Joseph Campbell, author of THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, showed how the idea of the hero's journey is a universal motif in the mythology of the world's various cultures. Each of us is involved in many such journeys in our lifetime. They may last years, or be completed over a weekend.
These hero's journeys encompass the major changes of our lives, the coming of age stories, the transformations into parenthood, the military, or spiritual awakening.
There are four essential steps:
1. The Call: Can be from within you (the most common) - the small voice urging you to dream of something greater for you, the next step (or leap) to be taken. It can also come from without - the military draft is a great example of this. Often, the call comes from without only when you have refused the call from within. Refusal of the call leads to great frustration in life - the feeling that something is "missing."
2. The Wilderness: When the call is accepted, or when you are coerced into acceptance, you enter The Wilderness - a state of being in the unknown. You feel awkward, out of place, fearful (this was Dorothy in Oz). You will meet people who will be your teachers - some by becoming obstacles, others by becoming helpers - and you have to discern which is which. If you make it though The Wilderness phase, you are ready to seek the jewel.
3. The Quest: This is the phase where you must traverse significant internal challenges to gain "the jewel" or "the Grail," meaning your true identity. When one discovers his or her true identity, he or she has successfully traversed the journey to this point. Failure to find the inner identity means that you fail at this stage of life. It might be learning to find the sergeant in yourself after being promoted in the military; it might be finding the Christ Consciousness (The Holy Grail) within yourself on your spiritual journey.
4. The Return: When one has found the true inner identity relating to the stage of life covered by this particular hero's journey, one must then return to the community (or consciousness) that you have left and bring back your gift - your new self. There, it is either accepted or rejected. When it is rejected (as when a gay man comes out to his family and they reject him), there is a great sense of loss, but the true hero is not defeated. He or she simply turns in another direction with the new self and creates a better life. The danger at this stage is that one will collapse if the gift is rejected.
These journeys can overlap in life. The key is to become aware of the process and move through them with purpose and power (a bit like Indiana Jones). I highly recommend Campbell's HERO book, and another, REFLECTIONS ON THE ART OF LIVING, A Joseph Campbell Companion, by Diane K. Osbon. Both walk you through the aspects of the journey and provide excellent road maps fro growth.
Hello, In a universe of beauty and wonder, of awe, if you are paying attention, why are our everyday affairs so full of strife?
Why are our politics adversarial, our corporate world competitive, our religions antagonistic (or at least elitist)?
Part of the reason is our conditioned response to see ourselves as separate from everyone and everything. Another part is our biological development as competitive creatures believing in lack and limitation. Still another is the failure of our spiritual traditions to evolve with our scientific and technological advances - we have magical/mythic religious beliefs in a world of rational scientific advancement.
The Enlightenment didn't really catch on, following in the traditions of the teachings of Jesus and other Great Ideas that did not really take. Oh, we have a great tradition of arts and letters in the west as a result of the Enlightenment, and we have Christianity as a result of an interpretation of the teachings of Jesus - but are either of these close to universally applied today in the form in which they were intended? The teachings of Jesus - that God is Love and that each of us is part of that Love - were lost in the creation of the Church as a political organization with the need to get as many converts as possible and to please the powers that be in order to become a "state religion." Paul and his progeny in the clergy distorted the loving, radical message of Jesus, returning to an essentially Old Testament view of God as a moody, punishing, angry being. The Christianity of today, as diverse as it is, cannot be called loving in the main - too many wars, too much suffering. So what are we to do? My suggestion is that those who have come to believe a deeper, more loving idea about who and what we are - regardless of the tradition, or lack of tradition in which that belief has evolved - do what we can to spread the word. This will, of course, lead to much derision, opposition, and worse. The reaction to "The Secret" is a case in point. While an imperfect work (what isn't?), "The Secret" brings the idea of oneness and the innate ability to affect your own life in a profound way to the public consciousness. Oprah gets it, many more mainstream people do not. No surprise there. My tradition, Religious Science, is one that follows the teachings of Jesus, while not deifying the man Jesus - he is no more divine than you or I - which means that he is completely divine, as are you, as am I. So being divine is nothing special - everyone and everything is divine. Failing to come to understand this causes suffering. Coming to recognize this does not free one of suffering, but it does greatly reduce that suffering. What I wish the people from "The Secret," who are getting all this media time, would say is: "When you live the beliefs that are contained in this film, you will be more happy than if you do not." End of report. What else matters? Religious Science may not be producing great numbers of movers and shakers in society, but it is producing large numbers of people who are taking dominion over their own lives - and are happier as a result. They are happy, they are doing good works, they are practicing kindness, they are healing themselves and others. They are not doing harm (not much anyway - it's amazing how much less harm you do when you stop being self-destructive); they are changing the energy of the planet. There are other similar pathways, and we all can learn from one another. It seems that part of the pathway is to learn to be unattached to outcome - to allow others to do what they will and to stay centered in Truth. That is a high calling and it is not easy. But there it is. "Love the Lord thy God with all your heart and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself," said Jesus the Master Teacher. Loving God means loving yourself - for God is manifest as you, as me, as that guy over there. What a beautiful idea. Maybe it's time it caught on.
The "conversation" about the film and book, "The Secret" continues unabated. As expected, there is a lot of resistance to the concept of The Law of Attraction from those who come from a "conventional wisdom" worldview. There is also, to be sure, some truth to some of the criticism of the material and how is has been presented. There is a something to be said for the fact that the initial awareness of the concepts included in "The Secret" can lead to resistance. The first time I heard that I had the ability to direct my own thoughts and feelings to produce my desires, I recoiled in disbelief. It took a while, but I finally got it. So we can expect that many will be skeptical, even cynical, regarding these ideas. Oprah and everyone else connected with, or supporting the project will be criticized, even demonized. As Schopenauer said: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." The same might be said for the spiritual/psycholigical concepts in "The Secret." They have been largely the purview of New Thought adherents and a few others (including sports psychologists, mind-body medical practitioners) for the past hundred or so years. Now they are coming into the mainstream in a larger way and the resistance is showing. This Sunday, I will speak on the topic "Secret - What Secret?" at the Westlake Church of Religious Science at 10:00 AM. I will examine the conflicts and attempt to look beyond the materialistic focus of "The Secret" to a more profound use of the principles - the bring one closer to his or her own spiritual nature. If you are in the area, stop by - visit www.WestlakeCRS.org for directions. Love and Light, RevLockard
