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Vorige citaten:
74ste preek op het Hooglied, 5
De Heilige Bernardus van Clairvaux vertelt ons het volgende over de wijze waarop het Woord te werk gaat in ons:
“Het Woord is zeker niet binnengekomen langs de ogen, want het heeft geen kleur;
maar ook niet langs de oren, want het maakt geen geluid;
niet door de neusgaten, want het vermengt zich niet met de lucht maar met de geest;
en het heeft zich trouwens niet met de lucht vermengd maar de lucht geschapen;
het is evenmin door de keel binnengekomen, want het wordt noch gegeten noch gedronken;
en
ik heb het niet via de tastzin gevonden, want het is niet tastbaar.
Waarlangs is het dan binnengekomen? Misschien is het helemaal niet binnengekomen, aangezien het niet van buiten komt?
Want het is evenmin iets dat behoort tot de dingen die zich buiten ons bevinden.
Maar het komt evenmin uit mijn binnenste, want het is goed, en ik weet dat het goede niet in mij is.
Ik ben ook geklommen tot het hoogste in mij, en zie, het Woord stak erbovenuit.
Als een nieuwsgierige verkenner ben ik in het diepste van mezelf neergedaald, en niettemin bevond het zich nog lager.
Wanneer ik naar buiten keek, stelde ik vast dat het zich buiten alle dingen bevond die zich ver buiten mij bevinden;
indien ik in mijn diepste binnenste keek, bevond het zich nog dieper in mij.
En ik erkende hoe waar het was wat ik gelezen had, dat ‘wij in Hem leven en dat wij in Hem ons wezen en onze beweging vinden.’ (Hnd 17,28);
maar zalig hij die in Hem is, die door Hem leeft en door Hem (het Woord) bewogen wordt!”
Uit:
Bisschop Luc van Looy
“Ik vertrouw u toe aan God en aan het woord van zijn genade” (Hnd 20,32)
Brief van de bisschop aan de priesters van het bisdom Gent ter gelegenheid van het jaar van het gebed
Buddhism
as an education in capitalism
Columbia University professor draws a comparison
between the religion and the economic system at library speaker series.
By
Lauren Vane
Daily Pilot, April 9, 2006
The unlikely relationship between Buddhism and capitalism was explained Saturday by Buddhism expert and college professor Robert Thurman.
Thurman is the third in a series of lecturers to be featured in the 9th annual Distinguished Speakers Lecture Series, held at the Newport Beach Public Library.
“We think that the source of wealth is selfishness and it isn't.... The source of wealth is generosity,” Thurman said.
B-School Buddhism
A professor steeps career advice in Eastern thought for a new approach in business
By Carolina A. Miranda
Time, April 10, 2006
Srikumar
Rao wants his students to meditate. He teaches them to be grateful.
In
his gentle voice, he asks them to stop living in a “me centered” world
and start living in an “other centered” one.
It’s the kind
of talk that would be right at home in a Buddhist monastery, but Rao’s disciples
gather in another kind of temple: business school.
Verslavingszorg in Nederland
Bernard Sprock
Het aanpakken van een verslaving wordt vaak onderschat.
Door de mensen die er zelf geen ervaring mee hebben, door de verslaafden zelf en in het algemeen zelfs door de reguliere verslavingszorg.
Als het criterium voor succes bij het aanpakken van een verslaving is, dat de verslaafde weer een reële kans heeft om te kunnen leven zoals hij zou willen, dan is een tweetraps ontwikkeling nodig.
De eerste trap is stoppen met het gebruik.
In de praktijk blijkt dat de meeste energie die iemand te besteden heeft gedurende de eerste weken tot maanden gaat zitten in het volhouden van het niet gebruiken van middelen.
Naarmate de abstinentieperiode vordert komt meer energie vrij die kan worden ingezet voor de persoonlijke ontwikkeling: de tweede trap.
Omdat een verslaving levensbreed en levensdiep is, komt dat neer op een complete heroriëntatie van alles wat belangrijk is in het leven. De enige die dat kan doen is de verslaafde zelf.
[...]
