I have chosen the term “self” to designate the totality of man, the sum total of his conscious and unconscious contents. I have chosen this term in accordance with Eastern philosophy, which for centuries has occupied itself with the problems that arise when even the gods cease to incarnate. The philosophy of the Upanishads corresponds to a psychology that long ago recognized the relativity of the gods. (“Psychology and Religion: The History and Psychology of a Natural Symbol,” CW 11, p. 82, para. 140).

When we now speak of man we mean the indefinable whole of him, an ineffable totality, which can only be formulated symbolically (Ibid.)

[Wenn wir nun vom Menschen sprechen, so meinen wir dessen unbegrenzbares Ganzes, eine unformulierbare Totalität, die nur symbolisch ausgedrückt werden kann]

There will always exist an indeterminate and indeterminable amount of unconscious material which belongs to the totality of the self. (“Two Essays on Analytical Psychology,” CW 7, par. 274).

Symbol is something viewed as a totality, or as the vision of things brought into a whole. Our intellect cannot master the symbol conceptually.[2]

I have defined this spontaneous image as a symbolical representation of the self, by which I mean not the ego but the totality composed of the conscious and the unconscious (“Flying Saucers,” CW 11, para. 959).

If we conceive of the self as the essence of psychic wholeness, i.e., as the totality of conscious and unconscious, we do so because it does in fact represent something like a goal of psychic development… (“Holy Men of India,” CW 11, para. 959).

Consciousness and the unconscious do not make a whole when either is suppressed or damaged by the other. If hey must contend, let it be a fair fight with equal right on both sides. Both are aspects of life. Let consciousness defend its reason and its self-protective ways, and let the chaotic life of the unconscious be given a fair chance to have its own way, as much of it as we can stand. This means at once open conflict and open collaboration. Yet, paradoxically, this is presumably what human life should be. It is the old play of hammer and anvil: the suffering between them will in the end be shaped into an unbreakable whole, the individual. This experience is what is called, in the later sections of this book, the process of individuation.[3]

[Das Bewusstsein soll eine Vernunft und seinen Selbstschutz rechtfertigen dürfen, und das chaotische Leben esUnbewussten soll auf seine Weise, in einem uns erträglichen Masse, seine Chancen haben. Dies bedeutet gleichzeitig offener Konflikt und offene Zusammenarbeit. Doch paradoxerweise Ist dies vermutlich der Sinn des menschlichen Lebens. Es ist das alte Spiel von Hammer und Amboss: Das geduldig zwischen ihnen liegende Eisen wird am Ende zu einer unzerbrechlichen Ganzheit, zum Individuum, geformt. Dieser psychische Ablauf wird 'Individuationsprozess' genannt"]

The Self has an a priori teleological character, striving to realize an aim, even without the participation of onsciousness. [4]

Alles was ist, besteht als Glied eines Ganzen [7]

[Everything that is, exists as a member of a whole or a totality]

It has become obvious that the “whole” must needs include, besides consciousness, the field of unconscious events, and must constitute a sum total embracing both. The ego, once the monarch of this totality, is dethroned. It remains merely the centre of consciousness. [8]

The unconscious is an irrepresentable totality of all subliminal psychic factors, a “total vision” in potentia. It constitutes the total disposition from which consciousness singles out tiny fragments from time to time. (“Introduction to Zen Buddhism,” CW 11, para. 897).

Bewusstsein und Unbewusstes bilden zusammen eine Ganzheit . Wenn eines der beiden vom anderen unterdrückt oder beschädigt wird, wenn sie in Widerstreit stehen, soll es ein unparteiischer Kampf sein, der beiden Seiten dieselben Rechte einräumt, denn beides sind lebenswichtige Aspekte. [9]

Wir müssen uns aber wohl an den Gedanken gewöhnen, dass das Bewusstsein kein Hier und das Unbewusste keine Dort ist. Die Psyche stellt vielmehr eine bewusst-unbewusste Ganzheit dar. [10]

Since we do not know everything, practically every experience, fact, or object contains something unknown. Hence, if we speak of the totality of an experience, the word “totality” can refer only to the conscious part of it. As we cannot assume that our experience covers the totality of the object, it is clear that its absolute totality must necessarily contain the part that has not been experienced. The same holds true, as I have mentioned, of every experience and also of the psyche, whose absolute totality covers a greater area than consciousness. In other words, the psyche is no exception to the general rule that the universe can be established only so far as our psychic organism permits.(“Psychology and Religion,” CW 11, 52).

