The life of the spirit may be fairly
represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment. At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood Beethoven, solitary and insulted. Wassily Kandinsky (1866 –1944)


Saturday, June 16, 2012

Joseph Campbell: The Hero with a thousand faces (1904–1987


End of the Microcosm 

THE mighty hero of extraordinary powers —able to lift Mount Govardhan on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of the universe—is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the king within. Krishna declares: "I am the Self, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings."' This, precisely, is the sense of the prayers for the dead, at the moment of personal dissolution: that the individual should now return to his pristine knowledge of the world-creative divinity who during life was reflected
within his heart. "When he comes to weakness—whether he come to weakness
through old age or through disease—this person frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, or a fig, or a berry releases itself from its bond; and he hastens again, according to the entrance and place of origin, back to life. As noblemen, policemen, chariot-drivers, village-heads wait with food, drink, and lodgings for a king who is coming, and cry: 'Here he comes! Here he comes!' so indeed do all things wait for him who has this knowledge and cry: 'Here is the Imperishable coming! Here is the Imperishable coming!'" The idea is sounded already in the Coffin Texts of ancient Egypt, where the dead man sings of himself as one with God:


I am Re at his first appearance.
I am the Great God, self-generator,
Who fashioned his names, lord of gods,
Whom none approaches among the gods.
I was yesterday, I know tomorrow.
The battle-field of the gods was made when I spoke.
I know the name of that Great God who is therein.
"Praise of Re" is his name.
I am that great Phoenix which is in Heliopolis.


But, as in the death of the Buddha, the power to make a full transit back through the epochs of emanation depends on the character of the man when he was alive. The myths tell of a dangerous journey of the soul, with obstacles to be passed. The
Eskimos in Greenland enumerate a boiling kettle, a pelvis bone, a large burning lamp, monster guardians, and two rocks that strike together and open again.
Such elements are standard features of world folklore and heroic legend. We have discussed them above, in our chapters of the "Adventure of the Hero." They
have received their most elaborate and significant development in the mythology of the soul's last journey. An Aztec prayer to be said at the deathbed warns the departed of the dangers along the way back to the skeleton god of the dead, Tzontemoc, "He of the Falling Hair." "Dear child! Thou hast passed through and survived the labors of this life. Now it hath pleased our Lord to carry thee away. For we do not enjoy this world everlastingly, only briefly; our life is like warming of oneself in the sun. And the Lord hath conferred on us the blessing of knowing and conversing with each other in this existence; but now, at this moment, the god who is called Mictlantecutli, or Aculnahuacatl, or again Tzontemoc, and the goddess known as Mictecacihuatl, have transported thee away. Thou art brought before His seat; for we all must go there: that place is intended for us all, and it is vast.
"We are to have of thee no further recollection. Thou wilt reside in that place most dark, where there is neither light nor window. Thou wilt not return or depart from thence; nor wilt thou think about or concern thyself with the matter of return.
Thou wilt be absent from among us for ever more. Poor and orphaned hast thou left thy children, thy grandchildren; nor dost thou know how they will end, how they will pass through the labors of this life. As for ourselves, we shall soon be going there where thou art to be." The Aztec ancients and officials prepared the body for the funeral, and, when they had properly wrapped it, took a little water and poured it on the head, saying to the deceased: "This thou didst enjoy when thou wert living in the world." And they took a small jug of water and presented it to him, saying: "Here is something for thy journey"; they set it in the fold of his shroud. Then they wrapped the deceased in his blankets, secured him strongly, and placed before him, one at a time, certain papers that had been prepared: "Lo, with this thou wilt be able to go between the mountains that clash." "With this thou wilt
pass along the road where the serpent watcheth." "This will satisfy the little green lizard, Xochitonal." "And behold, with this thou wilt make the transit of the eight deserts of freezing cold." "Here is that by which thou wilt go across the eight small
hills." "Here is that by which thou wilt survive the wind of the obsidian knives."
The departed was to take a little dog with him, of bright reddish hair. Around its neck they placed a soft thread of cotton; they killed it and cremated it with the corpse. The departed swam on this small animal when he passed the river of the underworld.  And, after four years of passage, he arrived with it before the
god, to whom he presented his papers and gifts. Whereupon hewas admitted, together with his faithful companion, to the"Ninth Abyss."

