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| ~ ∞ ~ Masters of Storytelling – Awaken the Living Awareness Within ~ ∞ ~ |
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Now, let us expand this a little. From the above-mentioned, it becomes obvious that human life is clearly a story. More specifically, human life can be seen as a repeated story, or as a series of stories that are more or less related, intertwined and interconnected. If one takes a moment to reflect on their life, they could reasonably see it in terms of various story lines, whether parallel or intersecting or distinct. As it turns out, there is a term for this type of understanding: “samsara,” as it is called in Sanskrit. It refers precisely to the idea that human life is a repeated story; the one we all have been caught up – a dream from which we are unable to wake up. Samsara is the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth – see? This brings us to something called a “Hero’s Journey,” or short, a monomyth. In the following few paragraphs, we will briefly look at this, but just before we do that, let me ask you this: Is it not indeed the case that we are all heroes of our lives? Is it not, indeed so, that we are all on a journey – some more invested and committed than others?
Joseph Campbell’s theory of the Monomyth (Hero’s Journey), asserts that various myths, legends, and fairy tales throughout human history share a common story structure involving a hero who departs from known reality in order to confront a series of trials and tribulations before returning home as an initiated master of both realms. In his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell studies many hundreds of fairy tales, folk tales and legends in order to unearth a common “pattern” in the structure of stories. Campbell defines this as the “monomyth” or “hero’s journey” – the typical trajectory of a story, across all cultures and religions. Comprising three stages – separation, initiation, and return – the hero’s journey offers a narrative framework for understanding the progression of a character, namely the protagonist.
The journey, according to Campbell, usually includes a symbolic death and re-birth of the character. The religious idea of “cleansing” is also important, giving a sense of the character transforming from old to new – the character arc. The journey undertaken sees the character undergo both physical and emotional battles, which work together to bring them to a better understanding of their life and their place in the world. As such, the journey is full of duality – symbol and spirit; body and soul; manifest and myth; plot and story. In other words, as the character does (action), he or she becomes (character arc).
If there is anything to take away from this, it is this: stories we tell reflect who we are, what we believe, and the futures we envision. This is why powerful stories resonate within us. In a similar way, archetypes of the characters resonate within us – some more, some less. We identify with certain characters more than others, be it heroes or the villains or something in between, because we share those tendencies inside of us. Powerful stories show the light and the dark, point to a greater cause, teach, and leave room for interpretation. The interesting part is that not only do stories share common elements and structure, but so does human life as well – our individual paths may be different, but they share many common elements.
Even though each path is different, they all lead to the same final goal or destination – eventually. Some paths are more difficult than others, having many obstacles to overcome; some are full of hardships and suffering, while others may provide moments of joy only to be followed by extended periods of distress. Even though each path is different, on constant remains: like a river flowing into the sea, the Soul returns to its Source, becoming one with the Ultimate Truth, eventually experiencing absorption of Self into the Ultimate Reality – this is the Hero’s Journey, you see? The journey becomes much more easy when one realizes that life has its own order, its own discipline, if you will. Hence, you simply move with it, you float with it – you don’t try to push the river, you become one with it and the river takes you to the ocean.
Indeed, we are all on a journey – some more invested and committed than others; the path we tread is full of ups and downs – and some of them are very steep. Sometimes we may feel that we have lost our way on the river of life; with its many twists and turns we might find ourselves wondering which direction to take. But all is not lost, for you see, if we choose to use our free will to find the strength that dwells within, we find hope – a compass directing us in life. With patience and persistence, we continue to move forward, overcoming any obstacles we may face, and eventually we will prevail, you see? And this is where the wisdom lies – sometimes the obstacle is the path, for every obstacle presents an opportunity to grow and become better – see?
If we take into consideration all the above-mentioned, we can arrive at the conclusion that everything seems to be cyclical – not only the stories we tell, but also our lives and everything in it, including our thoughts and ideas; everything in life seems to be rediscovered, reinvented, recycled, reused and repurposed time and time again – intriguing, isn’t it? And so you see, as it has been before, so it shall be again, and what has been done will be done again; life is a full circle; coming back around, again and again, in hopes of meeting ourselves; in hopes of seeing and really knowing ourselves; around and around and around we go, in this thing we call life – see?
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And with this, we arrive at another aspect of the same. Earlier in the section titled PROLOGUE, we briefly discussed the idea of “Original Thought,” and reached the conclusion that this thought preceded any other, and hence everything springs from this singular source. Therefore, everything arises in dependence upon this thought. This is also the main reason why we don’t actually have any original thoughts, even though we might think we do. Everything that can be written and everything that can be said, has already been written and said before using different flavors of words.
Indeed, there is no such thing as “original ideas,” for you see, everything is derived from the one and only Original Idea there ever was, is, and ever will be. All we have are merely new creative expressions of what has already been said, written, or otherwise expressed – see? And now you may ask: Why? Well, to answer that question we would need to start with the following truth: the very words we use to express our thoughts are coming from outside of ourselves, and therefore it is extremely difficult to think freely and independently. The words we use in our language comes from the community we live in and were brought-up. Words themselves are symbols representing things and ideas known to us; language is created out of these words and used by masses of people to express things and ideas experienced by their senses and mind. So when we think in a language that our community gave us – it means that eventually we are not thinking our own thoughts. Intriguing, isn’t it?
And when it comes to originality: at first glance, it might seem that everything that is presented as being “new, fresh, and original,” is actually a variation of what has been done before. We see this clearly in our world today – every story we tell each other is in some way or another a recycled version of previous stories we have told. For instance, the movies and TV-shows of today are just retelling of the same stories that have been told for thousands of years. In much the same way as traditional stories are recycled versions of previous stories we have told, science is also a story, a narrative, and scientists are storytellers who keep circling the same ideas and theories time and time again. Science, therefore, is a work in progress, a construction that emerges at a very specific juncture in the hi(story) of humanity; it is a story about ideas – often abstract, often technical, often complex – and all the energy and profundity and drama of science comes from the interactions between these ideas. All this drama that comes from the battle of ideas might be our downfall in science, and its salvation in spirituality – intriguing, isn’t it?
We can conclude this chapter with the following: considering all the aforementioned, one should be inclined to ask the following question: Is it not, indeed so, what has been said long ago, in the Bible (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10), and is it not, indeed, that it holds true even today?
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new?’ It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.”
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~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~
Get the Book: Awaken the Living Awareness Within – Discover the Keys to Happiness, Inner Peace & Harmony
~ ॐ ~ Sambodhi Padmasamadhi ~ ∞ ~
Get the Book: Awaken the Living Awareness Within – Discover the Keys to Happiness, Inner Peace & Harmony
[ Click » here « to read the next part: The Game of Survival 1/2 – The Essence of Life: Part III ]
Extra Material: Video: You're It - Alan Watts. Video description: "An inspiring and profound speech from the late Alan Watts. Speech extract from 'Zen Bones and Tales' by Alan Watts"
