[Shaahayda Rizvi]

Hello Patrick,

Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story of finding your bliss.  Very much like Maryanne, finding the golden Buddha, and death and resurrection are my fav themes.  As Joe explains in his lecture in the  above video, ‘when you experience incongruity, you move out of your circle, and follow the left-hand path’.  A realm where there are no rules, or if there were, I was not aware of them.  My road led to very much like what Joe describes, ‘perhaps not a respected life, but certainly an interesting one’. I am eagerly looking forward to your next film.

In the Power of Myth series (POM), Joe said, ” There is something magical about films. The person you are looking at is also somewhere else at the same time. That is a condition of the god. If a movie actor comes into the theater, everybody turns and looks at….He is the real hero of the occasion. He is on another plane. He is a multiple presence. What you are seeing on the screen really isn’t he, and yet the ‘he’ comes. Through the multiple forms, the form of forms out of which all of this comes is right there.”

And why do we need gods and heroes? “We need gods – Thor or Zeus or Krishna or Jesus or, well God – not so much to worship or sacrifice to, but because they satisfy our need – distinctive from that of all the other animals – to imagine a meaning, a sense to our lives, to satisfy our hunger to believe that the muck and chaos of daily existence does, after all, tend somewhere. It’s the origin of religion, and also of storytelling – or aren’t they both the same thing? As Voltaire said of God: if he did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent him.” (Neil Gaiman)

So, those of my friends who know me as a Joe Campbell-fan, and when they ask me to describe what ‘following a bliss’ really involves, I point them to Abraham Maslow’s Pyramid.

Joe’s view, as you and others well know, was that a mythically inspired person, does not care for the basic needs, food, water, shelter, safety, security, relationships, personal growth, esteem. Self actualization is this individual’s basic need. So, if you are to follow your bliss, remember that all the lower needs will have to drop out, and they do, as you follow the left hand path.

Death and Resurrection is the main theme in my journey too. I have accepted death, and am certain there will be a resurrection, if not in this life, then certainly after I have bid farewell to all here on this earth. I am constantly aided by my hero, Joe, who said, “Death and Resurrection come at the same time”.

Whether it’s the film actor, the director, the choreographer, the dancer, the poet, and artists such as yourself are communicating our myth today. Campbell tells us that ‘artists ……. have to understand mythology and humanity’ .

I like how you and Maryanne phrased it, “Sometimes we hide the gold in our souls under a facade to make money”

Again, thank you for sharing your stories, and listening to ours.

Shaheda

[Shaahayda Rizvi]

Hello Jameson,

Thank you very much for sharing this info, “Stephen has an interesting thread about a little known work Joseph contributed to: “The Changing Images of Man”; titled: “A  5th function of Myth?”; and actually mentions a 6th and 7th in the “Works of Joseph Campbell” Forum and a link to the listing of it in the Foundation Catalogue if you or anyone is interested.” I am, just did not know where to look for it.

[jamesn.]

Shaheda; Stephen may have more to add about this; but one of the things I found interesting was his discussion concerning “ritual”. But the other thing to keep in mind I think is there is still unpublished work Joseph left behind that part of the foundation’s mission is to publish as time goes forward; which Stephen may also have news of. I think he is working on one such project himself at the moment; but that’s all I know.

[jamesn.]

As I was reading again through some of these special posts I was reminded of when I first “found Joe” when I came across the 6 part series: “Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers” in 1988 and how it affected me. I was experiencing an emotional and spiritual crisis that rocked my inner world to it’s very core; and one Sunday I came across the series being shown on Public Television and everything around me just stopped as if I were suspended in time!

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; (“Who was this guy?”); and all of a sudden the things he was saying began to give me answers to many of my deepest questions of who I was; what I had been looking for; and why. He was saying things in a language I could understand and the world around me began to make sense in a way that it never had before. He connected the dots between complex issues, themes, and ideas that had been inaccessible and unreachable before; and I knew from that moment on I had been changed. Changed not as some kind of religious converison; but as a thinking and reasoning adult who no longer would be satisfied with literal religious ideology that pertained to the meaning of the living of my life; but that I now had some tools to find many of these answers for myself.

