Thursday 27 February 2020

For You and Me, We Must Say ‘Yes’.







BILL MOYERS: 
Let me ask you some questions about these common features in these stories, the significance of the forbidden fruit.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Well, there’s a standard folktale motif called 
“The One Forbidden Thing.” 
Remember, in Bluebeard, “Don’t open that closet.” 
You know, and then one always does it. 

And in the Old Testament story, God gives the one forbidden thing, and he knows very well, now I’m interpreting God, he knows very well that man’s going to eat the forbidden fruit. But it’s by doing that that man becomes the initiator of his own life. Life really begins with that.

BILL MOYERS
I also find in some of these early stories, the human tendency to find someone to blame.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Yeah.

BILL MOYERS
Let me read Genesis 1, then I’ll ask you to read one from the Bassari legend.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
All right.

BILL MOYERS
Genesis 1: “And God said, ‘Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you that you should not eat?’ Then the man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.’ And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you’ve done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’ Now, I mean, you talk about buck-passing, it starts very early.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
That’s right.

BILL MOYERS
And then there’s the Bassari legend.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
It’s been tough on serpents, too. “One day Snake said, ‘We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry?’ Antelope said, ‘But we don’t know anything about this fruit.’ Then Man and his wife took some of the fruit and ate it. Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, ‘Who ate the fruit?’ They answered, ‘We did.’ Unumbotte asked, ‘Who told you that you could eat that fruit?’ They replied, ‘Snake did.’ It’s the same story.

BILL MOYERS
Poor Snake.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
It’s the same story.

BILL MOYERS
What do you make of this, that in all of these stories the principal actors are pointing to someone else as the initiator of the fall?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Yeah, but it turns out to be Snake
And Snake in both of these stories is 
The Symbol of Life throwing off The Past 
and continuing to live.

BILL MOYERS
Why?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
The Power of Life, because The Snake sheds its skin, 
just as The Moon sheds its Shadow. 

The Snake in most cultures is positive
Even the most poisonous thing, in India, The Cobra, 
is a sacred animal. 

And The Serpent, Naga
The Serpent King, Nagaraga
is the next thing to The Buddha, 
because The Serpent represents 
The Power of Life in The Field of Time 
to throw off Death
and The Buddha represents 
The Power of Life in The Field of Eternity 
to be eternally alive.

Now, I saw a fantastic thing of a Burmese priestess, 
A Snake Priestess, who had to bring rain to her people 
by calling a king cobra from his den 
and kissing him three times on the nose. 

There was The Cobra
The Giver of Life, The Giver of Rain
which is of Life, as The Divine Positive, 
not negative, figure.

BILL MOYERS
The Christian stories turn it around, 
because The Serpent was the seducer.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 
Well, what that amounts to 
is a refusal to affirm life. 
Life is Evil in this view. 
Every natural impulse is sinful unless you’ve been baptized or circumcised, in this tradition that we’ve inherited. For heaven’s sakes!

BILL MOYERS
By having been The Tempter, 
Women have paid a great price, 
because in mythology, some of this mythology, 
they are the ones who led to the downfall.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 
Of course they did. I mean, they represent Life
Man doesn’t enter life except by woman, 
and so it is Woman who brings us into 
The World of Polarities and Pair of Opposites 
and suffering and all. 

But I think it’s a really childish attitude, 
to say “No” to Life with all its Pain
you know, to say this is something 
that should not have been.

Schopenhauer, in one of his marvelous chapters, 
I think it’s in The World as Will and Idea, says: 
“Life is something that should not have been. 
It is in its very essence and character, 
a terrible thing to consider, 
this business of living by killing and eating.” 

I mean, it’s in sin in terms of 
all ethical judgments all the time.

BILL MOYERS
As Zorba says, you know, 
“Trouble? Life is Trouble. 
Only Death is no Trouble.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
That’s it. And when people say to me, you know, 
“Do you have optimism about The World,
 you know, how terrible it is?”

I said, ‘Yes, just Say,
“It’s greatJust the way it is.”

BILL MOYERS
But doesn’t that lead to 
a rather passive attitude 
in the face of Evil
in the face of Wrong?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
You participate in it. 

Whatever you do 
is Evil for somebody.

BILL MOYERS
But explain that for The Audience.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
Well, when I was in India, 
there was a man whose name was 
Sri Krishnamenon 
and his mystical name was 
Atmananda and he was in Trivandrum, 
and I went to Trivandrum, 
and I had the wonderful privilege of 
sitting face to face with him 
as I’m sitting here with you. 

And the first question, 
first thing he said to me is, 
“Do you have A Question?” 

Because The Teacher there always answers questions
he doesn’t tell you anything, 
he answers

And I said, 
“Yes, I have a question.” 
I said, 
“Since in Hindu thinking all The Universe is Divine
is a manifestation of 
Divinity Itself,

How can we say ‘No.’ to anything in The World —

How can we sayNo.’ to Brutality, 
to Stupidity, to Vulgarity, 
to Thoughtlessness?” 

And he said, 
 For you and me
we must Say ‘Yes.’”

Well, I had learned from my friends 
who were students of his, that 
that happened to have been 
the first question he asked his guru, 
and we had a wonderful talk for about an hour 
there on this theme, of The Affirmation of The World. 

And it confirmed me in a feeling that I have had, 
that "Who are We to Judge?" 

And it seems to me that this is one of 
the great teachings of Jesus.

BILL MOYERS
Well, I see now what you mean in one respect; 
in some classic Christian doctrine 
The World is to be despised
Life is to be redeemed in The Hereafter, 
it is Heaven where Our Rewards come, 
and if you affirm that which you deplore, 
as you say, you’re affirming The World, 
which is Our Eternity of The Moment.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL
That’s what I would say. 

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