dream a world into beingthat dreams us into being.”

Since there is a partial dynamic relationship between consciousness and theunconscious, it is natural that they should react to each other. If our conscious

attitude becomes manifestly unhealthy from the viewpoint of the total organism,the unconscious will compensate. To consider a physical example, if the body

detects a need for a trace element that has been missing from our diet, we tend to

grow hungry for some food containing that missing chemical. Obviously, livingas so many of us do on hurriedly eaten fast food, we are not aware of our body’s

messages as we would be if we were still living closer to nature. However, all of

us have, at some time or another in our lives suddenly developed a craving for

food not normally in our diet, a vegetable maybe, even if we would ordinarily

shun that vegetable. This process appears to go on not only physically but also

within our psyche. Just as the body is constantly working to stay healthy, so isour psyche. To return to our dream world, Carl Gustav Jung felt that the primary

function of dreams was to serve as an unconscious compensation to our

conscious attitude. Obviously, he meant adult dreams, since there is no need for

compensation until there is some consciousness to compensate for. In children,

dreams are largely the playgrounds where future behaviour and attitudes are

tried out.

A good question here, “Why can dreams sometimes be more inspiring than in

the visible world?”

As a rule every human being us of the opinion that a dream is infinitely more

inspiring than reality. The immediate effect of a dream on our mind is to create

inspiring thoughts to be followed by action in the outer world. This is becausewhen we are in the reality of the dream world, all our psychic capacities are at

our disposal. We can do many things and see many things which we cannot do

or see during our waking hours. When I was a little boy during last war or just

after, my father kept rabbits in a hutch connected to a cellar window enabling

him to feed the rabbits without having to go in the garden. I had completely

forgotten this as I was then a child seven years old; and, the more since we sold



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the house in 1975. This year, last summer, the whole scenery of the rabbits and

afterwards the chickens (little English chickens) were brought to life and became

reality in my dream as well as memory. The hutch adjacent to a cellar window

was for many years removed and cleaned up long before 1975. I even left the

parental house for good in 1959. But, this year we are in 2012 and dreamt aboutit.

In the dream-world we can enter in many realms which we cannot enter in at

other times. When we develop the inner capacity to enter into all these realms at

will, then we will see that dream and reality have become one. At that time

reality and dream will be equally inspiring and useful.

In the dream world we enter into the timeless and spaceless universe where weourselves are but a “breath” and psychic or astral. In other words, the dream

cannot produce a definite thought unless it should cease to be a dream. Thedream manifests the fringe of consciousness, like the faint glimmer of the starsduring a total eclipse of the sun, argues Carl Gustav Jung, in “Collected Works”,

Volume 18, page 511.

Since dreams exist at the boundary between consciousness and the unconscious,once we record and interact with our dreams, a bridge (antahkarana) begins to

form between those two regions. It is the path, or bridge, between higher and

lower mind, serving as a medium of communication between the two. It is built

by the devotee, seeker, aspirant, the human himself in mental matter. It all works

in a very rapid way, accessible between conscious and unconscious. Once webecome aware of our dreams, they react to our awareness. Then we observe their

reaction and react in turn.

“No amount of scepticism and criticism has yet enabled me to regard

dreams as negligible occurrences. Often enough they appear senseless, but

it is obviously we who lack the sense and ingenuity to read the enigmaticmessage....”

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Do honour your dreams, all of them. It is more important to record them and

review them than it is to figure out what they mean. Dreams are so filled withmeaning and reality that it is unlikely one can ever fully exhaust the meaning of

even a single dream. That is an inevitable result of their coming from the

unconscious. Any dream presents material that you are able to be consciously

aware of, material at the edge of consciousness, and also material so far from

consciousness that you may never become aware why it is present in the dream.

4 Carl Gustav Jung, “The Collected Works, Volume 16: “The Practice of Psychotherapy.” (© 1985, Princeton

University Press, page 325.



