Brave New World

Brave New World (1956) - Aldous Huxley as Narrator

ACT V

SCENE I. Before PROSPERO'S cell.

Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL

PROSPERO

Now does my project gather to a head:

My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time

Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?

ARIEL

On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,

You said our work should cease.

PROSPERO

I did say so,

When first I raised The Tempest. Say, my spirit,

How fares the king and's followers?

ARIEL

Confined together

In the same fashion as you gave in charge,

Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,

In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;

They cannot budge till your release. The king,

His brother and yours, abide all three distracted

And the remainder mourning over them,

Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly

Him that you term'd, sir, 'The good old lord Gonzalo;'

His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops

From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em

That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

PROSPERO

Dost thou think so, spirit?

ARIEL

Mine would, sir, were I human.

PROSPERO

And mine shall.

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling

Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,

One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,

Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?

Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,

Yet with my nobler reason 'gaitist my fury

Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,

The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel:

My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,

And they shall be themselves.

ARIEL

I'll fetch them, sir.

Exit

PROSPERO

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him

When he comes back; you demi-puppets that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,

Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,

Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd

The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,

And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault

Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak

With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory

Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up

The pine and cedar: graves at my command

Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth

By my so potent art. But this rough magic

I here abjure, and, when I have required

Some heavenly music, which even now I do,

To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I'll drown my book.

Solemn music

Re-enter ARIEL before: then ALONSO, with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO they all enter the circle which PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; which PROSPERO observing, speaks:

A solemn air and the best comforter

To an unsettled fancy cure thy brains,

Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand,

For you are spell-stopp'd.

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,

Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine,

Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,

And as the morning steals upon the night,

Melting the darkness, so their rising senses

Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle

Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,

My true preserver, and a loyal sir

To him you follow'st! I will pay thy graces

Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly

Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:

Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.

Thou art pinch'd fort now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,

You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,

Expell'd remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian,

Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,

Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee,

Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding

Begins to swell, and the approaching tide

Will shortly fill the reasonable shore

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them

That yet looks on me, or would know me Ariel,

Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell:

I will discase me, and myself present

As I was sometime Milan: quickly, spirit;

Thou shalt ere long be free.

ARIEL sings and helps to attire him

Where the bee sucks. there suck I:

In a cowslip's bell I lie;

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

PROSPERO

Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee:

But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so.

To the king's ship, invisible as thou art:

There shalt thou find the mariners asleep

Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain

Being awake, enforce them to this place,

And presently, I prithee.

ARIEL

I drink the air before me, and return

Or ere your pulse twice beat.

Exit

GONZALO

All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement

Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us

Out of this fearful country!

PROSPERO

Behold, sir king,

The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero:

For more assurance that a living prince

Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;

And to thee and thy company I bid

A hearty welcome.

ALONSO

Whether thou best he or no,

Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,

As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse

Beats as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,

The affliction of my mind amends, with which,

I fear, a madness held me: this must crave,

An if this be at all, a most strange story.

Thy dukedom I resign and do entreat

Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero

Be living and be here?

PROSPERO

First, noble friend,

Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot

Be measured or confined.

GONZALO

Whether this be

Or be not, I'll not swear.

PROSPERO

You do yet taste

Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you

Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!

Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO

But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded,

I here could pluck his highness' frown upon you

And justify you traitors: at this time

I will tell no tales.

SEBASTIAN

[Aside] The devil speaks in him.

PROSPERO

No.

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother

Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive

Thy rankest fault; all of them; and require

My dukedom of thee, which perforce, I know,

Thou must restore.

ALONSO

If thou be'st Prospero,

Give us particulars of thy preservation;

How thou hast met us here, who three hours since

Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost--

How sharp the point of this remembrance is!--

My dear son Ferdinand.

PROSPERO

I am woe for't, sir.

ALONSO

Irreparable is the loss, and patience

Says it is past her cure.

PROSPERO

I rather think

You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace

For the like loss I have her sovereign aid

And rest myself content.

ALONSO

You the like loss!

PROSPERO

As great to me as late; and, supportable

To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker

Than you may call to comfort you, for I

Have lost my daughter.

ALONSO

A daughter?

O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,

The king and queen there! that they were, I wish

Myself were mudded in that oozy bed

Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?

PROSPERO

In this last tempest. I perceive these lords

At this encounter do so much admire

That they devour their reason and scarce think

Their eyes do offices of truth, their words

Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have

Been justled from your senses, know for certain

That I am Prospero and that very duke

Which was thrust forth of Milan, who most strangely

Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was landed,

To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;

For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,

Not a relation for a breakfast nor

Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;

This cell's my court: here have I few attendants

And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in.

My dukedom since you have given me again,

I will requite you with as good a thing;

At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye

As much as me my dukedom.

Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess

MIRANDA

Sweet lord, you play me false.