Uit:
Maandblad Geestelijke Volksgezondheid
Oktober 2004
Hard
Truths & Fresh Start:
A Bold, Comprehensive, and Integral Strategy
for
the Middle East
Don Edward Beck, Ph D
The safest place in any crisis is always the hard truth.
Distorted recriminations about the past and naïve idealism about the future can be just as blinding as the tear gas.
Personal or political agendas, whether obvious or hidden, protect no one from simplistic suicide bombs or sophisticated air-borne rockets.
The smell of cordite has a way of cleansing one’s filters, or at least focusing on what is real.
Alas, we often refuse to deal with the hard truths until all sides lie bloody, exhausted, vanquished—having jointly destroyed the relationships and physical resources necessary to invent a better future.
The mythical phoenix that rises from the ashes is too often a vengeful vulture.
[...]
US
right has hijacked religious vote,
says evangelical
Stephen
Bates,
religious affairs correspondent
The
Guardian
Thursday February 16, 2006
One of the most influential religious figures in the US has called on progressive Christians to seize the religious agenda from the right.
Jim Wallis - who has been consulted by US presidents as well as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - yesterday urged liberal Christians to move the agenda from the right’s focus of sexual morality to a less partisan approach.
The 57-year-old, of Washington DC, is a long-term campaigner for social justice and fighting poverty.
“We need a moral discourse in public life, and it is wrong for the left to leave it to the political right to define the issues” he said. “The left lacks respect and is too often disdainful and condescending in listening to people of faith.
“Religion does not have a monopoly of morality - the issue is not whether a person has a personal faith but whether they have a moral compass.”
Mr Wallis is in London to promote his latest book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.
Mr Brown has called the book powerful reading for anyone interested in social change. It has sold 300,000 copies since going on sale in the US last year, and spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list.
“People should not be apologetic for having a religious faith, and the left needs to remember there is a long history of progressive religion,” Mr Wallis said.
“Where would we be if Martin Luther King or Desmond Tutu had kept their faith to themselves? Clearly, there are examples of bad religion - American television evangelists and Muslim suicide bombers - but the answer is not no religion, but better religion.”
His book argues that the political right in the US has hijacked what is perceived to be the religious vote after making deals with television evangelists for access to their mailing lists, and has also annexed issues of sexual morality for partisan purposes.
It says: “Clearly, God is not a Republican or a Democrat ... the privatising of faith has weakened its impact on critical public issues and opened the door for a rightwing Christian politics which both narrows and distorts a biblical agenda.”
Mr Wallis’s call came as the Conservatives sent their adviser on faith issues, Tim Montgomerie, to the US to learn about the Republican electronic lobbying techniques used to target religious voters in the 2004 presidential election.
US polling showed 80% of those who chose moral values as their most important issue in the presidential campaign voted for George Bush.
Mr Wallis said the US president and the religious right were distorting religious messages for political purposes.
As an evangelical, whose faith is based on his Biblical reading, he pointed out the Bible’s 2,000 references to the poor - references he said the Republicans appeared to have overlooked.
“I don't doubt the president’s sincerity, but his theology is alarming,” he said. “It is a theology of empire.
“In his heart, he cares about poor people - but it does not matter to him because that’s an issue to be left to charity. His constituency base is the wealthy, and tax cuts are at the heart of his policy. Only in America could you have the prosperity gospel - that the rich are rich because they have God's favour.”
He said religion could be “motivating and transforming”, adding that more was being said about US social justice by “progressive, moderate religious folks than the Democrats and the political left, which is pretty well dead”.
From Guardian Unlimited.
More about Jim Wallis.
Jim Wallis,
God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.
HarperSanFrancisco, 2005
Amazon.com
Buddhism
and young Tibetans
Phayul [Saturday, March 11, 2006 20:34]
By
Tsering Namgyal Khortsa
During a talk at the Constitution Club in New Delhi this February, His Holiness the Dalai Lama stressed the importance of a systemic study of the Buddhist philosophy.
His Holiness believes that merely having a faith in the religion may not be adequate and emphasized the need for an actual study of the religious texts.
