Are you aware of the "Hintergendanken" in the back of your mind?

Are you aware of the Hintergendanken in the back of your mind?


I picked it up this notion of the Hintergendanken from the following video of Alan Watts offering a tribute to Carl Jung.



Looked it up and the English translation is "ulterior motives" or as hintergedanke, "mental reservation".

I think this is also what might be described as the humor of understanding which arises in the form of self knowledge and thus liberation from conflict or a conflicted nature, where such conflict arises only when the Hintergendanken is hidden and repressed and thus capable of projecting itself without an awareness of itself, even in the most subtle ways whereby Carl Jung said that "neurosis is always the substitute for legitimate suffering".. (that's funny or has the potential for humor).

I think that being aware of our own Hintergendanken is a good thing, because in the final analysis, it might just have been an inner child wanting to play who we locked up, fearing our own desire for creativity in one form or another.

And if we do not have a self aware Hintergendanken and a deep sense of humor at our selves, even our worst aspects, then worst of all we're not even authentic or true to ourselves (lying to one's self), and that's absurd, which is what allows us to laugh when the Hintergendanken becomes self aware and is allowed to just sit in the back of the mind as the humor of true understanding and creativity which is the experience of self knowledge, awareness and understanding (even of one's own ulterior motives!).


I thought it was a funny concept and worth raising for consideration.

Once identified, I think the whole field of awareness is made available, and the conflict, resolved, but not without a powerful sense of humor at the utter absurdity of all our prior ignorance, and our foibles and follies, which lose power in the light of this humorous understanding and recognition.

I see it in terms of a re-integrative evolutionary principal of self-forgiveness and acceptance capable of liberating the human being with self-awareness relative to a very expansive domain of new life and new possibility, including the possibility to really live, and love, ever more fully and completely, and to enter the fray with our whole being as a more fully integrated and individuated person, and best of all with our sense of humor and thus our fearless charm, not diminished, but restored, even our lost child finally recovered and saved who is our true self that we were holding captive as ransom to the lowest bidder (valueless egoic attachments).

It's pretty funny when you really think it through and then at last turn and be healed by the light of truth and understanding of what it was we really wanted to express all along which was simply the desire to love and to be loved.

Being aware of the Hintergendanken at the back of your mind then, is like giving yourself permission to become a whole person, conflicted neither within or without, and that's empowering, transformative and evolutionary, helpful and of value to the world whereby we must become the very change we seek in others and have the wisdom to first take the beam out of our own eye before seeking clearly enough how to take the splinter from our brother's eye.


Best Regards,

NAM

It's really quite hilarious for those who are able to recognize it.

I hope someone laughs somewhere down the line.. surely.


Tell me (said like Carl Jung puffing on his pipe and looking at you but in a non-judgmental fashion)

"What do you think is your own Hintergendanken and what does it really want?"

Re: God

There is only one God

until more and more people realize this to be true, that there is ONLY GOD, realizing that the word God simply means Already Happiness, ones True condition etc., not until then will you be happy to live with me, for then the illusion of there being a you and a me will cease to matter. (Adi Da Samraj).

Therefore, our Hintergendanken's ought to be able to co-exist, because in the final realization, as an "ulterior motive" it can no longer sustain it's own frame of reference as a purely selfish impulse, but one must first become aware of it for it to cease to exist or have influence.

Mine is to look good and be held in high regard, if not awe, in your eyes..lol for opening your eyes, so that we can see one another face to face as we really are, without any pretense whatsoever because unless it's authentic there can't be any real love and that's also what my ulterior motive or Hintergendanken is about, to really love and be loved, to access that again, to make up for the love I've lost in my family of origin, so I secretly want to make everyone part of my family with me fully accepted and fully loved.

Thank you for sharing. I'm too shy to share my inner hintergednaken with the world, but I definitely appreciate this thread. I accept and love you as a member of our ATS family, and as a member of the human family, and that love is unconditional. I may become upset. But my love never dies. It's so big...you can't see it!! Thank you again for sharing, bud. I know that takes courage.

reply to post by 3n19m470

I can tell though that you are aware of it, and that as a result you are actually very funny.. and not as shy as you claim.

