Nice Talk on Philosophy

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Here's a talk I thought perhaps some of you would enjoy...

 

Jyotsna

 

Reading

Three Sundays ago, in the first of this three-part series on Joseph

Campbell, I spoke about Campbell’s willingness to go beyond the role of

simply being an “objective” scholar. Campbell was willing – and I think this

is largely why his interviews have been popular – to speak personally about

what he had learned from his studies in world mythology, what life-lessons

he had drawn from them.

This morning I want to speak about one of the primary life-lessons

Campbell garnered from his studies, an idea both complex and difficult,

perhaps particularly for those of us raised with a Western mind-set, and also

an idea that, at least at first, may be difficult to accept. I know for me it

has

been an idea I have pondered and turned over in my mind many times since I

was first introduced to it through Campbell’s work. Thus, my intention this

morning is not so much to recommend, justify, or evaluate his idea, as it is

to

put it out in front of you as clearly as I can.

Let me begin my approach to this idea through this morning’s reading,

which, as three weeks ago, is part of the interviews of Joseph Campbell by

Bill Moyers, transcribed in the book, The Power of Myth. The reading

begins with Campbell speaking:

Reading

CAMPBELL: Life is, in its very essence and character, a terrible mystery –

this whole business of living by killing and eating. But it is a childish

attitude to say no to life with all its pain, to say that this is something

that

should not have been.

MOYERS: Zorba says, “Trouble? Life is trouble.”

CAMPBELL: Only death is no trouble. People ask me, “Do you have

optimism about the world?” And I say, “Yes, it’s great just the way it is.

And you are not going to fix it up. Nobody has ever made it any better. It is

never going to be any better. This is it, so take it or leave it. You are not

going to correct or improve it.”

MOYERS: Doesn’t that lead to a rather passive attitude in the face of evil?

 

 

 

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CAMPBELL: You yourself are participating in the evil, or you are not alive.

Whatever you do is evil for somebody. This is one of the ironies of the

whole creation.

MOYERS: What about this idea of good and evil in mythology, of life as a

conflict between the forces of darkness and the forces of light?

CAMPBELL: That is a Zoroastrian idea, which has come over into Judaism

and Christianity. In other traditions, good and evil are relative to the

position

in which you are standing. What is good for one is evil for the other. And

you play your part, not withdrawing from the world when you realize how

horrible it is, but seeing that this horror is simply the foreground of a

wonder:

a mysterium tremendum et fascinans [a mystery frightening and fascinating –

a phrase from Rudolf Otto].

“All life is sorrowful” is the first Buddhist saying, and so it is. It

wouldn’t be life if there were not temporality involved, which is sorrow –

loss, loss, loss. You’ve got to say yes to life and see it as magnificent this

way; for this is surely the way God intended it.

MOYERS: Do you really believe that?

CAMPBELL: It is joyful just as it is. I don’t believe there was anybody who

intended it, but this is the way it is. James Joyce has a memorable line:

“History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” And the way to

awake from it is not to be afraid, and to recognize that all of this, as it

is, is a

manifestation of the horrendous power that is all creation. The ends of

things are always painful. But pain is part of there being a world at all.

MOYERS: But if you accepted that as an ultimate conclusion, you wouldn’t try

to form any laws or fight any battles or –

CAMPBELL: I didn’t say that.

MOYERS: Isn’t that the logical conclusion to draw from accepting

everything as it is?

CAMPBELL: That is not the necessary conclusion to draw. You could say,

“I will participate in this life, I will join the army, I will go to war,” and

so

forth.

 

 

 

Page 5

MOYERS: “I will do the best I can.”

CAMPBELL: “I will participate in the game. It is a wonderful, wonderful

opera – except that it hurts.”

Affirmation is difficult.

We always affirm with conditions….But

affirming the way it is – that’s the hard thing….

(The Power of Myth, pp. 65-66)

“THEMES OF JOSEPH CAMPBELL, PART II: JOYFUL

PARTICIPATION IN THE SORROWS OF THE WORLD”

A question

One time when Joseph Campbell was in India, he thought he would like

to meet a major teacher or guru of Hinduism. By this time Campbell had a

thorough knowledge of Sanskrit – which, incidentally, he thought was the

most developed language for expressing the life of the spirit – and he had as

well a thorough knowledge of Hinduism. So an audience was arranged for

him with a major Hindu teacher, a man by the name of Sri Krishna Menon,

whose holy name was Atmananda, meaning “the rapture of the soul” –

“ananda,” meaning, “rapture.”