Da wir nicht alles wissen, enthält praktisch jede Erfahrung, jede Tatsache oder jedes Objekt etwas Unbekanntes. Wenn wir also von der Totalität einer Erfahrung sprechen, kann sich das Wort 'Totalität' nur auf den bewussten Teil der Erfahrung beziehen. Da wir nicht annehmen können, dass unsere Erfahrung die Totalität des Objekts umfasse, ist es klar, dass dessen absolute Totalität notwendigerweise den Teil enthalten muss, der nicht erfahren wurde. Dasselbe gilt von jeder Erfahrung und auch von der Psyche, deren absolute Totalität auf alle Fälle einen wesentlich grösseren Umfang hat als das Bewusstsein.
Mit andern Worten, die Psyche macht keine Ausnahmen von der allgemeinen Regel, dass das Wesen des Universums nur insoweit festgestellt werden kam, als unser psychischer Organismus es erlaubt.

[The symbol of the Self] expresses the totality of the psyche in all its aspects, including the relationship between man and the whole of nature.[11]

The psyche does not come to an end where some physiological assumption or other stops. In other words, in each individual case that we observe scientifically, we have to consider the manifestations of the psyche in their totality. (CW, volume 9, para 113.)

If you function in your self you are not yourself--that is what you feel. You have to do it as if you were a stranger; you will buy as if you did not buy, you will sell as if you did not sell. Or, as St. Paul expresses it, "But it is not I that lives, it is Christ that liveth in me," meaning that his life had become an objective life, not his own life but the life of a greater one, the purusha. (Kundalini, 40)

Wholeness is an objective factor that confronts the subject independently of him.[12]

The splitting up into single units, its one-sided and fragmentary character, is of the essence of consciousness. The reaction coming from the disposition always has a total character, as it reflects a nature which has not been divided up by any discriminating consciousness. Hence its overpowering effect. It is the unexpected, all-embracing, completely illuminating answer.(“Foreword to Zen Buddhism,” CW 11, para. 900).

Science is not indeed a perfect instrument, but it is a superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when it is taken as an end in itself. (Commentary on “The Secret of the Golden Flower,” CW 13, par. 2).

The intellect does indeed do harm to the soul when it dares to possess itself of the heritage of the spirit. It is in no way fitted to do this, for spirit is something higher than intellect, since it embraces the latter and includes the feelings as well.(Commentary on “The Secret of the Golden Flower,” CW 13, par. 7).

If that is so, then we must ask ourselves whether the relation of soul and body can be considered from this angle, that is to say whether the co-ordination of psychic and physical processes in a living organism can be understood as a synchronistic phenomenon rather than as a causal relation.(CW 8, par. 505).

Continuous creation is to be thought of not only as a series of successive acts of creation, but also as the eternal present of the one [it] creative act, in the sense that God "was always the Father and always generated the Son" (Origen, De principiis, I, 2,3), or that he is the "eternal Creator of minds" (Augustine, Confessions, XI,31, tr. F.J. Sheed, p. 232). God is not contained in his own creation, "nor does he stand in need of his own works, as if he place in them where he might abide; but endures in his own eternity, where he abides and creates whatever pleases him, both in heaven and earth (Augustine, on Ps. 113:14 in Expositions on the Book of Psalms). What happens successively in time is simultaneous in the mind of God: "An immutable order binds mutable things into a pattern, and in this order things which are not simultaneous in time exist simultaneously outside time" (Prosper of Aquitaine, Sententiae ex Augustino delibatae, XLI [Migne, P.L., LI, col. 433]). "Temporal time arise from the created rather than the created from time" (CCLXXX [Migne, col. 468]). "There was no time before time, but time was created together with the world" (Anon., De triplici habitaculo, VI [Migne, P.L., XL col. 995] (CW 8, 518 fn 17).

