Myths to Live By

by Joseph Campbell

Today the same thing is happening to us. With our old mythologically founded taboos unsettled by our own modern sciences, there is everywhere in the civilized world a rapidly rising incidence of vice and crime, mental disorders, suicides and dope addictions, shattered homes, impudent children, violence, murder, and despair.

And one can readily understand, even share in some measure, their anxiety, since lies are what the world lives on, and those who can face the challenge of a truth and build their lives to accord are finally not many, but the very few.

Myths, according to Freud’s view, are of the psychological order of dream. Myths, so to say, are public dreams; dreams are private myths.

Our outward-oriented consciousness, addressed to the demands of the day, may lose touch with these inward forces; and the myths, states Jung, when correctly read, are the means to bring us back in touch. They are telling us in picture language of powers of the psyche to be recognized and integrated in our lives, powers that have been common to the human spirit forever, and which represent that wisdom of the species by which man has weathered the millenniums.

And if one should ask why or how any such unsubstantial impulsion ever should have become dominant in the ordering of physical life, the answer is that, in this wonderful human brain of ours there has dawned a realization unknown to the other primates. It is that of the individual, conscious of himself as such, and aware that he, and all that he cares for, will one day die.

In every one of the mythological systems that in the long course of history and prehistory have been propagated in the various zones and quarters of this earth, these two fundamental realizations—of the inevitability of individual death and the endurance of the social order—have been combined symbolically and constitute the nuclear structuring force of the rites and, thereby, the society.

They are telling us, therefore, of matters fundamental to ourselves, enduring essential principles about which it would be good for us to know; about which, in fact, it will be necessary for us to know if our conscious minds are to be kept in touch with our own most secret, motivating depths. In short, these holy tales and their images are messages to the conscious mind from quarters of the spirit unknown to normal daylight consciousness, and if read as referring to events in the field of space and time—whether of the future, present, or past—they will have been misread and their force deflected, some secondary thing outside then taking to itself the reference of the symbol, some sanctified stick, stone, or animal, person, event, city, or social group.

Its name, Eden, signifies in Hebrew “delight, a place of delight,” and our own English word, Paradise, which is from the Persian, pairi-, “around,” daeza, “a wall,” means properly “a walled enclosure.” Apparently, then, Eden is a walled garden of delight, and in its center stands the great tree; or rather, in its center stand two trees, the one of the knowledge of good and evil, the other of immortal life. Four rivers flow, furthermore, from within it as from an inexhaustible source, to refresh the world in the four directions. And when our first parents, having eaten the fruit, were driven forth, two cherubim were stationed (as we have heard) at its eastern gate, to guard the way of return.

Taken as referring not to any geographical scene, but to a landscape of the soul, that Garden of Eden would have to be within us. Yet our conscious minds are unable to enter it and enjoy there the taste of eternal life, since we have already tasted of the knowledge of good and evil. That, in fact, must then be the knowledge that has thrown us out of the garden, pitched us away from our own center, so that we now judge things in those terms and experience only good and evil instead of eternal life—which, since the enclosed garden is within us, must already be ours, even though unknown to our conscious personalities. That would seem to be the meaning of the myth when read, not as prehistory, but as referring to man’s inward spiritual state.

Our senses, outward-directed to the world of space and time, have attached us to that world and to our mortal bodies within it. We are loath to give up what we take to be the goods and pleasures of this physical life, and this attachment is the great fact, the great circumstance or barrier, that is keeping us out of the garden. This, and this alone, is preventing us from recognizing within ourselves that immortal and universal consciousness of which our physical senses, outward-turned, are but the agents.

But is that not the lesson, finally, of the Bible story as well? Eve and then Adam ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, which is to say, of the pairs-of-opposites, and immediately experienced themselves as different from each other and felt shame. God, therefore, no more than confirmed what already had been accomplished when he drove them from the garden to experience the pains of death and birth and of toil for the goods of this world.

But as we are told also in the Bible legend, it would actually have been possible for Adam to “put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” And in the Christian image of the crucified redeemer that is exactly what we are being asked to do. The teaching here is that Christ restored to man immortality.

And just as the Buddha, five hundred years before, had left behind all ego-oriented desires and fears to come to know himself as the pure, immortal Void, so the Western Savior left his body nailed to the tree and passed in spirit to atonement—at- one-ment—with the Father: to be followed now by ourselves.

