New Acropolis Song: Star Wars - Main Theme John Williams The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. Part 1 - The Adventure of the Hero Chapter 1 - Departure Lúcia Helena Galvão Brasilia, 2017. Good evening everyone! Welcome! Just to remind you, I think some of you are already followers of our New Acropolis YouTube channel, the first chapter of this series is already posted. So those who still don't follow us on the channel, if you subscribe there you will be notified every time a new post is made. So, last week it was already posted, it's
already there. Today we are entering theme 1, part 1, chapter 1. Where the description of the Hero's adventure will begin, the Hero's journey, how he faces the adventures. Remember, the book we are discussing is this one, I don't know of another edition in Portuguese, maybe there is, I really don't know. And the idea is that you follow along, read, make your suggestions, make your observations. As always, at the end I stay a little longer for those who want to clear up any doubts, want to do some comment. I stay a while at the reception. I'm
at your disposal. Ok? So getting back, very basically, this is Joseph Campbell, an author who had a very big impact on the 20th century. Lived from 1904 to 1987, a lifetime, almost self-taught, Focused on this study of universal myths, establish a comparative structure of all myths, of all cultures, which is what he calls a monomyth. We talked about the prologue last week, we have more or less seen the premises with which he works. Today we're going to see part 1, which deals with the hero's adventure, and chapter 1, which is the departure. Although the book
is long, we're doing one lecture per chapter, so it won't take long. We'll only have seven more and we'll close this book. As far as possible, those who are following, try not to lose because in a lecture we are seeing a lot. It wouldn't be possible to do it in such small pieces as we did in other books, otherwise, we would never end. So let's start. Let's start to see this question of the match, the hero's adventure, how he departs, the calling, the call to adventure. Campbell does a comparative study where he takes From fairy
tales, religious scriptures, Greek myths, universal mythology... He takes the structure of the monomyth and finds it present in various traditions. It's quite interesting. He will start this chapter by talking about a well-known fairy tale: of the princess and the frog. The princess who is playing with her golden ball and drops it into a lake, the frog appears and says that if she takes it home, Have lunch with it, sleep with it, make it her inseparable companion, it returns the ball to her. She lies and says yes, it brings the ball and she leaves and forgets
about him. That's the beginning of the story, I think most must have heard this from childhood. He will talk a little about this structure of this myth, this beginning. He will show that dropping the ball into the lake It's a very recurrent element in various myths, in various traditions: it's the error. It's a certain error that will make the protagonist stand on the threshold, a passage from one stage to another. He says that in the case of the princess it's the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence, of youth, but it can be a
more powerful threshold, a threshold of consciousness, a threshold for a mission, for a great adventure. At that moment, a stage of her life ended. And here comes the Herald who comes to announce that she has to start living in a different way. Come announce new challenges. So it's very common that there's a supposed error that, in fact, as it makes us grow, it ends up being a success. And this is an interesting thing because from the human point of view good is what makes you grow. That is, the good does not alway coincide with the
pleasant. Sometimes an error disrupts a certain stage of our life and forces us to renew ourselves, to act differently. So when you look ahead, you'll say: if it weren't for that mistake, I wouldn't be here today! So it wasn't so wrong. It was a threshold, it was a portal to another dimension of life. And he will speak of that Herald, which is often the frog, is the dragon, is some fantastic animal that announces to that being That it is time to go through another phase, announces a challenge, makes a call to mission. This story of
the call is very interesting, he will talk a lot about it. So this Herald is often frightening, sometimes it's a disgusting being. He said that sometimes it only appears, even in dreams. A person who takes you somewhere, a person who points you in a direction, it's a Herald that says: Oops! Time to grow up, my dear! He exhausted this experience, now it's time to move on to another level. It is necessary, he says that this obeys a logic of life. You're done making a daily journey, finished a daily experience, you know what's next? The night.
