Landing The Flight of the Gander

    Joseph Campbell is rightly credited as being the mythologist to popularize mythology for Western culture. Flying from his Roman Catholic upbringing to the 12^th and 13^th century fairytales and legends to the vast mythologies of Hinduism and the Far East, Campbell’s capabilities of gathering and assimilating myths of varying history and culture has changed the way academia, and even the general public, approach the very word “myth”, let alone those stories that are categorized as “myth”. Yet, the mythical undercurrents of Campbell’s comparative approach to mythology found in The Flight of the Gander guide and often blind his existential, universalistic, and modernist tendencies of mythologizing. Most notably, Campbell’s affinity with Eastern mythologies creates a mythic, which is to say quite real, wall between he and the myth of his youth: Roman Catholic Christianity.

            As I engage with Campbell’s representation of Christianity, I acknowledge that I am part of a long tradition of Christian apologists. While I make no apology for the psychical and physiological abuse that plagues Christian history, I unapologetically abhor the misrepresentation of Christianity that Campbell presents in The Flight of the Gander.  Rather than actually getting entangled with the primary myths found within Judeo-Christianity, Campbell only takes up issues—and these issues revolve around interpreters whose socio-historical contexts differ greatly from mid-20^th century America—that conveniently corroborate his polemic of repudiating Christianity.  That is to say, Campbell only presents examples from the Judeo-Christian tradition that are in obvious contradiction to modern science and Eastern ideation. It is troubling, as a student of mythology, to see a mythologist as reputable as Campbell not attempt to re-mythologize a mythos that is part of his mythical personhood.

            Fleeing his Christian upbringing like a prodigal son, Campbell refuses to re-vision the Christian mythos in light modern cultural shifts. I, like the older son who stayed behind to work for dad, watch as Campbell mocks his Christian background; though, unlike the brother in the Biblical prodigal son story, I long for my brother to return home. I share Campbell’s disdain for the ignorant arrogance that marks Christian history, however I refuse to surrender to the rise of science. Rather, in company with the likes of CG Jung, I choose to regroup, to re-mythologize how the Christian myth can function in light of philosophical and scientific shifts. Jung is certainly not above criticism (hence the new “Post-Jungian” movement), however his attempt of finding use for the Christian mythos is part of what it means to be culturally adapting. Campbell, while calling forth the need for symbolic interpretation (98, 185), only criticizes and mocks interpretations of the Christian mythos.

 Campbell notes that archaic societies believed their deities to be actual entities whose powers could be invoked (24). Campbell then goes on to argue that the symbolic expression found in myths is due to the cultural milieu that these myths were born in.  Therefore, so his logic goes, since our age is a product of the scientific revolution the cosmological and philosophical paradigms of mythology should be based on scientific “facts” rather that mythological expression (102, 152). Robert Segal notes in his contribution to Myth and Method that science has replaced the function of cosmological mythology (82), however the replacement of scientific cosmological structuring does not necessitate an expulsion of mythic expression; rather, it calls for a regrouping of how these myths function, how they can still speak of the cosmos and even of and to the psyche. As mythologists, it would do well to recall that the slippery dichotomies of “fact” and “fiction”, “literal” and “metaphorical”—even those that are posed as “scientific”—have been shown to be fuzzier than once conceived. To this breadown we are indebted to literary theory, deconstruction, quantum mechanics, string theory, and the newly hypothesized M-theory. Campbell’s insistence, then, that science be the authority of all that is “knowable” or “relatively unknown” (152) is left in a mythical-modernistic-past as our age is post-modern.

Postmodernism is marked by that buzzword coined and popularized by Jacques Derrida: differance. Campbell argues time and again for individualism, the buzzword of the 1940-1970’s so closely intertwined with existential philosophy. However, Campbell works under this idiosyncratic philosophy as though, if one were “true to themselves”, they would obviously leave the Christian fold. However, in light of differance and the sociological work of Slavoj Zizek, it is increasingly difficult to see where the individual ends and society begins, and vice versa. Each entity—be it human or literature or “object”—is uniquely different and this vast amount and degree of difference is what makes up the individual, society—the story of humanity.  Campbell’s unwillingness to engage with Christian myths, to cover its underlying currents, and re-construct himself from this foundation is part of the Christian tradition. Campbell never escapes Christianity, if only in that he reacts to it; if Christianity were obsolete for Campbell, this reaction would be superfluous. Therefore, it seems as though part of Campbell’s affinity with the East is not only a divorce from his childhood religion, but is in fact a refusal to admit to a mythical worldview that shaped him early in life. Jungians might call this the repression of one’s shadow.

The shadow of Campbell’s past is literalistic interpretations of the Christian mythos; however, Campbell does not explore how this shadow could be re-visioned in light of his contemporaneous cultural outlook. Campbell’s avoidance of engaging with the myths of Judeo-Christianity cheapens his exploitation of past interpretations. In fact, his insistence that mythical expressions are culturally determined is paradoxical to his bird’s-eye-view that denigrates those who have gone before him, those who had different cultural influences. The works of Marcus Borg, John Crossan, NT Wright, and Jean Luc-Marion—writings contemporary with and after Campbell—are presenting Christianity in its historical contexts, drawing conclusions that mock Campbell’s mocking of theologians’ interpreting the “vehicle” as the “tenor” (53). Of course, if Campbell was to consider historical contexts, he would have to put the Judeo-Christian myth—and interpreters—in appropriate historical contexts, and universalizing mythic characteristics is essentially ahistorical work.

