Na aanleiding van ‘n opmerking wat ek op Piesangverkoper se blog gemaak het oor die werk van Joseph Campbell, het ek weer gedink aan ‘n opmerking wat hy gemaak het in sy boek, The Power of Myth. Hierdie fenomenale boek is ‘n gesprek tussen Campbell en Bill Moyers. Die gesprek het plaasgevind op George Lucas se Skywalker Ranch en is ook verfilm.
Die boek bevat soveel juwele dat mens nie eintlik weet waarop om te fokus nie, maar in die lig van een van my vorige plasings oor geloof en spiritualiteit, het ek gedink om Campbell se siening van mitologie en die nodigheid vir ‘n herinterpretasie daarvan te plaas. (The story of the song verwys na ons ware natuur.)
MOYERS: And isn’t mythology the story of the song?
CAMPBELL: Mythology is the song. It is the song of the imagination, inspired by the energies of the body. Once a Zen master stood up before his students and was about to deliver a sermon. And just as he was about to open his mouth, a bird sang. And he said, “The sermon has been delivered.”
MOYERS: I was about to say that we are creating new myths, but you say no, every myth we tell today has some point of origin in our past experience.
CAMPBELL: The main motifs of the myths are the same, and they have always been the same. If you want to find your own mythology, the key is with what society do you associate? Every mythology has grown up in a certain society in a bounded field. Then they come into collision and relationship, and they amalgamate, and you get a more complex mythology.
But today there are no boundaries. The only mythology that is valid today is the mythology of the planet – and we don’t have such a mythology. The closest thing I know to a planetary mythology is Buddhism, which sees all beings as Buddha beings. The only problem is to come to the recognition of that. There is nothing to do. The task is only to know what is, and then to act in relation to the brotherhood of all these beings.
MOYERS: Brotherhood?
CAMPBELL: Yes. Now brotherhood in most of the myths I know of is confined to a bounded community. In bounded communities, aggression is projected outward.
For example, the ten commandments say, “Thou shalt not kill.” Then the next chapter says, “Go into Canaan and kill everybody in it.” That is a bounded field. The myths of participation and love pertain only to the in-group, and the out-group is totally other. This is the sense of the word “gentile” – the person is not of the same order.
In ‘n wêreld wat al meer na “unboundedness” beweeg, bied “boundedness” nie meer die antwoorde nie.
