Ego and Archetype - quote

[duskfrog]

"What is a crime at one stage of development is lawful at another
and one cannot reach a new stage of psychological development
without daring to challenge the code of the old stage.
Hence, every new step is experienced as a crime and is accompanied by guilt,
because the old standards, the old ways of being, have not yet been transcended."

~ Ed

Comments

[artemisian42]

I swear.....with just this one quote, you have touched on something so significant for me. Why I feel like such a freak, and need to STOP that, and START reading more of my mentors, who also were regarded as freaks by so many of their contemporaries. There is a certain difficulty with mentors who are dead, mentors from history, because you don't readily see the problems they suffered, the mistakes they made, the apologies they issued, and so on. e.g., So few people know that Gandhi beat his wife (in reprimand, as a matter of course) until he was in his late twenties, perhaps 26 or 27??? just because his culture said it's okay for husbands to hit their wives. He would later say that his wife, Kasturba, taught him the most about nonviolence. He was deeply ashamed of his error, but there it is. He was NOT some kind of otherworldly saint, but a fallible human being who simply tried to help, who "experimented with truth." He transcended a LOT of boundaries, but I think he also found strength in the wisdom teachings of his religion