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Every human being is of the opinion that a dream is far more inspiring than the

reality of the outer world. The immediate effect of a dream on our mind is to

create inspiration. This is because when we are in the dream world our “Self”,

astral capacities are completely at our disposal. We can do many things and see

many things which we cannot do or see during our waking hours. We can freelyenter into many realms which we cannot enter at other times. In this sense don’t

shorten your sleeping hours. When we develop the inner capacity to enter into

all these realms at will, then we will gradually realise that dream and reality

have become one, and inspiring as well.

Trust yourself when you feel a dream is significant, as a dream is significant; if a

dream feels important, it usually is. However, the contrary is not so clear.

Sometimes a very important dream will seem unimportant because you do notyet want to face the issue dealt with in the dream. In those cases, give yourself a

break and do not force yourself to face the issue yet if you do not feelcomfortable.

However, be aware that you may want to review earlier dreams at some later

date. When you do, you may be really shocked at just how important seemingly

inoffensive dreams really were.

Finally, try unusual ways to connect with the dream. You may close your eyes,

and as such trying to go back into the dream. If successful, return to some part of

the dream that confused you and continue the dream.

So be brave during your dreams and feel that the dream is not the end. If you

happen to have an unhappy dream, feel that this is a necessary step that will

strengthen you in your daily and spiritual life as well. Reality itself is crying foryour arrival at its door.

Fourth Discourse

Every human being is of the opinion that a dream can be, and usually is, more

inspiring than the visible world, what people call the reality. The immediate

effect of a dream on our mind is to create watchfulness, a bringing to memoryand even inspiration. This is because when we are in the dream world in thesleep state, all our “the Self” (real I-ness) capacities are at our disposal. We can

do many things and see many things which we cannot do or see during waking

hours. However, we need to train ourselves to remember our dreams, and not

forget them as soon as we wake up. We can freely enter into many realms

(spheres) which we cannot enter at other times. This inner capacity has to bedeveloped. In this sense, the Self can be the dreamer’s deepest personality, the

process of development, the goal of the process, all wrapped up in one entity. At



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the same time the Self transcends all limits of personal morality, yet its ethics

possess rightness at some deep level that never can be denied.

You may remember what I wrote earlier, “I am the Power, I am the Glory, I am

another God.” And, rightly so, as “the Self “is the “god within”, the closest

psychological approximation to the godhead, capable of provoking the wonderand the awe we usually associate when dealing with divinities. Finally, the Self is also the “transcendent function” which establishes wholeness and order within

the psyche.

Throughout the four discourses, the reader does now know that our intention is

not to interpret dreams, as that is the work of fortune-tellers, soothsayers and

charlatans, even religious instances as long as they see money. This study is part

of the study of the consciousness constituting the inner man. Beneath

consciousness lies a much larger substratum of forgotten or repressed personalmemories as my father’s rabbits when I was a little boy, feelings, and

behaviours which Carl Gustav Jung called the personal unconscious, but there is

much more, as beneath that lies the deep ocean of the collective unconscious,

huge and ancient, filled with all the images and behaviours that have been

repeated over and over again throughout the history of not only mankind, but of the cosmic life itself. As Carl Gustav Jung stated,”...the deeper you go, the

broader the bas becomes.”

The Self clothes itself in many personalised forms stretching all the way from

animal to human to godlike. However, it can also pick impersonal forms as alake, a mountain (Arunachala Mountains representing the Lord Shiva, a rose, a

tree, etc.) It also appears in

abstract geometric forms called

mandalas.

“Mandala” is a Sanskrit word

meaning circle, which has been

generalised further to describe atype of Oriental religious art

structures in Buddhism andHinduism drawn of circles

containing within squares (or

sometimes other regular

polygons), or vice versa. (Next

picture left is a Lakshmi GayatriMantra.) In oriental traditions, the

mandala is usually a subject for

meditation and contemplation



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Were introduced in the year 120 by the Roman Church: the penances.

In year 200 the institution of ordination established the priesthood.

The papacy in the year 220 creates as means of grace to obtain salvation: indulgences.

In the year 325, the Council of Nicaea accepts the dogma of the 'Holy Trinity' which was introduced by

the Council of Constantinople.