Campbell appeared before the teacher, sitting directly facing him, and the

first thing the teacher said was, “Do you have a question?” This is the

pedagogical method in this tradition: the teacher addresses those concerns

the student is open to exploring.

And so Campbell said, “Yes, I have a question.” His question was this:

“Since in Hindu thinking all is Brahman, all is a product of divine

energy, no matter how we judge things ethically or in terms of prudence, it is

still all a divine manifestation. So: should you, or can you, or how do you

say ‘no’ to anything? How do you say ‘no’ to stupidity, to ignorance, to

thoughtlessness, to vulgarity, to brutality, to war?”

This was Campbell’s question to the Hindu teacher. And the teacher’s

response was this: “For you and me, this is the way.” In other words, the

way is to say “yes” to everything that reality produces.

(Note: The foregoing is a

combination of two different accounts of this conversation in interviews with

Bill Moyers. The one

account is from a Moyers’ interview with Campbell in 1981, transcribed from a

PBS program that aired on

April 17, 1981, p. 8. The second account is from interviews from 1985-86,

transcribed in The Power of

Myth, p. 67.)

 

 

 

Page 6

Now as it happened, this first question that Campbell asked of Sri

Krishna Menon was the same first question that he, earlier in his life, had

asked his teacher. And so a wonderful conversation took place between the

two of them on the theme of the affirmation of all things.

And this conversation confirmed in Campbell an idea toward which he

had been leaning – and which he also found expressed in certain statements

of Jesus in the Gospels such as “Judge not” and “Love your enemies” – the

idea that one must affirm all things, even what you despise. Or, to make the

point even stronger, the idea is to affirm particularly what you despise, to

say “yes” to “that act or that condition which in your mind is most

abominable.” (

The Power of Myth, p. 66)

It was from this perspective that

Campbell used and advocated a phrase, which comes from Buddhism, “The joyful

participation in the sorrows of the world.”

Well, I was struck and puzzled when, over twenty years ago, I first heard

Campbell relate this encounter with the Hindu teacher, and I’ve been trying

to see my way through the meaning of this ever since. So what will follow

this morning is where I’ve come to on this, and what I understand Joseph

Campbell to be saying when he talks about affirming absolutely everything

as a production of divine energy.

Two planes of consciousness

To understand Campbell’s principle of the affirmation of reality as it is,

one needs to speak of two planes of consciousness, or two levels of reality,

in which we exist simultaneously.

The one plane of consciousness is the world of action. This is our

everyday world of duality and division, a world in which we are necessarily

making judgments and evaluations every step of the way – judgments from

small to large, from deciding what clothes we will wear when we get up in

the morning to determining a life’s profession, decisions on whether to swat

a mosquito or to go to war. This is the world of ethical and prudential

judgments in which by saying “yes” to one thing we are also saying “no” to

other things.

And Western religion, with its accent on the ethical, tends to relate

primarily to this plane of consciousness – sometimes almost equating

religion and ethics – so that religion has to do with ethical behavior, with

 

 

 

Page 7

living an upright life, and with choosing “the good” over “the evil.” And

Western religion’s concept of “God,” in keeping with the ethical accent, is of

a deity that is pure light and goodness, the shadow having been cast upon

Satan, the dark and demonic deity.

The second plane of consciousness is, what Campbell calls, the world of

the “metaphysical observer.” At this level one does not act but simply

observes, simply watches without judgment and discrimination. This level

of consciousness is both prior to and beyond the level of duality and of ego-

consciousness – ego-consciousness, of its very nature, divides reality into

“pairs of opposites,” the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and

Evil.

Eastern religion and mystical religion, both East and West, is more

related to this second plane of consciousness. “Brahman” is all there is and

includes the dark and demonic as well as the light. In this setting, ethics

are

not absolute in a philosophical sense, but, rather, secondary and relative.

This doesn’t mean that one is “unethical” in one’s behavior, or that ethics

are

unimportant, but, in terms of religion, it means that ethics is but the

foreground of a larger realization, namely, the realization that one’s primary

identity is not with light as opposed to darkness, but with an absolute

reality

that is beyond both light and dark, good and evil, and, indeed, incorporates

the two.

When Campbell talks about affirming reality as it is, he’s talking from the

position of this second plane of consciousness.

The analogy of tennis

As an analogy of these two planes of consciousness, Campbell speaks of

a tennis match. To play a game of tennis you need opponents. You need

two persons willing to stand on opposing sides of a net with each trying to

outdo the other. And to get a good game of tennis, you need to have

opponents who will enter the game vigorously, perhaps even fiercely. They

have to want to win; they have to focus on the goal of winning. Have you

ever played games with persons who don’t care whether they win or lose?