Thank you for the unconditional acceptance into the family.

Best Regards,

NAM

Oh, the irony.

Originally posted by BlueMule
Oh, the irony.

I knew someone would laugh at some point..

But unless it's a joke at your own expense, you didn't get it..

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Originally posted by BlueMule
Oh, the irony.

I knew someone would laugh at some point..

But unless it's a joke at your own expense, you didn't get it..

Yeah, it was a joke that was playing out as the Watts talk progressed. Partly at my expense and partly at my wifes. It was showing me how it can operate through everyone in an objective way. Like Indras Net.

reply to post by BlueMule

Oh thank God because I thought you were laughing at me or something I said!

Nice face wrap btw.

Hey OP,
Everything you discuss in this thread, I have covered in this thread here:

The Ultimate ENlightenment Thread

These are all things you become aware of as you undertake self inquiry and various other practices to "know thy self."

I hope you can contribute to that thread. Thanks

reply to post by dominicus

Thanks, but it looks kinda complicated. Tell me, is it funny, and if so, why, and if not, why not?

Also I'm not too keen on the idea of zeroing out the self, and while perhaps gaining the everything, losing my own soul, does that make sense, and I'm not speaking of a fear of loss here, or of self preservation, just the loss of passion, humor, charm, and free and full self expression which surely requires a personality of some kind..

Originally posted by BlueMule
Yeah, it was a joke that was playing out as the Watts talk progressed. Partly at my expense and partly at my wifes. It was showing me how it can operate through everyone in an objective way. Like Indras Net.

I think that we are like tuff nuts that need cracking open to find the multifaceted jewel inside which then celebrates it's reflection within, without and in playful creative participation or sharing with others, and being there with their multifaceted reflecting jewel, forcing their outer shell to crack open, and their own Hintergendanken to become self aware.

Somehow we must find the weakness, and allow ourselves to be broken, and then we find the true source of all strength and wisdom, and the humor of true self knowledge and understanding, and yes it does create the epiphany of seemingly unending irony, like a joke told at one's own expense that just keeps on getting funnier, and which breaks through all our defenses until we become our true and authentic self as we really are in self acceptance.

This also generates the "field" of awareness or the "light" by which others are given the permission and the courage to also become fully self accepted and self realized, and on and on it goes and where it stops nobody knows. We take our light out from under the bushel basket and place it out on the lampstand as light for all in the house.

To express ourselves authentically of course requires the risk of being seen as ridiculous and absurd, but when we begin with the presupposition that the very nature of our human condition is already ridiculous and absurd to begin with (ie: we don't know who or what we really are but know we don't know it, for staters), then we're set free by being free from self judgement and condemnation (and we wouldn't even know how if we tried), and then in the space of self acceptance we can truly accept the other, and even be the space of non-judgemental unconditional acceptance (the highest form of love) by which they might then be given the permission and empowered courage, to fully accept themselves as they are, and in the process, as we love, so too are we loved (for loving), without for a moment robbing either ourselves or the other person of their own unique personal spiritual experience and self-expression, which, although we all share a human experience is private and personal and unique to each person based on the configuration of their entire life experience and the content of their inner being or self.

But if the two Hintergendanken's are unconscious and repressed then there's just a lot of senseless and unnecessary tension as the two ulterior motives or hidden agendas clash, and how absurd is that?

So I'm very happy to hear that both you and your wife were able to recognize the irony, that's beautiful, and magnificent, because then there's the possibility for real love in mutual self acceptance even the celebration of the other within the framework of Indras Net. Wow. That's pretty powerful, maybe even a world-changing fulcrum of personal and interpersonal transformation and spiritual and psychological growth and well being.

This ideal of love and mutuality as a mechanism of reconciliation and atonement is also the highest expression of the Christian ideal or Christ-principal.


"This is my only commandment.