To “dehistoricize” mythology is explicitly argued for in The Flight of the Gander (185). However, by insisting on the historical context of the myth’s presentation, one is then capable of understanding what gave shape to the myth’s structure, plot, subtleties, expressions, and teachings. Furthermore, by negating history, interpretation becomes a thoroughly idiosyncratic, mythical reading and it allows for present-existential desires/needs to supplant the existential context of the myth’s telling. Any hypothetical “original” message is, of course, fictional; however, reconstructing the myth’s socio-historical context enables the reader-now to better understand the message-then. Inattention to historical contexts taints Campbell’s presentation, and blinds him to his own socio-historical biases and this thematically follows with a blindness for the historical situations behind the Christian interpreters he so arrogantly (and paradoxically) denigrates.

   As an adherent to the Christian worldview, by noting that the Christ-myth informs me of who I am, where I am in the world-age, and how I am to function in that world-age, I acknowledge that this mythos makes up “me” as much as I contribute to the continuance of the myth. By adhering to this particular mythos, I acknowledge my participation in the Christian community; part of engaging in this community is to re-mythologize the Christian mythos in a way that is true to the myth’s central concepts and is simultaneously conducive with contemporary philosophical and psychological worldviews. That is, I agree with Campbell that the Christian authorities need questioned; however, they don’t need damned. To take an eye for an eye makes the world go blind, and Campbell exhibits this damning process by damning those Christian interpreters who have done their fair share of damning. The rise of individualism, which Campbell argues for (130-5), cannot replace the innate human need for initiation, integration, and engagement with a community—something that might be present in other writings but is absent in The Flight of the Gander. Campbell divorces himself from his past, though he participates with those he condemns by performing the same actions…a true paradoxical comedy.

Comparing the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell to his own cultural matrix reveals a human shaped by his own cultural matrix: existential (i.e.—Nietzschean), modernistic, ahistorical, and universalistic. Campbell never takes the flight of the gander, though he does flee from his Christian past. In the dawn of a post-9/11 world, it is greatly needed to gander at religions; damning one religious worldview in favor of another—even if that religion be “science”—usually causes towers to crumble. Coalescing religions together mocks their diversity. Religions and their mythical stories unite, inspire, tell adherents who they are and where they are heading as individuals in a community. Universalizing this diversity as though it speaks of one cosmic myth undermines the identity myths create by adhering to them. It is this differing, this differance, that is to be dealt with if a myth is to be true to its followers, and its self. I follow Campbell to his logical conclusion: if science has replaced the cosmologies and philosophies of mythology, then postmodernism has replaced the likes of Campbell. And, this criticism will be replaced, too. The flight of the gander is not the flight of the individual, rather it is the social flight that has feet to land and wings to fly. The individual makes up the mass, and the mass is made up of individuals—all parts of a while gander where the differences harmoniously function in flight and in landing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension, Selected Essays 1944-1968. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2002.

 

Segal, Robert, A. “Does Myth Have a Future?” Myth and Method. Ed. Laurie L. Patton and Wendy Doniger. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1996.

Krishna’s Dharma: Deconstructing and Reconstructing, Arjuna and Us

Religious texts are volatile. The unpredictable and evocative energy within religious texts provokes believing interpreters to give up their lives for others, and at other times take the lives of others. The Bhagavad-Gita, a poetic interlude within the mythical epic the Mahabharata, is not immune to these diabolically opposed exegetical potentials. The Gita takes up many of the thematic conundrums found in the Mahabharata, but most notably the Gita illustrates the concept of dharma using god-like figures and figurative rhetoric. Sanskrit scholar Barbara Miller mentions in her translation of the Gita that dharma,  “stems from the root word drh, ‘to sustain.’ A concept of complex significance in Indian culture, its basic meaning is ‘that which sustains’”(158). Simple enough, right? The complex ambiguity of Krishna’s dharma within the Gita and how it challenged Arjuna within the Mahabharata’s context has been the source of exegetical debate since the Gita’s conception. Two millenniums later, spiritual, political, and academic interpretations of the Gita still bloom; dharma cannot be ignored as every person, every kingdom, must face the question: How is appropriate inter-action to take place?

Considered an ancient text, the Gita contains many teachings of Krishna that sound all too familiar with rhetoric of current politicians and religious leaders. Krishna’s call to “wage this war of sacred duty” (2.33) is, seemingly, similar to President Bush’s reaction to those behind the World Trade Center towers’ destruction: “Given the nature and reach of our enemies, we will win this conflict…by meeting a series of challenges with determination and will and purpose” (Lincoln 100). Why turn to this religious text within a socio-historical context such as ours when religion is accused of being the source of so much violence?  The answer is in Krishna’s re-visioning of dharma that is found in the Gita—a re-visioning that takes readers beyond the surface scenes within the Gita to reach a dharma that is for Arjuna then, and our present. Furthermore, exploring Krishna’s dharmic teachings for a world-age where adharma is rampant might enable suggestive re-visioning for today. It is to the Song of the Lord, and the Lord of Song, to which we, as a collective Arjuna, now turn.