In the Tibetan Worldmagazine last month, American scholar of Tibetan Buddhism Robert Thurman raises exactly the same concerns and vociferously calls for a more widespread philosophical education amongst the new generation.
We all know that most young Tibetans, myself included, are not very knowledgeable about Buddhist philosophy.
There are many reasons behind this.
The most important of which is that they are educated in the standard school systems in India where there is very little training in religious studies to begin with.
[...]
The
Power of Now:
A
Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
by Eckhart Tolle
Consciousness:
The Way out of Pain
Create
No More Pain in the Present
Question: Nobody’s life is entirely free of pain and sorrow. Isn’t it a question of learning to live with them rather than trying to avoid them?
Answer: The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.
The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.
On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity.
The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind.
The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer.
Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering - and free of the egoic mind.
Why does the mind habitually deny or resist the Now? Because it cannot function and remain in control without time, which is past and future, so it perceives the timeless Now as threatening.
Time and mind are in fact inseparable.
[...]
Tarot and the Tree of Life
Christopher delaMaison
[...]
The sixteenth path linking Netzach to Hod is represented by the next Major Arcana, The Tower.
The Tower balances the victory of Netzach with the splendor of Hod. This balance is not really a balance at all, but a dynamic shifting of our patterns of consciousness.
The Tower calls us to challenge those assumptions, ideals and goals that are outmoded or false. It tears these things down, which leaves room to build better structures on which to build our lives.
Symbolically, Venus and Mercury appear very similar, both have Solar Disks atop Crosses of Corrosion. However, Mercury’s symbol is surmounted by a Crescent.
This planet itself is the symbol of occult knowledge and learning. Learning such knowledge is emotionally very similar to loving.
Both consist of the same trial and error, as well as the same emotional rollercoaster rides. The path between Venus and Mercury, The Tower, is most appropriate.
Learning difficult subjects often entails tearing down what you think you already know and replacing it with something new. This is a process any instructor, especially college professors, have seen many times.
[...]
Bearing witness in Oradour
03/05/06 - 09/05/06
Faculty: Richard Reoch & Herb Elsky - & Michel Dubois & Catherine Pagès Roshi
Price: from $ 300 to $ 385 according to the income category of the participants.
Price includes $ 180 for basic lodging and meals.
In France Oradour is a symbol of Nazi barbarism and the horror of war. It is here that on June 10, 1944 an SS Division assembled the entire population of the village, separated the men from the women and the many children in order to massacre them all and burn their bodies before setting fire to the whole village.
This massacre took the lives of 628 people and destroyed more than 300 buildings including the church. The village was never rebuilt, it remains as a symbol of Nazi barbarism and the horrors of all wars.
Still today this place is permeated by the suffering that happened there.
How, in a world scarred by aggression and violence, can we transform conflict into the fuel for compassionate action? The daily news is filled with violence and we experience it in many other forms. It exists in all of us in greater and lesser ways. As practitioners we are taught that we cannot reject or ignore the reality of conflict.
Instead, conflict and the aggression it provokes can be that which wakes us up! When we open our hearts and touch our own suffering - the root of our own aggression - we gain insight and develop a need for compassionate action.
This year this programme will again visit Oradour-sur-Glane. The village is a memorial dedicated to remembering and understanding the immense suffering of those who died or survived its invasion and annihilation on June 10, 1944.
After last year’s programme, Michel Dubois (Peacemaker Circle) wrote:
“Day
after day we returned to Oradour, and something melted down. A barrier dissolved
- a dam holding back a flow of tears. I could feel an immense tenderness: someone
else’s childhood had been burned to the ground, a child, many children -
in front of the machine guns, and behind, brought to an horrible death - the sanctuary
of life itself! Was it someone else’s life? Life itself! - the many, many
times I killed awareness - my own life! Oradour broke my heart open.”
This
year we will investigate the experience of suffering and
bliss, violence
and compassion, to see what we can learn about these worlds, and how we can give
the richness of our insight and compassion back to the world.
We will deepen our practice of council circles and other skilful means, visit and practice at the village of Oradour and continue our communication with the families of Oradour-sur-Glane.