The night is a moment of mistery where it's full of little stars there, which are those hidden powers that you bring to light so that they generate the light of a new day. The night that will generate in you, If you dive into yourself, and look for a new source of light so that the next day is not a repetition of all the previous ones, be illuminated by a new light, by a new level of consciousness. And it happens every night. The night is an invitation to delve into the mystery. It happens every year. We
are now going to enter an interesting cycle, two more months: Christmas! A cycle that invites us to be born again, To be born on another level of consciousness, retake these initial potentialities and bring them to the fore, to accomplish something that until then has been a mystery to us. Part of our potentials are mysteries for us. And our self-indulgence is so much that if there is not a frog that breaks a certain cycle, a dragon that breaks a certain cycle, that closes the door, we don't realize that potential, we settle down. These days they sent
me a very interesting video where a certain writer said that the worst things that happen to man are not the unfortunate events, but the self-indulgence. Unfortunate events make it grow a lot! The worst thing is not the pain, but self-indulgence. Complacency is terrible! It locks the soul, it doesn't generate any growth. Then he will talk about for example the Chinese dragon, I'll put an engraving of it in a moment. Everyone must know the Chinese dragon, the one with the golden ball. This Chinese dragon, which brings the golden ball of the sun in its paws, reminds
me a little of this frog, that dives into the deep waters and comes with the princess's golden ball. That is, as if it was a mysterious being that comes from the deep waters of the unknown and brings us a new light. So sometimes it's a being that's a little scary. But it makes a break! Everything that is new to us sometimes scares us. There is a passage from a very beautiful oriental book which is the Bhagavad Gita, an Indian book, that says that if a virtue arises before us, which they call Pandavas, an adult and
armed virtue, full, a virtue that is potent within us, if it appeared before us we would be scared and we would run from it. It would require such a huge change of posture from us that we would be afraid. Do you understand that? If within you suddenly generosity arises, Well, generosity would demand a lot from you. A life change so uncomfortable you'd dread it. If tremendous goodness came along and crushed your selfishness, you would be afraid of it. it would look like a tormentor, a dragon that wants to devour you. I've told you in some
lectures, but this is something that whenever I read this kind of thing I remember, that when I entered New Acropolis many years ago, the first task, the first help, the first volunteer work I did in New Acropolis Was to call people who stayed away for a long time to ask if they had a problem, if I could help them in any way. And once, in one of these calls, a person said to me: I don't go to your classes and lectures anymore, because what you're talking about is going to force me to change and that's
going to be terrible, it's going be lot of work, so I prefer not to know. That was so disconcertingly sincere that at the time I didn't have an answer and I think Maybe even today I haven't. Because if the person says: I'm taking a course in English, Mandarin, I'm traveling there, here... I have an answer for that, but this excess of sincerity it was a little disconcerting for me, I didn't know what to answer. Because it is indeed true! I won't say no. Philosophy will ask you to grow and if you don't want to hear
this request, maybe it's better not to watch it anyway, Not to participate. So the dragon is sometimes unpleasant, it emerges from the deep waters and brings the golden ball. He will speak... from various stories - separation, breakup always brings anxiety, fear. He takes something from a fairy tale, as was the case with the princess we just saw: No! Put this frog into my life? I won't! God forbid! How am I supposed to live with a frog? I'm not prepared for this! Then she leaves and forgets about the frog. He talks about Eve when she was
expelled from paradise and will be forced to live in a world where will have to earn her livelihood by the sweat of her face. It's a mystery! I don't know how to do this! The new scares us! Buddha, when he's going to break his princely routine and will have to live like a monk, a beggar, seeking a knowledge that he doesn't even know if he will find. That is, the challenge of the new, The challenge of growth, it always feels like it's pulling the rug out from under us. It brings anxiety, it brings fear. That's
why we so often hide from growth. That is, the sequence of the monomyth, remember: danger, tests and rebirth. Overcoming the tests will generate rebirth. He will talk about the mythology of the whale's womb, for example, from the whale's stomach, from the mother's womb, the one who is devoured, the one who cannot be born, That is, this idea of the whale's belly is like a real uterus where you go and are reborn. Growing up is being reborn on another level of consciousness, on another step. Here, our Chinese dragon which represents the impulse of the spirit
bringing forth a new light, which is a ball of fire that represents light, represents the sun, that is, the spirit is plotting, your essence is plotting to make you grow. It's trying to take an opportunity you give it to force something to come out. We think we are running after our essence and it is the one running after us. When you make it easy, it'll push the envelope and bring up something else. Because it has to manifest itself in the world. That's why you came here, to manifest your essence in the world. So the first
opportunity you give, it'll push the envelope to bring something else to light. Imagine that you are on top of a frozen lake. And there's a diver down there wanting to surface. And you're on top, you look... If you are someone who is looking to grow and loves mystery when you see him trying to surface, you dig from above and help. But if you're scared to death of growing up, when you see the diver trying to surface you push the ice, step right on top... nobody saw it... Lará lara... and go away. Maybe something will come
up! It shatters all my "status quo", all my comfort. So I pretend I didn't see that there is something inside me wanting to be born. It's going to change too much, I don't want to change, it's a lot of work! Then, it's that spirit dragon, that's after you with that ball, that are these seeds that you brought into the world and that has to bloom because you have to give your message to the world and you haven't given it yet, Have to speak your holy word, have to manifest your identity to the world, you have
to tell the world who you are, you have to say what you came for and for that there are a lot of little seeds that have yet to sprout. Then it gets behind you: look at the seed! And you pretending you didn't see it. When you least expect it, it'll come into your life with everything! Our essence is behind us, not the other way around. And he will say that the symbology of the apples Of the Garden of the Hesperides, the one that Hercules went to get and Atlas was there carrying the world, anyway, the
apples of the Garden of the Hesperides which are precious, the golden wool, of the Golden Fleece of Jason and the Argonauts, are two very famous Greek myths, both Hercules and Jason. That Golden Fleece or the apples of the Hesperides, represent these riches That you have to bring out, you have to capture them, you have to let them fulfill their destiny. Every myth, when it speaks of some wealth that the hero has to find, that can be a jewel, a precious stone, an apple of immortality, the Golden Fleece... It's talking about your own essence, something about
it that hasn't surfaced yet. Every time something in you comes to the surface there is a period of flowering, but then all the seeds are still unfulfilled, there is something that still needs to happen And this will generate a small crisis. Something else surfaced, grew. Another element begins to intend! One more crisis! Do you realize that crises in general... of course, there are exceptions, there are paralysis crises too, but there are growth crises, time to grow. It's dark, it's time for dawn and the light is tending to generate the dawn. And the human dawn is
not an automatic matter of passing clock time. Human dawn is a matter of consciousness time. Man generates his dawn otherwise he stays immersed in the night all his life. Do you understand that? Remember that I spoke in several lectures, for those who often watch my lectures, that the medieval alchemists said that human maturity it's not a matter of biological time, but a matter of consciousness time and that few men mature. Then they say that sentence that is a true tragedy: Some men are like certain fruits That pass the green stage or the rotten stage, do
not mature. Dramatic, right? If you don't like it, it's medieval alchemy. I have nothing to do with it! Maturity is an achievement, it's not a matter of time passing! Time passes, the person sometimes grows old, but does not mature. Maturity, the dawn of the human being is a matter of will, it's not just a matter of whether the time has come. It's time and you wanted it! If you don't want to, you prolong the night indefinitely. Just like human spring, just like human Christmas, all these elements in nature obey a rigid cycle: within man free
will. It's a matter of choice. Well, as I told you before, like the stars of the night of mysteries... We have our inner nights, exactly the moment you end a journey. Imagine the story of the stairs, which I always tell too, You're on a step, you've reached the end of that step, it's time to grow. And life puts a wall in front of you, that's the night. If you don't look up and don't resolve to grow, you will be hitting the wall endlessly here comes the pain, darkness comes, fear comes, comes the bouts of paralysis.
