Women Break Things

DENZIL :

Del, my man! 

 

DEL :

Denzil my son, how are you? 

 

DENZIL :

Come in.

 

DEL : 

Yeah, great.

 

 

DENZIL :

I haven't seen you for ages, where have you been? 

 

DEL :

Well, you know me, here, there and everywhere - ducking and diving.

 

DENZIL :

Rodney, you're looking good! 

RODNEY :

Yeah! 

 

DENZIL :

He's cool, I like it! 

I tell you, if he wasn't so white I'd swear he was black! 

 

DEL :

Yeah, he is white ain't he! 

 

DENZIL :

He's the whitest man I've ever seen in all my life! 

 

RODNEY :

I'm not ever so white! 

 

DEL :

You are!

You'd make an albino look bronzed! 

 

DENZIL :

(handing out the Red Stripe)

Here, grab one of these each!

 

DEL :

Oh, here Denzil, 

Corinne ain't about is she? 

 

DENZIL :

No, no, she's round her sister's.

 

DEL :

Oh that's alright

 

DENZIL : 

Hey, you ain't still worried about what happened are you? 

Come on Del, she's forgotten all about that now.

Anyway, what brings you round? 

 

DEL :

Just passing through, 

thought we'd call in.

'Ere have you had this place done up? 

 

DENZIL :

No.

 

DEL :

No, I didn't think you had.

 

DENZIL :

We're getting it decorated soon though.

Corinnes' been at me for ages about it,

but I'm no good at that sort of thing so I got The Irishman to do it.

 

DEL :

Oh Brendan? 

Oh well, you can't go far wrong with him Denzil.

He's a good man.

Here, did you hear about that house he did up in, where was it, Kings' Avenue.

He made a beautiful job of it 

so I hear.

Mind you I only saw it after the fire! 

Who's a pretty boy? 

He's a lovely boy ain't he! 

Is he yours Denzil? 

 

DENZIL :

No, he's Corinne's, she's had him for a few years - what fire? 

You mean the house burnt down? 

 

DEL :

Yeah, but don't get me wrong, it wasn't Brendan's fault! 

I mean, look, I know a lot of blokes who like a couple of pints at dinner time.

And it's very easy to forget where you left your blow-lamp! 

 

DENZIL :

So it was accidental then? 

 

DEL :

Oh yeah! It was an accident, 

even the coroner said so! 

 

DENZIL :

Coroner?? 

 

DEL :

Yeah.

 

DENZIL :

Right, that's it, I'm having no drunken Irishman 

falling about my living-room with a lighted blow-lamp!

No way.

 

DEL :

Oh my Gawd, oh I wish I hadn't said nothing now,

oh I feel really bad about this - you know what, with Brendan being a mate an' all! 

Look, never mind Denzil.

Look on the bright side, he might not burn your place down.

 

DENZIL :

Yeah, well I'm taking no chances Del, I'm getting somebody else to do the job! 

 

DEL :

Oh well.

Well, it's up to you.

I mean, as I always used to say to my customers

when I was in the painting and decorating game, I used to say

'It's your money, it's your choice.' 

 

DENZIL :

You never told me you used to be a painter and decorator? 

 

DEL :

Oh yeah, yeah, it's been the family trade for generations ain't it Rodney? 

 

RODNEY :

Eh?

Yeah.

 

DEL :

There you are, see.

But demand got too much, we had to give it up in the end.

 

DENZIL :

Listen, couldn't you just do this living room for us? 

 

DEL :

What this? 

Oh no, no, no, sorry mate, no, no, you know, we've given the game up now! 

 

DENZIL :

Oh come on Del!

Corinne's been bending my ear about it for ages.

Just this one room yeah? 

 

DEL :

No, no.

No, no, no, no, no, I'm sorry.

If I do it for you I've got to do it for all the others!

Haven't I? 

 

DENZIL :

Del, for a mate in trouble!

Please!

 

DEL :

Alright, just for you though! 

 

DENZIL :

Cheers Del, you're a pal! 

 

DEL :

I don't know.

I don't know what it is with you.

You manage to twist me right round your little finger, don't you? 

 

DENZIL :

When can you start? 

 

DEL :

First thing in the morning.