Now is as Good as Then: Krishna Re-Appearing.

            Hinduism assumes that the cosmos is involved in a continuous cycle of creation and destruction (Gita 9.7), and Krishna’s dharma re-visioning is said to materialize when adharma settles in, when “chaos prevails”(4.7). These periods of adharma are known in the Hindu cosmology as Kaliyuga, which Heinrich Zimmer elucidates as follows: “Egoistic, devouring, blind and reckless elements now are triumphant and rule the day. Kali means the worst of anything; also, ‘strife, quarrel, dissension, war, battle’” (15). Krishna’s dharma is absolutely essential for this period, otherwise destruction and chaos would prevail (Gita 3.23-35). This fits within the larger context of the Mahabharata, as the Gita is situated immediately prior to the Pandavas and Kurus warring one another. That is, Krishna’s re-visioning of dharma is performed in that sacred scene of adharma, where wars over “sacred duty” take place (1.1).

            The appearance of “Krishna” is enigmatic and tricky in itself. “Krishna” is put in quotation marks because clarification of what is meant by this term is needed. It is asserted here, emphatically so, that “Krishna” is a personified archetypal force that is conceptualized in anthropomorphic imagery, referring to what Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj suggests as, “… the indwelling principle within you—the atman, which is given various names” (137). This “indwelling principle” is expanded in the Gita as the indwelling spirit exists within all of nature as it does in humanity: “Learned men see with an equal eye a scholarly and dignified priest, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and even an outcaste scavenger” (Gita 5.18, cf. 13.3, 15.13-15). That is, the world-soul (brahman) and human-soul (atman) are intricately intertwined in matters of dharma for, if dharma is to sustain, then the entire cosmos must function harmoniously in order for nature and humanity to sustain and be sustained. “All this around me, and my own existence—experience within and without—are the warp and woof of the subtle fabric”(Zimmer, 26). This “subtle fabric” appears—in image and teaching—in breath taking and, seemingly, odd fashion in the Gita and throughout history, in different countries, figures and names.

The oddity of such perennial materialization, however, is due to the nature of its context; that is, the peculiar dharma forcefully appears when adharma is rampant. Krishna is notorious in Hindu mythology for disrupting social norms and notoriously well loved for doing so. Discussing Hindu stories that involve the thievery of Krishna, John Hawley notes that, “Krishna doesn’t use force, but his skill in stealing away what people hold dear is unparalleled; and he doesn’t kill, but he manages to unburden people of their ordinary lives” (163). As Ruth Katz points out, Krishna’s character in the Gita is marked as, “…a playful trickster…Krishna’s trickery implies an open defiance of traditional morality…” (241). Arjuna’s dilemma, to defend dharma (1.37), is seen in his reticence to kill his fellow kinsmen (1.28-31). Deciphering dharma is tricky when adharma is rife, let alone when family is involved. It is only fitting that Krishna would be seen as a trickster in a period that is replete with disorder and evil; truth, peace, and acceptance are certainly antithetical to social norms in such periods. It is not surprising, then, to see that Krishna’s presence in the Gita functions as a shocking implosion of Arjuna’s presuppositions. It takes a persona such as Krishna—or Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, et cetera—to awaken dharma, reverse social adharma and re-verse perennial truths that lead to restoration (4.8).

Krishna’s reorienting of Arjuna’s disillusionment takes up more than just the convoluted confusion of whether to engage in war; according to the Gita, the fundamental purpose of dharma is, “To protect men of virtue and destroy men who do evil” (4.8). The enactment of dharma is the internal renunciation of all fruits from action (2.55, 2.71, 5.21) and the carrying out of one’s personal dharma (2.31, 2.33) for the sake of social and cosmic welfare (3.11-16). As Jacqueline Hirst says in her contribution to The Fruits of Our Desiring: “Order in human society is, from the beginning, grounded in cosmic order and taught as such” (52). Arjuna is told to give up his previously embraced notion of dharma and find solace in the dharmic re-presenter who appears in Kaliyuga periods (18.66).  For Arjuna, in the larger context of the Mahabharata, this meant seeing through his attachment for his kinsmen and performing actions that seemed all together adharmic. To see through such horrific scenes is never easily accepted, as Krishna must repeat himself time and again for Arjuna to renounce the attachments that are seemingly normative when performing actions (examples—2.15, 2.22, 2.48, 2.55).

Set in the mythical context of the Mahabharata, the Gita presents this dharmic dilemma in hyperbolic settings so as to portray the difficulty in ascertaining how to uphold dharma. The Gita should be seen, however, more like a springboard than a bed to snuggle into, for the Gita and its dharmic teachings should be understood as recontextualizing previously held dharmic perspectives. Dharma, then, is a fluid concept and allows its applicability to twist and turn given the context in which it is being ascertained. Krishna’s archetypal reappearances and re-visioning is summed up by Ruth Katz: “God, then, is seen as the protector of dharma even as he acts within the yuga structure, changing with the shifting environment” (231). Krishna then will appear quite differently than Krishna now, but there will be an aura of familiarity, which will be spelled out later.