That was in 1988 and a new road had opened up for me. Books; films, lectures, and whatever I could find that had Joseph’s name on it I devoured; and then in 2006 I found the JCF website with it’s early version of CoaHO; and the journey got even deeper and wider and much more in depth with discussions pertaining to all kinds of subjects; some of which included the world of Jungian ideas and concepts that began to enter in to my understanding of Joseph’s themes. I began to unravel things within my personal life story that had been long buried deep in my past; and now the emotional alchemy of painful as well as positive life-altering change began to unfold; “and then the real work began”; not all of it pleasant! Over these last 30 some odd years I can only feel profound gratitude for the effect his ideas and work have had on my life; and looking back I would hate to imagine what my life would have been like without it.

For many of you who have had a dark night of the soul; one that speaks like: “The night is dark and I am far from home” – Where am I going?; Where is my lighthouse? What am I looking for and how do I get there?; and What is this longing I keep feeling and where are the answers to my questions? I think his ideas more than ever now have tremendous relevance; but I can only speak for the importance they have had for me. But if you have been deeply affected by Joseph’s work over the years I’m sure each of you reading this may have your own moment you remember of a special connection to his ideas that made an important difference in your life.

So I was thinking that in honor of this special event of this 30th Anniversary and Patrick’s wonderful film of: “Finding Joe” since it speaks so powerfully to these ideas; maybe along with some of your questions a few of you would feel like you would want to share some of your experiences such as: Patrick, Marianne, and Shaheda so movingly have? ( Just a thought to add to this discussion if anyone feels like it.)

[Stephen Gerringer]

Hello Scott (aka scottrparent),

You write

The biggest is a description for consciousness vs. mind vs. soul.  I know I’ll be asked to make a distinction.  If I can’t, the rest of the presentation(s) will stall on this point.

As both Juan and Patrick point out, that’s a tall order indeed. Naturally these terms have to be part of the conversation, but you don’t need to be an expert – just provide some working definitions. Given these are presentations on Joseph Campbell’s work, you don’t need to lock down an ironclad description of each (which is about as likely as nailing one’s shadow to the wall), but just give a sense of how Campbell uses the terms.

Perhaps the best way to approach it is to acknowledge up front Juan’s observation: humankind’s greatest thinkers have been wrestling with these terms for thousands of years, yet they remain a bit blurry.

To illustrate that point, you might want to borrow this tidbit Joseph Campbell cites:

The story is told of a Confucian scholar who besought the twenty-eighth Buddhist patriarch, Bodhidharma, ‘to pacify his soul.’ Bodhidharma retorted, ‘Produce it and I will pacify it.’ The Confucian replied, ‘That is my trouble, I cannot find it.’ Bodhidharma said, ‘Your wish is granted.’ . . .”

Joseph Campbell
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 142 (2008 edition)

Part of the problem is that we are using mind to look for mind, using consciousness to define consciousness (sort of like trying to touch the tip of your right forefinger with your right forefinger, or bite your right eyetooth with your right eyetooth).

Campbell often uses consciousness in the sense of awareness – aka “waking consciousness,” or “ego-consciousness,” both terms he uses to represent the part of me that is aware of the world around me. This can include not just sensory objects, but thoughts, internal states – the part of me known to me.

Many people seem to think consciousness is the only thing there is: when we are awake, we are conscious, rational, self-acting – our default setting.  But Campbell, like Jung and most other depth psychologists, contrasts consciousness with “the Unconscious” – which refers to those parts of our being that I’m not aware of, that which is unconscious to the waking me. He illustrates this at the simplest, physical level with the process of digestion: right now I am digesting my breakfast, but I have no idea how – it would take a blackboard filled with complex mathematical equations to represent the complex biochemical processes taking place within my belly and gut – and yet, it’s not something that is happening to me: I am the one doing the digesting.