A hundred up front, we supply the paint and that's extra.

 

DENZIL :

Done.

 

DEL :

And you will be.

 

DENZIL :

I'll get some more drinks.

 

DEL :

Good, what about that Rodney, eh Rodney, nice little earner, eh? 

 

RODNEY :

I don't think I'm ever so white! 

 

DEL :

You are.

You look like a blood donor who couldn't say no! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

Hiya!

Hi hon.

Hello baby, have you missed me?

 

 Denzil!! 

What the hell is he doing in my home?? 

 

DEL :

Hello Corinne, you look as lovely as ever! 

 

DENZIL :

Del just popped in to say hi hon.

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

Did he really?

 

'Hello'.

 

There's the door!

'There's the door.' 

 

DEL :

She's a card ain't she! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

And what's he doing? 

 

RODNEY :

I want you to tell me the truth Corinne.

Am I white? 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

Denzil - have you and Rodney 

been at the funny fags? 

 

DENZIL :

No, honest hon, we haven't, 

we've just got some drinks that's all.

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

I go round my sister's to see how she is after having the stitches out,

and I come back to find my home full of.... crazy people! 

 

DENZIL :

Oh come on babe, be friendly! 

Del's gonna do the decorating for us! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

He's what?!

 

DENZIL :

Well, I blew the Irishman out, 

I mean I've heard bad things about him! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

Denzil, how can you trust this man? 

Every time you meet him 

you end up drunk or out of pocket? 

 

DENZIL :

Yeah I know, but he's a mate! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

Would a mate sell you an overcoat like the one he sold you? 

 

DEL :

Oh now, come on, be fair Corinne, 

that was a very nice overcoat,

looked like it was made to measure! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

Yeah, for the Hunchback of Notre Dame! 

And what about the time he offered to do the catering or us? 

 

DENZIL :

Oh don't bring that up honey please.

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

That was our wedding Denzil! 

 

What was it we were supposed to have Del? 

Lobster vol-au-vents, game pie, 

kidneys with saffron rice, 

beef and anchovy savouries! 

Philadelphia Truffles! 

 

And what did we end up with? 

Pie 'n' chips all round! 

 

DEL :

Now I explained all that Corinne, didn't I? 

The fridge went on the blink 

and all the goodies went manky! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

And what about our three-tier wedding cake? 

 

DEL :

Yeah, well, that was in the fridge 

with all the other gear! 

I mean the icing melted, 

it dripped everywhere! 

 

RODNEY :

Yeah, yeah, that's true Corinne, 

by the end of the week 

it looked like a big candle! 

 

DEL :

I thought you said she'd forgotten about all this! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

How can I forget it? 

I have to live with that wedding album the rest of my life.

How many times have you seen a picture of a bride and groom 

cutting a jam sponge? 

RODNEY :

Oh be fair, Corinne, be fair.

He only got that at the 11th hour, 

otherwise it could have been an eccles cake! 

 

CORINNE,

Wife of Denzil :

You want 'em to do the decorating then you let 'em.

 

But I promise you this Denzil —

 

If anything goes wrong

I'll make you wish your mother had had a headache the night you was conceived! 

 

[crash]

 

[something breaks]

 

DEL :

She's a little Treasure ain't she? 

 

Come on Rodney, let's leave the love-birds alone! 

Talking about birds, you just make sure that Buzzby's in the kitchen tomorrow 'cos of the paint fumes.

 

Leave the key under the mat! 

Cheer up Denzil, you know it makes sense!

 

Come on, let's get out of here.

That'll keep us out of trouble for a couple of days! 

 

Profiles in Mentorship : Hold Me

“When Yogananda describes the first sighting of his guru, to a westerner the sincerity of his adulation is almost obscene. 

We only love so wholeheartedly and uncynically in adolescence, or when we revisit that hormonal tundra in juvenile adulthood. 

I was in my own storm of idiocy, my own adolescence beaten thinly almost into middle age, on a trip with a woman who I blindly adored, who I had ill-advisedly appointed as a Custodian of My Heart – one last throw of the dice. 

We Who Look for God in Romance are Doomed. 

Your idol will fall and you will be too bereft to pick up the pieces.

