Ego and PRIDE

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"He must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty and life and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable."


— Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)


The biggest hurdle in building a positive relationship in ego.


Ego is self intoxicating. Ego is an unhealthy pride that results in arrogance. Healthy pride is a feeling of the pleasure of accomplishment with humility. Ego gives a swollen head while pride gives a swollen heart. A big head gives a big headache whereas a big heart gives humility.

Ego leads u no where but to distress

so quit EGO for good


Pride is the attitude one has towards their accomplishments, their intellect, their physical appearance, their existence in the community. It is healthy to do something well and to say "I take pride in my work." It is unhealthy to say I am the best and there are none better. And even if this is true, the mere fact I feel this way is unhealthy and sets the community on edge.


Pride goes before the fall. In other words, pride usually blinds us from seeing the truth and recognizing risk or danger. It is one thing to be self confident and to be courageous in the face of challenges. It is quite another to be overconfident and insensitive to those around you and oblivious to their feelings and needs. A prideful person is likely to become isolated from others because they have such an inflated view of their own self value.



SATAN AS THE ROOT OF EVIL

God is not some petulant creator sitting on a throne checking up sins against good deeds. Well neither is Satan a real being with big ears and a pitchfork stoking the fires of hell. I am going to give you something, a truth, a biblical truth.


A Universal truth taught by all great religions of the world, remember I said there is nothing worthy of truth unless it is Universal, the truth about Satan also fits this mold. "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord (Jehovah), and Satan came among them. And the lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord (Jehovah), and said, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it."


This account about satan puts him on an entirely different light and relationship than is usually believed and taught. If he is completely evil, how can he mingle with the sons of God and appear before Jevoah, like one of them? Also, if he is the devil, the incarnation of evil itself, how can he gain entrance into heaven? Is not hell supposed to be the abode of the devil?


Satan is Lucifer, the fallen angel who was the morning star of creation.


He is the personification of the ego, pride and lust for power, and as such he is the adversary of God. Ego is the beginning and root of all evil. It is a mind process which separates man's consciousness from God consciousness. It acts as a wall between man and God.


The greater the ego, the thicker the wall and the longer will it take the soul to reach God-Realization. Not that God is limited, for He sees and knows all, but the soul's consciousness cannot penetrate this thick wall without His help, which can only be obtained by practicing humility.


It is the ego that is the root of all selfishness and it's subsequent suffering and disintegrating forces, with endless lesser evils which result from forceful self-will and which only tend to keep us from linking up with that Universal grid of knowledge, Universal Mind.


Satan is not the evil which is called the devil, nor the disintegrating forces of evil in their lower aspects and details. Satan is still a son of God, although fallen, but he cannot return to the fathers House because of ego, self interest and pride. However, he is still a powerful prince and the ruler of many a realm and worlds.


This was plainly indicated when he tried to tempt Jesus by promising Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them if He would fall down and worship him. This means that the lower carnal nature is tempting your higher mind, with worldly things, to keep you from attaining Christ consciousness.



In the Christian world, the great Mystic, Jacob Boeheme, came closest to telling the real story about Satan. he wrote that after creating the beautiful morning star called Lucifer, the prince Lucifer came to pay homage to the Lord God, the Supreme Creator. He entered the magnificent royal palace of the Lord, in a beautiful room that was not occupied (the Mind) by anyone.


Then he heard a sweet, childlike voice (conscious Mind) saying„ "You are welcome, Lucifer." At the gentleness, Lucifer/ ego began to expand in thoughts of what he could do to govern here by his might, etc. By that very thought, he himself set loose such forces that there were loud crashes of thunder and lightning which hurled Lucifer out in space, and he has been traveling there ever since.


Throughout the Bible, as well as in the Kabbala, and especially in the older writings of the Zohar and the Talmud, are mentioned hosts of heaven and principalities and powers, Arch angles cherubims etc, the Supreme father and Creator of all. This is but a glimpse of the hierarchies of heaven. All sacred texts have their own names for each one of these offices, rulers and powers.


And there is always an evil one named Satan, Kal or something else representing the EGO, always throwing a monkey wrench into the wheels of progress, destroying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. here we see yet another golden Thread.


In all the accounts given in the holy scriptures, it is clearly indicated that Original Sin was pride or egotism a desire for self, apart from the welfare of others. If thou must make a gold coin true Let thy mint these rules pursue, In the forge of continence.