Love one another as I have loved you."

Doesn't sound unreasonable no matter how unreasonably reasonable (because it's a limitless love) it may be.

Cheers,

NAM

What can be funny about discovering the Truth of Our Creator's words that all men's hearts (thoughts) are evil?
Nothing. When He leads you to really see how wicked our prior thoughts were, you don't laugh, but instead you cry at just how separated we were thinking that man knows better than His Creator. I don't laugh at my previous delusions which He reveals to me, but instead I bow in front of my Holy Father at my utter stupidity and carnal thinking. I cry "WOE UNTO ME" in the face of Truth as its taught, and as it tears down the falsities and untruths which I hold in my mind.

So please tell me, just WHO is Jung's "god"? Certainly not one who leads his children to understand the truth of their condition nor one who teaches his children that to love God is to obey His commands.

reply to post by WhoKnows100

But after the tears...come the hand that wipes those tears away from our eyes, and then in the new domain of awareness and understanding and recognition, there is humor, much humor. We are not left crying forever, but I agree that there's a repentance that's brought about in the desire for love, to love and be loved, because it's just not possible until we break down and repent, having become aware of our own ulterior motives.

But can't you see that once the Hintergendanken becomes self recognized, then it's very nature shifts and changes, and it becomes reoriented from a self-centered focal point, to an authentic desire to love as we are loved.

I've been a heap of tears and regret at the foot of the cross, but eventually, and sooner rather than later I'm am told to stand up tall and smile, and to go further, even to the point of no longer crucifying Christ unnecessarily which just leads to more heart ache.

The love of Christ makes possible the restoration of our humor and our charm by upholding the perfect standard of truth and justice, but we cannot go crawling around at it's base forever, weeping and wailing to no end, no it has a happy ending in the forgiveness of the resurrected life. (to use Christian terminology).

We are to be of good cheer by virtue of our prior forgiveness and acceptance and inclusion, but neither should we go out and start condemning others, but instead love our enemies - because God causes his sun to shine and rain to fall on both the righteous and the unrighteous.

It's a bold and daring type of humor that's available only to the forgiven, which presupposes a weakness, a breakdown, a repentance and some tears, but it's there on the other side waiting for us, starting out like a child-like giggle and then going from there even to tears of joy and gratitude.

Let's not make of the tree of life in the midst of it all, the tree of the duality of absolute good and evil. That's not what the cross is for.

It sounds like it leads to the opposite of sincere to me, like one is hiding what they really want to say and thus there is no real progress, just a long story about people making others believe they said something but really they didn't so there's never really closure for the other party. Meanwhile the hintergedanken person would probably have a blast at the expense of the other.

Conflicts are only solved when 2 people agree, not when one is convinced it is while the other doesn't, otherwise it just doesn't count as a victory, or anything else but an everlasting battle and at some time the tables will turn as all things change and then the joke will be on the one who started it.

Originally posted by Dragonfly79
It sounds like it leads to the opposite of sincere to me, like one is hiding what they really want to say and thus there is no real progress, just a long story about people making others believe they said something but really they didn't so there's never really closure for the other party. Meanwhile the hintergedanken person would probably have a blast at the expense of the other.

Conflicts are only solved when 2 people agree, not when one is convinced it is while the other doesn't, otherwise it just doesn't count as a victory, or anything else but an everlasting battle and at some time the tables will turn as all things change and then the joke will be on the one who started it.

Precisely. You got it.

I wonder if Pope Benedict suddenly became aware of his hintergendanken (a German word) and then, in astonishment if not utter horror, in looking back at the sheer magnitude of it, immediately sat down to dispatch the following messages:

Sunday Feb 10th, 2013 via Twitter
Benedict XVI ‏@Pontifex

We must trust in the mighty power of God’s mercy. We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ

..to forthwith retire to a life of solitude and prayer (to save his life) hidden away in a monestary somewhere in the deep bowels of the Vatican.

If so, I applaud him for his action.


Things that make ya go hmmmm...