Grown up! Again, day! Another step. In a little while "boom"! Face to the wall again! Time to grow. The psychological nights of man are full of stars, of powers that are trying to pull you up. We live psychological nights too, but we know that after the night there is another dawn that is waiting for you to make up your mind. Make up your mind early. It's the mystery of the dawn, of the goddess Aurora among the Greeks. The Herald also appears in dreams pointing the way or leading. In fact, this is not such a simple
structure. Eastern philosophy distinguishes innumerable types of dreams. There are some dreams that are messages from our essence. Not all dreams! Some dreams are sometimes only loaded with biological content. You are a heavy sleeper, you ate too much... But there are some dreams that can become very high indeed. A message from your unconscious wanting to force the bar. From that anxiety to grow up, From that exhaustion of a level of experience that is within you waiting for you to open the door. So it's common for Heralds to appear in this type of dream, people pointing you
in a direction, people pulling you somewhere. It's often the symbol of the Herald, which is also present in myths and fairy tales. The call is always frightening to the conscious mind. Called from these unconscious realities that want to emerge, the call of your identity, The call of your Being that wants to manifest itself in the world. Remember that example I was talking about - we have a Being, an essence, and our physical and psychological structure is like a glove, this being enters that glove and has to act in the world, but it's locked. So we
have to break the locks that prevent us from moving in the world and do your work. Break the locks, take possession of that glove So we can act in the world, are the breaches of levels of consciousness, limits, blocks. Are the growths. Each time we break a lock, our Being acts more freely in the world. Then he said that this for conscience is scary. But the world before becomes insipid until the call is accepted. I put the Myth of the Cave here. He doesn't cite this example. He will talk about the four stages of Buddha,
the four signs. For those who know the life of Siddhartha Gautama Knows that he was like a prisoner in the citadel of Kapilavastu. One day when he goes out with his preceptor he sees a sick person, a dead person, an extremely old person and he gets scared with all that and says: what are these things? This raises a whole question in him about what is human pain and why even the most powerful, like your father who was a king, weren't free neither from pain, Nor from illness, nor from old age, nor from death. And he
starts to get upset for continuing to live with no answers to these questions. For those who know, Plato's Myth of the Cave is perfect for explaining this. Plato places the tied citizen looking at a wall where shadows pass. Everyone is loving that shadow show, but there comes a time when you run out! Look at that and say: Is it possible that life is just that? What else do you have to do besides that? And as much as you want to settle down because everyone is enjoying it, comes a time when you can't stand it anymore.
It is the discomfort of exhausting a level of experience. It's not possible that life is just that! I love it when sometimes I see certain things, for example, a Snoopy comic book, from Charlie Brown, highly philosophical. I had that on my agenda for a long time. Sometimes there are philosophical insights spread across the most unpredictable cultural work! It showed Snoopy lying on top of the house - you know this strip, right? I love Snoopy! And Charlie Brown saying: Yeah Snoopy, I have to study, I have to study to do good tests, because I have to
grow up and have a good profession, to have a good family, to have good children, Who will have to study, to do good exams, to grow, to have a good profession, and have a good family. And Snoopy looks at all that and "puff", he falls down on top of the little house. What's up? What is the spirit of the story? What is the moral of the story? Indeed, in the name of what are we doing these things? What is the product of this process? I commented with you that when I was, I don't know, 14
years old, I don't even remember anymore, watching the Afternoon Session, I saw some natives doing a fire dance and lowered, raised, hit the stick on the ground, rotated and repeated it a thousand times. I turned to my mother and said: I'm just like those natives! Just like! I wake up in the morning, have breakfast, go to school, come back from school, do my homework, watch television, sleep, wake up, Go to school, come back from school... now, there's a difference - and she's already looking at me with wide eyes - they know what they are evoking,
they are evoking the spirit of rain. Which spirit am I evoking? Why am I doing this? I already said that this gave me a free and immediate consultation with the psychologist because "my daughter thinks she's an aboriginal". But it was interesting because you realized... That's a sign, it's nothing exceptional, I know a lot of people who have experienced things like that. These are signs of exhaustion. Aristotle said that philosophy is a symptom of exhaustion. The level has been exhausted. The Soul thirsts for something more. It needs something else. I can't stand the boredom of staying
there... It tries to settle in the chair, looking at the shadows, but it doesn't work, it's unbearable, there's no going back. Once you've used up an experience, Try again to put on that skirt, that outfit you wore when you were 12 and go to those neighborhood parties for you to see how you will feel! You have exhausted an experience, consciousness does not support rewind! It can't bear to go back to what it's already overcome. It's a burden! And it needs growth, it suffers from suffocation, it suffers from claustrophobia, it wants to expand, it has to