Let the goldsmith be a man of patience, His tools be made of knowledge. His anvil made of reason, with the fear of God the bellows blow, With meditation and austerity make the fire glow, pour the liquid in the mold of love, print the name (Nam) of the lord thereon, and cool it with holy waters, for thus in the mint of truth the word is coined. This is the real Alchemy of life by the power of His Word, when found and used within the pearl of truth.


The following are quotations from the bible, indicating the great dominion of satan and the extent of his power. Jesus was accused, by the Pharisees, of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons.


"And Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And is satan cast out satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzubub cast out devils by whom do your children cast them out?



Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of god is come unto you." Mat. 12:25-28. At another time Jesus said to his devotees: "Know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all parables?



The ego is not who you are, it's who you think you are. Your ego is very strongly linked to your survival instinct. Without it, you would probably sit chanting 'om' as a tsunami approaches. Luckily, for most of us the ego is a tough bastard to kill. But its not a good idea to let it run rampant through your psyche, best to be conscious of its workings, and learn to identify the feelings that are present when your ego is trying to gain the upper hand.

Ride that bastard well.




'Ego'

"Now it is nearly impossible to separate a discussion of the nature of the soul from a discussion of the nature of perception. Very briefly let us review a few points: You form physical matter and the physical world that you know. The physical senses actually can be said to create the physical world, in that they force you to perceive an available field of energy in physical terms, and impose a highly specialized pattern upon this field of reality. Using the physical senses, you can perceive reality in no other way.


This physical perception in no way alters the native, basic, unfettered perception that is characteristic of the inner self, the inner self being the portion of the soul that is within you.


The inner self knows its relationship with the soul. It is a portion of the self that acts, you might say, as a messenger between the soul and the present personality. You must also realize that while I use terms like "soul" or "entity," "inner self," and "present personality," I do so only for the sake of convenience, for one is a part of the other; there is no point where one begins and another ends.


You can see this easily for yourself if you consider the way in which psychologists use the terms "ego," "subconscious," and even "unconscious." What seems subconscious in one instant may be conscious the next. An unconscious motive may also be conscious at one point. Even in these terms your experience should tell you that the words themselves make divisions that do not exist in your own experience.


You seem to perceive exclusively through your physical senses, and yet you have only to extend your egotistical idea of reality, and you will find even your egotistical self accepting quite readily the existence of nonphysical information.


As it does, so its own ideas of its own nature will automatically change and expand, for you will have removed limitations to its growth. Now any act of perception changes the perceiver, and so the soul, considered as a perceiver, must also change. There are no real divisions between the perceiver and the thing seemingly perceived. In many ways the thing perceived is an extension of the perceiver. This may seem strange, but all acts are mental, or if you prefer, psychic acts. This is an extremely simple explanation; but the thought creates the reality. Then the creator of the thought perceives the object, and he does not understand the connection between him and this seemingly separate thing.


This characteristic of materializing thoughts and emotions into physical realities is an attribute of the soul. Now in your reality, these thoughts are made physical. In other realities, they may be "constructed" in an entirely different fashion. So your soul, that which you are, constructs your physical daily reality for you from the nature of your thoughts and expectations.


You can readily see, therefore, how important your subjective feelings really are. This knowledge - that your universe is idea construction - can immediately give you clues that enable you to change your environment and circumstances beneficially. When you do not understand the nature of the soul, and do not realize that your thoughts and feelings form physical reality, then you feel powerless to change it."
(thanks ever S&J)




Ego is you. Soul is Ego. Mind is Ego.


The body is the creation and the "tool" of the ego.


Spirit is energy.


Put them all together and you have your life as a human.


All "great" religions of the world were created solely for the purpose of controlling you and controlling your thoughts. No way do they want you to think that you are a sovereign individual.



There is only one thing that separates you from being god,m your higher self, or the highest consciousness obtainable.

EGO!!!!


And Ego comes in two sizes, inflated "I CAN DO IT!, or deflated, I am nothing, I can't do anything right, I'm scared, I don't know, I am afraid.

You see there's two parts to EGO, I'm always screwing it up, I'm not going to take any chances (deflated ego)

Or I am in complete control. Those two things, once EGO goes, the door falls and you are GOD.

THEN the decisions that you make, are ALWAYS exactly right. And the Ego is transcended as you go into meditation, then you move into harmony with the oneness, and you know this has to be right, even if somebody says I think that was a mistake, NO it wasn't.