In the year 364 was the “Sunday” introduced, already celebrated by Emperor Constantine.

In the year 378, Gratien, Emperor of the Western Roman Empire from 375. It prohibited the paganworship in Rome and forbade the wear the insignia of 'Pontifex Maximus'. Damascus Christian bishop,

used the title for himself (year 378).

In the year 381, the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople meets to define the dogma of the "HolyTrinity". Nectarius was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople and assigned to occupy the second rank

after Rome.

The worship of relics was allowed in the year 397.

In the year 431, Mary was recognised as the ‘Mother of God’.

In year 440, Leo I becomes Pope in Rome. He was the first to consider himself, as the “Vicar of

Christ”, by creating a new theocracy and decided to wear a tiara rather than a diadem, considering it as

a symbol of universal sovereignty.

In the 449 years, the authority of the Popes as superior to other bishops was recognised.

In the year 476, Pope Felix III excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople. The crisis between the

churches of East and West grew worse!

In the year 595, Gregory the Great introduced in the Catholic Church, a new dogma: the purgatory.

In the year 600, incense was admitted.

In the year 815, the invocation of Mary and the Saints was elevated to ecclesiastical tradition.

In the year 726, Emperor Leo III of Constantinople prohibits the worship of images and orders todestroy them all. The war of the iconoclasts began. Pope Gregory II in Rome excommunicated the

Emperor.

In the year 800, the Pope crowned Charlemagne, King of the Francs, as Emperor of the Holy Roman

Empire; and, in so doing not only places himself above every kingship (the sovereigns), but interfereseven in political affairs. He totally ignored the existence of Empress Irene, who reigned in

Constantinople.

In the year 855, concerning the feminine Pope Joan (Jeanne), (known as John the Englishman), with

two years reigning after the death of Pope Leo IV, no pope or clergyman had questioned her existence.The reformer John Huss referred to her at the Council of Constance in 1415, but nobody protested. All

the bishops present believed in her existence. Only pope Pius II (1458-1464) first disputed the existence

of Pope Joan. (True or fiction!)

In the year 1000, the holy water made its appearance.

In the year 1054, Pope Leo IX attempts to conquer the Eastern Church in Rome. He excommunicated

the Patriarch of Constantinople Cerulius Michel. It is believed that this failure was the main cause in

preaching the crusades preached against the pagans and the great schism.

In the year 1074, the celibacy of the priests was decided. In the year 1200, the sacrament of extreme unction.

In the year 1220, was introduced the worship of the host

In the year 1311, it was decided that the tiara "crown of the Popes" will be without thorns but richlyadorned with gold and diamonds.

In the year 1349, Indulgences in 1349 began to be easily applied: Sobald des geld in der Kasse klingt,

die Seele in den Himmel springt (Once the money in the fund sounds, the soul passes into heaven).( एक

बा फंड आवा म पसैे, आमा वरग म र ुजता ह)ै

In the year 1545, it was decreed that the traditions of the Catholic Church have the same value as theHoly Scriptures.

In the year 1549, was instituted the feast of the dead by the Council of Trent. In the year 1854, the Catholic view of the "Immaculate Conception" becomes a dogma.



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terrifying and incompressible. This struggle still goes on, more and more in a

limited way, because people start to think intelligently today. One cannot deny

the scientific researches today in all fields. Each of us have reached a point in

life today in 2012 ending when it is no longer enough to live life unconsciously.

In our attempts to become conscious, we are forced on a long journey thatinevitably brings us to a confrontation with the Self. There we are forced tyo

acknowledge the inhuman aspect of many world religions.

That moment of awakening of ourselves and many people midst so much

indifference and ignorance even today, still remains a heroic struggle, but an

increasing number among us confront with courage the sometimes terrifying

energy of fanatics and warriors. History always repeats itself, so much pain and

bloodshed in the name of religion. It is not God that made man, but manmadegod.