go beyond. So it doesn't work! When the call is made - the call to growth - you can take time, but you won't be able to deny it your whole life. It will bring you a state of unbearable unhappiness. We must heed this call. As soon as possible. The call to adventure is usually made to an unknown region. You will see that in the Myth of the Cave it is outside the cave, for the Buddha it was outside Kapilavastu, A region he did not know, for the prince it is outside the kingdom, in the place
where the dragon lives. It is an unknown and frightening region. It just varies in myths, in tales, sometimes the character voluntarily accept and leave. He cites, for example, the story of Theseus. He arrives in Athens, his Aegean father says: we have to deliver seven boys and seven girls to be devoured on Crete by the Minotaur. He says: Oops! I'm in! Choose only six, the seventh is me. I'm going there to end this business! A pre-disposition for adventure. But this is not always the case, in fact, in real life it is very rare for this to
be the case. He'll talk about certain stories where the character is practically forced, persuaded by good or bad, by a Herald who is sometimes nice and sometimes scary. An agent who is going to lead you towards adventure is sometimes scary. For example Poseidon and Ulysses, Odyssey. He could only return home after he had purified himself of all selfishness, all vanity, and learn that man is nothing without the gods. He had to learn that lesson. Poseidon was not against him, he wanted to teach him, but look... he hated Poseidon and thought it was "the end of
the road". Until he realises, when he finally arrives in Ithaca that he wouldn't be the king he had to be if it weren't for the tests that Poseidon submitted him, If he hadn't purified himself by losing his pride. Remember when he arrives there on the Cyclops island? When he pierces Cyclops' eye? Why does he survive? Do you remember the trick he used? When he gets Cyclops drunk, the Cyclops asks his name. And he says: my name is nobody. And then when he blinds Cyclops, Cyclops starts screaming and his brothers and his island friends say: Who
hit you, who hurt you? Nobody, nobody hurt me! Nobody hit me! If no one hit you, be quiet, be at peace. And they won't help him because otherwise Ulysses would have been in trouble. Do you realize he has to become nobody? And he has to lose all vanity, all pride and become nobody. To become the humblest of beings, "I only know that I know nothing", by Socrates, To pass this test. And many trials temper his character. He is losing ships, losing men which are actually his own defects, the elements, the edges that make him not
fit his role - king of Ithaca, the brilliant, husband of Penelope - he had to earn it. So Poseidon was actually a friend who helped him with that. But he didn't see it that way at that moment, it wasn't pleasant at all. Another epic that I love is the Ramayana, Also at the end of the story stay Rama, who is the prince, who is the representation of the god Vishnu himself, fighting with a being that is Ravana and people dying of rage at Ravana. A guy who stole his wife, got them all up. What the
hell! We have a manichaeism mania, right? It's the good guy and the bad guy, and we immediately apply the Globo network technique in an epic like Ramayana. So Rama is the good guy and Ravana is the bad guy And we go crazy to eliminate that bad guy and they live happily ever after. At some point, when he finally succeeds kill Ravana, he leaves him a testament letter saying: I offered you my life and you accepted it so that you would remember who you were, to regain your identity. So he wasn't mean? No, he was not.
He did everything so that Rama, through the adventure of winning back his wife Sita remembered who he was. You are a God! But immersed in matter once again you forgot. Men are precious mines, where a precious thing lives, something divine. I offered you my life to remind you of this. That's the will letter, a fantastic deal! I mean, wasn't he evil then? He wasn't! There is no such thing! He was a Herald who made Rama walk what he had to walk, remember your divine essence. Men are precious mines. This story is very beautiful and it
always moves me because I have yet to read a more beautiful story than this. But anyway, they are different types of invitations, of Heralds. They sometimes seem kind, sometimes not, sometimes seem like a pest! It is difficult in our mentality to understand this. The refusal of the call, when the protagonist really doesn't want to grow up and he refuses, this will cause whatever He builds to be to his detriment, your house becomes the house of death, everything he builds will progressively destroy him. He uses King Minos as an example, who wins a white bull from
Poseidon had to sacrifice it, which was a symbol of his submission to the divine, he doesn't do it. From the moment he doesn't do it, he wants for himself what should belong to the divine, what should belong to the All, he wants to take for the vanity of his personality. From then on, everything he does Will only cause harm. He takes the bull, his wife approaches the bull, falls in love with the bull and generates a monster that was the Minotaur. He builds the labyrinth, that animal is trapped inside and he has to feed it.
Then he had to enslave the colonies he had dominated. Anyway, his life becomes hell, everything he does just makes him more embarrassed. He needs to be rescued by a hero who is Theseus, who is coming around. So it's interesting that he puts... Joseph Campbell puts a passage from the Bible, from proverbs: "For I called you and you did not want to hear me." That is, this is the voice of the call. I, your divine self, your essence, I called you and you didn't want to listen to me. Then a process will take place, which he
will describe later, that we started to be against the universal laws, against the natural cycle of life. When we refuse to take the necessary steps for our growth The natural order of life becomes our enemy, it starts forcing us to give up things we don't want to give up. That's what he's going to say later, that I think this passage is very beautiful and interesting. The refusal to grow for personal interests will generate the following result: if everyone is their own god, then God with a capital G, his will and his power become your enemies.
