Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics Carl B. Becker, Editor Under the Auspices of the Uehiro Foundation
Dr. Aziz was honored with the distinction of being one of five scholars invited by The Uehiro Foundation on Ethics and Education (Tokyo) to contribute a chapter in Asian and Jungian Views of Ethics (1999), a volume commemorating the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Uehiro Foundation.
The Uehiro Foundation has most recently been noted for its joint projects with the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, as well as for the Foundation's sponsorship of a permanent chair in applied ethics at the University of Oxford.
In his 'Introduction and Overview,' Carl B. Becker, the volume's editor, writes about 'Synchronicity and the Transformation of the Ethical in Jungian Psychology':
Aziz holds that the dominantly inner orientation of Jungian psychiatry has weakened its inherently ethical dimensions ... Being ethical, then, means transforming ourselves by recognizing new meanings in and perspectives on our lives, not only in our dreams and bodily feelings, but in the events that happen to us.
In Aziz's view, nature itself is intrinsically moral; it takes external and undeniable 'compensatory' action to enable us to realize our moral mistakes and lead us to self-realization. ... For Aziz, as for Jung, the psychic and physical are ultimately inextricably interconnected. Egocentric refusal to give up mistaken conclusions blocks our ethical growth, wastes our time, and ultimately places us at odds not only with ourselves but with the universe of which we are a tiny but integral part. If we can come to see ourselves as co-existing with and not separate from the ethical universe, than we ourselves will become naturally more ethical, making decisions more ethically appropriate to the well-being of ourselves and of the whole. (pp. 4-5)
"Meanings emerge differently, however, when one is confronted with the synchronistic pattern of nature 'out there.' No longer is one viewing things from the comfortable position of a theater chair; rather, one is right in the unfolding drama, and the need to get the compensatory message and implement the necessary changes is pressing. Synchronicity releases the individual from the quicksand-like trap of the merely aesthetic into the ethical. This is especially true of synchronistic shadow intrusions." (p. 72)
"The spiritual crisis of the twenty-first century will not be addressed by turning our gaze exclusively toward the inner world, as Jungian psychology to date has largely counseled. Our experience of loss of soul stems in part from our outward separation from nature as a spiritual reality. An exclusive focus on the inner world cannot address this problem. Freud and Jung searched for the soul by situating ultimate meaning exclusively within the psyche. This constitutes the dispensation of the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, the search for soul will require a development of the works of Freud and Jung that will close the sacred circle on inner and outer nature. This consciousness will re-connect us with nature outwardly as a spiritual reality through the depths of our inner beings. This will be the contribution of the synchronistic worldview." (p. 82)
"In understanding symbols Aziz adopts the term synchronicity which is coined by Jung 'to explain the meaningful paralleling of internal (intrapsychic) and external events' (p. 69). For Aziz ethics is a matter of transforming ourselves by recognizing the meanings of synchronistic experiences in our lives. He expects that the synchronistic worldview will help us to get over the outward separation of ourselves from nature as a spiritual reality and to recover the connection between them."