After a disastrous holiday where the delusion we had impulsively projected shattered and left just the bare bones and broken hearts of us, I ran into Jimmy in an Indian airport. 

I knew Jimmy Mulville already, he works in TV and he doesn’t drink, like me. 

I’d once overheard him say, 

‘I wanted to live an autobiography, not a life,’ 

and instinctively plagiarised it in my own autobiography. 

He was with his wife and three of his four children navigating an airport. 

I was at the carousel with my paramour conducting an introduction with the stink of argument still on us. 

Later on in the flight, Jimmy ambled over and gave me a book he was reading, Robert Johnson’s Inner Gold – a Jungian account of mentorship, how we ‘give another our gold to carry or hold’. 

Gold in this metaphor being, I suppose, a symbol of Our Highest Self, Our Truest Intention, The Aspect of Us that is so beautiful it is too much for us to hold alone.”

“Asking someone to mentor you, as I have said, is a simultaneous acknowledgement of vulnerability and admiration, and even in the most secular and occidental context bears a trace of Yogananda’s euphoric sincerity. 

No one wants to be rejected by someone they admire and who knows they’re vulnerable. 

But after my holiday my old method of redemption through love was still giving me a good battering. 

If you’d asked me at the time what the problem was, I would have instantly blamed the woman I was going out with. 

Now I know the problem was my unreasonable, unconscious requirements.

I asked Jimmy for Help, 

He agreed to Help He. 

I told him about the melee that was my relationship and he was always able to ‘hold it’. 

Meaning that my problems never fazed him – 

The last thing you need when opening up your heart is for the person you’ve appointed to blanch or gag. 

He pointedly never offers unsolicited advice, instead meeting my enquiries with his own experience. 

There is a Great Power in this. 

Some of the things he has said landed as perfectly in my mind as the first maxim of his I plagiarized:

 

‘Being Human, is a ‘Me Too business, we’re all in the mud together’ 

or 

‘Next time you see the signpost that points in the direction of a destructive relationship, don’t go in that direction.”

“Perhaps Young Men like me go awry because 

nobody can hold them. 

I don’t mean embrace, I mean in a parental sense, like parentheses, to ‘bracket’ them, to stand as a dam either side of the wayward lash and unmovingly emit care. 

The only authority I ever knew was negative. 

Either inefficient or corrupt. 

This is the consequence of living with false ideals in a materialistic society. 

The authority that I give to Jimmy is sacred, I know he is flawed but I am not consulting with the flawed part of him I am consulting with the part of him that is willing in spite of his own numerous obligations, work, and family to provide loving counsel for free. 

I believe this relationship becomes a conduit for truth, divine truth. 

That needn’t mean it’s all chocolates and roses. 

There’s a fair amount of ‘suck it up’ and ‘face your fear’, but it is Truth. 

Perhaps we can take Truth to mean the timeless, the universal. 

Things that will not erode and fade, qualities I need to live the life I have moved into.”

Excerpt From

Mentors

Russell Brand

Enough With The Ego-Jerk

Hello, my Snoopys.

My Sigmunds.

My Howdy Doodys.

ACOLYTES: 

Hi, Daddy.

DAVID: 

Are you happy? 

I hope you're happy.

ELOISE: 

Happy, Daddy.

So happy.

DAVID :

Daddy had a hard day.

A bad day.

He made a big mess.

Are you mad at Daddy? 

ACOLYTES :

Hell no! 

LENNY: 

No, Daddy.

We're not mad.

But we got a little bit of a problem here with The Clock.

And I got a family to protect.

DAVID :

We've all got family.

We are family.

LENNY :

Dude, enough with the ego-jerk.

Okay? We all wanna sleep with you.

So stop with the boo-hoo and give me a plan.

DAVID: 

Careful.

LENNY :

Right, 'cause that's my specialty.

DAVID: 

Just use a different tone, okay? 

Be nice.

I need you to be nice, 

or I can't be nice.

LENNY :

Shit.

I don't want you to be nice.

I want you to get mad.

Yeah, I want you to use your almighty powers to save our asses, okay? 

So chop-chop, mama's boy.

Get to work.

DAVID: 

Well, all right.

Look at us talking.

Working things out.

You want honest? Here's honest.

I'm gonna fix this.

