SUNKEN TREASURES
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Hidden Treasures of the Unconscious
The spiritual metaphor of the drop merging into the Ocean is well-known throughout mystical literature. For Jung, it was the symbol, par excellence, of the Collective Unconscious. The unconscious realm contains may treasures hard to attain, sunk deeply in that watery realm, gems and pearls of great price. In transpersonal psychology we find oceanic states which mirror those formerly known as cosmic consciousness.
But there are oceans and oceans. The pre-personal, overwhelming flooding and submersion in the pre-rational world of the Great Goddess is not the same experience as the merging of the mature soul, freed of the fetters of the mind. The drop of liberated soul dissolves without a trace in the trans-rational ocean of eternal spiritual reality, the Sea of Limitless Light. One is regressive, while the other signifies (not progression) but the elimination of the experience of time altogether. There is dissolution, and then there is dissolution. But both hold the promise of diving deep, plumbing our depths and the depths of nature and spirit. That which emerges unconscious from the primal terrestrial sea through evolution, is ultimately returned to the transcendent sea of liberated consciousness.
"The natural elements that are essentially connected with vessel symbolism include both earth and water. This containing water is the primordial womb of life, from which in innumerable myths life is born. It is the water "below," the water of the depths, ground water and ocean, lake, and pond. But the maternal water not only contains; it also nourishes and transforms, since all living things build up and preserve their existence with the water or milk of the earth. ...The primordial ocean is a uroboic snake encompassing the earth that is born of it, and at the end of the world taking everything born of it back into its primordial waters." -- Erich Neumann, The Great Mother * * * "
Setting aside its grandeur, The two most essential aspects of the ocean are its ceaseless movement and the formlessness of its waters. It is a symbol, therefore, of dynamic forces and of transitional states between the stable and the formless. The ocean as a whole, as opposed to the concept of a drop of water, is a symbol of universal life as opposed to the particular. It is regarded traditonally as the source of the generation of all life, and science has conformed that it did in fact begin in the sea. Zimmer observes that the ocean is 'immense illogic'--a vast expanse dreaming its own dreams and asleep in its own reality, yet containing within itself the seeds of its antithesis. The island is the opponent of the ocean and symbolic of the metaphysical point of irradiating force. In keeping with the general symbolism of water, both fresh and salt, the ocean stands for the sum of all the possibilities of one plane of existence. Having regard to its characteristics, one may deduce whether these potentialities are positive (or germinant) or negative (destructive). The ocean, then, denotes an ambivalent situation. As the begetter of monsters, it is abysmal abode par excellence, the chaotic source, which still brings forth base entities ill-fitted to life in its aerial and superior forms. Consequently, aquatic monsters represent a cosmic or psychological situation at a lower level than land-monsters; this is why sirens and tritons denote a sub-animal order. The power of salt water to destroy the higher forms of land-life means that it is also a symbol of sterility, so confirming the ambivalent nature of the ocean--its contradictory dynamism. ...The ocean is equated also with the collective unconscious, out of which arises the sun of the spirit. The stormy sea, as a poetic image or a dream, is a sign of an analogous state in the lower depths of the affective unconscious. A translucent calm, on the other hand, denotes a state of contemplative serenity. -- Cirlot, Dictionary of Symbols
But there are oceans and oceans. The pre-personal, overwhelming flooding and submersion in the pre-rational world of the Great Goddess is not the same experience as the merging of the mature soul, freed of the fetters of the mind. The drop of liberated soul dissolves without a trace in the trans-rational ocean of eternal spiritual reality, the Sea of Limitless Light. One is regressive, while the other signifies (not progression) but the elimination of the experience of time altogether. There is dissolution, and then there is dissolution. But both hold the promise of diving deep, plumbing our depths and the depths of nature and spirit. That which emerges unconscious from the primal terrestrial sea through evolution, is ultimately returned to the transcendent sea of liberated consciousness.
"The natural elements that are essentially connected with vessel symbolism include both earth and water. This containing water is the primordial womb of life, from which in innumerable myths life is born. It is the water "below," the water of the depths, ground water and ocean, lake, and pond. But the maternal water not only contains; it also nourishes and transforms, since all living things build up and preserve their existence with the water or milk of the earth. ...The primordial ocean is a uroboic snake encompassing the earth that is born of it, and at the end of the world taking everything born of it back into its primordial waters." -- Erich Neumann, The Great Mother * * * "
Setting aside its grandeur, The two most essential aspects of the ocean are its ceaseless movement and the formlessness of its waters. It is a symbol, therefore, of dynamic forces and of transitional states between the stable and the formless. The ocean as a whole, as opposed to the concept of a drop of water, is a symbol of universal life as opposed to the particular. It is regarded traditonally as the source of the generation of all life, and science has conformed that it did in fact begin in the sea. Zimmer observes that the ocean is 'immense illogic'--a vast expanse dreaming its own dreams and asleep in its own reality, yet containing within itself the seeds of its antithesis. The island is the opponent of the ocean and symbolic of the metaphysical point of irradiating force. In keeping with the general symbolism of water, both fresh and salt, the ocean stands for the sum of all the possibilities of one plane of existence. Having regard to its characteristics, one may deduce whether these potentialities are positive (or germinant) or negative (destructive). The ocean, then, denotes an ambivalent situation. As the begetter of monsters, it is abysmal abode par excellence, the chaotic source, which still brings forth base entities ill-fitted to life in its aerial and superior forms. Consequently, aquatic monsters represent a cosmic or psychological situation at a lower level than land-monsters; this is why sirens and tritons denote a sub-animal order. The power of salt water to destroy the higher forms of land-life means that it is also a symbol of sterility, so confirming the ambivalent nature of the ocean--its contradictory dynamism. ...The ocean is equated also with the collective unconscious, out of which arises the sun of the spirit. The stormy sea, as a poetic image or a dream, is a sign of an analogous state in the lower depths of the affective unconscious. A translucent calm, on the other hand, denotes a state of contemplative serenity. -- Cirlot, Dictionary of Symbols
Mermaid
My heart, when love's Sea of a sudden burst into its viewing,
Leaped headlong in, with 'Find me now who may!' -- Divani Shamsi Tabriz * * *
I've filled the vessel of my body
With water luminous and pure;
With my body, mind
And the vigor of youth
I drink it; I drink it,
Yet thirst for more. My mind turned inwards,
It plunged into the sea
Of love and bliss
And it bathes with joy;
It tries to fathom Thee:
It tries
But does not succeed
For Thou art perfect,
My merciful Lord,
While mind is not. Searching for Him, O friend,
Kabir lost himself;
When the drop has merged
Into the Ocean,
How can the drop be found?
Searching
And searching
For Him, O friend,
Kabir lost himself;
The Ocean has merged
Into the drop,
Now how can the Ocean
Be found?
--Kabir, "The Drop and the Ocean" '
Say goodbye forever to all earthly creatures and take to the open sea, thanks to the unceasing act of love (invocation). Full sails away for the eternal shores!'
--Sister Consolata