Then every cycle of life that leads beings to grow will appear to you as hell. From the moment you say: I don't want to work for the whole, I want to work for my personal good, which means comfort, be quiet where I am, I don't want to take a step! Everything in life leads you towards growth, the beings growing around you will hurt you. The passing seasons of nature will hurt you. Every law of life will hurt you because it's like you had replaced the Absolute with a particular god, The god of selfishness, and therefore
the Dharma will be against you, will hit you all the time. What is good for the universe will be bad for you. Selfishness puts you against the law of life and therefore you are always in shock with it. The Dharma becomes your enemy. There is something beautiful about this Ramayana book is that it shows that no being is so great as to be against the grain of Dharma, nor the gods! It's a polytheistic tradition. For them not even the gods can be against the Dharma that yet they are not free from the pain that comes
from it. By the way, every Ramayana is born from that, from a being who is Vishnu Narayana... Imagine this, people. Vishnu Narayana is the creator, he is the One for the Indian tradition. One day he made a mistake, broke the Dharma. The entire Ramayana is the story of Vishnu Narayana who had to incarnate to pay for his mistake. A man, a simple Vasistha priest Sees Narayana making a mistake, throws his staff on the ground and says: I curse you! you will have to come into the world to pay for your mistake. A man with God
is the majority! Because Dharma is God! He curses the creator and the creator submits and comes to pay for his mistake. It's such a fantastic thing this vision of this epic! That is, the Dharma, the great law of the universe, the arm of God extended over the Cosmos, no one can do anything against him, Not even greater beings. And then we become those who resist growth, persecuted day and night by the divine being that seeks to surface. It's too uncomfortable because where do you turn there is some symbolism, something that is calling you to come
and you won't! Everywhere you turn there is some element that invites you to grow and you don't want to hear it. So life becomes unbearable. He will give the example of some myths, I added the Bardo Thodol, which is the Tibetan book of the dead, which says that when man ties an iron ball so heavy to his ankle that he can't take any more steps, can't grow anymore, he decided to die. Life just executes. That is, there comes a certain time when life is impracticable because life is growth. If you don't want to grow up,
why life? It's as if you've decreed The moment of your own death. He will quote a number of stories: Apollo and Daphne, Apollo running after the nymph Daphne until the moment he touches her and it becomes a laurel tree, that is, a sacrificial object. You know that with laurel leaf the laurel wreath of the victors is made. The one who was touched by God, but she didn't want to, she ran as much as she could, and Apollo running after her. Do you realize that we must Be like Apollo and Daphne, running from our own Being?
I hope he is more agile and is a better coach than us. When she is caught, she becomes a ceremonial being, a symbol of victory, of the victory of Spirit over matter. So much so that the laurel is an object of offering in the temples of Apollo, is part of incense, laurel, myrrh, it is a ceremonial object and is also the symbol of victory. A Being who has been reached by the Divine, But she runs away as much as she can. The Brunhilde, in her father Wotan's circle of fire that's the Nibelung cycle, German-Scandinavian, German-Norse
history, where Brunhilde is there surrounded by a circle of fire that Wotan places, but Siegfried, who is the hero, will somehow get in there and wake her up. Sooner or later, no matter how protected she is by a circle of fire the holy element will have to get in there and it will wake her up. That is, it's as if we were wanting to sleep, but don't want to be awakened by anything, put a circle of fire around us to prevent something from taking us out of our peaceful, comfortable sleep. He will also quote sleeping
beauty and the witch, that works just as well for Rapunzel, trapped there in that tower, but there will be no way because there comes a time when Rapunzel gets bored and starts singing and the prince will pass by there and there will be no way out, He will find her. And however much the witch follows the prince, at a given moment he will be found by human consciousness, Rapunzel, and there will be "they lived happily ever after", I won't go into too much detail, but this story is beautiful, it is entirely symbolic. He will regain
his eyesight with Rapunzel's tears. That is, she will conquer through her pain, her suffering, the spiritual vision. The princess abandoning the frog and the frog running after her. Do you realize that all these are symbolism of people running from our Being, running from the growth, and the frog behind her slowly, but eventually it arrives. Lot's wife... Do you remember the story of Abraham's nephew that when he leaves Sodom his wife looks back and becomes a pillar of salt. Looking back, not wanting to overcome What was left in the past. It's interesting because... Orpheus and Eurydice
is the same thing. Orpheus is taking his soul out of the manifested world, but he has to look back! Then he loses it again! I put a modern symbolism that I like a lot which is the Phantom of the Opera, which also has that! At one point the Phantom is taking Cristine downstairs... Do you remember that even in music there is this? And she looks back! Even if you don't want to listen to me and look back, The Phantom of the Opera is here inside your mind. That is, I am calling you and you will
not be able to ignore me. But she ignores! And in the end, on her grave, there is the Phantom's rose, that is, I will not give up on you. One hour you come back here I'll get you! Our spirit that walks behind us, hunting us, always! And he will say... Our luck... is that our essence doesn't give up. It is what he calls the "divine work of salvation", That will take the man out of self-indulgence, regardless of his refusal. The more we resist, the more painful the process. He will say that when we suffer the
punishment for refusal it is actually an opportunity for liberation. I mean, I don't want to grow up! The world generates a catastrophe and forces me to grow. And when you get to the other side, look back and say: Wow! For what I grew up it wasn't that hard, it was a good price! Okay, it was hard work, but compared to what he gave me, it was worth it, it was a good price! That is, our world collapses to prevent you from continuing to live in that small world, to force you to look outside. And there