And what one may learn from them all, finally, is that the savior, the hero, the redeemed one, is the one who has learned to penetrate the protective wall of those fears within, which exclude the rest of us, generally, in our daylight and even our dreamnight thoughts, from all experience of our own and the world’s divine ground.

For there is indeed a life everlasting, a dimension of enduring human values that inheres in the very act of living itself, and in the simultaneous experience and expression of which men through all time have lived and died.

So much, then, for the mythic world of the primitive hunters. Dwelling mainly on great grazing lands, where the spectacle of nature is of a broadly spreading earth covered over by an azure dome touching down on distant horizons and the dominant image of life is of animal societies moving about in that spacious room, those nomadic tribes, living by killing, have been generally of a warlike character. Supported and protected by the hunting skills and battle courage of their males, they are dominated necessarily by a masculine psychology, male-oriented mythology, and appreciation of individual valor.

The first requirement of any society is that its adult membership should realize and represent the fact that it is they who constitute its life and being. And the first function of the rites of puberty, accordingly, must be to establish in the individual a system of sentiments that will be appropriate to the society in which he is to live, and on which that society itself must depend for its existence.

Every adult in such a context could—in terms at least of the local cultural model—become a total human being.

In these there were clearly distinguished governing and serving castes, wonderfully skilled specialist craftsmen, priestly orders, trading people, and so on; so that no one now could possibly hope to become a total human being. Each was but a part man.

To become—in Jung’s terms—individuated, to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one’s various life roles. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” and when at home, do not keep on the mask of the role you play in the Senate chamber. But this, finally, is not easy, since some of the masks cut deep. They include judgment and moral values. They include one’s pride, ambition, and achievement. They include one’s infatuations. It is a common thing to be overly impressed by and attached to masks, either some mask of one’s own or the mana-masks of others. The work of individuation, however, demands

The aim of individuation requires that one should find and then learn to live out of one’s own center, in control of one’s for and against. And this cannot be achieved by enacting and responding to any general masquerade of fixed roles. For, as Jung has stated: “In the last analysis, every life is the realization of a whole, that is, of a self, for which reason this realization can be called ‘individuation.’

In short, the principles of ego, free thought, free will, and self-responsibile action are in those societies abhorred and rejected as antithetical to all that is natural, good, and true; so that the ideal of individuation, which in Jung’s view is the ideal of psychological health and of an adult life fulfilled, is in the Orient simply unknown.

The philosophies of India have been classified by the native teachers in four categories, according to the ends of life that they serve, i.e., the four aims for which men strive in this world. The first is dharma, “duty, virtue,” of which I have just spoken, and which, as we have seen, is defined for each by his place in the social order. The second and third are of nature and are the aims to which all living things are naturally impelled: success or achievement, self-aggrandizement, which is called in Sanskrit artha; and sensual delight or pleasure, known as kāma. These latter two correspond to the aims of what Freud has called the id. They are expressions of the primary biological motives of the psyche, the simple “I want” of one’s animal nature; whereas the principle of dharma, impressed on each by his society, corresponds to what Freud has called superego, the cultural “Thou shalt!” In the Indian society one’s pleasures and successes are to be aimed for and achieved under the ceiling (so to say) of one’s dharma: “Thou shalt!” supervising “I want!” And when mid-life has been attained, with all the duties of life fulfilled, one departs (if a male) to the forest, to some hermitage, to wipe out through yoga every last least trace of “I want!” and, with that, every echo also of “Thou shalt!” Whereupon the fourth goal, the fourth and final end of life, will have been attained, which is known as mokṣa , absolute “release” or “freedom”: not “freedom,” however, as we think of i...

In the Orient the guiding ideal is that each should realize that he himself and all others are of the one substance of that universal Being of beings which is, in fact, the same Self in all. Hence the typical aim of an Oriental religion is that one should experience and realize in life one’s identity with that Being; whereas in the West, following our Bible, the ideal is, rather, to become engaged in a relationship with that absolutely other Person who is one’s Maker, apart and “out there,” in no sense one’s innermost Self.

the lesson here to be learned being that “human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love [according to its three kinds]... And if we are friends of God and reconciled to him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world”; whereas, “if we are not obedient to the gods there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo.”

Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West. Other writings of uncertain import were also appearing in those happy years, from unexpected quarters: Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, James Joyce’s Ulysses, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, and T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.”

In fact, the famous conflict of science and religion has actually nothing to do with religion, but is simply of two sciences: that of 4000 B.C. and that of A.D. 2000.