Similarly, our total psyche is much larger than the conscious part of our being, which juts up above the threshold of consciousness like the tip of an iceberg, with the bulk of one’s being not visible, beneath the surface. The unconscious dynamics of the psyche often swamp rational, conscious processes (all you have to do to experience how this works is fall in love).

As for mind, that has multiple definitions. According to my American Heritage dictionary, the two most relevant definitions are

1. The human consciousness that originates in the brain and is manifested especially in thought, perception, emotion, will, memory, and imagination.

2. Intelligence; intellect

The second definition equates the mind with mental processes (indeed, the etymology of the English word “mind” can be traced back to the Indo-European base *men- [“think”], from which the Latin word for mind [mēns] is also derived, which is the source of “mental” in English).

Joseph Campbell uses the word “mind” mostly in the sense of the first definition. There is clearly an overlap with “consciousness,” but mind seems to suggest something more (emotion and memory, for example, as well as imagination, aren’t always conscious, though they do lurk in the background).

Soul appears in most mythological belief systems (e.g. ka and ba in ancient Egyptian mythology), and has sometimes been described as the life force of the individual, the incorporeal essence of one’s being. Personally, I rather like archetypal psychologist (and Campbell friend and colleague) James Hillman’s description of soul:

 

By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment – and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.

It’s as if [emphasis mine] consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate – an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence – that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it by itself apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light. But just this peculiar and paradoxical intervening variable gives one the sense of having or being a soul. However intangible and undefinable it is, soul carries highest importance in hierarchies of human values, frequently identified with the principle of life and even of dignity.

In another attempt on the idea of soul I suggested that the word refers to that unknown component which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern. These four qualifications I had already put forth several years ago; I had begun to use the term freely, interchangeable with psyche (from Greek) and anima (from Latin). Now I am adding three necessary modifications. First, “soul” refers to the deepening of events into experience; second, the significance soul makes possible, whether in love or in religious concern, derives from its special relation with death. And third, by “soul” I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, and fantasy – that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”

From the “Introduction” to Revisioning Psychology, by James Hillman

I toss all the above out not to say this is the way it is, but more as entry points into these concepts. See how these comport with your own understanding – even if your thoughts differ, might help you clarify what you need for purposes of your presentations (I assume the 12 hour and 24 hour versions won’t be packed all into one day!).

Circling back to consciousness, though Joseph Campbell does use the word in terms of ego-consciousness (or “waking consciousness”), he does sometimes bend brains with an expansion of the concept of consciousness (though you may not want to go there, depending on your audience and how deep you are diving)

 

It is a part of the Cartesian mode to think of consciousness as being something peculiar to the head, that the head is the organ originating consciousness. It isn’t. The head is an organ that inflects consciousness in a certain direction, or to a certain set of purposes. But there is a consciousness here in the body. The whole living world is informed by consciousness.

I have a feeling that consciousness and energy are the same thing somehow. Where you really see life energy, there’s consciousness. Certainly the vegetable world is conscious. And when you live in the woods, as I did as a kid, you can see all these different consciousnesses relating to themselves. There is a plant consciousness and there is an animal consciousness, and we share both these things. You eat certain foods, and the bile knows whether there’s something there for it to go to work on. The whole process is consciousness. Trying to interpret it in simply mechanistic terms won’t work.”

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

 

“Let us imagine ourselves for a moment in the lecture hall where I originally presented the material for this chapter. Above, we see the many lights. Each bulb is separate from the others, and we may think of them, accordingly, as separate from each other. Regarded that way, they are so many empirical facts; and the whole universe seen that way is called in Japanese ji hokkai, ‘the universe of things.’

But now, let us consider further. Each of those separate bulbs is a vehicle of light, and the light is not many but one. The one light, that is to say, is being displayed through all those bulbs; and we may think, therefore, either of the many bulbs or of the one light. Moreover, if this or that bulb went out, it would be replaced by another and we should again have the same light. The light, which is one, appears thus through many bulbs.