Forget it, there’s no vitality, no energy; there’s no game.

So that’s the field of action. And that’s one plane of consciousness. But

it’s not the only plane of consciousness. You need a second plane, which, in

terms of the tennis analogy, is the judge or referee who sits on the stool

 

 

 

Page 8

above the net watching the action. This judge, above and outside the action,

and not favoring one side or the other in the game, but recognizing the

vitality and beauty of the game itself, and understanding the value of each

side for the game, is only interested that the game be played according to the

rules that have been set down, because without those rules, and without the

opponents following those rules, there is no decent game.

Now, to be a “real player” in this “game of life,” says Campbell, it is

necessary to live in both planes of consciousness at the same time. To be a

real player in life, you have to be able to do two things. First, you have to

be

willing to try to carry your side of the net – practice hard, play to win,

don’t

easily give up, and all of that.

And, secondly, and simultaneously, and even more importantly, you need

to be aware of the game itself, and not be so attached to the winning and

losing that you miss the rapture of the game – a game that, of course,

includes both you and your opponent. In other words, the game itself is

more important than who wins or loses, though the winning and losing are

necessary elements of the game.

Again, have you ever played a game with someone who is more attached

to winning than to the game itself? That is even more frustrating than to play

with someone who is only half-participating. As Campbell says, those who

are too attached to the winning and losing are called “poor sports,” and with

them the whole game is spoiled. So, too, “poor sports” in the game of life

are persons more attached to winning and losing than to the play of the game.

A tiny parable

Another of Campbell’s favorite illustrations for this concept of two planes

of consciousness is a tiny parable from a Hindu scripture, the Rig Veda. It

goes like this: On the Tree of Life there are two birds, fast friends. One

bird

eats the fruit of the Tree; the other bird, not eating, watches.

Or, expressed even more succinctly: Two birds, fast friends; one eats, one

watches.

Our Tree of Life has two birds in it representing these two different

orientations, these two planes of consciousness. The one bird, eating the

fruit, participates in the field of action. He’s killing a fruit – life feeds

on

 

 

 

Page 9

life. (For Campbell, you don’t escape the sorrows of the world by being a

vegetarian. “Ever heard a carrot scream?” he quips.)

Try as you might, you can’t avoid the field of action or its difficulties and

the necessary decisions involved. But you can see a larger reality even in the

midst of the sorrows of the world. And that’s the role of the second bird in

our Tree of Life, the one representing the metaphysical observer within us,

who, detached from the action, simply watches without judgment, and from

this perspective is able to see a reality that embraces and transcends the

“sorrows of the world,” and, with wonder and astonishment, observes the

vitality and beauty of the whole.

Thus, says Campbell, we need both perspectives in life; we need to live

simultaneously in both worlds…not easy to do, because, on the one hand, we

tend to get so caught up in the action, so attached to our position in the

action, that we miss the glory of the divine play. Or, on the other hand,

having detached from the yes-no, the winning-losing, the good-evil, we hold

ourselves back from the play, perhaps overcome by its tension and anxiety,

or put off by its pain, sorrow, and ruthlessness.

The call to participate

But Campbell’s message is an emphatic call to participate. Participate in

the field of action! Don’t hold yourself back from the play in the field of

time!

Quoting William Blake, Campbell says, “Eternity is in love with the

productions of time”…meaning that the experience of the eternal depth of

things is to be found here and now, and in the current incarnations in time

and space – not when our circumstances change, and not in some different

place, nor in some future time.

So play the game! Do you know what joy and vitality there can be in

playing a game freely and fully and without fear and without desire?! That’s

the way to play the game – that is, without ultimate attachment to winning or

losing. And that’s what it means to participate with joy in the sorrows of the

world.

The image of the Bodhisattva

 

 

 

Page 10

Campbell sees the primary, symbolic images of both Buddhism and

Christianity as related to this sense of willing participation in the

give-and-

take of this world.

In Buddhism you have the figure of the Bodhisattva. This is the figure of

the one who has achieved Buddhahood – enlightenment – the one who has

awakened to full consciousness of his being. Or, in terms of these two

planes of consciousness that I’m talking about, it’s the one who has

recognized his identification with the ultimate reality that transcends the

pairs of opposites and the sorrows of the world and can now live at that plane

of consciousness.

