The spirit of the depths demands: “The life that you could still live, you should live. Well-being decides, not your well-being, not the well-being of the others, but only well-being.”
Well-being is between me and others, in society. I, too, lived—which I had not done before, and which I could still do. I lived into the depths, and the depths began to speak. The depths taught me the other truth. It thus united sense and nonsense in me.
I had to recognize that I am only the expression and symbol of the soul. In the sense of the spirit of the depths, I am as I am in this visible world a symbol of my soul, and I am thoroughly a serf, completely subjugated, utterly obedient. The spirit of the depths taught me to say: “I am the servant of a child.” Through this dictum I learn above all the most extreme humility, as what I most need.
The spirit of this time of course allowed me to believe in my reason. He let me see myself in the image of a leader with ripe thoughts. But the spirit of the depths teaches me that I am a servant, in fact the servant of a child. This dictum was repugnant to me and I hated it. But I had to recognize and accept that my soul is a child and that my God in my soul is a child.~Jung, the Red Book, Chapter II
“Time is a child – playing like a child – playing a board game – the kingdom of the child. This is Telesphoros, who roams through the dark regions of this cosmos and glows like a star out of the depths. He points the way to the gates of the sun and to the land of dreams.”
Jung’s descent into the depths brought him not grand visions of power or transcendence, but something far more humbling: the realization that his soul was a living presence – fragile, untamed, childlike. And that he was not its ruler, but its servant.
This was not easy for him to accept. It isn’t easy for me, either.
Like Jung, I was raised in the spirit of the time – the one that worships intellect, control, and outer appearances of power. I learned to take pride in understanding, in clarity, in seeming strong. But the spirit of the depths asks something different: to live the unlived life, not just the reasonable and successful one. To follow not what society calls “well-being” but something deeper, more raw and truthful.
When Jung writes, “I am the servant of a child” he names a truth that many of us resist: that our soul, our deepest source of life and meaning, is not linear, not logical, and certainly not adult. It speaks in images, in emotions, in contradiction. It knows paradox. It requires listening and relationship.
And how often we forget this.
How often we push down that inner child, the one who still believes in wonder, who hurts without explanation, who longs to create, play, rest, trust. That child doesn’t fit the world’s mold. But it’s precisely that child that carries the living water of the soul.
To say, “I am the servant of a child” is to bow to mystery, to something sacred and innocent at the Center of Being.
This isn’t a regression.
It’s a remembering, a reorientation, a return to the Source from which all real transformation comes.
It humbles every part of me that wants to stay in control. It opens a door to humility and life.
“My God, I love you as a mother loves the unborn whom she carries in her heart. Grow in the egg of the East, nourish yourself from my love, drink the juice of my life so that you will become a radiant God. We need your light, Oh child. Since we go in darkness, light up our paths. May your light shine before us, may your fire warm the coldness of our life. We do not need your power but life.”
~ Jung, The Red Book, Chapter X
Maybe that is what the unlived life asks of us:
Not that we ascend to greatness,
but that we descend far enough
to hear the voice of the child again~
and learn to serve.
Leave a Reply