Therefore, although for Jung the Ego always 'retains its quality as center of the field of consciousness' it is 'questionable whether it is [always] the center of the personality'. ³ This is an especially important consideration to keep in mind with respect to the 'late phase of personal development' described by Jung, when a 'perceptible change of personality' can occur in the individual as a result of a process that he called 'individuation'. The 'profound transformation of personality' that is possible at this stage of development involves a reclaiming of the neglected aspects mentioned in the passage above.

Despite the unlimited extent of its bases, the Ego is never more and never less than consciousness as a whole. As a conscious factor, the Ego could, theoretically at least, be described completely. But this would never amount to more than a picture of the conscious personality; all these features which are unknown or unconscious to the subject would be missing. A total picture would have to include these. But a total picture of the personality is, even in theory, absolutely impossible, because the unconscious portion cannot be grasped cognitively. (Jung, AION, page 4, paragraph 6)

Jung referred to this 'total personality' as 'the Self'-

I have suggested calling the total personality, which, though present, cannot be fully known, the Self. The Ego is, by definition, subordinate to the Self and is related to it like a part to the whole. (Jung, Aion, page 5)

The Self is not only the center but the whole circumference, embracing both conscious and unconscious; it is the center of this totality, just as the ego is the center of consciousness. (Jung, 'Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process', in Spiritual Disciplines, page 341)

The Self is a quantity that is supraordinate to the conscious Ego. It embraces not only the conscious but also the unconscious psyche, and is therefore, so to speak, a personality which we ALSO are. (Jung, 'The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious', paragraph 274)

The unconscious and consciousness aren't necessarily in opposition, as Jolande Jacobi reminds us, '... they complement one another to form the Self'. For the conscious personality "the birth of the Self means a shift of its psychic center, and consequently an entirely different attitude toward, and view of, life - in other words a 'transformation' in the fullest sense of the word". This process results in a 'renewal of personality', a 'widened consciousness' which, according to Jacobi, is 'no longer that touchy, egotistical bundle of personal wishes, fears, hopes, and ambitions which has always to be compensated or corrected by unconscious countertendencies'. ⁵

Section Two - Mandalas

skip to footnotes and references

The unconscious does indeed put forth a bewildering profusion of designations for that obscure thing we call the mandala or 'Self'. (Jung, in Spiritual Disciplines, page 304)

The Self is represented or symbolized by those figures which Jung called 'mandalas'. 'Unless everything deceives us', says Jung, '[mandalas] signify nothing less than a psychic center of the personality not to be identified with the Ego'.⁶

The word 'mandala', in the Sanskrit language from which Jung borrowed the term, means 'circle', and the most rudimentary mandala figure is the simple circle.⁷ The point at the center of the circle ^7a is, as mathematicians tells us, a dimensionless entity - i.e., not contained within the spatio-temporal order. Yet even when it is not represented by a dimensioned physical mark it 'manifests', as it were, as the circle's mathematical center. Its 'appearance' is a virtual one, as the presence of an absence.

So even in the simplest mandala figure - the dimensionless point within the circle - we already have a glimmer of the motif that only becomes patently manifest in the configuration that Jungian analyst Marie-Louise Von Franz calls the 'double mandala' - namely, two incommensurable 'orders of existence' brought together in the same figure. The unborn, unmanifest, or eternal essence, on the one hand, and the manifest, dynamic and everchanging 'dimensioned' world, on the other. In the Indian system from which Jung borrowed the concept of 'mandala', as well as in Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese 'alchemical' systems, and various Western mystical schools, the nature of the relationship between these two orders of existence is illustrated by the relationship between the circle and its center.

Indeed, this is the primary purpose of the mandala, to make manifest the unique organizational forms by which the two incommensurable worlds can be successfully reconciled and thus simultaneously experienced. We are told that etymologically the word 'mandala' comes from 'manda' - which means 'essence', and 'la', which means 'container'. So even buried deep within the origins of the word itself is an interest in the problem of how spiritual 'essence' might be contained within a framework associated with a mundane 'order of existence' incommensurable with it.

