I'm reading "Myths to Live By" by Joseph Campbell. First of all, I have to say that I love Joseph Campbell. I remember his TV documentaries with Bill Moyers that played on PBS in the late 80s. The idea that myths, spiritual allegories and sacred scriptures contain common themes and images was eye opening for me. I had heard all of this before from my friends who where self proclaimed intellectuals and skeptics but the message was delivered with a sneer and a mocking tone, as if somehow the commonality of human beliefs carried by these epic tales discounted the relevance of the experiences and the truths that the stories were trying to convey. Conversely, Campbell spoke with respect and wonder and humor as he wove the world's metaphysical and sacred storiestogether. I appreciated his down to earth style as he discussed the heroe's journey as it related to Luke Skywalker. And most important I felt a connection . A connection to concepts that deep down I felt I already knew but had forgotten. Now, reading "Myths" I am surprised how much of the book comes back to the theories of non-dualism I am encountering in my Anusara yoga studies and the Tantric texts I am reading as part of my own journey.
In the second chapter Campbell gives an interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve in The Garden of Eden. As everyone learned in Sunday school or catechism class when Adam and Eve eat of the tree of knowledge they were cast out of the garden. They suddenly perceived their lives as an onslaught of opposites; birth and death, good and evil, which then "are regarded, consequently with desire and fear." by the pair. They felt shame and the frightened pair suddenly saw themselves as as not only different from each other but as different and separate from God. God becomes 'other'.
But the best part of the story...the part I never absorbed after all those years at Catholic school ... was that there was a second tree in the garden. If Adam and Eve had only reached up and plucked the fruit from the tree of eternal life they would not have been separated from the divine. The would not have experienced duality.
I can't help but believe that there is something buried deep in the human psyche (soul, heart, whatever) that seeks a connection to the energy and divinity that runs through each of us. We only need to step into the stream to access it's joy and power.
May the Force be with you!