Speed up two millenniums. Today, Western culture is inundated with so much “war” rhetoric—from the war on drugs to the war on terrorism—that Michael Hadley writes, “War, in short, is now a ‘way of being’” (190). Put simply, since 9/11 the West’s mythic perception is constructed by a notion that took place on September 11^th, 2001: we are at war—militarily, economically, ethnically, and religiously. The evening news is sated with vivid images of violence, chaos, and hatred—at home and abroad. All the news reports confirm Zimmer’s definition of Kaliyuga, the age of adharma, the age when, supposedly, Krishna’s revelatory dharma is suppose to manifest.

Krishna’s Re-Visioning

Dharma, according to the Gita’s Krishna, is the detachment approach to reality where individual, social, and international boundaries are transcended (3.7, 3.25, 4.10, 5.11). As stated above, Arjuna’s dharmic visioning was deconstructed and the restructured dharma is one where brahman and atman are intimately interconnected. Within this interconnectivity, though, the individual is not lost.  As Krishna is quoted in 3.35, “Your own duty done imperfectly is better than another man’s done well. It is better to die in one’s own duty; another man’s duty is perilous” (cf. 18.47). Thus, when Krishna admonishes Arjuna to “Look to [his] own duty” (2.31) and to “stand up and resolve to fight the battle!” (2.37), Krishna is upholding the warrior’s dharmic role while redefining Arjuna’s presumption of social dharma. Individual duty and social duty are not so cleanly dichotomized in such re-visioning. In fact, while non-attachment to consequences is Krishna’s advice, this does not infer an amoral or entirely relativistic ethic. Nicholas Sutton notes that, “…it is only right action that is to be executed without desire” and the continuance of this is, “…entirely to do with the welfare of this world” (329). Thus, non-attachment is explicitly concerned with nourishing this tangible world, verses a transcendental world, and the non-attached motive is to be enacted in behavior that has trans-personal consequences.

Like the unity that exists as multiplicities, and the multiplicities that form unity (11.5-7, 13.30, 14.4, 18.20), the specificity of “non-attachment” and “right action” is ambiguously applicable. Thus, the Gita’s context makes Krishna’s admonition to fight understandable. To read this too literalistic, though, is to miss the point. The point is that dharmic re-visioning consists in disrupting the Kaliyuga disruption as a means of seeing clearly, of seeing through to the welfare of the world (12.4, 12.12). The Gita presents Arjuna seeking the council of Krishna as Arjuna questions how such a horrendous crime against honor in warring against family can be committed (1.34, 37). Arjuna’s difficulty is not only in killing his kinsmen, but this is coupled with the fact that to do so would be antithetical to his sense of dharma, the underlying order of the cosmos that is to be harmoniously engaged with. Hence, Krishna’s advice is ultimately directed towards the following: how to exist and engage with the order that sustains the cosmos—both on social and individual, macro and microcosmic levels. The vague applicability of dharma calls for constant conscious awareness of one’s historical context and how to behave in a dharmic manner, a manner that is fundamentally concerned with the sustenance of the world at large.

Krishna, Dharma, and…Us?

            To insert a concept like dharma in a postmodern, post-9/11 world—rife with chaos, pluralism, and violence—is capable by the very nature of Krishna’s visionary re-visioning found within the Gita. As Jacqueline Hirst notes, “[The Gita] may ask us…to go beyond our initial understandings of dharma, discarding or recontextualizing them as we go, to that which is truly dharmic” (55). What is dharmic has been repeatedly summarized with “sustaining the welfare of the world.” Considering the nuclear, environmental, ethnical, and biological threats facing the modern world, it would do well to offer some suggestive ways of recontextualizing dharma in our own Kaliyuga.

Literalistic readings of the Gita are, unfortunately, all too popular in recent and contemporary history. It is well known that the Gita was dear to Richard Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. Mark Juergensmeyer notes that members of the Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP have defended several acts of violence by quoting from the Gita (95).  The Gita is far from being an exception in matters of violent religious interpretations. The rise of current religious violence is coupled with an intense upsurge of globalization, providing a contemporary scene where national and hemispherical boundaries are transcended daily.

The sustaining of one country ultimately depends on the sustenance of other countries in relation—economically, ecologically, politically, and in matters of human rights. Krishna’s restructuring of Arjuna’s concept of dharma is, for readers today, an international—indeed a cosmic—restructuring. Contemporarily, Arjuna is seen in each individual, and as a collective whole, as there is collective hope for a Krishna re-visioning that enables each country  to establish dharma nationally and internationally—those two so inherently entwined in our day. Problems arise, though, when the order that is sought is re-visioned in such a radical way that it implodes the anticipatory expectations clung to. While there are many examples of contemporary adharma in our Kaliyuga, a suggestive dharmic re-visioning towards the cacophonic relationship between the West and the Middle East will be focused on. This indicatory re-visioning will explore how the dharmic teachings in the Gita might provide insight for a world where the field of dharma is truly cosmic in scale. If such re-visioning does not take place, Agni might make an appearance in a nuclear way that would truly put an end to the chaos—once and for all.

