**“The insight we gain by turning toward ourselves is very bitter, and that is why very few people do it; it is pikros—bitter—because it corrodes and is unacceptable to the illusions of consciousness. We speak of ‘bitter knowledge,’ ‘bitter realization,’ and ‘bitter truth,’ because self-knowledge is a bitter initial experience…
…the truth given by the unconscious is very bitter. It is a bitter pill to swallow, because it contains a critique of our behavior, and that is a bitter experience. This explains the resistance to psychology, because far too many people do not want to take the bitter pill…”**
Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and the Psychology, pp. 95–109
In this book, which I have been quoting quite often lately, Marie-Louise von Franz writes that there are almost no exceptions: her clients, at least once, flirt with the idea of abandoning the process of individuation and returning to who they were before they began analysis. I know what this looks like from personal experience as well.
There are people who begin the process of self-knowledge with great enthusiasm, and then, when the illusions start to fall apart and bitterness arrives, they decide they have had enough. And they begin to bargain. They say the suffering is too much, that it is unfair…
But once the impulse toward individuation awakens, there is no going back. There is only one path, and it leads through drinking the bitter cup. Yet if a person has an innate attraction to truth, bitterness may even become a favored taste.
This brings to mind a story from Benjamin Hoff’s book The Tao of Pooh, where a painting of three vinegar tasters is discussed. In it, the founders of the three major teachings in China—Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu—illustrate the essence of life and its taste. For Confucius, the taste is sour; for Buddha, bitter; and for Lao Tzu, it is simply what it is. There is a smile on his face.
But before the smile comes the bitter cup…
for a very long time…
very bitter…
Pikros.
Kameliya
Related posts on the same theme:
