The Mythical Journey of the Soul
The Mythical Journey of the Soul
The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, studied the many ways in which we believe. He found common among the world’s wisdom traditions a sense of the creative animation of spirit, of Source, or Godhead…yet there are undeniably myriad paths to realization.
Every soul is on a journey -- a journey of discovery, awakening and realization of the true nature of existence.
Our mystical traditions have mapped what Campbell called the Hero’s Journey. Surprisingly, when we set aside the specific details of faith, a deeper set of mythological or archetypal forces emerge that are common to all. While the paths may be many, the themes of the journey are universal.
These common themes give us a collective context to hold our experiences (where we might have been disoriented, we now see the larger picture) and to recognize our commonality (where we might have felt alone, we can unite in shared insight). They give us wisdom into who we are and what we are doing here.
Slumbering in Darkness
The journey starts in darkness. On the soul’s journey, darkness represents ignorance or lack of understanding of the soul’s true nature. In our ignorance, we perceive ourselves as separate from the broader whole, as finite individuals with particular identities.
This illusion of duality leads us to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, seek out good and resist bad, yearn for success and deny failure, a process which causes anxiety and suffering as we attempt to protect and glorify our individual ego.
In this process, we falsely identify with the story line of our lives, the cast of characters, and the drama. Absorbed in our personal plot, we don’t yet realize we are actors in a much larger divine play designed to reveal the eternal story of the soul.
The Call to Adventure
Through some alchemy or grace, maybe through reading a book or speaking to a friend, or perhaps through our own questioning of “why am I here”, we start the awakening process.
We get an inkling of something more. We may start to notice a witnessing attention which sits behind the activity of our daily lives. We may also begin to question the usefulness of our ego and our highly over-rated logical mind, sensing something greater, wiser, more intuitive and profound brewing inside us.
This inquiry starts to shed light onto the mysteries the divine has constructed for us, allowing us to see our experiences as fodder for our soul’s evolution. The process of “waking up” may be the actual story line here. What used to seem like the central stuff of life – getting married, building careers, having children, acquiring things – become the stage and props for the unfolding archetypal tale.
We gain a new perspective, expanding beyond our previous limited individual absorption. With the Call to Adventure, we start our journey down the path of discovering ourselves as aspects of the greater interconnected oneness. We don’t know what the path looks like, or how it will unfold, but we know that we’re on it.
A light has been turned on.
The Road of Trials
From here, everything goes to hell in a hand-basket.
As the light starts to do its work, illuminating the darkness of our ignorance, it simultaneously dissolves the false self.
All the identities we’ve created to keep us safe and keep us small and keep us in our box, start to crumble. The soul doesn’t care about our protection strategies…it wants to be free! Like an old suit that doesn’t fit anymore, our ego attachments and personal agendas start to get stripped away piece by piece.
The Road of Trials is a journey into the shadow. It’s not just the ego as a protection mechanism that gets broken down, but also our resistance to recognizing the fullness of who we are. We must go into the shadow and reclaim the parts that we’ve tucked away, hidden in the closet, or denied. “I’m not petty, I’m not greedy, I’m not violent. I’m not [insert whatever is most repulsive to you].” This stage is about recognizing that we are indeed those qualities too. Only by owning the fullness of the Self can we bring compassion when greeting these qualities in the world.
Once we have traveled this road we come to understand how difficult it is for humanity to claim our shadow qualities. If we fail to do this, staying in collective denial, our deepest shadow fears will be acted out time and again on the world stage. As awakening ones, we represent a different possibility, a possibility of healing and integration of the shadow at a soul level.
By embracing the shadow, we learn that there’s nothing outside of our consciousness. Everything reflected in the world around us is actually resident in our inner landscape -- we are All That Is. But in order to truly experience All That Is, we must die to the parts of ourselves that keep us limited. This can be a terrible, excruciating death if we cling or resist. It can also be a luxurious, ecstatic, delicious death if we open to the divinity that is our birthright. We rarely experience just one or the other -- the passageway to freedom is narrow, and as the ego experiences its own annihilation it is both ecstatic and excruciating.
Ultimately, the price for our liberation is surrendering our much coveted limitation. Many serious spiritual teachers have taught, “It isn’t my job to coddle you, it’s my job to kill you.” Under the guidance of the enlightened ones, the Road of Trials stimulates the systematic dissolution of the false self so the glory of the eternal soul might be recognized. Ultimately, our ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness.
We become free.
Mastery of Both Worlds
Where does this journey deliver us? Back to the beginning.
As fully awakened beings we recognize the eternal perfection of the soul that has existed all along. We walk in the world with a sense of universal consciousness, surrendered existence, and deep compassionate service. We perceive both the divine and human worlds in our awakened state.
A funny thing sometimes happens at this point in the journey, though. Having found bliss and enlightenment, we may not want to return to the ordinary world. The stories of the Enlightened Ones of all ages and faiths, including Moses, Buddha, and Christ, reflect this dilemma. If we do decide to return, accepting the charter of compassionate service in the world, our gift of awakening can help others.
In this way, we blend the notion of Transcendent Oneness with being embodied here on this planet in the material realm – spirit in matter. Our full expression is to realize that the inner and outer are non-different, or as the yogis would say, the subject and object are one. The entire body of the universe is the body of our consciousness.
You might be left pondering, where am I on this journey?
