Free A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living (Collected Works of Joseph Campbell) by Joseph Campbell

for the universe. One can be at peace with that. This doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t participate in efforts to correct the situation, but underlying the effort to change must be an “at peace.” To win a dog sled race is great. To lose is okay too.
    The world of human life is now the problem. Guided by the practical judgment of the kings and the instruction of the priests of the dice of divine revelation, the field of conscious-ness so contracts that the grand lines of the human comedy are lost in a welter of cross-purposes. Men’s perspectives become flat, comprehending only the light-reflecting, tangible surfaces of existence. The vista into depth closes over. The significant form of the human agony is lost to view. Society lapses into mistake and disaster. The Little Ego has usurped the judgment seat of the Self. 48
    Let us imagine ourselves for a moment in the lecture hall. …Above, we see many lights. Each bulb is separate from the others, and we may think of them, accordingly, as separate from each other.
    …just as each bulb seen aloft is a vehicle of light, so each of us below is a vehicle of consciousness. But the important thing about a bulb is the quality of its light. Likewise, the important thing about each of us is the quality of his con-sciousness. And although each may tend to identify himself mainly with his separate body and its frailties, it is possible also to regard one’s body as a mere vehicle of consciousness and to think then of consciousness as the one presence here made manifest through us all. 49
    If the body is a light bulb, and it burns out,
    does that mean there’s no more electricity?
    The source of energy remains.
    We can discard the body and go on.
    We are the source.
     
    “For that which is born, death is certain, and for that which is dead, birth is certain. You should not grieve over the unavoidable.…The Supreme Self which dwells in all bodies, can never be slain.…Weapons cut it not; fire burns it not; water wets it not; the wind does not wither it. Eternal, universal, unchanging, immovable, the Self is the same forever. …Dwelling in all bodies, the Self can never be slain. There-fore you should not grieve for any creature.” —Bhagavad Gītā 50
    “All things are in process, rising and returning. Plants come to blossom, but only to return to the root. Returning to the root is like seeking tranquility. Seeking tranquility is like moving toward destiny. To move toward destiny is like eternity. To know eternity is enlightenment, and not to recognize eternity brings disorder and evil. Knowing eternity makes one comprehensive; comprehension makes one broadminded; breadth of vision brings nobility; nobility is like heaven.”— Lao-tse 51
     
    We go down into death for refreshment.
     
    “Nothing retains its own form; but Nature, the greater renewer, ever makes up forms from forms. Be sure there’s nothing perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form.” —Ovid 52
    An Aztec prayer to be said at the deathbed…“Dear Child! Thou hast passed through and survived the labors of this life. Now it hath pleased our Lord to carry thee away. For we do not enjoy this world everlastingly, only briefly;
    our life is like the warming of oneself in the sun. 53

H ow one comes to accept that life follows death is an individual problem. There are a lot of meditation disciplines that open one to the experience of death, the acceptance of death. It is a motif that is absolutely universal in initiations. There is always a death aspect and a birth after it.
     
    Death and begetting
    come at the same time.
    Only birth can conquer death—the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new. Within the soul, within the body social, there must be—if we are to experience long survival—a continuous “recurrence of birth” (palingenesia) to nullify the unremitting recurrences of death. 54 For it is by means of our own victories, if we are not regenerated,