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 great! Just 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 say ‘No.’ 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.