It was a lesson, religion calls it SIN, that's how sinful religion really is. And by learning this lesson, I have moved an obstacle in my progress, and I have cast it aside, and I go on.

So this is what Krishna is talking about, you can't have it any other way, if jesus is right and god lives inside of you, as John 14:23 says, then YOU are GOD!


There is NO WAY that you can change that, if Paul is right and says that I will walk in their, I will dwell in them and shall be their god, then god is inside of you , that means INSIDE of YOU, INSIDE of YOU!



Then YOU'RE GOD!

So then the only thing that separates us from being god is the EGO. The reason that the people out there cannot contend with you being GOD, because they have constructed this god as an old man sitting upon a throne on some distant planet with a very short fuse.

And you can never understand that this creative power has chosen that god the entity is wisdom and love is a power that dwells inside of every being. And you as a human being have the instinctive right to shutdown that self which is the illusion and then go to the higher self.


If we ever find this out, and of course you know the first thing that you are going to have to do is to be very careful, be very careful, you're not going to want to say this to anybody, because what I'm telling you now is the most magnificent, GREATEST secret in the UNIVERSE.


When you want to know who created the world, YOU DID!


YOU DID!

YOU! created all things, YOU DID! I DID! and when the illusion of the lower self with it's fears and it's guilt and it's hurts and is finally pushed aside, the nirvanic doors swing open, you realize that you are god, and that you have created all things , every single person, every single human being that exists in the world, but we have not allowed the god, whom is ready to heal, to rein and to rule in love, to exert itself. We have placed the door and slammed it , and so we dwell in ego, so we are ego.


We are guilty or we are cocky, one or the other, and this unity does not exist. But once you understand that you are god, if you will allow it to be, what is the potential? And you see how foreign it is for you , you can't even consider it, because all of your life you have been told that you are a worthless sinner, your guilty, your this, your that and the other thing , and you can't even come to grips with this what I'm saying.


But you don't have to come to grips with it, if you simply acknowledge that jesus said , krishna said it, Buddha said it , the whole universe said it, that this thing called god doesn't exist anywhere except inside of you, it embodies itself inside the human being, and then we have the truth, I am already setting about to change my entire world by this, because I don't have to sit anymore , you don't have to keep asking if your decision was a mistake, that will be out of your vocabulary, it couldn't be, because god made the decision.


And simply what it is , it's an experience, and if it did not come out the way you (god ) wanted it to, then it's an obstacle that you don't have to face anymore, so move it out of the way, and go back into meditation and go to the next one.


No more guilt, because it was the right one, every decision, everything you do then is right, and you look upon it with the lower mind, and say ah! I shouldn't have done that, yes you should do that , because if you had gotten that in meditation, and meditation is where the truth comes from, then what you have done, is not decided on something , you have created something.


You Say Oh1 I have created a monster, fine that's an obstacle, move it aside and go to the next one, because you know that you won't create that again, that's GOD. And it's a beautiful way, and that's why as I move through this, and as I live through this, and as i develop through this, my mind carries me through this, then this touches you in gentle meditation to really come into you.


That is the essence, see. Not to pussyfoot around any more, try and say I don't mean that I'm god, I said exactly what I said, I am god and so are you because Jesus christ said so, Buddha said so, Krishna said so, the universe said so, he walks in me, he talks in me, he dwells in me, he is inside of me, and all I have to do is get the ego (satan) out of the way, then I do not decide, I create. That's what god is, that's the unity of life.


Now, knowing that, what is your potential for adventure, what is your potential, now that you know that the decisions you make and that are made, come from yourself, which is god, and say to yourself, that every single decision is absolutely necessary, and you say, I can't go out and tell that to anybody, I can't go up and say to anybody, oh you know what I'm god or you know I hear this thing in y head that is directing me, you know they make a whistle that is so shrill, that only a very few people can hear it, most people can't hear it.


That doesn't mean that the whistle didn't make a sound, only those that could hear it, hear it. you see what I'm saying? So understand then, understand what I'm saying, and look at the glory inheritant in you.



true enough, everything said is right on, but when one goes within themselves in meditation, then the Ego no longer says hey, I'm the cats meow, it just means that it is brought under some manner of control.



SECRET WISDOM" in the teachings of all world SPIRITUAL teachers: Socrates, Paracelsus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Nagarjuna, Bodhidharma, Jesus Christ and Mohammad (and others).