are tales and more tales! Just by saying this to you I'm remembering a thousand stories, tales and fables that you must remember too. That eastern story of the master and his disciples who threw that couple's cow into the abyss. Have you heard this story? When they returned there, they had a super prosperous life because they had lost that cow. They were accommodated by living only from her. Anyway, there are a thousand stories that talk about it! The burning of ships among the Greeks so that they could go ahead and didn't want to go home, that's
where that expression came from, "burn ships". Because otherwise he wants to go back, He wants to run away back to Athens. Go away, conquer Troy, that after Troy there is something much bigger to be built. After Troy comes Rome! There's no going back anymore. So, sometimes, when the punishment is over, we realize that it was the best thing that happened in our lives. If it weren't for it, we wouldn't have left our comfort zone. Here is a representation... Of Hermes Mercury that still tries to pull, but it's no use. Orpheus looks back and wants to
go back, to the cave where he finds his Eurydice. That is, wanting to go back causes him to lose her. And he'll have to start all over again to recover his soul that was left behind. So it's always the process of looking back, of not wanting to grow, of being attached to a comfortable area. He's going to talk a little about this process that we've already talked about, the monomyth, that man comes out of the inner emptiness When you feel empty it's a sign that it's time to grow. Imagine that I am walking on a
step. When I stopped it was because I hit the wall. If I'm feeling distressed and bored it's because there's no way to continue on that level. If you are bored with the scenery from your car window It's because you're parked. It's stopped because there's no way to continue at that altitude anymore. You have to take a step, move to another step. Then comes boredom, comes exhaustion, comes the inner emptiness that is good! That is why it is said that not all pain is negative. This process that we have today of excessively valuing pleasure and denying
pain is bad because we know, as my grandmother used to say, that necessity makes the frog jump. If you don't let life squeeze you a little, you won't rise. Otherwise, the person suffers and we go there: poor thing! It undermines any and all suffering. We buy each other's karma, we don't let him grow. And, in general, when we do it out of kindness, but kindness has to be associated with intelligence, this generates a dependency on that person, not growth. That is, even to be kind you need to have intelligence. The good, the beautiful and the
fair walk together. Will, love and intelligence walk together. Because otherwise we end up generating... we create dependencies and not growth. This is a sign that we are not knowing how to use goodness well. Then inner emptiness, transformation and a plane where the problem dissolves. For those who watched Kybalion they said this is the principle of neutralization. When you are in conflict on a level, you don't try to resolve it on that level, you jump to the top one. Emptiness, anguish and a plane where that problem looked from above... it was nonsense, It was irrelevant. Why
was I drowning in a glass of water? Because I was its size. If I grow up I won't fit in a glass of water anymore, that's where the drowning ends. I'll look and... Oh, it's just a glass of water! Now all I can do is wet my hand, I can no longer drown in there. I grew up! There's no way to get over this drowning unless you grow up and get bigger than the glass of water. Supernatural help, giver. That in fairy tales is typical. The prince leaves, he goes to free the princess who is
trapped by a dragon, an old man appears who gives him water and the old man gives him an invisibility cloak a sword that has magical powers, and other things... When he comes before the dragon, he is armed to the teeth and can beat the dragon. He says there are two elements that are allies: there is our essence that wants to manifest, and normally it takes an external helper, who within the traditions was called a master. The giver, in the tales, is nothing more than a master. It's a being that already won that little stage you're
fighting. So he is able to join the best of you, represent you abroad. And helps you climb the next step. It's like you hear inside you... There are 10 voices speaking inside you right now. One of them is the voice of your inner self that is wanting to surface. How am I going to recognize? If there is someone outside of you Who leads you and says something you compare and find that voice within you by comparison. So the giver, the master, is an ally of the voice that is wanting to speak within you. He gives
you that tip that will help you overcome the next obstacle. This presence of the giver in myths and tales is very constant. Old man, old woman, animal that gives instructions and magic weapons. For Theseus it's Ariadne who gives him the thread. Look, you're going to get out of there with that thread. Gave him the magic weapon that allowed him to kill the Minotaur and leave without getting lost. For Dante Alighieri, in the Divine Comedy, first is Virgil, the poet, then Beatrice. For those who have read, he goes in there and leaves led by Virgil and
then by Beatrice. For Siegfried...this story of the Nibelungs is beautiful! When he kills the dragon a bird comes and says: Bathe in the dragon's blood! And he bathes and becomes impregnable. It says: Mime, who is the dwarf, is trying to kill you. He prevents himself from Mime. It says: There is a young who sleeps in the circle of fire, go there! He goes there and conquers Brunhilde. This bird gave him all the tips he needed. It represents a Master who has allowed him to move to another level of experience. Charon the boatman that will cross
the river Lethe, Will take the man from a known dimension to an unknown dimension. He also represents that giver. Hermes Mercury is a god who was exactly the pontiff between two worlds in Greece. That pontiff in Egypt was Anubis. They are called psychopomp gods, who are tour guides through the world of Mystery. They take the citizen by the hand and take him to the other side of the river, like a boatman. Mephistopheles, in Faust. Did you read this one? He was giving away everything he wanted until he realized he didn't want any of it and
find who he really wanted to become. But it was showing him, through exhaustion, that all he wanted was a fantasy. We wonder: Was Mephistopheles that diabolical? Because Faust conquers self-knowledge thanks to him. Pan, who was a God who also had this. He guarded a forest that in the middle was "omphalos" which is the navel of the world, the essence, the center. But everyone who entered there was seized by panic. That was Pan's syndrome, it's a different world, an unknown world and it took courage and determination for man to cross the world of Pan and reached