But the question is: Will this enlightened being now withdraw from the

world, retire from it, stand apart from it with clean hands; or, will he

return

to the world to participate in it? The Bodhisattva is the image of the one who

returns to participate…and participates with compassion, not fear or greed,

having seen that all beings, whether they affirm you or oppose you, are

Buddha beings, that is to say, living expressions, each and every one, of the

divine energy that is the only energy there is.

The image of the crucified Christ

Campbell finds a comparable image of this sense of willing participation

in this world in the figure of the crucified Christ in Christianity. How does

this work?

Campbell is fond of quoting a text of the apostle Paul in his letter to the

Philippians, a text which is really a hymn or credo of the early Christian

church, perhaps the earliest. It runs this way: Christ, being divine and in

the

form of God, did not think equality with God something to be clung to, but

humbled himself and became a servant, even to death on a cross.

(See Philippians

2:5-8)

This, for Campbell, is an image of one, who like the Buddha, has

transcended the play of life…who has the form of God – God being a symbol

for that which encompasses and transcends the pairs of opposites of life – but

doesn’t hold to that, but instead, enters the play and lives in the duality of

this world.

And, for Campbell, there’s no better symbolic image of duality than the

image of the cross with its double pairs of opposites. In the symbol of the

 

 

 

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cross you have both the horizontal and the vertical arms – left and right, up

and down – meeting at the center. And, there, at the center where the double

pairs of opposites meet – and the Greek cross with its equal-length arms is

the best symbol of this – is the point where the human is inescapably

fastened.

And the crucifixion image that Campbell likes the most is a form of the

crucifix known as “Christ triumphant”…not the common crucifixion image

with head bowed in sorrow and blood pouring; but, rather, head erect, and

eyes open…willingly, freely, and fully accepting this fate…coming joyfully

and triumphantly to the cross, as St. Augustine says, like a bridegroom to the

bride, the bride in this case being the world of time and space, the duality

of

“yes” and “no.” (

The Power of Myth, p. 138-39)

On affirming absolutely everything

So what does it mean to accept the world as it is? What does it mean to

say “yes” to absolutely everything?

Campbell, drawing on a statement of Nietzsche, says that if you say “no”

to a single thing in your life, you have unraveled the whole thing (

The Power of

Myth, p. 161)

In other words: Whatever you reject, whatever you refuse,

whatever you are not able to assimilate, narrows your life and draws off your

energy. And, on the other hand, whatever you are able to affirm, whatever

you are able to swallow and digest, whatever you are able to take in and own

as part of yourself, enlarges your life and increases your vitality.

In the Moyers’ interviews, Campbell gave this example. He said:

“I had an illuminating experience from a woman who had been in

severe physical pain for years, from an affliction that had stricken her in

her youth. She had been raised a believing Christian and so thought this

had been God’s punishment of her for something she had done or not

done at that time. She was in spiritual as well as physical pain. I told her

that if she wanted release, she should affirm and not deny [that] her

suffering was her life, and that through it she had become the noble

creature that she now was. And while I was saying all this, I was

thinking, ‘Who am I to talk like this to a person in real pain, when I’ve

never had anything more than a toothache?’ But in this conversation, in

affirming her suffering as the shaper and teacher of her life, she

experienced a conversation – right there. I have kept in touch with her

 

 

 

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since – that was years and years ago – and she is indeed a transformed

woman.” (

The Power of Myth, p. 160)

Campbell, in interpreting this conversion experience, believes that what

he gave this woman was the idea that she was the agent of her own life. Her

situation was not the punishment or plan of some outside deity, but rather her

situation was part of the play of the universal energy of which she herself

was a part. And to the extent that she could affirm that – not necessarily

like

it – but affirm it and take it in, digest it and not rebel against it, and not

blame herself or anyone or anything else, to the extent that she could do

that,

she could enlarge her life.

Says Campbell, “The demon that you can swallow gives you its power,

and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.” (

The Power of Myth, p. 161)

And so his advice is this: Take your life, and your life’s situation, as if it

had

been your intention – not literally, but as if it had been your intention.

“With

that, you evoke the participation of your will.” (

The Power of Myth, p. 161)

That is,

you look for the possibilities in your life’s situation, whatever your

situation

is. (This is also the psychological force of the Eastern idea of “karma.” By

taking your present situation as something based on previously-made

choices, you are turned aside from both blame and a sense of entitlement,

and work on your own life as it is.)