Analogously, I would be looking out from the lecture platform, seeing before me all the people of my audience, and just as each bulb seen aloft is a vehicle of light, so each of us below is a vehicle of consciousness. But the important thing about a bulb is the quality of its light. Likewise, the important thing about each of us is the quality of his consciousness. And although each may tend to identify himself mainly with his separate body and its frailties, it is possible also to regard one’s body as a mere vehicle of consciousness and to think then of consciousness as the one presence here made manifest through us all. These are but two ways of interpreting and experiencing the same set of present facts. One way is not truer than the other. They are just two ways of interpreting and experiencing: the first, in terms of the manifold of separate things; the second, in terms of the one thing that is made manifest through this manifold. And as, in Japanese, the first is known as ji hokkai, so the second is ri hokkai, the absolute universe.”

“Now the consciousness of ji hokkai cannot help being discriminative, and, experiencing oneself that way, one is bounded, like the light of a bulb, in this fragile present body of glass; whereas in the consciousness of ri hokkai there is no such delimitation. The leading aim of all Oriental mystic teaching, consequently, might be described as that of enabling us to shift our focus of self-identification from, so to say, this light bulb to its light; from this mortal person to the consciousness of which our bodies are but the vehicles. That, in fact, is the whole sense of the famous saying of the Indian Chāndogya Upaniṣad: tat tvam asi, Thou art That,’ ‘You yourself are that undifferentiated universal ground of all being, all consciousness, and all bliss.’ Not, however, the “you” with which one normally identifies: the “you,” that is to say, that has been named, numbered, and computerized for the tax collector. That is not the “you” that is That, but the condition that makes you a separate bulb.

It is not easy, however, to shift the accent of one’s sense of being from the body to its consciousness, and from this consciousness, then, to consciousness altogether.”

Joseph Campbell, “Zen,” Myths to Live By

 

Consciousness as we experience it both mediates and fits comfortably within ji hokkai – the experienced world – but Campbell suggests consciousness infuses and informs everything in the universe, making our individual ego-consciousness but one expression of consciousness qua Consciousness.

I love the lightbulb metaphor; however, here again we have a bit of an overlap with soul . . . or do we? I’ll leave that to you to determine, but this is a fun concept to play with – use it if it fits.

I don’t know if my post triggers any insights for you into how to present these terms, or just makes your task harder. Ultimately, though, you don’t have to have all the answers: you can’t go wrong if your presentation conveys your passion and enthusiasm for Campbell’s mythological perspective.

Metaphorically Yours,

 

[Stephen Gerringer]

I’d like to thank Patrick for spending time with us this week in Conversations of a Higher Order. In response to the unsettling events of this strange and surreal year, Patrick has generously made his film, Finding Joe, available to all (follow the link).
And feel free to check out other entries in our Mythological Resources database.

Patrick, a parting question, if you don’t mind – something simple, I trust. The children in your film were delightful! Where did you find them? (That’s a leading question . . . ) And could you share the details behind the party scene that graphically underscores the difference between “following your bliss” and hedonistic overindulgence? That was some mighty convincing acting!

I know you have a full plate at the moment, so thank you for taking the time out to play with us. You aren’t obligated to stick around, but don’t be surprised if this conversation continues in your absence, perhaps wandering down a few intriguing side roads.

Bliss On!

[Stephen Gerringer]

Patrick has generously posted an outtake from “Finding Joe” that never made it over into the final cut – an elegant little tale from Gay Hendricks. (I had the good fortune of viewing this scene a few years ago, before the film was finished; this nugget of wisdom has made all the difference during those times when I am struggling under a heavy load).

[jamesn.]

Because this has been such an important and rewarding conversation Stephen suggested that maybe we should continue on this path that Patrick has opened up by starting another thread on his new upcoming film:” “What is Money?” Joseph had some very specific ideas about this subject; and in honor of Patrick’s inspiring dedication to Joseph’s work that it would appropriate to explore this further in this new topic now listed within this same forum and now open for discussion. There is a short YouTube clip he prepared that explains his intentions about this project included in the opening setup of the topic. Thank you again Patrick for all your dedication and hard work.

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