As noted above, individual dharma is to function conjointly with cosmic dharma to “lead to freedom” (Gita 11.5) and is for “sustaining this entire world” (10.42). Unfortunately, since its imperialistic inception the West has characteristically been demonic: “[the West has said] I have gained this wish today, and I shall attain that one; this wealth is mine, and there will be more. I have killed the enemy, and I shall kill others too; I am the lord, I am the enjoyer, successful, strong, and happy.” (16.13-14). The West, specifically America, flourishes in its economical surplus and political might, all the while sustaining an adharmic identity that caricaturizes “divine traits that lead to freedom” (16.5). Focusing entirely on the interests of sustaining our national welfare, the United States has failed to harmonize its dharma with global dharma. Such national-centrism has resulted in a Kaliyuga that infiltrates in nearly every darkened corner of the world.

Since the Gulf War of 1991, the United States has sustained harsh sanctions on Iraq, “…which [have] caused widespread misery, including the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children, [and] were ‘worth the cost,’ as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously put it” (Loy 96). The following list, far from exhaustive, exhibits the overwhelming adharma enacted by the U.S. government:

            …in 1965, the United States sponsored or assisted a military coup

            in Indonesia that involved the deaths of over half a million people…

            in the year 2001 alone the United States refused to join 123 other nations

            in banning the use of production of antipersonnel bombs and mines…

            Bush declared the Kyoto global warming protocol “dead” and refused

            to participate in revising it, because that might harm the U.S. economy…

            the United States was the only nation to oppose the U.N. Agreement to

            Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms…In addition, the

            United States ha not ratified the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban

Treaty, signed by 164 nations but opposed by Bush (Loy105).

 

Given the unavoidable globalization that is in motion, the question is not whether or not the West should be internationally involved. The question is: what is the West’s dharmic role to enable international harmony where each country focuses on its own dharmic responsibility (Gita 3.35, 18.47) in such a way that will bring global peace (12.12)? In a country that promotes its motto as “liberty and justice for all”, violence has been the action taken in hopes of securing this nationalistic attachment. Two and a half centuries after America’s inauguration, two and a half centuries of working towards liberty and justice for all, the one thing that has been attained without failure has been violence—within and without national borders.

The Gita provides a disarming portrait of dharma. Recall that dharma essentially means “that which sustains” (Miller 158). In the wake of our Kaliyuga, the destruction of the cosmos has never been more perceivable and there are no lacking options that can be taken to actualize this. Violence has proven, it would seem, to be ineffective in creating global dharma. Hence, what if what the Mahabharata calls the highest dharma, that of ahimsa (non-violence), were attempted? What if the re-contextualizing of dharma in our age was to retract from our nationalistic attachments and seek a global dharma where countries work together for peace, compassion, and sustenance for all creatures (Gita, 12.4, 12.12-13)? Contemporarily, re-visioning dharma would call for a global paradigm shift, one where nuclear, military, and imperialistic weapons of mass destruction implode on themselves along with the present adharmic vision that poses itself as dharmic.

Concluding…for now.

In the Mahabharata Arjuna follows Krishna’s advice and the Pandavas defeat the Kurus. However, the Gita is ambiguous as to who or what Arjuna is to fight. This ambiguity is heightened considering Krishna’s teachings of how brahman and atman are so intricately intertwined, thus one should treat all creatures equally (4.35, 5.7, 6.29-32, 13.28). Who then is Arjuna to fight? “Great Warrior, kill the enemy menacing you in the form of desire!” (3.43). Arjuna then, and Arjuna now, is to fight against desires of attachment. The attachment of the West to attain nationalistic ideals while ignoring international needs is analogous to the short-sided disillusionment of Arjuna that Krishna deconstructs. To promote non-violence in an age of extreme violence would certainly be tricky, but the warning signs seen on every 6 o’clock evening news report suggest that such trickery is imperative if our world is to be sustained.

The entire scenario is left to interpretation, and the Gita, like any ancient extant text, has its fair share of interpretations. The current international situation will have future historians performing their own interpretations of how dharma was incorporated, and sadly often ignored in our Kaliyuga. A re-appearance of Krishna is most certainly needed, but are we willing to embody Krishna today? This exploration opened with a question, implying a need for an answer. The answer just might lay in the questioning – by breaking the bonds of present attachments, the West can enable questioning to happen, which will open up opportunities to view things anew. This question must first be addressed: Is the West willing to actually question their current sense of dharma? May the evening news’ one day report, like that of Sanjaya, that there was rejoicing, for dharma was actualized in an adharmic age. May history say, on a global scale, that for a time, “fortune, victory, abundance, and morality [did] exist” (18.78).

 

 Works Cited

 

Hadley, Michael. “The Ascension of Mars and the Salvation of the Modern World.” The Twenty-first Century Confronts Its Gods: Globalization, Technology, and War. Ed. David J. Hawking. Albany: State University of New York, 2004. 189-208.

Hawley, John Stratton. “The Thief in Krishna.” The Inner Journey: Views from the Hindu Tradition. Ed. Margaret H. Case. Sandpoint, ID: Morning Light Press, 2007. 162-171.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious

Violence. Los Angeles and London: University of California, 2000.

Katz, Ruth. Arjuna in the Mahabharata: Where Krishna Is, There Is Victory.

Columbia, SC: South Carolina UP, 1989.

Lincoln, Bruce. Holy Terror: Thinking About Religion After September 11.

Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 2003.

