Defending Joseph Campbell

A friend of mine asked me to explain to him why Joseph Campbell is my guru. It was an interesting conversation. My friend has never read Campbell, but he has heard me describe the impact that Campbell’s work has had on my life. My friend was thinking along the lines of self-help authors like Stephen Covey.

I explained that Joseph Campbell wasn’t really setting out to help anyone that way. He was merely a scholar, a man who devoted his life to researching the things that pleased him most to think about. This is what I admire best about Joseph Campbell. That it turns out that he and I found joy in the same topics is just a blessing beyond measure. He is definitely a kindred spirit.

What I ultimately shared with my friend was the story of my life at the time I discovered Campbell’s work. I was very much a church going Bible believer of the most literal sort and I had no real grasp of the concept of metaphor. Sometimes I think it is difficult for any devout Christian to truly grasp and appreciate metaphor.

I was introduced to Joseph Campbell in a college literature course about the Grail Legends. Joseph Campbell is an authority on the Arthurian legends, something I have loved almost my entire life.

It was in listening to Joseph Campbell lectures that I discovered that essentially everything is metaphor. All we have are symbols and stories to give meaning to our existence. Everything, even our lives, is metaphor for the fundamental truths of the universe. We are merely reflections of something much greater than ourselves. I believe that we each incarnate to create a mythology out of the life we have been given. And the great thing about this mythology we create is that we get to be the hero in the story. We don’t have to be the victim in our own life story. We are the ones writing it.

What Joseph Campbell did for me was give me another way of looking at God. It was not long after studying his work that I quit thinking about God as an entity separate from myself. And I will tell you this, that one discovery has brought more joy into my life that any other thing I have figured out.

So, while I understand my friend’s skepticism if he was equating Joseph Campbell with Stephen Covey, in my mind the two are incomparable. Stephen Covey offers people helpful hints to be a more financially successful person, Joseph Campbell offers people the keys that unlock the mysteries of the universe.

It is my opinion that you can’t read Joseph Campbell’s work without becoming a little smarter.

Out of the darkness

“One thing that comes out of myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light.” ~Joseph Campbell

 

Leave it to Joseph Campbell to deliver the truth clearly and concisely.

Part of the message I have hoped to convey with this blog is there is no reason to be afraid of darkness. None of the things most of us fear are real. They are boogeymen conjured from our own minds. Once faced, they seem to evaporate into thin air. It’s the process I have referred to as calling out demons, but it’s really the general struggle of the awakened life. It’s the part of the process that involves asking the great philosophical questions.

One of the scientists in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? talks about science as being this trip down the rabbit hole in which one first goes down the rabbit hole, which is the hypothetical part and then comes out, which is checking the hypothesis rigorously using the scientific method. This is much like the spiritual/metaphysical/philosophical awakening process in which the mind’s boundaries are dissolved and all things become possible. When a person first sets out on this path it can feel like they are going crazy, i.e., down the rabbit hole, but then as you go along, you check your thoughts against external reality, which brings you out of the hole, out of the darkness and back into the light. And every time you do it, the light is brighter on the other side.

This is why I try to embrace all of life, even the darkest, most painful parts of human existence. If you are willing to go into the darkness and keep going, there is light on the other side. And it doesn’t matter what kind of darkness we’re talking about. From the most depraved behaviors to the deepest human suffering, if a person is willing to look at it unflinchingly without turning away, there is beauty to be found. And in every situation, no matter how painful or upsetting, there is something to be grateful for, I guarantee it. It takes a little work to sort through the garbage and find the blessing, but I promise you, it’s always there. It may be as fundamental as I am still here breathing through a situation that feels unbearable, but that is still something for which to give thanks.

We are all spiritual alchemists at varying levels of skill. And the only way to improve is to practice.

I appreciate Joseph Campbell’s words because the studies of mythology and metaphor are huge tools in the spiritual process. Stories help us guide our lives. Symbols help us understand vast amounts of information easily. And metaphor gives us a way to check our experiences against a bigger, more universal measuring stick. When we look to these examples, they bring hope and the knowledge that everything really is just fine. No matter what appears to be going on, there is an underlying truth that tells us it all works out in the end. Because it always does.

Believe it and receive it

It never fails to amaze me the ways in which the minutiae of life is metaphor for much larger, more powerful concepts. I believe this is the path to success in using things like the law of attraction. We figure out the big picture by looking closely at the small one.

I learned another cosmic lesson today at my job. A customer asked me for something expecting to be told no and when I found the thing he was looking for, he was unprepared to pay for it. No big deal, it happens a lot in that job, but today it hit me like a ton of bricks. If I ask the universe for something, I must be ready to receive it. And I’m not sure I have been as ready as I need to be. This is incentive to focus and work harder and get my life in order as much as possible. Luck happens to those who are diligent and prepared.

You can be diligent and still be unprepared. And then when life tries to offer you what you have asked for, you have no way to receive it. Case in point, the customer from earlier. He wasn’t prepared to be told yes, he prepared himself to be told no. Had he prepared to hear yes, he would have talked to all the people he needed to talk to and had his credit card in hand before calling.

I need to have my credit card in hand before I make this next call to the universe.

Sometimes it is necessary to make room for new people and things in life. I’m a minimalist, I don’t collect anything. Not people, not things. But, if in a symbolic act of spaciousness I need to clear out some room for something new, I’m willing to do that.

It’s good to get rid of stuff you don’t need. Whether it be things, people, or thoughts. If it does not serve the greater good, bless it and let it go.