Our unconscious has, fundamentally, a tendency toward wholeness, as I believe I have been able to prove. One would be quite justified in saying the same thing about the eastern psyche, but with this difference: that in the East it is consciousness that is characterized by an apperception of totality, while the West has developed differentiated and therefore necessarily one-sided attention or awareness. With it goes the western concept of causality, a principle of cognition irreconcilably opposed to the principle of synchronicity which forms the basis and the source of eastern “incomprehensibility,” and explains as well the “strangeness” of the unconscious with which we in the West are confronted. The understanding of synchronicity is the key which unlocks the door to the eastern apperception of totality that we find so mysterious … (“Foreword to Abegg: Ostasien Denkt Anders,” CW 18, para. 1485).

Taken on average, the commonest associations to its meaning are growth, life, unfolding of form in a physical and spiritual sense, development, growth from below upwards and from above downwards, the maternal aspect (protection, shade, shelter, nourishing fruits, source of life, solidity, permanence, firm-rootedness, but also being “rooted to the spot”), old age, personality, and finally death and rebirth.(“The Philosophical Tree,” Alchemical Studies CW 13, par. 350).

Das Krankhafte kann nicht einfach wie ein Fremdkörper beseitigt werden, ohne dass man Gefahr läuft, zugleich etwas Wesentliches, das auch leben sollte, zu zerstören. Unsere Aufgabe besteht nicht drin, es zu vernichten, sondern wir sollten vielmehr das, was wachsen will, hegen und pflegen, bis es schliesslich seine Rolle in der Ganzheit der Seele spielen kann.(CW 16, para. 293).

And he must climb up into the tree of faith, which grows from above downwards, for its roots are in the Godhead. (Foreword to “Introduction to Zen Buddhism,” CW 11, para. 890).

It pleased the Physicists to see man as a tree standing upside down, for what in the one is the root, trunk, and leaves, in the other is the head and the rest of the body with the arms and feet.(“The Philosophical Tree,” Alchemical Studies, CW 13, para 412).

There is a fig tree
In ancient story,
The giant Ashvattha,
The everlasting,
Rooted in heaven,
Its branches earthward;
Each of its leaves
Is a song of the Vedas,
And he who knows it
Knows all the Vedas.

Downward and upward
Its branches bending
Are fed by the gunas,
The buds it puts forth
Are the things of the senses,
Roots it has also
Reaching downward
Into this world,
The roots of man’s action.

(“The Philosophical Tree,” Alchemical Studies, CW 13, para 412).

Der östliche Geist ist vorwiegend nach innen gewandt und daher mehr intensiv als expansiv. Für ihn ist der Mensch der wichtigste Gegenstand der Beschäftigung. Dadurch aber kommt er auf andere konstruktive Grundlagen. Europäisch ausgedrückt: statt von der Anschauung der Atome als letzter Einheiten, die durch mechanisch wirkende Kausalität bewirkt werden, geht er von der Anschauung der Zellen aus, die von übergreifenden Gesetzen organisch Zusammenhänge aus zur Reaktion gebracht werden.

Die eine Richtung beschäftigt sich mit der Bildung der Persönlichkeit. Während in Europa die Persönlichkeit häufig individualistisch geschieden wird von ihrer Umgebung und während andererseits von Herbart bis in die neueste Zeit immer wieder versucht wird, die einzelnen Elemente der Psyche als Atome nach Belieben umzuschichten und kausal zu beeinflussen, so geht der chinesische Bildungsgedanke hier andere Wege. Nicht äußere Ziele und Zwecke sind es, die als Antrieb für die Kraftentfaltung der Persönlichkeit dienen sollen, sondern die Ziele wachsen organisch aus dem eigenen Innern hervor. Ebenso ist auch nicht die individualistisch isolierte Persönlichkeit der Gegenst and der Bildungsarbeit, sondern die Persönlichkeit wird geschaut in ihrem Zusammenhang mit der Gesellschaft nach oben hin ebenso wie mit den noch ursprünglicheren organischen Einheiten, aus denen sie sich aufbaut wie der Körper aus Blut und Zellen. [13]

Since the unconscious is not just something that lies there, like a psychic caput mortuum [severed head, skull], but is something that coexists and experiences inner transformations which are inherently related to general events, introverted intuition, through its perception of inner processes, gives certain data which may possess supreme importance for the comprehension of general occurrences: it can even foresee new possibilities in more or less clear outline, as well as the event which later actually transpires. Its prophetic prevision is to be explained from its relation to the archetypes which represent the law-determined course of all experienceable things. (Psychological Types, CW 6, para. 660).