If you’ve read this far then Darkness is in your history. You’ve been Called to the Adventure or beyond. See you on the road…
The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, studied the many ways in which we believe. He found common among the world’s wisdom traditions a sense of the creative animation of spirit, of Source, or Godhead…yet there are undeniably myriad paths to realization.
Every soul is on a journey -- a journey of discovery, awakening and realization of the true nature of existence.
Our mystical traditions have mapped what Campbell called the Hero’s Journey. Surprisingly, when we set aside the specific details of faith, a deeper set of mythological or archetypal forces emerge that are common to all. While the paths may be many, the themes of the journey are universal.
These common themes give us a collective context to hold our experiences (where we might have been disoriented, we now see the larger picture) and to recognize our commonality (where we might have felt alone, we can unite in shared insight). They give us wisdom into who we are and what we are doing here.
Slumbering in Darkness
The journey starts in darkness. On the soul’s journey, darkness represents ignorance or lack of understanding of the soul’s true nature. In our ignorance, we perceive ourselves as separate from the broader whole, as finite individuals with particular identities.
This illusion of duality leads us to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, seek out good and resist bad, yearn for success and deny failure, a process which causes anxiety and suffering as we attempt to protect and glorify our individual ego.
In this process, we falsely identify with the story line of our lives, the cast of characters, and the drama. Absorbed in our personal plot, we don’t yet realize we are actors in a much larger divine play designed to reveal the eternal story of the soul.
The Call to Adventure
Through some alchemy or grace, maybe through reading a book or speaking to a friend, or perhaps through our own questioning of “why am I here”, we start the awakening process.
We get an inkling of something more. We may start to notice a witnessing attention which sits behind the activity of our daily lives. We may also begin to question the usefulness of our ego and our highly over-rated logical mind, sensing something greater, wiser, more intuitive and profound brewing inside us.
This inquiry starts to shed light onto the mysteries the divine has constructed for us, allowing us to see our experiences as fodder for our soul’s evolution. The process of “waking up” may be the actual story line here. What used to seem like the central stuff of life – getting married, building careers, having children, acquiring things – become the stage and props for the unfolding archetypal tale.
We gain a new perspective, expanding beyond our previous limited individual absorption. With the Call to Adventure, we start our journey down the path of discovering ourselves as aspects of the greater interconnected oneness. We don’t know what the path looks like, or how it will unfold, but we know that we’re on it.
A light has been turned on.
The Road of Trials
From here, everything goes to hell in a hand-basket.
As the light starts to do its work, illuminating the darkness of our ignorance, it simultaneously dissolves the false self.
All the identities we’ve created to keep us safe and keep us small and keep us in our box, start to crumble. The soul doesn’t care about our protection strategies…it wants to be free! Like an old suit that doesn’t fit anymore, our ego attachments and personal agendas start to get stripped away piece by piece.
The Road of Trials is a journey into the shadow. It’s not just the ego as a protection mechanism that gets broken down, but also our resistance to recognizing the fullness of who we are. We must go into the shadow and reclaim the parts that we’ve tucked away, hidden in the closet, or denied. “I’m not petty, I’m not greedy, I’m not violent. I’m not [insert whatever is most repulsive to you].” This stage is about recognizing that we are indeed those qualities too. Only by owning the fullness of the Self can we bring compassion when greeting these qualities in the world.
Once we have traveled this road we come to understand how difficult it is for humanity to claim our shadow qualities. If we fail to do this, staying in collective denial, our deepest shadow fears will be acted out time and again on the world stage. As awakening ones, we represent a different possibility, a possibility of healing and integration of the shadow at a soul level.
By embracing the shadow, we learn that there’s nothing outside of our consciousness. Everything reflected in the world around us is actually resident in our inner landscape -- we are All That Is. But in order to truly experience All That Is, we must die to the parts of ourselves that keep us limited. This can be a terrible, excruciating death if we cling or resist. It can also be a luxurious, ecstatic, delicious death if we open to the divinity that is our birthright. We rarely experience just one or the other -- the passageway to freedom is narrow, and as the ego experiences its own annihilation it is both ecstatic and excruciating.
Ultimately, the price for our liberation is surrendering our much coveted limitation. Many serious spiritual teachers have taught, “It isn’t my job to coddle you, it’s my job to kill you.” Under the guidance of the enlightened ones, the Road of Trials stimulates the systematic dissolution of the false self so the glory of the eternal soul might be recognized. Ultimately, our ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness.
We become free.
Mastery of Both Worlds
Where does this journey deliver us? Back to the beginning.
As fully awakened beings we recognize the eternal perfection of the soul that has existed all along. We walk in the world with a sense of universal consciousness, surrendered existence, and deep compassionate service. We perceive both the divine and human worlds in our awakened state.
A funny thing sometimes happens at this point in the journey, though. Having found bliss and enlightenment, we may not want to return to the ordinary world. The stories of the Enlightened Ones of all ages and faiths, including Moses, Buddha, and Christ, reflect this dilemma. If we do decide to return, accepting the charter of compassionate service in the world, our gift of awakening can help others.
In this way, we blend the notion of Transcendent Oneness with being embodied here on this planet in the material realm – spirit in matter. Our full expression is to realize that the inner and outer are non-different, or as the yogis would say, the subject and object are one. The entire body of the universe is the body of our consciousness.
You might be left pondering, where am I on this journey?
If you’ve read this far then Darkness is in your history. You’ve been Called to the Adventure or beyond. See you on the road…
posted by Stacey Lawson at
12:52 PM
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