Whatever it takes.

Whatever the universe throws at me.

Division 3, time demons.

Send them all.

I'll slay 'em all.

'Cause this is my time.

This is David's time.

And he's got things to do, so Switch? 

Switch.

How are you? Are you okay? 

SWITCH :

I lost another tooth.

When we were in there.

DAVID: 

Yeah, it really takes its toll, huh? Here's the thing.

I'm gonna need you to take me back.

Not far.

SWITCH :

I don't I don't think I can do another  -

DAVID: 

You're not gonna lose any more teeth, okay? 

SWITCH :

I can feel them all loosening.

DAVID: 

Just show me where these things are so that I can -

SWITCH :

And the more we go back, the more doors we open, the more agitated they'll become.

They'll swarm out, like wasps, and pretty soon - everything - 

DAVID: 

Do I have to force you to -[DISTORTED GIGGLING.]

SWITCH :

What did you just say to me? 

DAVID: 

I said I am The Alpha and The Omega.

I eat monsters for breakfast.

Find The Pregnant Virgin

BILL MOYERS: What about the virgin birth? Suddenly the goddess reappears in the form of the chaste and pure vessel chosen for God’s action.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, in the history of Western religions, this is an extremely interesting development. The virgin birth comes in by way of the Greek tradition. When you read your four gospels, the only one with the virgin birth in it is the gospel according to Luke, and Luke was a Greek.

BILL MOYERS: And there was in the Greek tradition images, legends, myths of virgin births?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: All of them. I mean, Leda and the swan, and Persephone and the serpent, and this one and that one and the other one. The virgin birth is represented throughout.

BILL MOYERS: This was not a new idea, then, in Bethlehem and…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: No. What is the meaning of the virgin birth? In India, there is this system of the kundalini, as it’s called, the idea of the centers, psychological centers up the spine. And they represent the psychological planes of concern and consciousness and action. The first is at the rectum, and this is that of alimentation. The serpent represents this, you know, a traveling esophagus going along just eating, eating, eating, eating. And all of us are — we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t eating. And then the second, the second center is at the sex organ center, and that’s the urge to procreation. The third center’s called, is at the navel, and this is where you eat and want to consume. And it’s not the alimentary eating, it’s the mastering and smashing and trashing of others, do you see? This is the aggressive mood.

Now, the first is an animal instinct, the second is an animal instinct, the third is an animal instinct, and these three centers are located in the pelvic base, do you see. The next one is at the level of the heart, and this is the opening of compassion. And there you move out of the field of animal action into a field that is properly human and spiritual. Now, in each of these centers there is a symbolic form. At the base, the first one, there is the form of the lingam and yeni, the male and female organs in conjunction. At the heart chakra, there is again the male and female organs in conjunction, but in gold. This is the virgin birth. It’s the birth of spiritual man out of the animal man. Do you understand?

BILL MOYERS: And it happens?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: When you are awakened at the level of the heart to compassion and to suffering with the other person. That’s the beginning of humanity. And the meditations of religion properly are on that level, the heart level.

BILL MOYERS: You say it’s the beginning of humanity, but in these Stories, that’s the moment when gods are born, the virgin birth, it’s a god who emerges from that chemistry.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah, and you know who that god is? It’s you. All of these symbols in mythology refer to you. You can get stuck out there and think it’s all out there, and so you’re thinking of Jesus and all the sentiments about how he suffered and all; what that suffering is, is what ought to be going on in you. Have you been reborn? Have you died to your animal nature and come to life as a human incarnation?

BILL MOYERS: Why is it significant that this is of a virgin?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, it is that the begetter is the spirit. It is a spiritual birth. The virgin conceived of the Word, through the ear.

BILL MOYERS: The Word came like a shaft of light.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes. And now, the Buddha was born from his mother’s side, at the level of the heart chakra. 

That’s a symbolic birth; he wasn’t born from his mother’s side, but symbolically he was.

BILL MOYERS: 

But the Christ came the way you and I come.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yes, but of a virgin.

BILL MOYERS: 

Which is a power greater than…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

And then, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, her virginity was restored. So nothing happened physically, you might say. It’s not a physical birth. It’s symbolic of a spiritual transformation, that’s what the virgin birth is about. And so deities are born that way who represent beings who act in terms of compassion, and not in terms of the lower three centers.

