I was introduced to the writings of Joseph Campbell, an American philosopher and mythologist, in the late 80s by a friend. Somewhere along the years I lost track of his ideas and was more absorbed into the study of the Bhagwad Gita and the various Upanishads. Now after many years I got reintroduced to Campbell’s works, started reading his Reflections on the Art of Living. Around the same time I also joined a facebook group dedicated to his teachings.
Campbell studied and had a doctorate in comparative mythology and also was well versed in the philosophies of Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud. He had a good study of the Upanishads amongst other things. It began to make sense to me when he explained the role of the metaphors in myths in being pointers to the ultimate reality.
I lifted the following paragraph from the internet in the interest of time. It is pertinent to what I am discussing today.
In the 1987 documentary Joseph Campbell: A Hero's Journey, he explains God in terms of a metaphor:
God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all human categories of thought, even the categories of being and non-being. Those are categories of thought. I mean it's as simple as that. So it depends on how much you want to think about it. Whether it's doing you any good. Whether it is putting you in touch with the mystery that's the ground of your own being. If it isn't, well, it's a lie. So half the people in the world are religious people who think that their metaphors are facts. Those are what we call theists. The other half are people who know that the metaphors are not facts. And so, they're lies. Those are the atheists.
Campbell, it is obvious from his writings, had delved deep enough to the farthest edge of thought to realize what lies beyond and recognize that that frontier cannot be described by any words. Vedas/ Shrutis say Neti Neti !! It’s the same conclusion. Still a very independent and authentic one. I was being drawn more into reading Campbell as the subject is very dear to me.
And then something strange happened.
A member of the Campbell Facebook group posted as apology to the family of Joseph Campbell if he had caused any harm by asking if Campbell was an atheist. The circus that ensued amongst other members who commented on this post was quite thought provoking. It compelled me to take a deep dive into the meaning of atheist as I had previously understood and compare with the way Campbell had defined it.
But more importantly the entire exercise of dissecting Campbell that occurred by means of the comments on that single post made me step back from “ following” Campbell. I chanced upon an important realization in the aftermath of the controversy. Campbell, like all philosophers and teachers before him, had brought the horse up to the waterhole in his own unique way. However every horse must drink on his own from the waterhole to get a taste of the water. Any teacher’s experience cannot be 100% duplicated by any other individual in the universe. It is more than an ordinary science experiment. The essence can be and should be understood but the experience will have to be unique for every student seeking Truth. Until experience manifests, every word heard from another will be just that…. A word ! A pointer. A metaphor.
This morning as I drove to work I was a bit ahead of the schedule. The eastern sky was red orange with deeper hues around the peaks from where the sun would eventually peep. A smile came to my face. The marker was clear before the appearance of the sun. It gave precise indication about where one should turn to look out for the sun, the source of all light. That’s what the role of any true teacher is. To point in the right direction. The student must now wait to witness the sun. If he stands long enough he will see the sunrise. The sun itself stands as a metaphor for the reality that underlies all universe.
Once you figure out the metaphor you can neither be a theist nor atheist! You can never be like anyone else, yet you will be them. And more.
Saree is a silk cotton Chinalpatti, the ikat of Tamil Nadu
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