the "omphalus". I mean, it's the same story. With many versions. Time to grow! They are the seeds of our identity wanting to emerge. It's our Being wanting to give its message to the world, and this is unknown to us, this hurts, this is reckless, Until the moment it emerges and we say: Phew, good! Imagine if I had lived without conquering this, what would my life have been? Those who grow know that every price is little compared to what spiritual growth can give man. Every price is well paid! And then he'll say something beautifu! Campbell has
some passages that are very poetic, this one for example. There are mythical heroes, but there are historical heroes too. And both can teach us many things. Remember he talked a little about it in the prologue. Ah, he defeated a lot of external enemies! But that was a consequence, first he beat himself! First he penetrated his shadows and found light because otherwise he wouldn't beat anyone from the outside. He poses as such a hero Napoleon. That sense of historical mission that he had. This sentence that I put here is very beautiful: "The man with God is
the majority." "The man who is allied to his divine essence is endowed with an extraordinary power To overcome external circumstances." He puts this phrase from Napoleon that I think is very beautiful: "I felt led towards a goal I was unaware of. As soon as I reached it, as soon as I became unnecessary, it would only take one atom to defeat me. But until then no force of humanity could act against me." That is, as long as I have not fulfilled my destiny, no force of humanity will be able to defeat me. After it fulfilled even
an atom would defeat me. Do you understand? While I'm acting by the Dharma, acting by the law of necessity, nothing is powerful against me! After I leave (the Dharma) and I'm acting only in my name, in the name of Napoleon alone, even an atom knocks me down. A man with God is the majority! He walks with the story. Who can against history? One who walks with the Dharma. Who can against Dharma? Nature stamps your project and walks with you. But, if you're walking alone even a breath knocks you down. This is what he says: I
am great Because my cause is great. If you put me to fight for mediocrities even an ant can knock me down. That's what he means. See how interesting it is. The man who is imbued with a sense of history, from a sense of law of necessity, who can against him? He knows what he's doing. Some heroes in history had this consciousness. For anyone who has read Gallic War, Julius Caesar felt that way, Alexander the Great felt that way. They had a sense of being agents of a historical need and therefore had extraordinary power. He'll go
on to talk a little bit more about the giver. "Giver is master and represents benign power of destiny (Dharma), present in the sanctuary of the heart." As I said, this donor who is represented outside it is the symbol of a need that is within you. He speaks the language of your Being. Because if you weren't starting to hear the language of your Being, What it says doesn't mean anything. I told you, several times in these lectures that we have been giving in all these cycles, that once someone asked Socrates if he could turn a non-philosopher
into a philosopher. And he said: Look, my mother was an excellent midwife, but she could not give birth to a woman who was not pregnant. That is, a master is a midwife, a midwife of souls, but you must have the pregnancy inside the man. His heart has to be asking to speak. Then the master goes and decodes As if he were a ventriloquist. He speaks in the name of your heart. But if your heart doesn't want to speak, what the master is saying means nothing. For a woman who does not want to give birth, is
not pregnant, what does a midwife mean? What is this midwife in my life for? A midwife means a lot to someone who is going to give birth. A master has a lot of meaning for someone who is pregnant with growing up. Who feels in his heart the need for expansion. Teacher Delia Steinberg Guzmán, who is our International Director, has a passage that I think is beautiful. She tells you to imagine the universe, the most distant stars, the galaxies, forcing space to expand, this vital force for expanding, for gaining space. Imagine a seed underground... the same
thing: a vital force inside pushing its limits, forcing the earth, wanting to surface, wanting to find the sun. Realize, feel these two things! Now feel both things inside your heart! Also have! Heart is a symbol of your center, your essence. There is something inside you that's like this... like life inside a seed, like life inside a galaxy wanting to expand. And that's why what the master says makes sense. He is a representative, a bearer, a spokesman for your heart. At some point he will make this delivery, will make you hear that voice inside. At the
end of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna and Arjuna, who are master and disciple, Krishna is within Arjuna's heart. He's no longer out. As a guardian of the unknown threshold, what the master proposes sometimes seems fearsome. He speaks, for example, of Columbus and the ocean. He says that Christopher Columbus when he goes sailing with his sailors, have to lie to the sailors. I don't know this historical fact that he cites, but they say that in the middle of the ocean, sometimes, they panicked because the legends they had heard of sea dragons, Of the world ending on an
edge and falling into the abyss, they were desperate. Sometimes they had to blindfold them, lie to them because they couldn't bear to face the unknown. He says that's more or less what our master does to us sometimes. You have to calm down: no, there's nothing! It won't be anything! Because otherwise, we cannot bear the fear of the unknown, of so much fantasy that we have that the unknown will destroy us. And maybe the unknown will give birth to us - like a midwife! Will she destroy us or will she give birth to something extraordinary that
needs to emerge in us? He says that sometimes we are not able to see. The fear is so tremendous that we cannot see it. He says that Columbus, in order to make his navigations, from time to time had to treat his sailors like children because they couldn't bear the thought of confronting the unknown. He cites the example of the Symplegades, Which are rocks that collide. And the mission of certain heroes in certain myths such as the case of Odysseus, when Ulysses returns home, Scylla and Charybdis crash and there's just a little break where it's open