There is in the unconscious an already existing wholeness, the "homo totus" of the Western and the Chên-yên (true man) of Chinese alchemy, the round primordial being who represents the greater man within, the Anthropos, who is akin to God. (“The Personification of the Opposites," CW 14, par. 152).

This process is, in effect, the spontaneous realization of the whole man. The more he is merely 'I', the more he splits himself off from the collective man, of whom he is also a part, and may even find himself in opposition to him. But since everything living strives for wholeness, the inevitable one-sidedness of our conscious life is continually being corrected and compensated by the universal human being in us, whose goal is the ultimate integration of conscious and unconscious, or better, the assimilation of the ego to a wider personality.[15]

Action is reversed into non-action; everything peripheral is subordinated to the command of the center. (Commentary on “The Secret of the Golden Flower,” CW 13, para. 38).

…a vast ladder stretching from the circumference towards the centre of a system, which was at once my own system, the solar system, the universal system, the three systems being at once diverse and identical.

Since I know of my collision with a superior will in my own psychical system, I know of God, and if I should venture the illegitimate hypostasis of my image, I would say, of a God beyond good and evil, just as much dwelling in myself as everywhere else: Deus est circulus cuius centrum est ubique, cuis circumferentia vero nusquam. [God is a circle whose center is everywhere, but whose circumference is nowhere]
Yours, etc.,
Carl Gustav Jung [16]

... Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is: ‘Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind's eternal re-creation’ (Faust, II). And that is the self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious, but which cannot tolerate self-deceptions. [17]

…a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder and confusion of the psychic state – namely, through the construction of a central point to which everything is related, or by a concentric arrangement of the disordered multiplicity and of contradictory and irreconcilable elements.(Mandala Symbolism, CW 11, para 714).

[mandalas] ... are all based on the squaring of a circle. Their basic motif is the premonition of a centre of personality, a kind of central point within the psyche, to which everything is related, by which everything is arranged, and which is itself a source of energy. The energy of the central point is manifested in the almost irresistible compulsion and urge to become what one is, just as every organism is driven to assume the form that is characteristic of its nature, no matter what the circumstances. This centre is not felt or thought of as the ego but, if one may so express it, as the self. Although the centre is represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by a periphery containing everything that belongs to the self -- the paired opposites that make up the total personality. This totality comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal unconscious, and finally an indefinitely large segment of the collective unconscious whose archetypes are common to all mankind.(Mandala Symbolism, CW 11, para 634).

The goal of contemplating the processes depicted in the mandala is that the yogi shall become inwardly aware of the deity. Through contemplation, he recognizes himself as God again, and thus returns from the illusion of individual existence into the universal totality of the divine state.(Mandala Symbolism, CW 11, para 633).

This centre is not felt or thought of as the ego, but, if one may so express it, as the self. Although the centre is represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by a periphery containing everything that belongs to the self—the paired opposites that make up the total personality. This totality comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal unconscious, and finally an indefinitely large segment of the collective unconscious whose archetypes are common to all mankind.
[some of these archetypes] are included in the personality: shadow, anima and animus.(Mandala Symbolism, CW 11, para 634).

The self is not only the centre but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of this totality, just as the Ego is the centre of consciousness. [18]

This centre is not felt or thought of as the ego but, if one may so express it, as the self. Although the centre is represented by an innermost point, it is surrounded by a periphery containing everything that belongs to the self–the paired opposites that make up the total personality. This totality comprises consciousness first of all, then the personal unconscious, and finally an indefinitely large segment of the collective unconscious whose archetyupes are common to all mankind. (Mandala Symbolism, CW 11, para 634).

However one may define the self, it is always something other than the ego, and inasmuch as a higher insight of the ego leads over to the self, the self is a more comprehensive thing which includes the experience of the ego and therefore transcends it. (Foreword to “Introduction to Zen Buddhism,” CW 11, para 885).

The self is not only the centre but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and unconscious; it is the centre of this totality, just as the Ego is the centre of consciousness. (Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12, par. 44.)