A ritual is an organization of mythological symbols; and by participating in the drama of the rite one is brought directly in touch with these, not as verbal reports of historic events, either past, present, or to be, but as revelations, here and now, of what is always and forever. Where the synagogues and churches go wrong is by telling what their symbols “mean.” The value of an effective rite is that it leaves everyone to his own thoughts, which dogma and definitions only confuse. Dogma and definitions rationally insisted upon are inevitably hindrances, not aids, to religious meditation, since no one’s sense of the presence of God can be anything more than a function of his own spiritual capacity. Having your image of God—the most intimate, hidden mystery of your life—defined for you in terms contrived by some council of bishops back, say, in the fifth century or so: what good is that? But a contemplation of the crucifix works; the odor of incense works; so do, also, hieratic attires, the tones of well-sung Gregorian chants, intoned and mumbled Introits, Kyries, heard and unheard consecrations.

To that which is born, death is certain; to that which is dead, birth is certain: be not afflicted by the unavoidable. As a noble whose duty it is to protect the law, refusing to fight this righteous war you will forfeit both virtue and honor. Your proper concern is alone the action of duty, not the fruits of the action. Cast then away all desire and fear for the fruits, and perform your duty.16

Ask an artist what his picture “means,” and you will not soon ask such a question again. Significant images render insights beyond speech, beyond the kinds of meaning speech defines. And if they do not speak to you, that is because you are not ready for them, and words will only serve to make you think you have understood, thus cutting you off altogether. You don’t ask what a dance means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what the world means, you enjoy it. You don’t ask what you mean, you enjoy yourself; or at least, so you do when you are up to snuff.

The obvious lesson of all of which is that the first step to the knowledge of the highest divine symbol of the wonder and mystery of life is in the recognition of the monstrous nature of life and its glory in that character: the realization that this is just how it is and that it cannot and will not be changed. Those who think—and their name is legion—that they know how the universe could have been better than it is, how it would have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without life, are unfit for illumination. Or those who think—as do many—“Let me first correct society, then get around to myself” are barred from even the outer gate of the mansion of God’s peace. All societies are evil, sorrowful, inequitable; and so they will always be. So if you really want to help this world, what you will have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not himself learned how to live in it in the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is. That is the meaning of the monstrous Kīrtimukha, “Face of Glory,” over the entrances to the sanctuaries of the god of yoga, whose bride is the goddess of life. No one can know this god and goddess who will not bow to that mask in reverence and pass humbly through.

“The Tao is close at hand, yet people seek it afar,” is an old saying of the Chinese philosopher Mencius.

I am told that in the old days a young person desiring to learn swordsmanship in Japan would be left by the master largely unattended for a time, doing chores about the school, washing dishes, and so on; and every now and again the master himself would come popping out from somewhere and give him a smack with a stick. After a season of that sort of thing, the victim will have begun to be prepared. But that will be of no use to him, either; for when ready for the blow to come at him, say, from over there, he will get it from back here; and next, from nowhere at all. At last the baffled youth will arrive at the realization that he will do best not to ready himself in any specific direction, because if one has a notion of where the danger may be lurking, he will be attentive in the wrong direction. The only protection, then, is to be in a perpetual state of centeredness in undirected alertness, every ready for sudden attack and immediate response.

The sin of inadvertence—not being alert, not quite awake—is the sin of missing the moment of life; whereas the whole of the art of the non-action that is action (wu-wei) is unremitting alertness. One is then fully conscious all the time, and since life is an expression of consciousness, life is then lived, as it were, of itself. There is no need to instruct it or direct it. Of itself it moves. Of itself it lives. Of itself it speaks and acts.

In all living and working, as in all the crafts, the highest concern, the required aim, was to be in the perfection of the work—which is just the opposite (is it not?) from the contemporary union ideal of how much one is to be paid for it and how short the hours are to be.

Hence it is, that although the Japanese and Chinese ideograms for the concept “freedom” (Japanese jiyū ; Chinese ziyou) are exactly the same in form, the Chinese by implication means liberation from the human nexus, but the Japanese, compliance with the same through willing devotion to secular activities:7 on one hand, freedom away from society, under the great vault of the skies, on the misty mountaintop, picking mushrooms (”No one knows where I am!”); and on the other hand, freedom within the undeniable bonds of the given world, the social order in which, and to the ends of which, one has been raised. Remaining within that field, one yet experiences and achieves “freedom” by bringing to it the full consent and force of one’s good will: for, after all, the life that is found on the mountaintop lives within the heart of man when in society too.

asobase kotoba,

What has to be done is attacked with such a will that in the performance one is literally “in play.” That is the attitude designated by Nietzsche as Amor fati, love of one’s fate. It is what the old Roman Seneca referred to in his often quoted saying: Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt: “The Fates lead him who will; him who won’t, they drag.”