Therefore, when Jung talks about the 'tantric symbol of SHIVA BINDU', which is the 'creative, latent god without extension in space who, in the form of a point, .... is encircled three and a half times by the Kundalini serpent', and how this arrangement forms a spiral ⁸ , we must understand the figure that he is talking about as an elaboration of this special type of organizational form, which is only fully realized at an advanced stage of the spiritual path.

This organizational form is referred to as 'Mahamudra' ('Great Symbol') in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, where its attainment is the ultimate goal of spiritual practice, and in the Nyingma school, it is known as 'Dzogchen' (the 'Great Perfection'). It was also a matter of great interest to Ouspensky, as we shall see. He believed that it was symbolized by the figure of the Enneagram. BEHIND the dimensionless point, Ouspenksy thought, other worlds that are 'incommensurable' with ours (because they do not share the same 'dimensions') reside. He says -

The zero-dimension or the point is a LIMIT. This means that we see something as a point, but we do not know what is concealed behind this point . It may actually be a point, that is, a body having no dimensions and it may also be a whole world, but a world so far removed from us or so small that it appears to us as a point. (Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, page 209).

The manifestation of the laws of one cosmos in another cosmos consistutes what we call a MIRACLE.(Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, page 206)

"Mandalas, with their mathematical structure, are nothing less, according to Jung, than pictures of the 'primal order of the total psyche'", says Jacobi. ^8a. Furthermore, the common psychic structure that is revealed in the mandala parallels the 'whole individuation process'. This process 'tries to achieve its goal by a natural production of symbols that is a spontaneous movement of the psyche'. Although the primordial 'uniting symbol', the archetype per se, remains 'unknowable' in some respects as it emerges into conscious awareness, it is equally true that it in some sense also succeeds in revealing something profound about the nature of the fundamental 'structuring aspect' of the psyche. ^8b. It was in this aspect that Jung and Ouspensky both took particular interest. This is what attracted Jung in later years to an investigation of the class of figures that he called 'mandalas', and Ouspensky to an exploration of a particular mandala figure that he thought best symbolized reality's fundamental structure, the figure that he and Gurdjieff called the 'enneagram'.

In some diagrams that are treated by Jung and/or Von Franz as archetypal pictures of the 'Self', such as the figure below, this fundamental structuring aspect - which strives to incorporate something outside of its own dimensions - seems less prominent a feature, and it is the

The 'Aristotelian field', an archetypal picture of the Self according to Von Franz. 9 One can see this diagram as nine circles arranged in a triangle around a central circle. In a footnote in another work, Von Franz tells us that in Greek antiquity the first nine numbers were arranged in a mandala field similar to this one, called 'the ennead'. 10

harmony and balance that is created by the figure that qualifies it as a 'mandala' in this lesser, purely 'Jungian', sense of the word. Symmetry, as Fritjof Capra pointed out, is in the West typically 'identified with beauty, harmony and perfection', and has played an important role in science, philosophy, and art. He reminds us that 'the Pythagoreans regarded symmetric number patters as the essence of things'. But the East is a different story -

The attitude of Eastern philosophy with regard to symmetry is in striking contrast to that of the ancient Greeks. Mystical traditions in the Far East frequently use symmetric patterns as symbols or as meditation devices, but the concept of symmetry does not seem to play any major role in their philosophy. ... Accordingly, many Eastern art forms have a striking predilection for asymmetry and often avoid all regular or geometrical shapes. (Capra, page 257, The Tao of Physics)

Jung often emphasized symmetry as the most prominent and significant feature of mandalas. Indeed, for Jung and many Jungians, symmetry is the sin qua non of the mandala. 'The mandalas all show the same typical arrangement and symmetry of the pictorial elements', says Jacobi. 'Their basic design is a circle or square (often a square) symbolizing 'wholeness', and in all of them the relation to a centre is accentuated'. ^10a Although the emphasis on symmetry may reflect the fact that Jung was deeply rooted in Western thought, it also reflects the needs that emerged from his work as a therapist. His views about the purpose of the mandala arose naturally out of his work with clients who, like himself at a certain critical juncture in life, came under the onslaught of unsolicited material arising from the unconscious. They needed frames in which these eruptions could be contained and understood, neutralizing the damage that might be wrought by them on the individual.

But in the East, this was not the primary purpose of mandala figures. The primary purpose was a spiritual one, and this brought into relief a different approach, and different concerns. The goal on the first part of the spiritual path is to achieve a direct and unmediated experience of the order of existence that transcends the mundane world of 'cyclic existence'. In Buddhist terminology this entails an insight into the essentially 'empty' nature of those things that populate the 'mundane' order. This empty nature is represented by the dimensionless center or 'bindu' - and also by the physical 'space' that contains all things. If the first part of the spiritual path concerns itself with 'enlightenment' experiences in which mundane 'form' is recognized as 'empty', the second part of the path precedes in the opposite direction. Emptiness is experienced as form, and the goal of the spiritual practitioner becomes learning the manifold ways in which he or she can skilfully manifest in the everyday world in order to compassionately assist others on the path.

Thus, in the other more complex mandala figures associated with the Indian and Tibetan traditions, there is always this tension between the 'center' of the figure and the remainder. It is the product of the fact that the two orders of existence that are being represented are 'incommensurate'. The tension is an especially prominent feature in the Shri Yantra, which we will discuss in detail later in this series. It's center is 'represented', in a manner of speaking, only by the presence of a subtle anomaly that is built into the construction of the figure at its midpoint - an 'objectless object' as it were, since it does not actually manifest in its own right as a particular line or figure or 'thing' that we can directly put our finger on. Like the mathematical point at the center of the circle, the elusive center in the Shri Yantra is 'unborn'; it exists only by virtue of its failure to bring closure to the expectations created by the totality of the remaining figure.

As such, this figure represents, in an exemplary fashion, the manner in which the mandala succeeds in reconciling the two incommensurable 'orders' that we participate in as human beings - the unborn 'eternal' order, and the manifest 'temporal' order. It is at the center of the Shri Yantra that form erupts out of emptiness, in what Eliade calls an 'epiphany' or 'heirophany'. And yet it is also true that that form somehow 'contains' it. The sacred is embodied in the mundane. ¹¹

But, curiously, it is the space that is subtly created by the intentional asymmetry, the anomaly deliberately drawn into the diagram at its center, that permits a magical 'ninth' triangle to gratuitiously but inconspicuously appear around the center point of the figure. If the first part of the spiritual journey is associated, as Jung correctly points out, with the mystical notion of the 'missing fourth' (the ineffable fourth element that 'rounds out' the quaternity that represents 'wholeness'), the second half of the spiritual journey involves the presence of a 'superfluous ninth', a magical element that magically appears gratuitously by 'grace of God', as it were, when the eightfold 'double-mandala' that signifies a 'completed' process is properly constellated.

Jung borrowed the term 'mandala' from Sanskrit, as we've already mentioned, and it originally referred to similar figures traditionally used as aids on the spiritual path toward realization, first in India and later in Tibet.

Mandala of 42 Peaceful Deities

Vairocana

The figure to the left is one of the two central mandalas from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The book describes the experience of individuals in the in-between (ie, 'bardo') state that follows death and precedes rebirth. If, at the moment of death, the individual is not capable of taking advantage of an extremely brief opportunity for self-realization or 'enlightenment', which permits him or her to exit the cyclic path and avoid the next incarnation, he or she falls into a state of unconsciousness which last for four days, according to the book. When the individual thereafter 'awakens' various visions occur. In these visions the individual directly experiences, in sequence, the elements that form two complex inter-related mandalas that characterize the bardo state - the mandala of 42 peaceful deities and the mandala of 58 wrathful deities.