FERDINAND

No, my dear'st love,

I would not for the world.

MIRANDA

Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,

And I would call it, fair play.

ALONSO

If this prove

A vision of the Island, one dear son

Shall I twice lose.

SEBASTIAN

A most high miracle!

FERDINAND

Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;

I have cursed them without cause.

Kneels

ALONSO

Now all the blessings

Of a glad father compass thee about!

Arise, and say how thou camest here.

MIRANDA

O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in't!

PROSPERO

'Tis new to thee.

ALONSO

What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?

Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours:

Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,

And brought us thus together?

FERDINAND

Sir, she is mortal;

But by immortal Providence she's mine:

I chose her when I could not ask my father

For his advice, nor thought I had one. She

Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,

Of whom so often I have heard renown,

But never saw before; of whom I have

Received a second life; and second father

This lady makes him to me.

ALONSO

I am hers:

But, O, how oddly will it sound that I

Must ask my child forgiveness!

PROSPERO

There, sir, stop:

Let us not burthen our remembrance with

A heaviness that's gone.

GONZALO

I have inly wept,

Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you god,

And on this couple drop a blessed crown!

For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way

Which brought us hither.

ALONSO

I say, Amen, Gonzalo!

GONZALO

Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue

Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice

Beyond a common joy, and set it down

With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage

Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,

And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife

Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom

In a poor isle and all of us ourselves

When no man was his own.

ALONSO

[To FERDINAND and MIRANDA] Give me your hands:

Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart

That doth not wish you joy!

GONZALO

Be it so! Amen!

Re-enter ARIEL, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following

O, look, sir, look, sir! here is more of us:

I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,

This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,

That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?

Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?

Boatswain

The best news is, that we have safely found

Our king and company; the next, our ship--

Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split--

Is tight and yare and bravely rigg'd as when

We first put out to sea.

ARIEL

[Aside to PROSPERO] Sir, all this service

Have I done since I went.

PROSPERO

[Aside to ARIEL] My tricksy spirit!

ALONSO

These are not natural events; they strengthen

From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?

Boatswain

If I did think, sir, I were well awake,

I'ld strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,

And--how we know not--all clapp'd under hatches;

Where but even now with strange and several noises

Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,

And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,

We were awaked; straightway, at liberty;

Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld

Our royal, good and gallant ship, our master

Capering to eye her: on a trice, so please you,

Even in a dream, were we divided from them

And were brought moping hither.

ARIEL

[Aside to PROSPERO] Was't well done?

PROSPERO

[Aside to ARIEL] Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free.

ALONSO

This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod

And there is in this business more than nature

Was ever conduct of: some oracle

Must rectify our knowledge.

PROSPERO

Sir, my liege,

Do not infest your mind with beating on

The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure

Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you,

Which to you shall seem probable, of every

These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful

And think of each thing well.

Aside to ARIEL

Come hither, spirit:

Set Caliban and his companions free;

Untie the spell.

Exit ARIEL

How fares my gracious sir?

There are yet missing of your company

Some few odd lads that you remember not.

Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO and TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel

STEPHANO

Every man shift for all the rest, and

let no man take care for himself; for all is

but fortune. Coragio, bully-monster, coragio!

TRINCULO

If these be true spies which I wear in my head,

here's a goodly sight.

CALIBAN

O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!

How fine my master is! I am afraid

He will chastise me.

SEBASTIAN

Ha, ha!

What things are these, my lord Antonio?

Will money buy 'em?

ANTONIO

Very like; one of them

Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable.

PROSPERO

Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,

Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave,

His mother was a witch, and one so strong

That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,

And deal in her command without her power.

These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil--

For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them

To take my life. Two of these fellows you

Must know and own; this thing of darkness!

Acknowledge mine.

CALIBAN

I shall be pinch'd to death.

ALONSO

Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?

SEBASTIAN

He is drunk now: where had he wine?

ALONSO

And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they

Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?

How camest thou in this pickle?

TRINCULO

I have been in such a pickle since I

saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of

my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.

SEBASTIAN

Why, how now, Stephano!

STEPHANO

O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a cramp.

PROSPERO

You'ld be king o' the isle, sirrah?

STEPHANO

I should have been a sore one then.

ALONSO

This is a strange thing as e'er I look'd on.

Pointing to Caliban

PROSPERO

He is as disproportion'd in his manners

As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;

Take with you your companions; as you look

To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.

CALIBAN

Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter

And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass

Was I, to take this drunkard for a god

And worship this dull fool!

PROSPERO

Go to; away!

ALONSO

Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.

SEBASTIAN

Or stole it, rather.

Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO

PROSPERO

Sir, I invite your highness and your train

To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest

For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste

With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it

Go quick away; the story of my life

And the particular accidents gone by

Since I came to this isle: and in the morn

I'll bring you to your ship and so to Naples,

Where I have hope to see the nuptial

Of these our dear-beloved solemnized;

And thence retire me to my Milan, where

Every third thought shall be my grave.

ALONSO

I long

To hear the story of your life, which must

Take the ear strangely.

PROSPERO

I'll deliver all;

And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales

And sail so expeditious that shall catch

Your royal fleet far off.

Aside to ARIEL

My Ariel, chick,

That is thy charge: then to the elements

Be free, and fare thou well! Please you, draw near.

Exeunt

EPILOGUE

SPOKEN BY PROSPERO

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's mine own,

Which is most faint: now, 'tis true,

I must be here confined by you,

Or sent to Naples. Let me not,

Since I have my dukedom got

And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell

In this bare island by your spell;

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands:

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,

And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so that it assaults

Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardon'd be,

Let your indulgence set me free.

INDRA

 So, I thought, what if you made a computer network that required human brains to run on? 

It wouldn’t make sense to kill us. 

It wouldn’t want to kill us. 

But what it might do is organize us more efficiently.

— Grant Morrison

Joseph Campbell – The Story of Indra from the Brahmavar Upanishad

 

 Swervin’ back to Brave New World. One other thing I liked about that show was the AI system called Indra which must be a reference to the concept of Indra’s Net.

GM: And as you know the drug in the show is Soma, which is Huxley’s creation. I just figured if Huxley named the drug Soma… if he had predicted AI, which is one thing he didn’t predict, I think he would have stuck with the Sanskrit and called it Indra.

Indra was my notion for explaining a lot of stuff that didn’t make sense in Huxley’s book. 

Why are there Epsilons? 

Why does the World State need a labour force? 

The book is about the consequences of capitalist mass production, mass consumption, mass destruction, because Huxley had moved to Hollywood and he’d seen the consumer society in full flood and witnessed the world of glamorous unreality — the talkies — which was happening. The whole thing is his attempt to deal with the impact of Ford and Hollywood. As I said, the one thing he didn’t think of was AI. So, the question became how could you make sense of a lot of the things he didn’t make sense of? 

And the idea came up of having a computer network that ran on human brains. We have all those neurons and all that capacity there. So instead of having a central server, the computer is a distributed network that runs on the brains of everyone in the World State. That was designed to solve the problem created by Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking who were both terrified that AI was going to rise up and take over, steal our jobs, and occupy our homes in a kind of immigration nightmare gone sci-fi.

So, I thought, 'What if you made a computer network that required human brains to run on?' It wouldn’t make sense to kill us. It wouldn’t want to kill us. But what it might do is organize us more efficiently. So that might explain a lot of the stuff Huxley didn’t bother to deal with.

The network starts to self-organize and it creates this homeostatic caste system, like a hive. It stratifies people and what it gives them in return is happiness. 

In Brave New World, the ultimate commodity is happiness. There’s no love, no money, but if you could make everyone happy even if they’re up to their necks in shit, then you’ve won. That was the idea. To create a computer network that doesn’t want to kill people. 

So, the reason why there are Epsilons — the reason people do jobs and manual labor, is because the computer needs its components to be fit and healthy. Rather than mechanize them, with everyone just slobbing out, it needs citizens to be super fit. 

So, they are always having sex, they are always playing sport, they are always working. They have pointless jobs that encourage them to be fit and healthy. That was the idea. The Indra network solved a lot of problems and I think it was one of the elegant additions to Huxley’s original.

Then who created the network in the story? Who gave birth to the AI?

GM:  Well, that was the original ten Controllers who started the World State. In Huxley’s book, there’s an anthrax pandemic that kills 2/3 of the world population and there’s only a couple of billion or whatever left. 

And everyone else gets together and forms a world scientific, anti-religious state because the killer plague was largely caused by political and religious conflict. So suddenly the World State arises to ensure that people won’t screw up so badly ever again. In our version, America is the only country that secedes from the World State. In Huxley, the Savage lands is just a Santa Fe reservation, a pueblo culture. 

In this version, the Savage Lands is all of North America. The idea was to imagine America 300 hundred years after The Fall. 

People are sick, and the environment is fucked and there’s been six presidents in the last five months, and it costs three thousand dollars to buy a Mars Bar! America’s decision not to join the World State has brought the country to the brink of ecological, economical, and societal collapse. In this version, I think we got a richer background than even the original.

Is The Machine Going to Crush Humanity, or Serve Humanity?

I think that Star Wars is a Valid Mythological Perspective. 

It shows The State as a Machine and asks: 

"Is The Machine going to crush Humanity, or Serve Humanity?"

And Humanity comes not from The Machine, but from The Heart.

DARTH VADER: 

Luke. Help me take This Mask off.