BILL MOYERS: If you go back into antiquity, do you find images of the Madonna as the mother of the savior child?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, what you have as the model for the Madonna actually is Isis, with her child Horus at her breast. This was the actual model for the Madonna symbol.

BILL MOYERS: Isis? Tell me that story.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: This is a prime myth in this period of the Goddess as the redeemer, the one who goes in quest of the lost spouse or lover, and through her loyalty and descent into the realm of death, recovers him. Isis and her husband Osiris were twins who were born of the goddess Nut. And their younger relatives were Seth and Nephthys, who were also twins born from Nut. Seth planned to kill his brother Osiris, and he took Osiris measurements secretly and had a wonderful sarcophagus built that would exactly fit Osiris. So there was a hilarious party in progress one time among the gods, and Seth trots in this sarcophagus, and he says, “Anyone whom this perfectly fits can have it as his sarcophagus.” And everybody at the party tried, and when Osiris got in, of course he perfectly fit. Just at that time, 72 accomplices come rushing out and they clap the lid on, strap it together and throw it in the Nile.

Now, this is the death of the god. Whenever you have a death of an incarnation, a god like this, you’re going to have a resurrection, you can wait for that. So he goes floating down the Nile and is washed ashore in Syria. And a beautiful tree grows up and incorporates the sarcophagus in its own trunk. So this is this wonderful tree with a glorious aroma. And the local king has just had a son born to him, and he is also at the same time going to build a palace. The aroma of this tree is so wonderful, he cuts it down and brings it in to be a central pillar in the main room of the palace.

Poor little Isis, whose husband has been thrown into the Nile, starts this wonderful quest for Osiris, So she comes to the place where the palace is, and learns of the wonderful aroma and she suspects this is Osiris. And she gets a job as nurse to the just-born little child. Well, she lets the child nurse from her finger. And she loves the little child, and she decides to give it immortality. So she does this by placing him in the fireplace in the fire, to burn away gradually his mortal body. But being a goddess she could keep that from killing him, you understand. And when that would happen, she would convert herself into a swallow, and fly mournfully around the pillar where her husband is.

Well, one evening the child’s mother came in to this room while this scene was in progress, saw her child in the fireplace, let out a scream, and that broke the spell, and they had to rescue the child from incineration. Meanwhile the swallow had turned into this gorgeous nurse, Isis, and the nurse gave an explanation of the situation, and she said, “By the way, it’s my husband that’s in that pillar there, and I’d he grateful if you could just let me take it home.” So the king came in and he said, “Certainly.” So he removes the pillar, gives it to Isis and it’s put on a barge. So on the way back to the Nile, she removes the lid, the cover of the sarcophagus and lies on top of her dead spouse and conceives of her dead spouse this is an image that occurs in Egyptian art all the time, out of death comes life and all this kind of business and when they land she in the papyrus swamp gives birth to her child Horus with the dead Osiris beside her.

This is the motif for the Madonna, actually, it becomes the Madonna. In Egyptian symbology, Isis represents the throne, the Pharaoh sits on the throne of Isis, as the child sits on the mother lap. And when you look in the cathedral of Chartres in the west portal, you will see the Madonna as the throne with the little child Jesus as the world emperor on her lap: That is the same image that’s come over.

BILL MOYERS: And you say the Christian fathers took this image?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Definitely, and they really say so. You read the second letter of Peter, and he says those forms which were merely mythological forms in the past, are now incarnate and actual in our savior. There was a mythology of the savior, the dead and resurrected god, and it’s associated with the moon, which dies and is resurrected every month. And you have the three nights dark, and you have Christ three nights in the tomb, and three days in the tomb, and all this kind of thing. It’s an intentional saying, that which was merely talked about is now fact. And no one knows what the date of Christmas ought to be, but it’s put on the date of the winter solstice, when the nights begin to be shorter and the days longer, the birth of light. And so there is an idea of death to the past and birth to the future in our lives and in our thinking all the time. Death to the animal nature, birth to the spiritual, and these symbols are talking about it one way or another.