Loy, David R. “The West Against the Rest? A Buddhist Response to The Clash of Civilizations. The Twenty-first Century Confronts Its Gods: Globalization, Technology, and War. Ed. David J. Hawking. Albany: State University of New York, 2004. 95-110.

Hirst, Jacqueline. “Upholding the World: Dharma in the Bhagavadgita.” The Fruits of Our Desiring: An Enquiry into the Ethics of the Bhagavadgita For Our Times. Ed. Julius Lipner. Calgary: Bayeux Arts, 1997. 48-63.

Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta. The Nectar of Immortality: Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Discourses on the Etnernal. Ed. Robert Powell. San Diego: Blue Dove Press, 1996.

Miller, Barbara Stoller, trans. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of

War. New York: Bantam Dell, rpt. 2004.

Sutton, Nicholas. Religious Doctrines in the Mahabharata. Delhi: Motilal

Banarsidass, 2000.

  Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Ed. Joseph

Campbell. Princeton: Princeton UP, rpt. 1974.

The Absence of an Archetype: Looking Beyond Oedipus and Jesus

The mythology of the West is as celestial and infinite as there are celestial bodies in the infinite cosmos. To elevate one over the other is a judgmental endeavor, for with selection comes a simultaneous omission. Regardless of this, it can safely be asserted that within the mythologies of the West two notably stand out (though not necessarily above): the myths of Oedipus of Thebes and Jesus of Nazareth. These two figures are by and large two of the most widely discussed figures—mythically and historically—throughout Western history, and they will occupy our time once again. Fusing these two characters’ stories together will provide insight to how the infanticide and patricide within Oedipus’ and Jesus’ stories are imagistic portrayals of how archetypal forces can never been fully signified through the re-presenting symbol embodying archetypal energy. That is, this interpretative exploration will unveil how the West’s fascination of the symbolic characters in these foundational myths have left us longing for more, longing for an Antigone to bury the literalistic-short-sighted-mentality that has long governed the Western mind.

             Criticisms of Oedipus and Jesus are commonplace in the depth-psychology movement, yet a critical look at the paralleling features of infanticide and patricide and the redeeming qualities within this murderous scheme has yet to be exercised. The vast chasm of time and culture that separates these myths is joined not through an interpretative bridge, but by starting from each side of the gorge and journeying to each myth’s depth. When one reaches this depth, it becomes obvious that there is a brook that runs through the quarry, and it is in the brook we must trod; these stories can guide us to life-nourishing water for the soul, if we so choose to baptize ourselves in its depths.

            Marked differences exist between the nature of these stories. Information regarding the socio-historical context of Oedipus’ scene is overly lacking, while there is several extant documents and a mass of historical work done on the context of Jesus’ story. Oedipus is mostly looked to as a mythical figure, while Jesus is looked to as both historical and mythical, depending on one’s predispositions. Oedipus’ parents are explicitly noted as being biological (Roche, 69-70), while Jesus’ biological background is hidden behind a mythical birth narrative (Matt. 1.18-5). These discontinuities, and many more, exist and deserve attention, though not specifically ours; to do so would mislead the direction being taken here. These two myths of the West collide and coincide in a similar archetypal fashion that must be taken seriously if we are to take our myths seriously.

            The stories begin on their own side of the gaping gap: in Oedipus the King Apollo prophecies Oedipus killing his father Laius (Roche 24); in John’s gospel YHWH sent his only son, Jesus, to die for the sins of humanity (John 3.16). Oedipus is predicted to kill his father, while Jesus is brought into the world to be killed by his “father”. The forecast for these two figures seems opposite, however they share the storm of infanticide. That each story has infanticide and patricide demands that attention be given to this parent-child relationship and what that divine relationship infers. Before jumping that far, though, it needs to be asked: Why is it that each story has a son as the paradigmatic character and not the parent? What does the need for a son suggest?

The need for a son: the absence of a father

            Oedipus and Jesus enter their given stories with an identity of being sons. Oedipus is most often viewed only as the son of Laius. This seems understandable considering that most of the interpretative work has focused on the infanticide/patricide events that take place between Oedipus and Laius. However, there is reason to believe that Oedipus’ social status as tyrranos would create a new socio-political identity that involved a divine father-son relationship. Early in the Oedipus play, Oedipus is regarded as the one who is “the leader of men and consummate atoner to the powers above” (Roche 24). That is, while Oedipus is not necessarily equal with the gods, he nevertheless knows, unlike any other human, how to use the powers of the gods. This less-than-godlike stature is questioned later in the play when the chorus questions Oedipus’ origination: “Who was your mother child? Which of the dryads, Perennially young, did Pan of the mountains have? Or was it Apollo haunting high Savannas?” (66).  In his Oedipus and the Fabrication of the Father, Pietro Pucci suggests that, “…Oedipus is not simply favored by the gods but their son; now his solution of the Sphinx’s riddle becomes easy to explain. He descends from Apollo” (130). Oedipus’ social identity derives not only from his biological father Laius, but as one who comes from and represents Apollo. Jesus shares this dual identity in that his is one that is identified as the son of Joseph  (Matt. 1.16) and YHWH (John 3.16). 