The entire Christian Bible, creation legend, descent into and exodus from "Egypt," ark and flood allegory, Israelite "history," Hebrew prophecy and poetry, Gospels, Epistles and Revelation imagery, all are now proven to have been the transmission of ancient Egypt’s scrolls and papyri into the hands of later generations which knew neither their true origin nor their fathomless meaning.


It must be replaced by a purely spiritual Christianity. In the splendid light of ancient Egypt Occidental religion can now find its way from Medieval darkness to sunlit truth. The Dark Ages can be brought to their dismal end at last.


"Every man," proclaimed the ancients and the Medieval "Fire Philosophers," "has a little SUN within his own breast." This sun is the Christ in man, a nucleus of fiery divine spirit-energy. All the Christs in antiquity were denominated "Sun-Gods."


The names of nearly all of them are the immediate words for the sun, or epithets appropriate to the solar orb. "All things are the products of one primordial Fire," assert the Chaldean Oracles.


For thousands of years, all the world's greatest spiritual teachers: Buddha, Lao Tzu, Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Mohamed, Osho, (and others) have been preaching the same thing to humanity.



We can summarize all their teachings in just 2 words "Know Yourself:



It is no rank untruth to say that the cult of the historical Jesus has stood squarely between men and their immanent God and tended to keep them apart from each other.


It has thwarted the culture of their own divinity. It would seem as if St. Paul wrote with this cogent realization in mind when he fairly shrieks at us: "Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is within you?"


He is not a man outside yourselves; he is the God whom you keep buried so deeply in your own hearts and minds that you do not know he is there.


It is a notable thing that august ancient spiritual science rightly regarded it as a sinful aberrancy for one to worship a power outside one’s self, or a deity lodged elsewhere than in the inner shrine of one’s selfhood.



Medieval and modern blindness has reversed this direction of aspiration, and with calamitous consequences.


Some sixteen centuries of spiritual benightedness have produced for historical record the pitiful and demoralizing spectacle of millions of misguided votaries turning outside themselves for salvation and pleading with an alleged personal figure on the stage of remote history to enter their lives and transform them into loveliness, all the while neglecting the voice of the only real Christos that ever existed, their own instinct for goodness, truth and love.


One such individual who seeks outside of his/her self for a godly experience, is blaspheming against the holy ghost. The very power you were given, you gave it away, by joining a religious cult.


The Bible told you not to become converted to a religion, it told you that the kingdom of god is within you, it told you to seek within yourself. Jesus said because of you TRADITION I will reject you.


Why? because traditionally, people go to churches made of material things, and never enter into meditation and seek within themselves, which is Gods true church. The church (temple) built in SEVEN years (seven chakras) and without any tools.


"I will DESTROY THIS TEMPLE that is MADE WITH HANDS, and WITHIN THREE DAYS I WILL BUILD ANOTHER MADE WITHOUT HANDS".


Acts 7:44-50 "Howbeit the most High dwells not in temples made with hands; as said the prophet."


The bible is a book about INNER transformation. God gave it, and yet you give it away every time you project your saving grace in an outwardly direction, other than your own self.


Buddha, Jesus and other light bringers of the ancient past, are all telling you to turn inward. Yet you turn outward and grasp at the straw men of religion, which Jesus himself warned you against.

To give up your inner power to any outside agency, is the most corrupt and aberrant thing to do concerning your quest for truth and knowledge.


The spiritual books were put here as a guide only, as signposts pointing the way, yet you missed the message. Because you were to busy going to church, which robbed you of your own innate interior power.

What do they mean by that?


Why is "Knowing Yourself" the foundation of wisdom.

How do you know yourself?


There are two kinds of knowing.

The first is knowing from the outside, objective studying from outside. This is science.


The second kind of knowing is from the inside.


The inside PSYCHE is the foundation of the outside world (the physical body and the material world).


Compiling facts about things (research) and memorizing them is not "knowing".


It is just an accumulation of facts about things outside you.


So "knowledge" is not the same as "knowing".


Knowledge (what you do at school) is just the accumulation of facts about things outside you.


knowing means to experience the Christ consciousness, the Krisha consciousness, the Buddha consciousness. Not intellectualize about it, but EXPERIENCE this reality within your being.


It is easy to know things from the outside, objectively.

That is why many people remain on the outside.


To know things from inside, subjectively only come by way of meditation. Seeking within ones self.


For example it is easy to study fire and write tomes of scholarly treatises about the philosophy of fire.



But it is not easy for one to put his finger in the fire to be burned so as to have a direct experience of what is fire!



That is why there are very few "knowers" in the world, men and women of wisdom!


