NIRVANA

BILL MOYERS: 

Do most of the stories of mythology, from whatever culture, say that suffering is intrinsically a part of life and that there’s no way around it?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

I think I’d be willing to say that they do. 

I can’t think of anything now that says if you’re going to live, you won’t suffer. 

It’ll tell you how to understand and bear and interpret suffering, that it will do. 

And when the Buddha says there is escape from suffering, the escape from sorrow is nirvana. 

Nirvana is a psychological position where you are untouched by desire and fear.

BILL MOYERS: 

But is that realistic? 

Does that happen?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes, certainly.

BILL MOYERS: 

And your life becomes what?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Harmonious, well-centered and affirmative of life.

BILL MOYERS: 

Even with suffering.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Exactly. 

There’s a passage in Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, isn’t there? 

Be as Christ, for Christ did not think godhood something to be hung on to, to be clung to, but let go and came down and took life in the form of a servant, a servant even unto death. 

Let’s say, come in and accept the suffering, and affirm it.

BILL MOYERS: 

So you would agree with Abelard in the 12th century, who said that Jesus’ death on the cross was not as ransom paid, as a penalty applied, but it was 

an act of atonement, 

atonement at one with the race.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

That’s the most sophisticated interpretation of why Christ had to be crucified. 

Abelard’s idea was that this … oh, this is connected with the Grail King and everything else … that the coming of Christ to be crucified and illustrating thus the suffering of life, removes man’s mind from commitment to the things of this world in compassion. 

It’s in compassion with Christ that we turn to Christ, and so the injured one becomes the savior.

 

It is the suffering that evokes the humanity of the human heart.

BILL MOYERS: 

So you would agree with Abelard that mankind yearning for God and God yearning for mankind in compassion met at that cross.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes. And by contemplating the cross, you are contemplating the true mystery of life. 

And that love for this experience, no matter how horrific the experience, the love for it

BILL MOYERS: 

So there’s joy and pain in love.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah, there is. 

Love, you might say, is the burning point of life, and since all life is sorrowful, so is love.

 And the stronger the love, the more that pain, but love bears all things. 

Love itself is a pain, you might say, but is the pain of being truly alive.