            This is not surprising. In the ancient world those who were recognized as king, whether that kingship be official (Oedipus) or subversive (Jesus), were often socially recognized as a son of god, an agent by who god would work through to exercise his reign on earth; a tangible, imaginary as it is, combination of heaven on earth. It is common knowledge in classical studies that Octavius Augustus was not only emperor, but was in fact believed to be Zeus’ agent to bring peace (Crossan, God and Empire 107-8, 147-48). H. J. Rose comments that the Hellenistic period was, “…a time when the deifying of kings was a commonplace, often hardly more than a piece of formal loyalty” (383). The theology of the ancient world was seen not only in their stories and writings, but in how society practiced their imperial-theology. It is suggested, then, that given the suggestive statements mentioned above in each story it is highly likely that these leaders of nation, city, or revolutionary band of renegades were interpreted as embodied representatives by which the god of their nation, city, or group would act through. Put in depth-psychological terms, this given person was acknowledged as truly living out an archetypal force that was socially acknowledged as paradigmatic, authoritative, and, as will be shown later, unfortunately worshiped.

            Hence, according to the stories as they are preserved in their textual form, Apollo and YHWH designate particular males in the earthly scene as a son, and it is the son that represents the father. To offer a representation of one’s self suggests that the actual figure is absent, or at least perceived to be so, hence the son functions as the offered symbol. The historical scene for Sophocles’ Oedipus and Christianity’s Jesus are analogous, and these scenes unveil a similar need for a symbol, a son, to re-present a way of being in the world that provided a paradigm specifically pertinent for those historical moments. Before venturing into the paradigmatic nature of each character, it is beneficial here to recap the historical situation in which these stories were presented.

 

Oedipus and Jesus in Context

            To speak of the historical matrix of Oedipus is futile, for there is little to no extant evidence supporting the historical figure of Oedipus, much less the socio-historical milieu. Sophocles, then, is the beginning point for understanding the context behind Oedipus, for it is Sophocles’ who is telling this story in a particular way that will speak to a particular audience in a specific historical time. Sophocles’ play of Oedipus was offered to Greece shortly after the plague of 430BCE. The effects of this plague were not only agricultural and social devastation, but psychologically as well. As Christine Downing notes, the plague, coupled with the social and political disruptions, created “a period of transition, turmoil, and war” (284). Athens was a city-state of confusion; social structures were being deconstructed and human understanding regarding man’s rational responsibilities and the intervention of divine activity were deeply interrogated. The character Oedipus, then, served as a signifier in the absence of Apollo, the absence of a father, and, “…when the figure of the father is felt to be absent, unable to present itself with his law…then the society is endangered; then confusion and chaos ensue” (Pucci, 4). The father Apollo being absent, seen in Athenian disruption, signifies for the need to send a symbol (Oedipus) to re-present Apollo.

            The social scenes of Jesus’ entry are similar to what we find in 5^th century BCE Athens. John Crossan presents example after example of Jewish revolution and riotousness during the 1^st century BCE and CE in Crossan’s The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jew (168-206). Rome exercised its fierce imperialistic power over Judean territory and this presented the Jewish nation with social, political, and theological frustration. If Israel was the nation of YHWH, and YHWH was the one true God, how was it that Jews were enslaved once again as if they were in Egypt? And now it was in their own country?! The lack of political rule by Jewish religious leaders immediately gave way to existential and social insecurity in matters of finding favor with YHWH. With this background in mind, Jesus should be viewed, like Oedipus, as a symbol embodying an archetypal force (YHWH) to signify how one was to restore the presence of the father in a time when the presence of YHWH was altogether questioned. In both cases the embodying agent offers blessings and a new mode of existence, not only through their lives, but in and through their deaths.

Infanticide: signifier’s death wish on its on sign

James Hillman suggests in he and Kerenyi’s Oedipus Variations that infanticide “is a mythic manner of imagining literalism” (125). Hillman takes this notion and applies it to Laius and Oedipus’ relationship; however, why would Apollo prophesy patricide when this would in turn cause Laius to react as he did? Why would YHWH send his one and only son in to the world (and, recall that this divine conception nearly caused Joseph to leave the Mary) only to kill him? Hillman’s proposed notion can be extended beyond his particular application, as the death wish on the child stems not only from a biological father (as in the case of Laius), but also a metaphysical father. That is, it is in its nature for the archetypal energy to make itself known, and it resorts to iconic imagery (a son) to signify its nature. The archetype is seen through the symbol, but the archetypal force refuses to be literalized; therefore, the symbolizing character must certainly literally die, less the energy the character embodies be misconstrued as actually belonging to the characters themselves. It is proposed here that the West’s foundational myths are communicating this, in subversive and divine ways.

In each story, the archetypal force is certainly experienced through the iconic son, as Oedipus and Jesus both acquire hero-like status amongst their contemporaries.  The townspeople of Thebes look to Oedipus, “leader of men and consummate atoner to the powers above” (Roche 24), to bring healing to their famished lands. Likewise, “The news about [Jesus] spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to him all who were ill… and he healed them. Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan” (Matt. 4.24-25). Things seem to be moving along nicely. Each figure establishes himself as a worthy leader and does what he can to bring healing to those who seek. However, modern interpreters prove that modern seekers do not often find what they often seek in either figure—a true inversion of Jesus’ “seek and you will find” (Matt. 7.7).