I have chosen the term "self" to designate the totality of man, the sum total of his conscious and unconscious contents. I have chosen this term in accordance with Eastern philosophy, which for centuries has occupied itself with the problems that arise when even the gods cease to incarnate. The philosophy of the Upanishads corresponds to a psychology that long ago recognized the relativity of the gods.(”The History and Psychology of a Natural Symbol,” CW 11, para. 140).

[the mandala] is at the same time an image of God and is designated as such. This is not a matter chance, for Indian philosophy, which developed the idea of the self, Atman or Purusha, to the highest degree, makes no distinction in principle between the human essence and the divine. (Mandala Symbolism, CW 11, para 717).

We experience ‘symbols of the self’ which cannot be distinguished from ‘God symbols’. I cannot prove that the self and God are identical, although in practice they appear so. Individuation is ultimately a religious process which requires a corresponding religious attitude = the ego-will submits to God's will. To avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, I say “self” instead of God. [21]

Living in the West, I would have to say Christ instead of self, in the Near East it would be Khidr, in the Far East atman or Tao or Buddha, in the Far West a hare or Mondamin, and in cabalism it would be Tifereth. (CW 10, par. 779).

It is one of the foremost tasks of the individuation process to raise the God-images, that is their radiations and effects, to consciousness and thus establish a constant dynamic contact between the ego and the Self. [22]

The concept of energy implies a polarity “since a current of energy necessarily presupposes two different states, or poles, without which there can be no current.” Every energic phenomenon consists of a pair of opposites. (Psychological Types, CW 6, para. 337).

Brahman coincides with the dynamic or creative principle which I have termed libido (Psychological Types, CW 6, para 336).

Brahman therefore must signify the irrational union of the opposites - hence their final overcoming...These quotations show that Brahman is the reconciliation and dissolution of the opposites - hence standing beyond them as an irrational factor.(Psychological Types, CW 6, para 330).

…the forms or patterns of the unconscious belong to no time in particular; seemingly eternal; convey a peculiar feeling of timelessness when consciously realized. (“Tibetan Book of Liberation,” CW 11, par. 782).

Every mother contains her daughter in herself and every daughter her mother and that every woman extends backwards into her mother and forwards into her daughter. This participation and intermingling give rise to that peculiar uncertainty as regards time: a woman lives earlier as a mother, later as a daughter. The conscious experience of these ties produces the feeling that her life is spread out over generations--the first step towards the immediate experience and conviction of being outside time, which brings with it a feeling of immortality. (CW 9, I, par. 316).

…leaves us under some doubt whether the psychic phenomenon expressing itself in the mandala is under the laws of space and time. And this points to something so entirely different from the empirical ego that the gap between them is difficult to bridge; i.e., the other centre of personality lies on a different plane from the ego, since, unlike this, it has the quality of“eternity” or relative timelessness. (CW 12, par. 135).

The unconscious certainly has its "own time" inasmuch as past, present, and future are blended together in it. Dreams of the type experienced by J.W. Dunne, where he dreamed the night before what he ought logically to have dreamed the night after are not infrequent.(CW 11, par. 815).

… the individuation process, clearly alluded to in this passage, subordinates the many to the One. But That One is God, And That Which Corresponds To Him In Us Is The Imago Dei, The God-Image. But The God Image, As We Saw From Jakob Boehme, Expresses Itself In The Mandala.(Mandala Symbolism, CW 11, para 626).

Self-reflection or–what comes to the same thing–the urge to individuation gathers together what is scattered and multifarious, and exalts it to the original form of the One, the Primordial Man. In this way our existence as separate beings, our former ego nature, is abolished, the circle of consciousness is widened, and because the paradoxes have been made conscious the sources of conflict are dried up. This approximation to the self is a kind of repristination or apocatastasis, in so far as the self has an incorruptible or eternal character on account of its being pre-existent to consciousness. [ft.: and also on account of the fact that the unconscious is only conditionally bound by space and time. The comparative frequency of telepathic phenomena proves that space and time have only a relative validity for the psyche. Evidence for this is furnished by Rhine’s experiments. Cf. my Synchronicity. (“Transformation Symbolism in the Mass,” CW 11, para. 401).