joseph campbell portrait. 11x14''. water color. @adam sturch

 

"Ethical laws, the laws of life in the society, all of Yahweh’s pages and pages and pages of what kind of clothes to wear, how to behave to each other, and all that, do you see, in terms of the values of this particular society. But then there’s a fourth function of myth, and this is the one that I think today everyone must try to relate to, and that’s the pedagogical function. How to live a human lifetime under any circumstances. Myth can tell you that.

There’s a wonderful story in one of the Upanishads, the Brahmavaivarta Upanishad, of Indra, this god who is the counterpart, really, of Yahweh. He is the god patron of a certain people and of historical life and time, with all kinds of rules for people to live by and that sort of thing. And there was a time when a great monster named Vritra had closed all the waters of the Earth, and so there was a drought, a terrible drought, and the world was in very bad condition.

Well, it took this god Indra quite a while to realize that he had a box of thunderbolts there, and all he had to do was drop a thunderbolt in Vritra and then blow him up. And when he did that, of course, he blew Vritra up and the waters flowed and the world was refreshed. And he said, “What a great boy am I.”

So, thinking what a great boy am I, he goes up to the cosmic mountain, which is the central mountain of the world, and so he decided he would build a new world up there, a new city, and particularly his palace was going to be a palace worthy of such as he. So he calls Vishvakarman, the main carpenter of the gods, and gives him the assignment to build this palace. So Vishvakarman goes to work, and in very quick order he gets the palace into pretty good condition, and then Indra comes, but every time Indra arrived, he had bigger ideas about how big and grandiose the palace should be.

So finally Vishvakarman says, “My gosh,” he says, “we’re both immortal and there’s no end to his desires. I’m caught for life.” So he decided to go to Brahma, known as the creator, and complain. Well, now, Brahma sits on a lotus, this is the symbol of divine energy and divine grace, and the lotus grows from the navel of Vishnu, who is the sleeping god, whose dream is the universe. So here’s Brahma on his lotus, and Vishvakarman comes to the edge of the great lotus pond of the universe, and down, and he tells his story. Brahma says, “You go home,” he says, “I’ll fix this up.”

So next morning, at the gate of the palace that’s being built there appears a beautiful blue-black boy, with a lot of children around him, just in admiration of his beauty. So in comes the boy and Indra on his throne, he’s the king god, he says, “Young man, welcome, and what brings you to my palace?” “Well,” says the boy, with a voice like thunder rolling on the horizon, “I have been told that you’re building such a palace as no Indra before you ever built” And he said, “I’ve surveyed the grounds and looked things over, it seems this is quite true. No Indra before you has ever built such a palace.” Well, Indra says, “Indras before me! Young man, what are you talking about?”

The boy says, “Indras before you?” He says, “I have seen them come and go, come and go.” He said, “Just think: Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On there sits Brahma the creator. Brahma opens his eyes, a world comes into being, governed by an Indra. Closes his eyes, the world goes out of being. Opens his eyes, the world comes into being; closes his eyes … And the life of a Brahma is 432,000 years, and he dies. The lotus goes back, another lotus, another Brahma. And then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space; each a lotus with the Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes with Indras. There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in the oceans of the world, or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no one would count those Brahmas, let alone those Indras.”

And while he’s talking, there comes in parade across the floor of the palace an army of ants in perfect range. And the boy laughs when he sees them. And Indra’s hair goes up, and he says to the boy, “Why do you laugh?” And the boy says, “Don’t ask unless you are willing to be hurt.” And Indra says, “I ask. Teach.” The boy says, “Former Indras, all. Through many lifetimes they rise from the lowest conditions spiritually to highest illumination, and then they drop their thunderbolt in Vritra, and they think, ‘What a good boy am I,’ and down they go again.”

And then Indra sits there on the throne and he’s completely disillusioned, completely shot, and he thinks, well, let’s quit the building of this palace. He calls Vishvakarman and says, “You’re dismissed, you don’t have to” so Vishvakarman got his intention, he’s dismissed from the job and there’s no more house-building going on. And Indra decides, “I’m going out and be a yogi and just meditate on the lotus feet of Vishnu.” But he had a beautiful queen named Indrani, and when Indrani hears this, she goes to the priest, the chaplain of the gods, and she says, “Now, he’s got this idea in his head, he’s going out to become a yogi.” “Well,” says the Brahmin, “come in with me, darling, and we’ll sit down and I’ll fix this up.”

So he talks to Indra, they come in and they sit down before the king’s throne, and he tells him, “Now, I wrote a book for you some years ago on the art of politics. You are in the position of the king. You are in the position of the king of gods. You are a manifestation of the mystery of Brahma in the field of time. This is a high privilege, appreciate it, honor it, and deal with life as though you were what you really are.” And with this set of instructions, Indra gives up his idea of going out and becoming a yogi, and finds that in life he can represent the eternal in the way of a symbol, you might say, of the Brahmin and the ultimate truth.

So each of us is, in a way, the Indra of his own life, and you can make a choice, either to go out in the forest and meditate and throw it all off, or stay in the world and in the life either of your job, which is the kingly job of the politics and achievement, and as well in the love life with your wife and family, you are realizing the truth. Now, this is a very nice myth, it seems to me."

- Ep. 2: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth — ‘The Message of the Myth’

joseph campbell portrait. 11x14''. water color. @adam sturch

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Adam Sturch 

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