Many people are intelligent, scholarly and knowledgeable BUT very few are "knowers"


You can't understand how the outside works and what makes it so, until you know it from the inside.



That is why if you keep studying things in the outside material world from outside, you'll keep getting more and more puzzles. Never a conclusive answer!



You'll never reach any answers. This is the problem which Science has today.


It is always seeking for answers but always ending up in riddles, enigmas and mysteries, with no answers.


The solution is not on the outside. The solution is on the inside.


*******



he notion of this universe, its heavens, hells, and everything within it, as a great dream dreamed by a single being in which all the dream characters are dreaming too, has in India enchanted and shaped the entire civilization. The ultimate dreamer is Vishnu floating on the cosmic Milky Ocean, couched upon the coils of the abyssal serpent Ananta, the meaning of whose name is Unending. In the foreground stand the five Pandava brothers, heroes of the epic Mahabharata, with Draupadi, their wife: allegorically , she is the mind and they are the five senses.


They are those whom the dream is dreaming. Eyes open, ready and willing to fight, the youths address themselves to this world of light in which we stand regarding them, where objects appear to be distinct from each other, and an Aristotelian logic prevails, and A is not not-A. Behind them a dream-door has opened, however, to an inward, backward dimension where a vision emerges against darkness...


-Joseph Campbell



Well, one of the problems about being psychoanalyzed is, as Nietzsche said, Be careful lest in casting out your devils that you cast out the best thing that's in you. So many people who are really in deep analysis look as though and act as though they have been filleted. There's no bone there, there's no stuff! How to get rid of ego as dictator and turn it into messenger and servant and scout, to be in your service, is the trick.


Furthermore, we have not even to risk the journey alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world


It seems to have had an order, to have been composed by someone, and those events that were merely accidental when they happened turn out to be the main elements in a consistent plot. Who composed this plot? Just as your dreams are composed, so your whole life has been composed by the will within you. Just as the people who you met by chance became effective agents in the structuring of your life, so you have been the agent in the structuring of other lives.


And the whole thing gears together like one big symphony, everything influencing and structuring everything else. It's as though our lives were the dream of a single dreamer in which all of the dream characters are dreaming too. And so everything links to everything else moved out of the will in nature...It is as though there were an intention behind it yet it is all by chance. None of us lives the life that he had intended



Anyone who has had an experience of mystery knows that there is a dimension of the universe that is not that which is available to his senses. There is a pertinent saying in one of the Upanishads: When before the beauty of a sunset or of a mountain you pause and exclaim, 'Ah,' you are participating in divinity. Such a moment of participation involves a realization of the wonder and sheer beauty of existence. People living in the world of nature experience such moments every day. They live in the recognition of something there that is much greater than the human dimension

But if a person has had the sense of the Call -- the feeling that there's an adventure for him -- and if he doesn't follow that, but remains in the society because it's safe and secure, then life dries up. And then he comes to that condition in late middle age: he's gotten to the top of the ladder, and found that it's against the wrong wall.


If you have the guts to follow the risk, however, life opens, opens, opens up all along the line. I'm not superstitious, but I do believe in spiritual magic, you might say. I feel that if one follows what I call one's bliss -- the thing that really gets you deep in your gut and that you feel is your life -- doors will open up. They do! They have in my life and they have in many lives that I know of.



From The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

Moyers: Why are there so many stories of the hero in mythology?

The Matrix - Joseph Campbell Monomyth

Campbell: Because that's what's worth writing about. Even in popular novels, the main character is a hero or heroine who has found or done something beyond the normal range of achievement and experience. A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.


Moyers: So in all of these cultures, whatever the local costume the hero might be wearing, what is the deed?


Campbell: Well, there are two types of deed. One is the physical deed, in which the hero performs a courageous act in battle or saves a life. The other kind is the spiritual deed, in which the hero learns to experience the supernormal range of human spiritual life and then comes back with a message.


Moyers: Does your study of mythology lead you to conclude that a single human quest, a standard pattern of human aspiration and thought, constitutes for all mankind something that we have in common, whether we lived a million years ago or will live a thousand years from now?


Campbell: There's a certain type of myth which one might call the vision guest, going in quest of a boon, a vision, which has the same form in every mythology. That is the thing that I tried to present in the first book I wrote, The Hero With a Thousand Faces. All these different mythologies give us the same essential quest. You leave the world that you're in and go into a depth or into a distance or up to a height. There you come to what was missing in your consciousness in the world you formerly inhabited. Then comes the problem either of staying with that, and letting the world drop off, or returning with that boon and trying to hold on to it as you move back into your social world again.