Just this past Wednesday, I received a call from a former member of a

previous congregation I served telling me about the death of his son. His son

was a person in his forties, who, as a young man was an outstanding classical

guitarist, to the point that he might have gone somewhere with his skill and

interest. But just as he was about to embark on a career, he developed

multiple sclerosis, that horrific degenerative nerve disease. Over the years,

I

spent many hours visiting with him and watched as he slowly deteriorated,

losing his dexterity, losing his ability to play the guitar, losing his

ability to

walk, his vision, his speech, ending up, for about ten years, on a feeding

tube. But throughout it all, there was not a word, nor a sense, of “poor me.”

In our conversation, his father related to me how he once asked his son,

“Have you ever asked yourself, ‘Why me?’”

“Yes,” replied his son, “One time I did.”

“Well,” said his father, “what was the answer?”

 

 

 

Page 13

“Why not me,” replied the son.

Here is a man who had swallowed the demon, who had transcended

blame.

The doctrine of “things mutually arising”

From Buddhism, Campbell also picked up the doctrine of “things

mutually arising,” an idea that, again, has to do with transcending blame and

saying “yes” to life as it is. The idea here is that everything arises

together as

an inter-related whole…and so there’s no room for blame…for anyone or

anything.

Campbell had a Tibetan Buddhist friend with whom he worked for over

ten years on a book translation. The Tibetan Buddhists, as you know, have

suffered horrific persecution at the hands of the Chinese Communists. But

Campbell says that in all the time he worked with this man, he never heard

him utter a single word of recrimination or complaint against the Chinese

Communists. Nor, says Campbell, do you hear a word of condemnation or

resentment of the Chinese Communists from the leader of the Tibetan

Buddhists, the Dalai Lama. Says Campbell, “I have learned what religion is

from these men. Here is true religion, alive – today.” (

The Power of Myth, p. 158-59)

Now does this mean that one does not discriminate or hold others to

account? Does this mean one simply acquiesces in whatever comes your

way?

Not at all, for again, there are two levels here. In the field of action, you

make your evaluations and judgments, you take your stances, you hold others

to account, but because you are also simultaneously living on the plane of

metaphysical observer, you do so impersonally and without blame,

condemnation, or judgment in the absolute sense…for, at this level, it’s all

part of the same energy.

The Dalai Lama is a marvelous example of living simultaneously at these

two levels, and he is very aware of what he is doing. I once read an

interview where the question was put to him, “It has been said that the Whole

Person is one who lives simultaneously in two worlds – what about this?”

The Dalai Lama’s responded this way:

 

 

 

Page 14

“One has equanimity. One is impartial; but in accordance with

circumstances, taking certain action. In his inner world, there are no

differences, but in his outer world he keeps aware of differences, and

accordingly takes action.”

Or, as Joseph Campbell says, you can’t say that there shouldn’t be

poisonous serpents in the world. That’s the way this world is. But if in the

field of action, a poisonous serpent should threaten you, you take action,

even to the point of killing it if necessary. That’s not saying “no” to the

world or to the serpent, but it’s saying “no” to that situation, and it’s

taking

action in that situation. (

Moyers’ interview with Campbell in 1981, transcribed from a PBS

program that aired on April 17, 1981, p. 8)

So to extrapolate and conclude: You can’t say that life shouldn’t feed on

other life, or that it shouldn’t include greed or thoughtlessness or racism or

the atom bomb or al-Qaida terrorists or fundamentalist Christians – pick your

poisonous serpent. These things are. They are part of the unfolding of the

energy of all being. And they are part of you, too.

And the thing to do is to try to find that place in you where these things

reside…so that when you make your decisions in this world, when you take

your stances, when you stand up for your convictions, when you try to

improve this world, you will do so with compassion, knowing and

experiencing that’s it’s all part of one grand opera staged by powers that are

beyond your comprehension.

Campbell was fond of an Irish saying that runs like this: “Is this a private

fight, or can anyone participate?”

And the answer is that it’s a public affair to which everyone is invited.

Now you will get hurt sometimes, and often bruised, and sooner or later you

will die – but don’t take it personally.

But do take it. Say “yes.” Enter the fray. Participate. Participate with

joy in the sorrows of the world. For if you have seen that it’s really a

divine

play, and if you have at all learned what it means to live simultaneously at

two levels of awareness, then you are free of ultimate judgments, and free to

fully engage this world of time and space, free to follow the road that is

really alive for you, free to obey what it is that calls to you, free, as

Joseph

Campbell says, to “follow your bliss.” (More on that in two weeks.)

 

 

 

Page 15

Benediction

Now may peace be in our hearts,

and understanding in our minds,

may courage steel our wills,

and the love of truth forever guide us. Amen.

Extinguishing of Chalice

 

 

 

 

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