The
aim of this retreat is to develop a clearer awareness, open up genuine communication
and nurture confidence in engaging with the world. In this dark age, such work
is precious.
The
retreat is an important work in progress for the entire European sangha. It is
a laboratory for healing and understanding our role as practitioners of non-violence.
Richard Reoch is the President of Shambhala. He has worked for many years as a senior manager for Amnesty International.
Catherine Pagès Roshi is a Zen Buddhist priest in France. For seven years Catherine tended the dying. Today she cares for people who are living in extremely vulnerable situations.
Michel Dubois has practiced Zen since 1978. He is a member of the Peacemaker Circle and president of the L’Un Est L’Autre society, which prepares meals for people in difficulty in Paris. At the same time, L’Un Est L’Autre, is setting up micro projects designed to reinforce economic autonomy amongst 3rd world countries.
Herb Elsky is a sculptor and a meditation teacher. He began studying with Chögyam Trungpa in 1971, and currently teaches meditation and Dharma Arts throughout Europe.
Registration:
Dechen Chöling
Mas Marvent
87700 St Yrieix sous Aixe
France
Tel:
+ 33 (0)5-55-03-55-52
Fax: + 33 (0)5-55-03-91-74
* The programme will have 5 full days (May 4, 5, 6, 7). Arrival day for participants will be May 3 and departure day will be May 9.
Info about the Oradour massacre : www.oradour.info
Oradour in Wikipedia (Nederlands)
Oradour in Wikipedia (English)
Illusies
Ingeborg Bosch
[...]
Vervolgens heeft de volwassen mens een keuze.
Of hij bijt zich vast in de illusie van de afweer, in het bevredigen van de verlangens van het ego, al dan niet ten koste van anderen (ook Valse Hoop gaat ten koste van anderen, we zien die ander immers niet werkelijk voor wat zij is en nodig heeft) vanuit een gevoel van afgescheidenheid.
Dit is de weg van de steeds grotere afgescheidenheid of splitsing.
Niet
alleen splitsing van het bewustzijn zoals binnen Past Reality Integration
geduid, maar ook een splitsing van de rest van het leven, van het Al en van het
nu.
Of hij stapt op het pad van het ontmaskeren van de illusies van het ego, en opent zijn hart steeds meer voor anderen op zijn weg, vanuit een gevoel van verbondenheid met het Al en compassie voor anderen.
Dit is de maatstaf voor alle dingen in zijn leven: draagt wat ik doe bij aan een groter welzijn dan aan het mijne alleen?
Dit is de weg terug naar eenheid.
Eenheid
van bewustzijn zoals binnen PRI wordt uitgelegd, maar ook eenheid met het Al via
contact met het nu dat niet belast is met illusies die voortkomen uit afweer.
Welke keuze een mens in zijn volwassen leven maakt, is alleen aan hem.
Uit:
Ingeborg Bosch
Illusies. Over bevrijding uit de doolhof
van onze emoties
L.J. Veen, 2003
Blz. 75
From
You to Infinity in 3 Pages
Ken Wilber
What you will find here is one of the most beautiful and effective tools for experiencing the radical Non-dual nature of mind that some of us have ever come across.
Call it “Big Mind,” “Brahman,” “Spirit,” “God,” or simply the “Self,” these “pointing out” instructions will turn your attention to that part of you which is flawlessly aware—the primordial always-awakened aspect of yourself that is often referred to on this website.
[...]
Iron John
[...]
On the third day the King had ridden out hunting, and the boy went once more and said, “I cannot open the door even if I wished, for I have not the key.”
Then the wild man said, “It lies under thy mother’s pillow, thou canst get it there.”
The boy, who wanted to have his ball back, cast all thought to the winds, and brought the key.
[...]
From:
Robert Bly
Iron John: A Book About Men
Vintage, 1992
P. 251
Read the stories of Iron John and The Beautiful Wassilissa.
Buy the book.
Karma: From Ganesh to TV’s Earl, it’s finding a home in U.S. culture
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
[...]
Buddhists see things a little differently.