The first to appear is the deity Vairocana. At the center of the Mandala of the 42 Peaceful Deities is an inner mandala, the Mandala of the Five Tatagathas (Buddhas or 'Ones Who Are Thus Gone' - i.e., have reached enlightenment, the 'other side'). Vairocana is the deity at the center of this inner mandala. The Five Tatagathas are the five chief modes of fully awakened consciousness. They embody five wisdoms, but appear, in the world in which we live, as five confusions. 'Everything in the world, all living beings, places, events and so on, possess a predominant characteristic which links it with one of the five; therefore they are also known as the five families', says Trungpa Rinpoche ¹². Human PERSONALITIES, according to this system, fall into five groups that are intimitely associated with the five Buddha-families.

Note the fractal nature of the configuration at the center - in which each of the four cardinal positions, along with the center, is occupied by a figure that has a similar internal configuration that is fourfold. Each 'part' thus reflects the structure of the 'whole'. A key feature of the mandala is the fractal nature of its structure. Jung, in his attempt to diagram the structure of the Self, conceived of it as fractally organized, although that term 'fractal' had not yet been coined by Mandelbrot. As we shall see, Ouspensky also saw the Enneagram as having a fractal organization, using the word 'microcosmos' to describe the peculiar relationship that consequently pertains between whole and part, in which the part 'contains' the whole.

Jung's model of the Self ' What the formula can only hint at is the higher plane that is reached through the process of transformation... The change consists in an unfolding of totality into four parts four times, which means nothing less than its becoming conscious.' (Jung, in Von Franz's, Psyche and Matter, page 85)

Vairocana, representing the central 'Buddha family' in the Mandala of the Peaceful Deities, literally IS the 'center' of the entire arrangement. By virtue of what we have already said about the peculiar nature of the center, it should come as no surprise to learn that he is described as 'the Buddha that has no back and front; he is panoramic vision, all-pervading with no centralized notion. ...The whole symbolism of Vairocana is the decentralized notion of panoramic vision; both center and fringe are everywhere. It is complete openness of consciousness...'. ¹³ He represents 'the basic poison of confusion, or ignorance which deliberately ignores, out of which all the others evolve'; ignorance and denial, a state of unconsciousness, total undifferentiated stupor. 'But he is also the wisdom of the dharmadhatu - the limitless all-pervading space in which everything exists as it really is', the fully awakened one. ^13a

What is being described here, in effect, is how the 'whole' that is represented by the mandala is organized - revealing to us aspects of the fundamental structure of consciousness itself, which is what mandala figures are ultimately attempting to depict, in our view.

Many metaphors have been used to hint at this most fundamental, and ultimately paradoxical, feature of consciousness. For centuries now psychologists have utilized the concept of 'the unconscious' to locate dimensions of consciousness that are not accessible in everyday states - but, as we have mentioned above, the concepts of 'conscious' and 'unconscious' have usually been understood as referring to mutually exclusive realms. Nevertheless, Jung and others also talk on occasion as if it is possible for us to 'integrate' the 'unconscious' INTO consciousness. Jung speaks, for instance, about how the individual might use his own psychic 'stumbling block' as the cornerstone of his re-constructed personality, the personality centered in the 'Self'. Buddhists have similarly pointed to a feature of experience that they call 'emptiness', which is formless and undifferentiated but (paradoxically) also the ESSENCE of mundane 'form'.

For Jung, the 'Self' was indistinguishable from both the 'unconscious' and the 'godhead', Aniela Jaffe ¹⁴ tells us - and it is this triumverate that is anthropomorphically represented in the figure of Vairocana.

'The unconscious, being synonymous with the godhead, is also hidden and ineffable, and the psyche belongs in its totality, to the darkest and most secret that our experience encounters', she says. ¹⁵ God, according to the somewhat abstract mathematical musings of Plotinus, is a series of progressively larger spheres, concentrically arranged around the same 'center'. But it is a strangely organized arrangement, as the central point is identical to the outermost sphere - it is a circular heirarchy of levels that wraps back around on itself - the periphery folded back onto the center, and vice versa.^15b

Elsewhere we have called this structure 'liminocentric', by which we mean to imply a form of organization in which the 'liminal' and/or 'sub-liminal' (literally, that which is below or beyond the 'threshold' of everyday awareness and thus usually relegated to the periphery or fringe of consciousness), is made its CENTRAL feature. That which has fallen through the cracks of awareness - the previously alienated and marginalized 'mystery', the ineffable essence - is re-established as centerpiece.