LUKE SKYWALKER: 

But you’ll die.

 

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I think it was in The Return of the Jedi when Skywalker unmasks his father. The father had been playing one of these machine roles, a state role. He was the uniform, you know? And the removal of that mask, there was an undeveloped man there, there was a kind of a worm. By being executive of a system, one is not developing one’s humanity. I think that George Lucas really, really did a beautiful thing there.

BILL MOYERS: The idea of machine is the idea that we want The World to be made in OUR Image, and What We Think The World Ought to Be.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, the first time anybody made a tool, I mean, taking a stone and chipping it so that you can handle it, that’s the beginning of a machine. It’s turning outer nature into your service. But then there comes a time when it begins to dictate to you. I’m having a bit of struggle with my computer, actually.

BILL MOYERS: Your computer?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I just bought one a couple of months ago, and I can’t help thinking of it as having a personality there, because it talks back, and it behaves in a whimsical way, and all of that. So I’m personifying that machine. To me, that machine is almost alive. I could mythologize that damn thing.

BILL MOYERS: There was a wonderful story about, I think, President Eisenhower, when the computer was first being built. You remember that story?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Eisenhower went into a room full of computers, and he puts a question to these machines, “Is there a God?” And they all start up and there’s all those lights flashing and wheels turning and things like that, and after about 10 minutes of that kind of thing, a voice comes forth, and the voice says, “There is Now.”

Well, I bought this wonderful machine, IBM machine, and it’s there. And I’m rather an authority on gods, so I identified the god, and it seems to me an Old Testament god with a lot of rules, and no mercy.

BILL MOYERS: It’s unforgiving, isn’t it.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Catch you picking up sticks on Saturday and you’re out, that’s all.

BILL MOYERS: But isn’t it possible to develop toward the computer, the computer you’re wrestling with at this very moment, isn’t it possible to develop the same kind of attitude of the Pawnee chieftain who said that in the legends of his people, all things speak of Tirawa, all things of speak of God. It wasn’t a special privileged revelation, God is everywhere in his works, including the computer.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, indeed so. I mean, the miracle of what happens on that screen, you know, have you ever looked inside one of those things?

BILL MOYERS: No.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: You can’t believe it. It’s a whole hierarchy of angels, all on slats, and those little tubes, those are miracles, those are miracles, they are.

BILL MOYERS: One can feel a sense of awe.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I’ve had a revelation from my computer about mythology, though. You buy a certain software, and there’s a whole set of signals that lead to the achievement of your aim, you know. And once you’ve set it for, let’s say, DW3, enter, if you begin fooling around with signals that belong to another system, they just won’t work, that’s all. You have a system there, a code, a determined code that requires you to use certain terms.

Now, similarly in mythology, each religion is a kind of software that has its own set of signals and will work. It’ll work. But suppose you’ve chosen this one. Now, if a person is really involved in a religion and really building his life on it, he’d better stay with the software that he’s got. But a chap like myself, who likes to play with -

BILL MOYERS: Cross the wires?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: - the various softwares, I can run around, but I probably will never have an experience comparable to that of a saint.

BILL MOYERS: But do you think that the machine is inventing new myths for us, or that we with the machine are inventing new myths?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: No. The myth has to incorporate the machine.

BILL MOYERS: A pagan deity?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Just as the old myths incorporated the tools that people used, the forms of the tools and so forth are associated with power systems that are involved in the culture. We have not a mythology that incorporates these. The new powers are being, so to say, surprisingly announced to us by what the machines can do. We can’t have a mythology for a long, long time to come; things are changing too fast. The environment in which we’re living is changing too fast for it become mythologized.

BILL MOYERS: How do we live without myths, then?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, we’re doing it.The individual has to find the aspect of myth that has to do with the conduct of his life. There are a number of services that myths serve. The basic one is opening the world to the dimension of mystery. If you lose that, you don’t have a mythology, to realize the mystery that underlies all forms. But then there comes the cosmological aspect of myth, seeing that mystery as manifest through all things, so that the universe becomes as it were a holy picture, you are always addressed to the transcendent mystery through that. But then there’s another function, and that’s the sociological one, of validating or maintaining a certain society. That is the side of the thing that has taken over in Our World.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 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.

BILL MOYERS: Do we ever know the truth? Do we ever find it?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, each person can have his own depth experience and some conviction of being in touch with his own satyananda, his own being, true consciousness and true bliss. 

But the religious people tell us we really won’t experience it until we go to heaven, you know, till you die. 

I believe in having as much as you can of this experience while you’re alive.

BILL MOYERS: Our bliss is now.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I think in heaven you’ll be having such a marvelous time looking at God that you won’t get your own experience at all. 

That’s not the place to have it. 

Here’s the place to have the experience.

BILL MOYERS: Here and now.