If I want the person I love to love me back, I need to be someone he can love. Which means I need to understand what is important to him and figure out if those things can be important to me too. It’s one thing to be in love with someone, it’s another thing entirely to be good for that person. We must fulfill the role that creates the greatest good in the world. Sometimes that role is romantic, sometimes it’s platonic.

I find it difficult to continue this without gushing a little. I just really believe when you find the person whom you recognize to be the nicest person you have ever met–the one that becomes instant best friend–and that person is attractive looking to you…marry them! For crying out loud, just marry them already! If two soul mates meet and they are both single and attractive, smart, compassionate, etc., it is a travesty if they do not make that connection.

I cannot get my friend out of my head. Whenever I see him I feel like I am walking on a cloud for hours and days afterward. I do come back to earth eventually, but it’s like drugs. When I am around him I feel like I automatically become a better person. In case you’re wondering, that was the gushing bit I referred to before.

Looking forward to things falling into place perfectly.

Is it wrong of me to notice places that would make a lovely venue for a simple, elegant wedding?

I jest.

Mostly.

Follow Your Bliss

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.” ~Joseph Campbell

It’s hard to believe that I would title my blog Metta 4 and write 34 posts before even mentioning Joseph Campbell.  If there was ever a hint from the universe of where I was headed spiritually, it was when I first discovered Campbell.  I just didn’t know it at the time.

The first time I heard of Joseph Campbell I was an adult in college.  I was raising kids, working and pursuing a history degree.  I took a literature class about the grail legends because, from the time I was about 10 years old, I was really into the Arthurian legends.  Part of the class involved listening to Campbell’s lectures as an expert on the Arthurian stories and myth in general.

At this time in my life I was also a hard-core Christian.  I think people who know me now have a hard time picturing this.  Sometimes I do too.  My kids were in private Christian school at our church, so I was at church six days a week, plus leading the youth group and teaching Sunday school.  Although I was never as judgmental as Christianity sometimes invites people to be, I was definitely into the lifestyle.  Sometimes when I think about it, I don’t recognize that person I used to be.

Joseph Campbell helped me understand metaphor.  Metaphor is a huge part of spirituality, in my opinion.  It is also a powerful form of communication.  Part of what makes it so powerful is that understanding it gives tremendous insight into the universe, while not understanding only means your brain is processing information, causing the mind to set things in motion and it’s being done unconsciously.  There are deeper messages in everything if you look closely enough.  But to do so takes discipline and many lack that discipline.

According to Wikipedia, Joseph Campbell used the term monomyth: “to express the idea that perhaps the whole of the human race is reciting a single story of great importance, which gets further broken down into local form, taking on different guises depending on the time and social state of the culture that recites it. This great story relates to humanity’s search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return. This elemental force is ultimately “unknowable” because it exists before words and knowledge. As this basic truth cannot be expressed in plain words, spiritual rituals and stories refer to it through the use of metaphors…”

It was understanding this that made me begin to compare Christianity to the world’s other religions.  And it was when I realized that “the great story” is only relevant as it applies to me and my interpretation of it and that every person, through their own mythological tale, their life, interprets the story for themselves, that I stopped letting people tell me how to interpret the Bible.

I spent 20 years letting other people tell me what the Bible means and never really questioning what I was told.  I did this because, at that time, I did not understand metaphor and its relevance in the universal consciousness.  When I began to understand, I realized that I had been reading the Arthurian legends almost as long as I had been reading the Bible, which was ever since I could read, and that I neither sought nor accepted anyone’s interpretation of those stories but my own.  What was the difference?  Why did I think I was capable of interpreting the Arthurian stories, in all their variations, but I was incapable of knowing the meaning of the Bible without making sure my ideas were okay with a group of people who had all agreed on its meaning (without my input)?

I will argue that the Arthurian legends are a body of work as big and impressive as the Bible.  That is not to diminish the Bible in any way.  It is a wonderful book full of really interesting stories.  Stories with meanings much bigger than the literal words on the page.

Each individual extracts a slightly different meaning from the stories because we all have a different and unique perspective.  So, just as each person will take a different meaning from the story of Perceval for instance, each person will have a different idea what the story of Abraham or Jesus means.  Each person decides what the grail means to them just as each decides what the cross means to them, if anything.

When I began to look at the Bible this way, it was the beginning of the end for me and Christianity, though I didn’t know it at the time.  Suddenly, when my way of interpreting the Bible became as valid as anyone’s in my mind, everyone’s interpretation of it, or any mythology for that matter, became as valid as mine.

During my time as a Christian I remember having a hard time with the concept that the truth is relative.  I always thought of truth as this objective thing that was constant regardless of who was perceiving it.  But that’s because I was caught up in the idea of right and wrong. When I started playing with the idea that there is no right or wrong, that there are just different interpretations of the story, I no longer needed a religion that claimed sole possession of the absolute truth of the universe.

These great stories, that cross every culture and touch every person on the earth, are important because their function is to help each of us tell our own story, our personal mythology.  Each of our stories is our gift to The All.  Each of our lives is a part of the the greatest Great Story and understanding metaphor will help each of us tell the best story we are capable of telling.

Joseph Campbell truly is my hero.  I knew it the first time I heard him speak.  And after years of reading his books and listening to hours and hours of his lectures, I now see that he set me on the path that led to my spiritual awakening.

Anyone on a spiritual path should consider reading The Hero With a Thousand Faces, or get a copy of the Bill Moyers series The Power of Myth, in which he interviews Campbell at length.  Doing so will give you a whole different perspective on life.

As above, so below; As below, so above.

Many blessings.

Cheryl