Myth and Society

"Myth is not the same as history."
--Joseph Campbell

Writing in his book Pathways to Bliss, renowned Mythologist Joseph Campbell, makes note of several salient points applicable to modern thinkers. He states "myths are not inspiring stories of people who lived notable lives....Myth is transcendent; it goes beyond the visible, known world. Seen as true guides, myths are highly instructive to today's thinker. They not only act as a guide to the moon and the stars, but to the heart, to artists, and thinkers of all stripes. "In our society of fixed texts and printed words, it is the function of the poet to see the life value of the facts round about, and to deify them, as it were, to provide images that relate the everyday to the eternal."

While some manage their everyday existence without the benefit of images, others see this a necessity. To them, without myth, the world is a painful, flat, plane of sameness without the spark of image. Fire seeking ground, "we are all manifestations of mystic power," writes psychiatrist, Karlfried Durckheim. Shaped in our mother's womb, then, myth is a function of this mystic, powerful, life wisdom. Borne to us, alive within us, the symbols of eternal mankind pour into the fields of time and space. An energy that originates beyond the realm of powers of knowledge, of intellect, the energy of myth flows, bound within each of us--in this body, in this person.

In the modern, critical, scientific world, the mind, the power, the transcendent can become bound up in concept, temporal tasks, even to the extent that illness is the result. We are out of center, if we even knew it at first, and illness is sometimes the result. Blocked from this source, life-force, you are left with a final, factual world view. A view that doubts, that does not believe what it cannot now see, what it cannot now hear. Myths point to something beyond themselves; myth is not allegorical, rather it transcends the known to the unknown. It is the place of dreaming, the world of muse. "Make your god transparent to the transcendent, and it doesn't matter what his or her name is." When you have done so, you realize the inspiration of a god or goddess.

Myth means to live for all time, not in the name of material goods, achievement or status in the known world. In a fast moving, modern world, myth which thrives on a slower paced lifestyle is exchanged for everything moving fast, very fast. Technology propels forward, an ever increasing consumerism. It knows no bounds; swallowed up whole, we find ourselves without myth, the valuable guide of the collective wisdom throughout the ages. Writes Campbell interestingly, "Roman Catholic monks and Buddhist monks had[ve] no trouble understanding each other." They recognize the transcendent; that the best, most important thing can't be told. It must be experienced. Jesus, the Christ said that to find the Way, it is necessary to give up [material things] what you own and follow, because things, he knew, don't last.

Anthony Gittens, a monk of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, writes in his book, Come Follow Me, about this new, transcendent way which Jesus and others before him proposed:

The Jesus Society

Leave everything behind, take nothing for the journey; risk, trust onto other people, respect them, find acceptance, seek out community, say yes to the kingdom--

Jesus, the Christ, says in his society, there is a new way to live.

You show wisdom, by trusting people;
you handle leadership, by serving;
you handle offenders, by forgiving;
you handle money, by sharing;
you handle enemies, by loving;
and you handle violence, by suffering;

In fact, you have a new attitude toward everything,
toward everybody.

Because this is a Jesus society, and you repent,
not by feeling bad, but by thinking differently.
--written by Rudy Wiebe

The Poets of the American Religion

"I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still... I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose." --Emily Dickenson 1852

Art, wrote Emerson, "is the path of the creator to his work. The paths, or methods, are ideal and eternal, though few men ever see them, not the artist himself for years, or for a lifetime. The painter, the sculptor, the composer, the epic writer, the orator, all partake one desire, namely, to express themselves "symmetrically and abundantly, not dwarfishly and fragmentarily." They found or put themselves in certain conditions, as, the painter and sculptor before some impressive human figures; the orator, into the assembly of the people; and the others, in such scenes as each has found exciting to his intellect; and each presently feels the new desire."

"He hears a voice, he sees a beckoning. Then he is apprised, with wonder, what herds of demons close him in. He can no more rest; he says, with the old painter, "By God, it is in me, and must go forth of me." He pursues a beauty, half seen, which flies before him. The poet pours out verses in every solitude. Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by and by he says something which is original and beautiful."

That charms him. He would say nothing else but such things. In our way of talking, we say, `That is yours, this is mine;' but the poet knows well that it is not his; that it is as strange and beautiful to him as to you; he would faint hear the like eloquence at length."