BILL MOYERS: So when the…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And the goddess is the one who brings it about. The second birth is through the second mother. Notre Dame de Paris, Notre Dame de Chartres, our mother church, we are reborn by entering and leaving a church.

BILL MOYERS: And it doesn’t mean physically, it means…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Spiritually.

BILL MOYERS: That there’s a power that’s unique to the feminine principle.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It can be put that way. You can… it’s not necessarily unique to her, you can have rebirth through the male, also. But using this system of symbols, the woman becomes the regenerator.

BILL MOYERS: There’s that wonderful saying in the New Testament of Jesus. “In Jesus there is no male or female.” In the ultimate sense of things there is neither.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: That would have to be. I mean, if Jesus represents the source of our being, we are all as it were thoughts in the mind of Jesus. He is the word that has become flesh in us, too.

BILL MOYERS: You and I would possess characteristics that are both male and female.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, actually the body does, And in that Yin-Yang figure from China, you know, in the dark fish or whatever you want to call it, there’s a light spot and in the light one there’s a dark spot. That’s how they can relate; you couldn’t relate at all to something that, of which you did not participate, into which you did not participate at all. That’s why the idea of God as the absolute other is a ridiculous idea, there could be no relationship to that which is absolute other.

BILL MOYERS: The question arises, in discussing the male-female principle, the virgin birth, the spiritual power that gives us the second birth. The wise people of all time have said that we can live the good life if we learn in fact to live spiritually. But how does one learn to live spiritually when one is of the flesh? Remember, Paul said, “the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh.” How do we learn to live spiritually?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that was the in ancient times and in primitive times, the business of the teacher. He was to give you the clues to a spiritual life, that was what the priest was for. Also, that was what the ritual was for. A ritual can be defined as an enactment of a myth, by participating in a good, sound ritual, you are actually experiencing a mythological life. And it’s out of that that one can learn to live spiritually.

BILL MOYERS: These stories of mythology actually point the way to the spiritual life.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes. You’ve got to have a clue. You’ve got to have a road map of some kind, and these are all around us. They’re here.

BILL MOYERS: And the road map to which the goddess stories are pointing is the map of elevating the spiritual to an equality with the physical, so that you live in union with those two.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes. There you’ve come to the real sanctity of the earth itself, because that is the body of the goddess. When Yahweh creates, he creates the earth and breathes his life into it. He’s not there, she’s there. Your body is her body. And there’s that kind of identity.

BILL MOYERS: Well, that’s why I’m not so sure that the future of the race and the salvation of the journey is in space. I think it is well right here on earth in the body, in the womb of all of our being.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, it certainly is. I mean, when you go out into space what you’re carrying is your body and if that hasn’t been transformed, space won’t transform it for you. But thinking about space may help you to realize something.

BILL MOYERS: You certainly thought about space in this wonderful passage. You were describing a page out of the National Geographic Atlas of the World, but you read this and something happened to you.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: “What these pages opened to me was the vision of a universe of unimaginable magnitude and inconceivable violence. Billions upon billions, literally, of roaring thermonuclear furnaces scattering from each other, each thermonuclear furnace being a star and our sun among them. Many of them actually blowing themselves to pieces, littering the outermost reaches of space with dust and gas, out of which new stars with circling planets are being born right now. And then from still more remote distances beyond all these there come murmurs, microwaves, which are echoes of the greatest cataclysmic explosion of all, namely, the Big Bang of creation, which, according to recent reckonings, must have occurred some 18 billion years ago.”

That’s where we are, kiddo. And if you realized that, you realize how really important you are, you know, one little microbit in this great magnitude. And then out of that must come the experience that you and that are in some sense one, and that you partake of all of that

BILL MOYERS: And it begins here.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: It begins here.

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.

I Was an ARTIST, Stupid...!!

BILL MOYERS: 

So the courage to love became the courage to affirm against tradition, whatever knowledge stands confirmed in one’s own experience.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: 

Why was that important in the evolution of the West?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, it was important in that it gives the West this accent, as I’ve been saying, on the individual, that he should have faith in his experience, and not simply mouth terms that have come to him from other mouths. I think that’s the great thing in the West. The validity of the individual’s experience of what humanity is, what life is, what values are, against the monolithic system.

