Observations made in my practice have opened to me a quite new and unexpected approach to Eastern wisdom. But it must . be well understood that I did not have a knowledge, however inadequate, of Chinese philosophy as a starting point. On the contrary, when I began my life-work in the practice of psychiatry and psychotherapy, I was completely ignorant of Chinese philosophy, and only later did my professional experience show me that in my technique I had been unconsciously led along that secret way which has been the preoccupation of the best minds of the East for centuries. This could be ·taken for a subjective fancy-one reason for my previous reluctance to publish anything on the subject-but Richard Wilhelm that great interpreter of· the soul of China, fully confirmed the parallel for me. Thus he gave me the courage to write about a Chinese text which belongs entirely to the mysterious shadows of the Eastern mind. At the same time, and this is the extraordinary thing, in content it is a living parallel to what takes p1ace in· the psychic development of my patients, none of whom is Chinese.
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Our text promises to 'reveal the secret of the Golden Flower of the great One'. The Golden Flower is the light, and the light of heaven is the Tao. The Golden Flower is a mandala symbol which I have often met with in the material brought me by my patients. It is drawn either seen from above as a regular geometric ornament, or as a blossom growing from a plant. The plant is frequently a structure in brilliant fiery colours growing out of a bed of darkness, and carrying the blossom of light at the top, a symbol similar to that of the Christmas tree . .A. drawing of this kind also expresses the origin of the Golden Flower, for according to the Hui Ming Ching the 'germinal vesicle' is nothing other than the 'yellow castle', the 'heavenly heart', the 'terrace of life', the 'square inch field of the square foot house', the 'purple hall of the city of jade', the 'dark pass', the 'space of former heaven', the 'dragon castle at the bottom of the sea'. It is also called the 'border region of the· snow mountains', the 'primal pass', the 'realm of the greatest joy', the 'land without boundaries', and 'the altar upon which consciousness and life are made'. 'If a dying man does not know this germinal vesicle,' says the Hui Ming Ching, 'he will not find the unity of consciousness and life in a. thousand births, nor in ten thousand aeons.'
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