Moyers: How do I slay that dragon in me? What's the journey each of us has to make, what you call "the soul's high adventure"?


Campbell: My general formula for my students is "Follow your bliss." Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it.


Moyers: Is it my work or my life?

Campbell: If the work that you're doing is the work that you chose to do because you are enjoying it, that's it. But if you think, "Oh, no! I couldn't do that!" that's the dragon locking you in. "No, no, I couldn't be a writer," or "No, no, I couldn't possibly do what So-and-so is doing."


Moyers: When I take that journey and go down there and slay those dragons, do I have to go alone?


Campbell: If you have someone who can help you, that's fine, too. But, ultimately, the last deed has to be done by oneself.


Psychologically, the dragon is one's own binding of oneself to one's ego. We're captured in our own dragon cage. The problem of the psychiatrist is to disintegrate that dragon, break him up, so that you may expand to a larger field of relationships. The ultimate dragon is within you, it is your ego clamping you down.


Moyers: I like what you say about the old myth of Theseus and Ariadne. Theseus says to Ariadne, "I'll love you forever if you can show me a way to come out of the labyrinth." So she gives him a ball of string, which he unwinds as he goes into the labyrinth, and then follows to find the way out. You say, "All he had was the string. That's all you need."


Campbell: That's all you need--an Ariadne thread.



Moyers: Sometimes we look for great wealth to save us, a great power to save us, or great ideas to save us, when all we need is that piece of string.


Campbell : That's not always easy to find. But it's nice to have someone who can give you a clue. That's the teacher's job, to help you find your Ariadne thread.


Moyers: Like all heroes, the Buddha doesn't show you the truth itself, he shows you the way to truth.


Campbell: But it's got to be your way, not his. The Buddha can't tell you exactly how to get rid of your particular fears, for example. Different teachers may suggest exercises, but they may not be the ones to work for you. All a teacher can do is suggest. He is like a lighthouse that says, "There are rocks over here, steer clear. There is a channel, however, out there".


Moyers: In all of these journeys of mythology, there's a place everyone wishes to find. The Buddhists talk of Nirvana, and Jesus talks of peace, of the mansion with many rooms. Is that typical of the hero's journey - that there's a place to find?


Campbell: The place to find is within yourself. I learned a little about this in athletics. The athlete who is in top form has a quiet place within himself, and it's around this, somehow, that his action occurs. . . . There's a center of quietness within, which has to be known and held. If you lose that center, you are in tension and begin to fall apart.




Moyers:Don't you think we've lost the truth in this society of ours, where is deemed More heoric to go out into the world and make a lot of money than it is to raise children?


Campbell: Making money gets more advertisement. You know the old saying: if a dog bites a man, that's not a story, but if a man bites a dog, you've got a story there. So the thing that happens and happens and happens, no matter how heroic it may be, is not news. Motherhood has lost its novelty, you might say.


Moyers:That's a wonderful image, though- the mother as hero.


Campbell: It has always seemed so to me. That's something I've learned from reading these myths.


Moyers:It's a journey-you have to move out of the known, conventional safety of your life to undertake this.


Campbell: You have to be transformed from a maiden to a mother. That's the big change, involving many dangers.


Moyers: And when you come back from your journey, with the child, you've brought something into the world.


Campbell:Not only that, you've got a life job ahead of you. Otto Rank makes a point that there is a world of people who think that their heroic act in being born qualifies them for respect and support of their whole community.


Moyers:But there's still a journey to be taken after that.


Campbell:There's a large journey to be taken, of many trials.


Moyers:How is consciousness transformed?


Campbell:Either by trials themselves or by illuminating revelations. Trials and revelations are what it is all about.


Moyers:So does heroism have a moral objective?


Campbell:The moral objective is saving the people, or saving a person, or supporting an idea. The hero sacrifices himself for something greater - that's the morality of it. Now, from another position, of course, you might say the idea for which he sacrificed himself was something that should not have been respected. That's a judgement from the other side, but it doesn't destroy the intrinsic heroism of the deed performed.


Moyers:So the hero goes for something, he doesn't just go along for the ride, he's not simply an adventurer"

Campbell:There's both kinds of heroes, some that choose to undertake the adventure and some that don't. In one kind of adventure, the hero sets out responsibly and intentionally to perform the deed. For instance, Odysseus' son Telemachus was told by Athena, " Go find your father."



