Feeling

“It was not until I had lived in India for some time that I began to discover the degree of the wounding of our feeling function. The very term feeling is itself ambiguous, an orphan word. Its true meaning has not quite differentiated itself from its tactile origins. It derives from the verb to feel in its tactile sense. Our use of the word feeling is made to describe much more subtle realms. The act of valuing has no dignified term of its own and is still tied by an unseen umbilical cord to the realm of sensation. Little wonder that strong feeling is unconsciously tied to some physical act that we think should give expression to it. Of course, one may make sublime expression of feeling by a physical act, but feeling should not be unconsciously tied to the physical realm. Feeling is one of the wonderful, terrible, ambiguous words that contribute so much to our confusion.

A movement is afoot to expunge some of the great words of our language - such as God, freedom, democracy, and love - that have become so global in their associations that they mean nothing in practicality. Feeling might top the list. I don’t know what we would put in their place - perhaps a dozen words of more differentiated meaning for each one - but we could at least start afresh. My good friend John Sanford, a Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest, shocks people who ask him if he believes in God by replying, “Do you mean Jaweh, Jehovah, The Elohim, or the God of the New Testament?” To have clarity in one’s question is half the way to getting an intelligent answer.”

~ Robert A. Johnson, The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function
Robert A. Johnson is a pioneer of analytical thought and a respected elder figure in the international Jungian community. As a young man, Johnson studied with J. Krishnamurti and later in life he wintered for 19 years in India, studying at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, but learning most from encounters with the simple village people of traditional India. He is known foremost as the author of the three-book series  He, She,  and We; Inner Work; and his most recent work,  Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life.