The Chinese tell of a crossing of the Fairy Bridge under guidance of the Jade Maiden and the Golden Youth. The Hindus picture a towering firmament of heavens and a many-leveled underworld of hells. The soul gravitates after death to the story appropriate to its relative density, there to digest and assimilate
the whole meaning of its past life. When the lesson has been learned, it returns to the world, to prepare itself for the next degree of experience. Thus gradually it makes its way through all the levels of life-value until it has broken past the confines of the cosmic egg. Dante's Divina Commedia is an exhaustive review of
the stages: "Inferno," the misery of the spirit bound to the prides and actions of the flesh; "Purgatorio," the process of transmuting fleshly into spiritual experience; '"Paradiso," the degrees of spiritual realization. A deep and awesome vision of the journey is that of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.  T he man or woman who has died is identified with and actually called Osiris. The texts open with hymns of praise to Re and Osiris and then proceed to the mysteries of the unswathing of the spirit in the world beneath. In the "Chapter of Giving a Mouth to Osiris N.,"we read the
phrase: "I rise out of the egg in the hidden land." This is the announcement of the idea of death as a rebirth. Then, in the "Chapter of Opening the Mouth of Osiris N.," the awakening spirit prays: "May the god Ptah open my mouth, and may the god of my city loose the swathings, even the swathings which are over
my mouth. The "Chapter of Making Osiris N. to possess Memory in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Giving a Heart to Osiris N. in the Underworld" carry the process of rebirth two stages further. Then begin the chapters of the dangers that the lone voyager has to face and overcome on his way to the throne
of the awesome judge. The Book of the Dead was buried with the mummy as a guide
book to the perils of the difficult way, and chapters were recited at the time of burial. At one stage in the preparation of the mummy, the heart of the dead man was cut open and a basalt scarab in a gold setting, symbolic of the sun, was placed therein with the prayer: "My heart, my mother, my heart, my mother; my heart of transformations." This is prescribed in the "Chapter of not Letting the Heart of Osiris N. be Taken from Him in the Underworld." Next we read, in the "Chapter of Beating Back the Crocodile": "Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the
west. . . . Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the south. . . . Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the north. . . . The things which are created are in the hollow of my hand, and those which have not yet come into being are in my body. I am clothed and wholly provided with thy magical words, O Re, the which are in heaven above me and in the earth beneath me. . . ." The "Chapter of Repulsing Serpents" follows, then the "Chapter of Driving Away Apshait." The soul cries at the latter demon: "Depart from me, O thou who hast lips that gnaw." In the "Chapter of Driving Back the Two Merti Goddesses" the soul declares its purpose, and protects itself by stating its claim to be the son of the father:  " . .. I shine from the Sektet boat, I am Horus the son of Osiris, and I have come to see my father Osiris." The "Chapter of Living by Air in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Driving Back the Serpent Rerek in the Underworld" carry the hero still further along his way, and then comes
the great proclamation of the "Chapter of Driving Away the Slaughterings which are Performed in the Underworld": "My hair is the hair of Nu. My face is the face of the Disk. My eyes are the eyes of Hathor. My ears are the ears of Apuat. My nose
is the nose of Khenti-khas. My lips are the lips of Anpu. My teeth are the teeth of Serget. My neck is the neck of the divine goddess Isis. My hands are the hands of Ba-neb-Tattu. My forearms are the forearms of Neith, the Lady of Sais. My backbone is the backbone of Suti. My phallus is the phallus of Osiris. My loins are the loins of the Lords of Kher-aba. My chest is the chest of the Mighty One of Terror There is no member of my body that is not the member of some God. The god Thoth shieldeth my body altogether, and I am Re day by day. I shall
not be dragged back by the arms, and none shall lay violent hold upon my hands. . . ." As in the much later Buddhist image of the Bodhisattva within whose nimbus stand five hundred transformed Buddhas, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, and each of these, in turn, by innumerable gods, so here, the soul comes to the fulness of its stature and power through assimilating the deities that formerly had been thought to be separate from and outside
of it. They are projections of its own being; and as it returns to its true state they are all reassumed. In the "Chapter of Snuffing the Air and of having the Masteryover the Water of the Underworld," the soul proclaims itself to
be the guardian of the cosmic egg: "Hail, thou sycamore-tree of the goddess Nut! Grant thou to me of the water and of the air which dwell in thee. I embrace the throne which is in Hermopolis. And I watch and guard the egg of the Great Cackler. It groweth, I grow; it liveth, I live; it snuffeth the air, I snuff the air, I the Osiris N\, in triumph." There follow the "Chapter of not Letting the Soul of a Man be taken from him in the Underworld" and the "Chapter of Drinking Water in the Underworld and of not being Burnt by Fire," and then we come to the great culmination —the "Chapter of Coming Forth by Day in the Underworld," wherein the soul and the universal being are known to be one: "I am Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, and I have the power to be born a second time;
I am the divine hidden Soul who createth the gods, and who
giveth sepulchral meals iinto the denizens of the Underworld of
Amentet and of Heaven. I am the rudder of the east, the possessor of two divine faces wherein his beams are seen. I am the lord
of the men who are raised up; the lord who cometh forth out of
darkness, and whose forms of existence are of the house wherein
are the dead. Hail, ye two hawks who are perched upon your
resting-places, who harken unto the things which are said by
him, who guide the bier to the hidden place, who lead along Re,
and who follow him into the uppermost place of the shrine
which is in the celestial heights! Hail, lord of the shrine which standeth in the middle of the earth. He is I, and I am he, and
Ftah hath covered his sky with crystal. . . ."
Thereafter, the soul may range the universe at will, as is shown
in the "Chapter of Lifting up the Feet and of Corning forth upon
the Earth," the "Chapter of Journeying to Heliopolis and of Receiving a Throne therein," the "Chapter of a Man Transforming
himself into Whatever Form he Pleaseth," the "Chapter of Entering into the Great House," and the "Chapter of Going into the
Presence of the Divine Sovereign Princes of Osiris." The chapters of the so-called Negative Confession declare the moral purity
of the man who has been redeemed: "I have not done iniquity. . . .
I have not robbed with violence.... I have not done violence to any
m a n . . .. I have not committed  the f t . . .. I have not slain man or
woman " The book concludes with addresses of praise of the
gods, and then: the "Chapter of Living N'igh unto Re," die "Chapter of Causing a Man to Come Back to See his House upon Earth,"



No comments:

Post a Comment