Sunday 2 May 2021

Whenever One Move Out of The Transcendent, One Comes into a Field of Opposites.



“This, am I.”



JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Whenever one moves out of 

The Transcendent

one comes into 


A Field of Opposites


These Two,

Pairs of Opposites 

come forth as 

Male and Female 

from the two sides. 


What has eaten of 

The Tree of The Knowledge

not only of good and evil

but of male and female

of right and wrong

of this and that

and light and dark


Everything in The Field of Time is Dual

past and future

dead and alive. 


All This, 

being and nonbeing

is, isn’t.


BILL MOYERS: 

And what’s the significance 

of them being beside 

The Mask of God, 

The Mask of Eternity? 


What is this sculpture 

saying to us?


JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 


The Mask 

represents 

The Middle

and 

The Two 

represent 

The Two Opposites

and 

They ALWAYS 

Come in Pairs


And —

Put Your Mind 

in The Middle.


Most of us put 

Our Minds on 

The Side of The Good 

against 

What We Think of as ‘Evil’


It was Heraclitus, 

I think, who said, 

For God, all things are 

Good and Right and Just

but for Man, some things are

Right and others are not.” 


You’re in The Field of Time 

when you’re Man, 

and one of 

The Problems of Life 

is to 

Live in the realisation of

 both terms. 


That is to say, 

“I know 

The Centre 

and I know that 

Good and Evil 

are simply 

temporal apparitions.”


BILL MOYERS: 

Well, are some myths 

More or Less 

True than others?


JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

They’re True in 

different sensesdo you see? 


Here’s a whole mythology 

based on 

The Insight That 

Transcends Duality. 


Ours is a mythology that’s based on The Insight of Duality


And so, 

Our Religion tends to be 

ethical in its accent, 

Sin and Atonement

Right and Wrong


It started with a sin, you see. 


In other words, moving out of the mythological zone, the garden of paradise where there is no time, and where men and women don’t even know that they’re different from each other, there the two are just creatures. And God and man are practically the same: “He walks in the cool of the evening in the garden where we are.” And then they eat the apple, the knowledge of the pairs of opposites, and man and woman then cover their shame, that they’re different; God and man, they’re different; man and nature, as against man.


“You get a totally different civilization, a totally different way of living according to your myth 

as to whether Nature is fallen 

or whether Nature is itself a manifestation of Divinity, 

and The Spirit being the revelation of The Divinity That’s Inherent in Nature.” 


— Joseph Campbell


I once heard a wonderful lecture by Daisetz Suzuki

you remember, this wonderful old 

Zen philosopher, who was over here. 


He was in his 90s. 

He started to lecture in Switzerland that I heard in Ascona. 


He stood up with his hands on his side, and he said, 


God against Man —

Man against God —

Man against Nature —

Nature against Man —

Nature against God —

God against Nature —


Very funny religion.....”


Now, in the other mythologies, 

One puts Oneself 

in accord with The World. 


If The World is a mixture 

of Good and Evil

you do not put yourself 

in accord with it. 


You Identify with The Good 

and 

You Fight against The Evil, 

and this is a religious system 

which belongs to 

The Near East, following Zarathustra’s time. 


It’s in the Biblical Tradition

all the way, in Christianity 

and in Islam as well. 


This business of 

not being with Nature, 

and we speak with sort of derogation of 

The Nature Religions.”


You see, with that 

Fall in The Garden

Nature was regarded as corrupt


There’s a Myth for you that 

Corrupts The Whole World for Us. 



And every Spontaneous Act is Sinful

Because Nature is Corrupt 

and 

Has to be Corrected, 

Must not be yielded-to


You get 

A Totally Different Civilisation, 

a totally different way of living 

according to your myth as to whether 

Nature is Fallen or whether Nature is itself 

A manifestation of divinity

and The spirit being the revelation of the divinity that’s inherent in nature.


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