BILL MOYERS:

Was there some of this in the legend of the Holy Grail?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL:

 Yes. Wolfram has a very interesting statement about the origin of the Grail. 

He says the Grail was brought from heaven by the neutral angels. 

There was the war in heaven between God and Lucifer, and the angelic hosts that sided one group with Lucifer, and the other with God. Pair of opposites, good and evil, God and Satan. 

The Grail was brought down through the middle, the way of the middle, by the neutral angels.

BILL MOYERS: 

What is the Grail representing, then?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, the Grail becomes the, what we call it, that which is attained and realized by people who have lived their own lives. So the story very briefly is of this — I’m giving it now as Wolfram gives it — but this is just one version. The Grail King was a lovely young man, but he had not earned that position. And the Grail represents the fulfillment of the highest spiritual potentialities of the human consciousness. And he was a lovely young man, and he rode forth from his castle with the war cry, “Amor!” And as he’s riding forth, a Moslem, a pagan warrior, a Mohammedan warrior, comes out of the woods, a knight. And they both level their lances at each other, they drive at each other, and the lance of the grail king kills the Mohammedan, but the Mohammedan lance castrates the Grail King.

What that means is that the Christian separation of matter and spirit, of the dynamism of life and the spiritual, natural grace and supernatural grace, has really castrated nature. And the European mind, the European life, has been as it were, emasculated by this; true spirituality, which would have come from this, has been killed. And then what did the pagan represent? He was a person from the suburbs of Eden. He was regarded as a nature man, and on the head of his lance was written the word, “Grail.” 

That is to say, nature intends the grail. Spiritual life is the bouquet of natural life, not a supernatural thing imposed upon it. 

And so the impulses of nature are what give authenticity to life, not obeying rules come from a supernatural authority, that’s the sense of the Grail.

BILL MOYERS: 

And the Grail that these romantic legends were searching for is the union once again of what had been divided? 

The peace that comes from joining?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

The grail becomes symbolic of an authentic life that has lived in terms of its own volition, in terms of its own impulse system, which carries it between the pairs of opposites, of good and evil, light and dark. Wolfram starts his epic with a short poem saying, “Every act has both good and evil results.” Every act in life yields pairs of opposites in its results. The best we can do is lean toward the light, that is to say, intend the light, and what the light is, is that of the harmonious relationships that come from compassion, with suffering, understanding of the other person. This is what the Grail is about.

BILL MOYERS: 

When we say God is love, does that have anything to do with romantic love? Does mythology ever link romantic love and God?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that’s what it did do. Love was a divine visitation, and that’s why it was superior to marriage. That was the troubadour idea. If God is love, well, then, love is God, okay.

BILL MOYERS: There’s that wonderful passage in Corinthians by Paul, where he says “Love beareth all things, endureth all things.”

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, that’s the same business. Love knows no pain.

BILL MOYERS: And yet, one of my favorite stories of mythology is out of Persia, where there is the idea that Lucifer was condemned to hell because he loved God so much.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah, and that’s a basic Muslim idea, about Iblis, that’s the Muslim name for Satan, being God’s greatest lover. Why was Satan thrown into hell? Well, the standard Story is that when God created the angels, he told them to bow to none but himself. Then he created man, whom he regarded as a higher form than the angels, and he asked the angels then to serve man. And Satan would not bow to man. Now, this is interpreted in the Christian tradition, as I recall from my boyhood instruction, as being the egotism of Satan, he would not bow to man. But in this view, he could not bow to man, because of his love for God, he could bow only to God. And then God says, “Get out of my sight.” Now, the worst of the pains of hell insofar as hell has been described is the absence of the beloved, which is God. So how does Iblis sustain the situation in hell? By the memory of the echo of God’s voice when God said, “Go to hell.” And I think that’s a great sign of love, do you agree?

BILL MOYERS: Well, it’s certainly true in life that the greatest hell one can know is to be separated from the one you love.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: That’s why I’ve liked the Persian myth for so long. Satan as God’s lover.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yeah. And he is separated from God, and that’s the real pain of Satan.

BILL MOYERS: You once took the saying of Jesus. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven, for he makes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” You once took that to be the highest, the noblest, the boldest of the Christian teachings. Do you still feel that way?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I think the main teaching of Christianity is, “Love your enemies.”