There really is no such thing as good or bad karma, says Dennis Genpo Merzel, Zen master at Kanzeon Zen Center International in Salt Lake City.
“If
we like the results, that’s good karma; if we don't like them, we say that's
bad karma.”
Though Merzel has practiced Zen for decades, it wasn’t until after a diagnosis of cancer two years ago that he began to fully appreciate life.
But
he, too, cautions against simplistic views that blame the victims - such as residents
of New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina - or God.
“When
we interpret karma as Westerners, we lay our own Judeo-Christian morality on it
in terms of good and bad, like God’s punishing us,” Merzel says.
It’s
not that easy. Karma is ineffable; unlike Earl and his to-do list, it’s not
up to you.
Christians believe in a judgment day, when a person’s good and bad deeds are counted up for an eternal assessment, not unlike Earl’s list.
But they add to that the notion of grace - that somehow Jesus Christ paid the consequences of human sin so believers wouldn’t have to.
After
that ultimate act, they believe, forgiveness and mercy can then operate.
Jesus explicitly rejected the idea that earthly situations were caused by premortal sins.
When
asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus replied: “Neither.”
The man was born blind, he said, “so that the works of God might be displayed in his life.”
[...]
Lees het hele artikel in The Salt Lake Tribune.
Lees Johannes 9.
Wie is Peggy Fletcher Stack?
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college.
Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.
That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
[...]
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.
It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.
Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
It was their farewell message as they signed off.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself.
And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
For instance, look at Stephen Hawking, and read what he has to say about the beginning of time.
Who is Steve Jobs?
Who is Stephen Hawking?
Spiritual
Practice for a Global Sangha
by Ruben L.F. Habito
Ruben L. F. Habito served as a Jesuit missionary in Japan from 1970 to 1989 and taught at Sophia University for many years.
He now serves as Teacher (Roshi) at Maria Kannon Zen Center (Dallas), and is on the Faculty at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.
His books include Experiencing Buddhism: Ways of Wisdom and Compassion (Orbis, 2005), and Living Zen, Loving God (Wisdom, 2004).
Sangha in Historical Context
The term sangha, a word that means “assembly” or “gathering,” has now become part of English parlance, together with other terms from the Buddhist tradition, such as nirvana, dharma, and of course, Buddha.
Buddhists throughout the world chant in the Pali language, “Buddham saranam gacchami, Dhammam saranam gacchami, Sangham saranam gacchami, ” which means “I go to the Buddha for refuge, I go to the Dharma for refuge, I go to the Sangha for refuge.”
What is the sangha in this context, when it is invoked as a “refuge,” along with Buddha and Dharma?
Historically speaking, “Buddha,” a term meaning “Awakened One,” was used to refer to a man who was born, lived, and died around the sixth or fifth century before the Christian era in the northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent.
He was named at birth Siddhartha (literally, “one who accomplishes one’s purpose”), with Gautama as his family name.
He was the designated heir of a wealthy local ruler, but at the age of 29 he renounced his privileges and went off to become a wandering ascetic.
Six years later he is said to have arrived at a profound spiritual experience while sitting silently meditating under a tree.
Emerging from his silence, he began to teach those who asked him for advice about their life problems and their own spiritual search.
He was now referred to as Shakyamuni Buddha, the Awakened One, Sage of the Shakya clan.
A band of followers, who also renounced home and family ties, gathered around him to form a community of seekers of the path under his guidance.
[...]
Fight Club
[...]
Shortly before this incident, his life changes radically after meeting Tyler Durden, a beach artist who works low-paying jobs at night in order to perform deviant behavior on the job.
After his confrontation with Marla, the narrator’s condo is destroyed by an explosion and he asks Tyler if he can stay at his place.
Tyler agrees, but asks for one favor: “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”
The resulting fight in a bar’s parking lot attracts more disenchanted males, and a new form of support group, the first “fight club”, is born.