and you have to pass. The hero, that precision, that decision, that will, who knows how to take advantage of the slightest gap in history to pass. Where there is a will there is a way. If there isn't a gap, I'll open one, but I'll pass. Where there is a will there is a way. The symbol of that precision, that moment, that sense of timing and that commitment to the future is what the hero must have. Adventure: passage from the known to the unknown. It requires competence and courage. Faced with competence and courage, fear disappears. He
will quote a story... These adventures are not always successful. Sometimes the man is intimidated in the middle of the way and retreats. He quotes a story that belongs to the Jatakas. Jatakas is a work that narrates the previous incarnations of Siddhartha Gautama, which is the story of the prince of 5 weapons who walks into the forest and faces an ogre. And the prince uses the first weapon - the ogre had sticky hair - He throws the sword and the sword sticks to the ogre, he kicks and the ogre traps his foot, he picks up his
knife, the knife gets stuck in the ogre. Everything sticks to the ogre. The 4 tools he has are stuck together, But he had a fifth. And he is not afraid at any moment and the ogre saying: but boy, what kind of man are you that isn't afraid of me? You've already lost all these tools. And he said: no, I have a fifth. I have within me a tool that is pure fire. If you swallow me it'll burn your insides and I'll come out of you with it. His fifth weapon was wisdom. And the ogre is
intimidated: Well, such a man, without fear, If I swallow him, he will rip me apart and he'll stay the same because no one holds the will of such a man. And he manages to break free, tame this ogre and go on his way. By the boiling tool of this wisdom. This prince who one day would be Siddhartha Gautama according to a story, a myth. But this mighty will and this wisdom of what your destiny is and that nothing and no one can stop. So in the face of decision, courage, All obstacles give way. Remember that
I told you that the will, in our historic moment, it's a decision on the mental plane, perseverance and constancy on the physical plane. I am. I want to. I will go. On the physical plane: No rush and no break. Perseverance and constancy. Always walk. He talks a little bit about the whale's belly, which represents the uterus, rebirth, which is represented in different ways. That is, the belly of the wolf In Little Red Riding Hood is a form of the whale's belly. The fact that she emerges victorious is a symbol of rebirth. Gods and Kronos. You
know that almost all the gods were swallowed by their father. Only Zeus survived. It's as if they came out of their father's belly reborn, revived. It's a rebirth. This symbol of being devoured is similar to the cave symbol. Enter the cave and come out bigger. That is, it's like going back to the uterus and being born again. I tell you truly, no one will enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again. It is the symbol of Rebirth. Passing through the portal of the uterus is self-annihilation. He says that the door of a temple,
for example a medieval temple, those goths with those gargoyles, represents this passage through the teeth of the whale, Passing through tests that allow you to enter a sacred environment. No one enters the Sacred without going through purification tests. Whenever you approach a portal, the guardian dragon of that portal appears, that's what Jung said. That is, entering the temple symbolically represents passing through tests that man had to go through in order to enter the most sacred stage of consciousness. And this was medieval architecture, It sought to preserve this idea. The Hero Who Conquers Shattering overcomes the
dual world and no longer fears (kills the dragon) Symbol of shattering, for example, is Osiris. Vanquish shattering, vanquish the dual world where everything is split, definitively unifies, passes beyond. Why does man overcome shattering? He loses attachment to those things that can be taken away from him. He is attached to something That no longer has pieces. You understand? I'm attached to this body! This will necessarily be taken away from me. I'm attached to a car that is parked outside; I'm attached to a reputation, to a status. These are pieces! Life is tearing me apart, taking away
all these things. Man is the size of his generosity! When I lose it all, I'll arrive at something that has no pieces, no parts, what I am in essence. This is victory over shattering. The death of the dragon, which is the symbol of Saint George of Cappadocia. The rescue of his own soul and the victory over the dragon. "No one reaches the highest degree of nature without ceasing to exist on the lowest degree." You die on this level and are reborn on the other. "Abandon your life if you want to live." Does anyone know where
this phrase is from? The Voice of the Silence, Tibetan tradition. It's by dying that one is born to eternal Life. Saint Francis of Assisi. Truly, I say to you, no one will enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless he is born again. Jesus Christ to Nicodemus. Solve - Coagula. Medieval alchemy. It dissolves on this plane and coagulates on the other. Reborn purified. Only rebirth can conquer death. So many traditions saying the same thing. And I finally put this image which I think it's very interesting. Symbolically it represents a lot. How interesting! Suddenly the cicada comes out
of the cicada. Its shell is left behind and it starts on another plane. How nature has sensational strategies to show people that we exist beyond a form! That our essence is beyond all forms. It's as if the Myth of the Hero taught you how to do this: leave a peel behind, reborn on another plane. But don't get too attached because it goes to another level where you'll also have to leave the peel. It was just a vehicle. What is yours nothing and no one can take from you. Start approaching this inner voice, start listening to
what it wants from you and when it orders it - die on this plane, be reborn on another - be brave! Answer the call! Launch yourself into the adventure! And know how to hear the call within you and those who represent that calling on the outside. Do not deny it. Because who refuses the call lives in the house of death. Everything he builds is to immobilize himself, it's to not grow. So it's not a construction, deep down, it's a destruction. Well, today we stop here. I remind you, next week, still Chapter 2 of part 1.
I hope you follow along with the reading so that we can move forward together. Thank you! New Acropolis is an international, independent, non-profit philosophical movement based on Culture, Philosophy, and Volunteering.
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