BILL MOYERS: Hard to do.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: I know, well, that’s it — I mean, when Peter drew his sword and cut off the servant’s ear there, in the Gethsemane affair, and Jesus said, “Put up your sword, Peter,” and put the ear back on, Peter has been drawing his sword ever since. And one can speak about Petrine or Christian Christianity in that sense. And I would say that the main doctrine of Christianity is the doctrine of Agape, of true love for he who is yours, him who is your enemy.

BILL MOYERS: How does one love one’s enemy without condoning what the enemy does, accepting his aggression?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Well, I’ll tell you how to do that. “Do not pluck the mole from your enemy’s eye, but pluck the beam from your own,” do you know?

Now, I have a friend whom I met by chance, a young Buddhist monk from Tibet. You know, in 1959 the Communists crashed down and bombed the palace of the Dalai Lama, bombarded Lhasa, and people murdered and all that kind of thing. And he escaped, he escaped at the time of the Dalai Lama. And those monasteries, I mean, there were monasteries with 5,000 monks, 6,000 monks, all wiped out, tortured and everything else. I haven’t heard one word of incrimination of the Chinese from that young man. There is absolutely no condemnation of the Chinese here. And you hear this from the Dalai Lama himself. You will not hear a word of condemnation. This recognition of the way of life through which that vitality of the spirit is moving in its own way. I mean, these men are sufferers of terrific violence, and there’s no animosity. I learned religion from them.

Profiles in Mentorship : The Wise and Tutored Inner-You

“‘Don’t kill yourself trying to impress strangers, Russell, it’s not 1999,’ 

says some wise and tutored inner-me.”

Excerpt From

Mentors

Russell Brand

The Power Plant Systems Manager for Recycling Operations

(Limbo Ave. train station)

Sati: 

Are you from the Matrix?

Neo: 

Yes. No. 

I mean, I was.

Sati: 

Why did you leave?

Neo: 

I had to.

Sati: 

I had to leave my home too.

Rama-Kandra: 

Sati! Come here, darling. 

Leave the poor man in peace.

Sati: 

Yes, papa.

Rama-Kandra: 

I’m sorry, she is still very curious.

Neo: 

I know you.

Rama-Kandra: 

Yes, in the restaurant of the Frenchman. I am Rama-Kandra. 

This is my wife Kamala, my daughter Sati. 

We are most honoured to meet you.

Neo: 

You’re programs.

Rama-Kandra: 

Oh, yes. 

I’m the power plant systems manager for recycling operations. 

My wife is an interactive software programmer, she is highly creative.

Kamala: 

What are you doing here? You do not belong here.

Rama-Kandra: 

Kamala! Goodness, I apologize. 

My wife can be very direct.

Neo: 

It’s okay. I don’t have an answer. 

I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.

Rama-Kandra: 

This place is nowhere. 

It is between your world and our world.

Neo: 

Who’s the Trainman?

Rama-Kandra: 

He works for the Frenchman.

Neo: 

Why’d I know you were going to say that?

Rama-Kandra: 

The Frenchman does not forget 

and he does not forgive.

Neo: 

You know him?

Rama-Kandra: 

I know only what I need to know. 

I know that if you want to take something from our world into your world that does not belong there, you must go to the Frenchman.

Neo: 

Is that what you’re doing here?

Kamala: Rama, please!

Rama-Kandra: 

I do not want to be cruel, Kamala. 

He may never see another face for the rest of his life.

Neo: 

I’m sorry. 

You don’t have to answer that question.

Rama-Kandra: 

No. I don’t mind. 

The answer is simple. 

I love my daughter very much. 

I find her to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. 

But where we are from, that is not enough. 

Every program that is created must have a purpose; if it does not, it is deleted. 

I went to the Frenchman to save my daughter. 

You do not understand.

Neo: 

I just have never…

Rama-Kandra: 

…heard a program speak of love?

Neo: 

It’s a… human emotion.

Rama-Kandra: 

No, it is a word. 

What matters is the connection the word implies. 

I see that you are in love. 

Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?

Neo: 

Anything.

Rama-Kandra: 

Then perhaps the reason you’re Here is not so different from the reason I’m Here.