The fight club becomes a new type of therapy through bare-knuckle fighting, controlled by a set of eight rules:
1. You do not talk about fight club.
2. You do not talk about fight club.
3. If someone says “stop,” goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over.
4. Only two guys to a fight.
5. One fight at a time.
6. No shirts, no shoes.
7. Fights go on as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.
Meanwhile, Tyler rescues Marla from a suicide attempt and the two initiate an affair that confounds the narrator.
Throughout this affair, Marla is mostly unaware of the existence of fight club, and completely unaware of Tyler and the narrator’s interaction with one another.
[...]
read the whole synopsis (book)
read the whole synopsis (film)
Brief lectures at Tokio - On Family Constellations
Bert Hellinger
Held by Bert Hellinger in September 2001 at a workshop at Tokio, Japan. You´ll read about some parts of family constellations performed by Hellinger on stage as well.
I want to explain something at the beginning about the work I can offer here.
You have heard the term Family Constellations.
This just describes the method, but behind the method there are very important insights into family relationships, the relationships between men and women, parents and children, and in a wider field also.
It is these insights that are most important, because in the course of the years it became apparent that many illnesses and other maladies are caused by entanglements in the family.
These entanglements are unconscious.
I bring an example.
A woman comes to a workshop and says that her daughter has difficulties.
The daughter wrote a letter that she does not want to live much longer.
So I set up her present family.
That means that I selected representatives from a group like this to represent herself, her husband and the children.
If the family is set up in front of all the people, people are very often surprised to see what they have set up.
For instance, in this constellation she placed her daughter a little bit outside, and she, although she stood next to her husband, was looking away.
[...]
Introduction
to Integral Theory and Practice
Ken Wilber
During the last 30 years, we have witnessed a historical first: all of the world’s cultures are now available to us.
In the past, if you were born, say, a Chinese, you likely spent your entire life in one culture, often in one province, sometimes in one house, living and loving and dying on one small plot of land.
But today, not only are people geographically mobile, we can study, and have studied, virtually every known culture on the planet.
In
the global village, all cultures are exposed to each other.
Knowledge itself is now global.
This means that, also for the first time, the sum total of human knowledge is available to us—the knowledge, experience, wisdom and reflection of all major human civilizations—premodern, modern, and postmodern—are open to study by anyone.
What if we took literally everything that all the various cultures have to tell us about human potential—about spiritual growth, psychological growth, social growth—and put it all on the table?
What if we attempted to find the critically essential keys to human growth, based on the sum total of human knowledge now open to us?
What if we attempted, based on extensive cross-cultural study, to use all of the world’s great traditions to create a composite map, a comprehensive map, an all-inclusive or integral map that included the best elements from all of them?
[...]
Wassilissa the Beautiful
Post Wheeler
[...]
But the eyes of the skull suddenly began to glimmer and to glow like red coals, and wherever the three turned or ran the eyes followed them, growing larger and brighter till they flamed like two furnaces, and hotter and hotter till the merchant’s wife and her two wicked daughters took fire and were burned to ashes.
Only
Wassilissa the Beautiful was not touched.
In the morning Wassilissa dug a deep hole in the ground and buried the skull.
Then she locked the house and set out to the village, where she went to live with an old woman who was poor and childless, and so she remained for many days, waiting for her father’s return from the far-distant Tsardom.
[...]
Wie
was Post
Wheeler?
An
Interview with Robert Bly
Part 8. Men’s Work
Robert Bly: During the Seventies a tremendously healthy discussion was going on as well in the US around therapy, fairy tales, mythology, stages of growth and the meaning of initiation.
I first heard Joseph Campbell talk in Toronto in 1975, and his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces was the Bible of those discussions.
He welded many different stories and myths together in a way that emphasized the heroic male, the young hero who leaves his village, fights various multiple-headed beings, gets a boon, and brings it back to the village.
That was the initiation, so to speak, of the male hero.
Do women have different stages of initiation? That wasn’t discussed.
Do artists have different stages of initiation? That wasn’t discussed.
Are there spiritual roads that involve the male learning grief? That wasn’t discussed.
Every book can contain only a small sliver of the vast field of mythology.
Joseph Campbell opened the awareness of the link between mythology and initiation, and the discussions went on for years.
[...]
Robert Bly on the Bush presidency
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