That father quest is a major hero adventure for young people. That is the adventure of finding what your career is, what your nature is, what your source is. You undertake that intentionally. Or there is the legend of the Sumerian sky goddess, Inanna, who descended into the underworld and underwent death to bring her beloved back to life.



Then there are adventures into which you are thrown - for example, being drafted into the army. You didn't intend it, but you're in now. You've undergone a death and resurrection, you're put into a uniform, and you're another creature.


Moyers:Is the adventurer who takes that kind of trip a hero in the mythological sense?


Campbell:Yes, because he is always ready for it. In these stories, the adventure that the hero is ready for is the one he gets. The adventure is symbolically a manifestation of his character. Even the landscape and the conditions of the environment matches his readiness.


Moyers:In George Lucas' Star Wars, Solo begins as a mercenary and ends up a hero, coming in at the last to save Luke Skywalker.


Campbell:Yes. There Solo has done the hero act of sacrificing himself for another.


Moyers:So perhaps the hero lurks in each one of us when we don't know it?

Campbell:Our life evokes our character. You find out more about yourself as you go on. That is why it's good to put yourself in situations that will evoke your higher nature rather than your lower. "Lead us not into temptation."


Moyers:What about happiness? If I am a young person and I want to be happy, what do the myths tell me about happiness?


Campbell:The way to find your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy - not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. That is what I call "following your bliss."


Moyers: But how does mythology tell you about what makes you happy?


Campbell: It won't tell you what makes you happy, but it will tell you what happens when you begin to follow your happiness, what the obstacles are that you are going to run into.



For example, there's a motif in American Indian stories that I call "the refusal of suitors." There's a young girl, beautiful, charming, and the young men invite her to marriage. "No, no, no," she says, "there's nobody around good enough for me." So a serpent comes, or, if it's a boy who won't have anything to do with girls, the serpent queen of a great lake might come. As soon as you have refused the suitors, you have elevated yourself out of the local field and put yourself in the field of higher power, higher danger. The question is, are you going to be able to handle it?



Another American Indian motif involves mother and two little boys. The mother says, " You can play around the houses, but don't go north." So they go north. There's the adventurer.


Moyers: And the point?

Campbell: With the refusal of suitors, of passing over a boundary, the adventure begins. You get into a field that's unprotected, novel. You can't have creativity unless you leave behind the bounded, the fixed, all the rules.


Moyers: And life becomes-

Campbell:-harmonious, centered, and affirmative.

Moyers: Even with suffering?


Campbell: Exactly. The Buddhists speak of bodhisattva - the one who knows immortality, yet voluntarily enters into the field of fragmentation of time and participates willingly and joyfully in the sorrows of the world. And this means not only experiencing sorrows oneself but participating with compassion with the sorrow of others. Compassion is the awakening of the heart from bestial self-interest to humanity. The word "compassion" means literally "suffering with."


Moyers:But people ask, isn't myth a lie?


Campbell: No, mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth - penultimate because the ultimate cannot be be put into words. It is beyond words, beyond images, beyond the bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told. So this is the penultimate truth.



It's important to live life with the experience, and therefore the knowledge, of its mystery and your own mystery. This gives life a new radiance, a new harmony, a new splendor. Thinking in mythological terms helps to put you in accord with the inevitables of this vale of tears. You learn to recognize the positive values in what appear to be negative moments and aspects of your life. The big question is whether you are going to be say a hearty yes to your adventure.


Moyers:The adventure of the hero?

Campbell:Yes, the adventure of the hero - the adventure of being alive.




Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.

— Joseph Campbell (Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor)


Baba Ji: Between ego and pride a person gets caught up in guilt. Ego may give you a positive thought which your mind will turn into a negative. And pride may give you a negative thought which your mind will turn into a positive. For example, you may see Baba ji in a dream as a drunk. So your mind has taken the positive thoughts of Baba ji and turned them into a negative in your dream. Now, your test is do you believe the dream, or do you believe the Truth?



Ego and pride will confuse you. They put you into delusions. Its actually your own illusions due to thinking from your own-wisdom mind. The five thieves job is to fool you. They run you and confuse you. You must recognize them and their effects on your mind and keep pounding them into the ground with Absolute Reality – SatNaam.