"Once having tasted this immortal, he cannot have enough of it, and, as an admirable creative power exists in these intellections, it is of the last importance that these things get spoken. What a little of all we know is said! What drops of all the sea of our science are baled up! and by what accident it is that these are exposed, when so many secrets sleep in nature! Hence the necessity of speech and song; hence these throbs and heart-beatings in the orator, at the door of the assembly, to the end, namely, that thought may be ejaculated as Logos, or Word. "
-- by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private
ray:
They overleapt the horizon's edge,
Searched with Apollo's
privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of
nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw
musical order, and pairing rhymes.

Olympian bards who sung
Divine ideas below,
Which always find us
young,
And always keep us so."
--R. Emerson

"For, as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God, that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole."

Beyond this universality of the symbolic language, we are apprised of the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the world is a temple, whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures, and commandments of the Deity, in this, that there is no fact in nature which does not carry the whole sense of nature; and the distinctions which we make in events, and in affairs, of low and high, honest and base, disappear when nature is used as a symbol."

And more:

"Thanking God for having made you; thanking Him that I love you with all my heart and soul; above all, thanking Him because He has permitted you to love me..." --Eugene O'Neil, 1914

Walden, perhaps the most famous work of Henry David Thoreau, exemplifies the American spirit, the transcendent nature of the American mystical tradition, exploring the good and the beautiful exemplified in nature. It is a great spiritual feeling he writes of:

"Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies--neighbors are kind enough for that--but to do the like office to our spirits."

"Things do not change; we change."

"Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open."

The Basis of Oneness

"feel your lightness and let it merge with others..."
--Tao Te Ching
"Many poets are not poets... they never succeed in being themselves."
--Thomas Merton
"I am the will, the heart, the soul, the spirit, the self, the I..."
--Peter Kreeft


Ways of seeing, vispayana, are many and yet they are few: some spiritual traditions are unique, and yet they are universal:

"If you know what it is, don't talk it away:
If you don't then you don't understand.

Hush, keep it in, and your doorway shut--
Steer clear of sharpness and untangle the knots.

Feel your lightness and let it merge with others,
This we say is our basis of oneness.

The sage who does this doesn't have to worry
about people called 'friends' or 'enemies,'
with profit or loss, honor or disgrace--

He is a Master of Life, instead."
--Tao Te Ching, chapter 56, translated by Man-Ho Kwok

"I have three priceless treasures:
The first is compassion
the second, thrift
And the third is that I never want to be ahead of you.

If I have compassion, you will die for me. I know that.
If I waste nothing, I can give myself to you all--
And if I don't seem perfect, then you'll trust me to lead you.

These days people scorn compassion. They try to be tough.
They spend all they have, and yet want to be generous
They despise humility, and want to be the best.

I tell you that way is Death's.

If you have loved your people, you will know it
they will fight tooth and nail for you in attack or defense.

This is the protection of Heaven, and your harvest.
--Tao Te Ching, chapter 67, translated by Man-Ho Kwok


Thomas Merton, Integrity

"Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or particular saint they are intended to be by [gifts of] God... They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody elses' experiences, or write somebody else's poems, or possess somebody else's spirituality... There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular-- and too lazy to think of anything better... Hurry ruins saints as well as artists... In great saints you find that perfect humility and perfect integrity coincide. The two turn out to be practically the same thing. The saint is unlike everybody else precisely because he is humble... since no two people are alike, if you have the humility to be yourself, you will not be like anyone else in the whole universe... Individuality is something deep in the soul... humility brings with it a deep refinement of spirit, a peacefulness, a tact and common sense, without which there is no sane morality...How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city?

--Thomas Merton, Trappist monk from his book, The New Seeds of Contemplation

Peter Kreeft, The Most Important Thing

"Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man." Matthew 15:11

"This is true not only of the mouth or the body, but also the soul. What comes into my soul is not necessarily what I will, but what comes out of my soul is precisely what I will. The Greek philosophers did not clearly recognize this personal center. They were intellectualists; they thought the deepest thing in us was the mind. Thus Plato taught that whenever we really know the good, we do it... Aristotle defined man as a rational animal." When asked about his teachings, Jesus replied, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If any man's will is to do this [the Father's] will, he shall know whether the teaching is from God." John 7, verses 16,17

"The will leads us to wisdom... Know thyself, was the first and greatest command for the Greeks. It was inscribed upon every Temple of Apollo... To answer that fundamental question: What is the self? What am I? What is the human person? The key of love unlocks the deepest answer...

--Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You
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