The personality shift that we have been talking about, from the ego-centered personality to the 'total personality' that Jung labels 'Self' - the shift that is symbolized by the Mandala - is not so much like displacing a sphere from one location in space where it was previously centered to another location with a new geographical center. It is more like turning a sphere inside out. When consciousness itself is turned 'inside out', in the center of attention is now the open-ended, holistic, or amorphous source that we sometimes describe as having an 'infinite' aspect, the very aspect that is normally relegated to the fringe of awareness in our everyday experience of 'objects in space and time'. This turning-inside-out is the 'metanoia', the profound 'change of mind' or 'conversion experience' in which center becomes periphery, and vice versa. The Kabbalah, as we shall see in the next part, can be diagrammed in such a way that makes this inside-out (and outside-in) movement of consciousness more obvious.

The following figure is the one used by Ouspensky to represent 'the Absolute'¹⁶ -

This figure is a simple depiction of liminocentric organization - since the center and periphery are represented by forms (circles) that are identical, implying that the innermost and outermost reaches of the figure are ultimately indistinguishable.

Notice how the same outer circle and equilateral triangle that are in this figure also appear in the figure of the Enneagram, below it. In the Enneagram, in addition to the outer circle and a complex six-sided figure which represents the 'mundane' world of manifest objects, there also appears the equilateral triangle, which, like the dimensionless 'point' at the circle's center in the simplest mandala, presents the other order of existence, the 'unborn' sacred realm. As if to further emphasize the fact that the equilateral triangle, like the dimensionless 'point', has a VIRTUAL existence, Ouspensky always drew it with dotted lines. But what is missing in the symbol of the Enneagram, although present in the figure that represents the 'absolute', is the innermost circle. Its absence is not so much a mistake as it is an intentional omission. In many representations of mandalas, although the 'outer mandala' and 'inner mandala' are explicitly represented, the innermost or 'secret' mandala is not. The presence of the smaller central circle in the representation of the Absolute may thus be interpreted as an ELABORATION that offers us some additional information about the Enneagram, hinting at its 'liminocentric' nature. We will return to a more detailed analysis of these aspects of the figure of the Enneagram in Part II.

As the individual approaches the state in which 'center' and 'periphery' can be indeed be realized as ONE, there arises the possibility that the entire structure of consciousness will collapse into itself, a victim of its own internal contradiction. It is the purpose of the visual mandala to hint at those profound organizational forms that permit one to avoid this pitfall and maintain a manifest form in the mundane world, even while maintaining awareness of the infinite nature of the sacred center. This is the psychological RAISON D'ETRE behind mandala figures.

When these forms of organization are utilized the mandala remains a coherent figure filling dimensioned space, despite the fact that it now also somehow 'contains' or 'holds' the sacred infinite. It escapes the fall into an undifferentiated state of pure unconsciousness - avoiding the total black-out described in the Book of the Dead, which happens to the under-developed or immature ego when faced with death, double-bind or paradox.

The visual mandala, as we shall see in the following sections of this paper, is a mere reflection of a much more profound accomplishment that actually takes place within the psyche of the individual, when what is referred to as 'sacred space' or 'sacred environment' is constellated. It is the realization of this inner mandala which is effective in invoking or drawing down into the manifest world the 'spirit' or energies associated with the 'divinities' depicted in Tibetan mandalas. Individuals, to the extent to which they can successfully 'enter into' the sacred environment of the inner mandala in this way, are thereby 'empowered'. They recognize themselves and others as manifestations of the divine principle, and become capable of a certain amount of control over the forms in which they manifest. This is the purpose of the Tibetan 'bardo' teachings, and it is with similar goals in mind that Gurdjieff and Ouspensky explored the Enneagram as a tool on the spiritual path.