Mr. Allemann: If one were detached entirely it would be nirvana, no more life.

Dr. Jung:

Yes, because there you simply come to an end.

Those people who strive after nirvana get into a sort of quietism where they simply vanish; so nothing comes of it.

The life of a Buddhist saint is exceedingly sterile.

Obviously that is not the point of life; the point of life is that you are the fool of life, that you play the role, that you make all sorts of attempts, that you suffer.

But you play that role in a most unsatisfactory way, you create a lot of nuisance or suffering or even catastrophes, if you identify with it.

Therefore you must divide yourself and think of the Self.

There is an Eastern saying: Play the role of the King, the beggar, and the thief, not forgetting the gods. Even if you acknowledge that you are a thief, remember that it is a role you are playing-we are called upon to do strange things in this existence.

Or even if you are a king, you must reserve a sphere of freedom, something beyond, where you are detached, where you disagree; you are as little the king as the actor at Oberammergau is Christ.

The gods of course are only appearances of the Self, but in Eastern philosophy Atman or Brahman is the Self, the very breath of all the gods. ~Carl Jung, Visions Seminar, Pages 1300-1301