The experience of the “god within” can take many different forms, from a literal

belief that one has encountered Jesus or Buddha, to the equally religious fervour

characteristic of social reformers, and even scientists. Carl Gustav Jung often

pointed out that the zeal of materialist scientists to discover the ultimate secrets

of the cosmos is essentially an unacknowledged religious belief. An example

would be the subatomic physicists of today, who are convinced that they areabout to assemble a comprehensive “grand unification theory” which will

explain everything in the universe once for all.

There is no final explanation for the cosmos, the universe. There is no finalexplanation possible. Science is based on the provisional nature of all its

theories.

It is very wise to be aware of the psychological and metaphysical reality of the

Self, and that an archetype is at work. The absolute surety of our inner God-

experience may have little or nothing to do with outer, religious truths. This is a

concept that fundamentalists as found in the Abrahamic religions should keep in

mind more and more.

Finally, there is a kind of dream which amounts to “vision”. If you have a dreamthat indicates an imminent new dawn, a new birth, this kind of dream is nothing

short of a vision, and it is as good as high meditation. This kind of vision orreality is an indication of great progress in our life’s journey toward the ever -

In the year 1870, the pontifical infallibility also becomes a dogma.

In the year 1950, the Papacy created the doctrine of Assumption, solemnity on August 15, or the next

Sunday in some countries.

And, this is not finished, as we all know too well.



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transcending Beyond of the Self and in our life’s mastery of religious ignorance

promoted by the religious leaders, even today. If you have that kind of vision, if

the Supreme (Divine Energy, the Absolute, God) wants to using human words,

this will lead you to self-realisation, at least partially. Such a dream is not only

as good as meditation, but stand beyond meditation.

Afterword

on Consciousness, Collective Consciousness and its Archetypes

along Carl Gustav Jung and Roberto Assagioli

Consciousness is our knowing that we know; that phase of knowing by which

we take cognizance of our existence and of our relation to what we call

environment. Environment is made by ideas held in mind and objectified. The

ideas that are held in mind are the basis of all consciousness. The nature of theideas upon which consciousness is formed gives character to it. Consciousness,the direct awareness: the incessant flow of sensation, images, thoughts, feelings,

desires, and impulses, which one can observe, analyse, and judge.

The subconscious mind, or subjective consciousness, is the sum of all man’s

past thinking. It may be called memory. The subconscious sometimes acts

separately from the conscious mind, for instance, in dreams and in its work of

carrying in bodily functions, such as breathing and digestion. The subconscious

mind has no power to do original thinking. It acts upon what is given it throughthe conscious or the subconscious mind. All our involuntary or automaticactivities are of the subconscious mind, they are the result of our having trained

ourselves by the conscious mind to form certain habits and do certain things

without having to centre our thought upon them consciously.

Personal consciousness is formed from limited, selfish ideas.

Sense consciousness is a mental state formed from believing in and acting

through the senses. It is the serpent consciousness, deluded with sensation.

Since an individual becomes attached to whatever he thinks about, the result of his forming sense consciousness is that he withdraws his consciousness from the

Supreme Being, and looses conscious connection with his Source.

Material consciousness is much the same as personal and sense consciousness.

It is a state of mind based on belief in the reality of materiality, or in things as

they appear.



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The conscious self or the “I”, the point within the embodied of pure self -

awareness, different from the changing content of our consciousness (the

sensations, thoughts, feelings, and more).

The superconsciousness, or superconscious mind, is the Higher Self, a state of

consciousness that is based on true ideas, upon an understanding and realisationof the Oneness of Truth as related in the Bhagavad-Gita.

The Higher Self, or the “Self” with a capital letter, submerged in the

ceaseless flow of psychological contents, disappearing (walking away asit were) when we fall asleep, when we faint, when we are under the effect

of an anaesthetic or narcotic, or in a state of hypnosis, and when one

awakes the “Self” is appearing again.

The Collective Consciousness. According to Jung, consciousness, seemingly

the sine qua non of humanity is just the tip of the iceberg. Beneathconsciousness lies a much larger substratum of forgotten or repressed personal

memories, feelings and behaviours, which Jung termed the personal

unconscious. Moreover, beneath that lies the deep sea of collective unconscious,

huge and ancient (Brahman), filled with all the images and behaviours (souls,entities) that have been repeated over and over (reincarnation) throughout the

history of not only humanity, but also life itself (all creation). As Jung said: “…

the deeper you go, the broader the base becomes.”