For, according to the Indian view, our separateness from each other in space and time here on earth—our multitude—is but a secondary, deluding aspect of the truth, which is that in essence we are of one being, one ground; and we know and experience that truth—going out of ourselves, outside the limits of ourselves—in the rapture of love.

And so now, finally, what is the fifth, the highest order of love, according to this Indian series? It is passionate, illicit love. In marriage, it is declared, one is still possessed of reason. One still enjoys the goods of this world and one’s place in the world, wealth, social position, and the rest. Moreover, marriage in the Orient is a family-made arrangement, having nothing whatsoever to do with what in the West we now think of as love. The seizure of passionate love can be, in such a context, only illicit, breaking in upon the order of one’s dutiful life in virtue as a devastating storm. And the aim of such a love can be only that of the moth in the image of al-Hallaj: to be annihilated in love’s fire.

The underlying thought here is that in the rapture of love one is transported beyond temporal laws and relationships, these pertaining only to the secondary world of apparent separateness and multiplicity.

In Christian hermaneutics the crucifixion of the Savior had always presented a great problem; for Jesus, according to Christian belief, accepted death voluntarily. Why? In Abelard’s view, it was not, as some in his day had proposed, as a ransom paid to Satan, to “redeem” mankind from his keep; nor was it, as others held, as a payment to the Father, in “atonement” for Adam’s sin. Rather, it was an act of willing self-immolation in love, intended to invoke in response the return of mankind’s love from worldly concerns to God.13 And that Christ may not have actually suffered in that loving act we may take from a saying of the mystic Meister Eckhart: “To him who suffers but not for love, to suffer is suffering and hard to bear. But one who suffers for love suffers not, and his suffering is fruitful in God’s sight.”14

So, through the eyes love attains the heart: For the eyes are the scouts of the heart, And the eyes go reconnoitering For what it would please the heart to possess. And when they are in full accord And firm, all three, in one resolve, At that time, perfect love is born From what the eyes have made welcome to the heart. Not otherwise can love be born or have commencement. Than by this birth and commencement moved by inclination.21

To be noted well: such a noble love is not indiscriminate. It is not a “love thy neighbor as thyself no matter who he may be”; not agapē , charity or compassion. Nor is it an expression of the general will to sex, which is equally indiscriminate. It is of the order, that is to say, neither of Heaven nor of Hell, but of earth; grounded in the psyche of a particular individual and, specifically, the predilection of his eyes: their perception of another specific individual and communication of her image to his heart—which is to be (as we are told in other documents of the time) a “noble” or “gentle” heart, capable of the emotion of love, amor, not simply lust.

And it was she, then, that lovely young queen, who became the wife he had earned; and there was no priest to solemnize the marriage—the poet Wolfram’s healing message here being that noble love alone is the sanctification of marriage, and loyalty in marriage, the confirmation of love.

The unflinching eye detects, the intellect names, the heart goes out in compassion; and the life-force of every life-loving heart will be finally tested, challenged, and measured by its capacity to regard with such compassion whatever has been by the eye perceived and by the intellect named. “For God,” as we read in Paul to the Romans, “has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may show his mercy to all.”

“The one who lacks courage to be a hammer comes off in the role of the anvil.”

The ideal of this teaching is of an ascetic absolute abandonment of all the concerns of normal secular life, family ties, community, and all, leaving “the dead” — i.e., those that we call the living—“to bury their dead”; and in this the earliest Christian teaching is seen to have been of the order of the early Buddhist and of the Jain. It is a “forest teaching.” And what it does to the general apocalyptic theme is to transform its reference radically from a historical future to a psychological present: the end of the world and coming of the Day of God, that is to say, are not to be awaited in the field of time, but to be achieved right now in solitude, in the chamber of the heart.

An ascetic renunciation of the world and its life—and even of the will to survive in life—may be named, then, as the best-known discipline of peace that has been proposed, as yet, to mankind.

“Book of the Virtue of the Tao,”