I was speaking to someone on the phone yesterday from India, he was completely delusional. Couldn’t see that ego and pride had got him caught up in guilt. In ego and pride he did the deeds, then afterwards guilt came in “what have I done?” and that was making him run around and around in disarray. He had no idea what was going on in his mind regarding ego, pride and guilt. In illusion people have no idea of Maya (Rajo, Sato,Tamo) that is running them.



You get caught up in illusions, but as soon as you realise it, confess it, “SatGuru ji please forgive me for getting caught up thought from ego and pride.” That is how you wash yourself and God is the soap that cleans you – Sat Naam.



Truth produces love, and love binds everything together, whether it is the elements or human beings in this Perfect Play. Without Truth, the mind will fight everything in the world, resist it, be repulsed by it. But with Truth, Sat Naam, you will only fight your five thieves.



Sat Naam is the meditation. There are two ways to Truth. One is to meditate upon Sat Naam with closed eyes and solve the puzzle of your existence. The other way is to keep your eyes open and do truthful deeds all day long. This then leads to closed eyes too and the puzzle is solved. Best is to have deeds of Truth along with doing your Sat Naam Simran.



Pride is the greatest root of every sin. It is why we are all in this mess known as fallen creation. Pride is what set Lucifer against God, and is what was the result of all whom sinned in Adam. Nothing hinders us more, nothing hurts others more.


When Jesus came to earth He was not like other men, he was not like other prophets, he came to lay the axe at the root of the tree of sin. There is no axe greater than the cross, and there is no root more thick and corrupt than pride.


God, manifest in His Son, said, "I am meek, and lowly in heart." It is only in Christ that man can understand the consequence of his/her pride. When Adam fell, Pride entered man, pride acts as a blinder to the intentions and love of God. Unless our eyes are opened to our own pride, we are utterly lost, the opening of the eyes may happen in different ways for different people, but must be the root that the crosses axe most deeply penetrates.

Why?

God ONLY gives grace to the humble. In order to be a recipient of grace one must become humble. There is no gate more narrow, no path more strewn with the rubble of chipped away pride than this path that Christ demands we walk.


Pride keeps us from obeying clear commands from scripture, and assists us in our ability to explain away God's words. Pride keeps brothers and sisters from true fellowship and confession. Pride rends the body of Christ into divisions.


I find it interesting that the Bible is so concerned about the imagery of Horns. Horns in scripture almost always are growing out of a rebellious creature, or the image of one. When we are prideful, in God's eyes He sees horns protruding from dark minds.



Minds that have not been submitted to divine authority. In Nature, there is not an animal I know of that does not use its horns in some way for self promotion, for making followers after themselves. For establishing their authority over the rest of their brothers and sisters through the tyranny of oppression.


We must cut off our horns and attach them to the Alter of sacrifice. Horns are symbols of the intellectual, the emotional and the physical natures of each person, the three make up what we call the EGO, these are very powerful horns, and very sharp. The little horn that grows back after one is trying to subdue their own ego's, is the intellect.


May God kill our pride. I hope, dear one, that Jesus helps you to understand what I am saying. I did not even understand it for years and years after I thought I had become a believer. Praise God he is still in the business of opening blind eyes.



"Ego is pride, ego is self; GOD cannot rule when pride and self are in charge."



Pride is yet another form of ego. It keeps us in the past and closes our eyes on the now. It stops us from letting go and being free.


You've heard the expression: "Pride goeth before the fall;" but are all forms of pride dangerous? And what kind of fall are we talking about? Why is pride a "Deadly Sin?"


Pride is the first in a series of Seven Deadly Sins; their name describes their severity: these are mortal sins.


According to the teachings of the Catholic Church, when a person chooses to commit a mortal sin they are willingly forfeiting heaven and choosing hell.


The deadly Seven also known as “Capital Sins” lead to breaking one or more of the Ten Commandments, and breaking the Commandments creates a dangerous rift between man and God.


Read more at Suite101: The First Deadly Sin - Pride: What is Pride and overcoming Pride


Overcoming pride requires humility. Humility is not false self-deprecation (insulting yourself so others can say otherwise), rather it is recognizing that all gifts and talents come from God and acknowledging as such.


For example, if someone were to compliment your good singing voice, a prideful response would be: “You’re right, I do have an incredible voice, it’s about time you noticed it.” A self-deprecating response would be: “Oh, no, I can’t sing. My voice is terrible.”


But a humble answer would be: “Thank you. I’m grateful that God has blessed me with this voice and I’m glad I could share it with you.” Humbly giving God the credit He deserves is the antidote to sinful pride.