The Collective Consciousness consists of images and behavioural patterns notacquired by an individual in his or her lifetime, yet accessible to all individuals

in all times, “unconscious” because it cannot be reached through conscious

awareness. Here is faith and intent, prayer, meditation, Gita standards essentialto open ourselves up to the universal but hidden treasure. The collective

unconscious or consciousness (as I prefer to say) dwells in each of us. Much of

our life is structured by the archetypal symbols that are the organised units of the

collective unconscious (consciousness).

Archetypes

One of the most common concepts of the Eastern and the Western writers abouttranspersonal experiences, whether drug or non-drug induced, is that there is a

finite set of regions which one can get into, each of which has its own

describable nature.

Carl Gustav Jung used a system of archetypes to describe images that are related

to the collective unconsciousness. He believed that in any culture or belief

system, there were common archetypes that everyone could relate to, whether it



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be that of the warrior, the priestess, the king, or others as the Self (or the

undead). He then carried this theory a step further, in describing how archetypes

were connected to our inner psyche.

Another well-known expression of the archetypes is myth and fairytale. But herewe are dealing with forms that have received a specific stamp (of a culture) and

have been handed down through long periods of time. The term "archetype" thus

applies only indirectly to the "representations collectives," [universal, primordial

symbols] since it designates only those psychic contents which have not yet

been submitted to conscious elaboration and are therefore an immediate datum

of psychic experience. ... Especially on the higher levels of esoteric teaching the

archetypes appear in a form that reveals quite unmistakably the critical and

evaluating influence of conscious elaboration. Their immediate manifestation, as

we encounter it in dreams and visions, is much more individual, lessunderstandable, and more naive than in myths, for example. The archetype is

essentially an unconscious content that is altered by becoming conscious and by

being perceived, and it takes its colour from the individual consciousness in

which it happens to appear.

The hero archetype appears legends from societies around the world.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell pointed out that individuals from Hercules toLuke Skywalker epitomise the role of hero. To truly fit into an archetype, an

individual must meet certain characteristics - using the hero as an example

again, to be a true archetypical hero, one must be born into unusual

circumstances (Orphan, raised by uncle on a barren planet), leave home to

embark upon a quest (Become a Jedi), follow a perilous journey (Darth Vader

wants to kill me!), and take advantage of spiritual help (Thanks, Yoda!) to

overcome obstacles (Ow! My hand!).

However, if we try to establish what an archetype is psychologically, the matter

becomes more complicated. So far mythologists have always helped themselves

out with solar, lunar, meteorological, vegetal, and other ideas of the kind. The

fact that myths are first and foremost psychic phenomena that reveal the nature

of the soul is something they have absolutely refused to see until now. Primitive

man is not much interested in objective explanations of the obvious, but he has

an imperative need--or rather, his unconscious psyche has an irresistible urge--toassimilate all outer sense experiences to inner, psychic events. It is not enough

for the primitive to see the sun rise and set; this external observation must at the

same time be a psychic happening: the sun in its course must represent the fate

of a god or hero who, in the last analysis, dwells nowhere except in the soul of

man. All the mythologized processes of nature, such as summer and winter, the

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phases of the moon, the rainy seasons, and so forth, are in no sense allegories of

these objective occurrences; rather they are symbolic expressions of the inner

unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to man's

consciousness by way of projection--that is, mirrored in the events of nature.

The projection is so fundamental that it has taken several thousand years of civilization to detach it in some manner from its outer object. ...

In a religious context, many world religion spiritual paths - both ancient and

modern - rely on archetypes. Some traditions honour a goddess or god, in which

the sacred masculine or divine feminine is celebrated. This is often rooted in a

system of archetypes.

Gita Satsang Ghent, Belgium

© December 2012 – Philippe L. De Coster, B.Th., D.D., Ghent, Belgium

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Short Treatise on Dreams

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