Oedipus and Jesus were both paradigmatic characters that were to be symbols of an archetypal signifier, they were not to be taken literally. Both were to represent, to re-present, the image of their given god, yet in each case their supposed re-presentation is literalized as the representation and the iconic nature of the son is lost. Followers of Oedipus and Jesus make an idol out of an icon and consequently miss the archetypal presentation potentially held within the characters. Hillman suggests that it is the Apollonic archetype itself that causes the literalism of Oedipus and his followers. It is being argued here, on the other hand, that it is the followers that literalize the symbols, not that literalism is inherently involved in the archetypal energy within the West’s foundational mythic figures.

Patricide: Use the force, not the image.

Sophocles never says what happens to Thebes; interpreters are left only to their own conjecture. What is known is that Oedipus died in solitude, giving his blessings to Athens (Roche 151, 159) and not Thebes, and Jesus died publicly prior to God’s Kingdom being established in the way Jesus’ disciples presumed (Acts 1.7). The cure does not come because the prescription is not in the figure; rather, the healing comes through the death of literalizing the symbol and allowing the archetypal force to re-present itself time and again. Here is where the archetypal patricide takes place, both with Jesus and Oedipus: the son, still ever so innocently, kills the father as the father is no longer seen through the figure of the son. Who, however, is the murderer?

Each myth stops at this depth: the figure. As Hillman points out, the followers of Oedipus, depth-psychologists, have been Oedipal through and through since Sigmund Freud identified himself as Oedipus (130-136).  Similarly, subsequent followers of Jesus claim that, “It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2.20).  The two foundational myths of the West merge in this depth—here the canyons are joined: a collection of myth-followers who stop at the foot of the brook where only their reflection off the rippling waters of the brook is seen. The reflecting figure is believed to be the figure to be seen, and interpreters miss that this figure is being reflected through an effervescent movement of water: there is something to be experienced—much like the original audiences—through the embodying eikon. What most interpreters have found, though, is a reflection, and one made of vagueness—the quality of any symbol—because of the ripples.

The redeeming deaths of Oedipus and Jesus (see below) have functioned as patricidal deaths, for in the death of the son, who is redeemed through that death, the archetypal force is then killed. Depth-psychology’s murder of Apollonic thinking and Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of (the Judeo-Christian) God are not mere statements: they are invitations to pick up where these corpses lay. The merging of the Oedipus and Jesus tales at the foot of a brook suggests a safe place, stopping where fluidity begins, gazing only at a reflected image instead of breaking that image with the insertion of ourselves within the stream, where you never step into the same water twice. Apollo nor YHWH are at fault here; the fault lies in idolatry, in literalizing the figurine presented with archetypal force to be the archetype itself.

            Apollo and YHWH are the archetypal gods most often associated with literalism, rationalism, a my-way-or-the-highway mentality (example, Apollonic: Hillman, 119). Literalism cannot reign supreme if ambivalence, metaphor, and polysemy are allowed. When these two archetypes, though, are seen in relation to the containers in which they are signified by, the problem becomes more with the interpretation of the symbol than it does with the signifier. The patricide which is involved in these stories involves a literalizing of the son, of not seeing through the image of the son. The redemption of Jesus’ death is not false to life, as Hillman suggests in Re-Visioning Psychology (98-99), for it was through death that new life was acquired. That is, new life, a new mode of being came vis-à-vis his death. Oedipus, now aware of how he had carried out Apollo’s oracle, was willing to endure Apollo’s death wish and in doing so was able to bless Athens.

            The symbol is most true when it is recognized as something not quite graspable. In each story, Oedipus and Jesus are adored by their followers for both embody archetypal forces that bring healing; however, the banal nature of these re-presenters could not be overlooked. Apollo and YHWH proved the humanity of their archetypal representations by causing all-too-human events to occur: Oedipus with his self-inflicted torture and Jesus with his Roman-inflicted torture. When the Chorus questioned the reasoning behind Oedipus’ self-blinding Oedipus replied, “Friends, it was Apollo, Spirit of Apollo: He made this fruit of evil fructify” (Roche, 75). In the Garden of Gethsemane, while pondering on events soon to come, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will but as You will” (Matt. 26.39)—it is well known what came from that prayer. It is in this suffering, this utter despair, where Oedipus and Jesus seem most human. As sons of god, Oedipus and Jesus were to be that: sons, metaphorical re-presentations of the archetypal force in a grief-stricken Athens and socially disruptive Judea. The problem of literalizing the re-presentation of an archetypal force is summed up, with tongue-in-cheek, by John Crossan: “…remember, if Jesus is at the right hand of God, then God is to the left of Jesus” (Stewart, 26). These men were images, eikons, for these settings, and considering the rife chaos, exploitation, and violent disruptions of today, they might be equally needed as they were for their original audiences.

Concluding, but Never Making a Final Conclusion

            Depth-psychology has argued since its beginning that it is in the underworld, in dreams, in the psyche’s depths where we are to find the forces which guide, forewarn, condemn, uplift, and bring meaning to life. The Oedipus and Jesus tales are the two primary stories that form the Western psyche and, since the Western soul is dehydrated, these stories have received the blunt of criticisms for leaving their followers malnourished. As it has been argued here, the problem might lay more in the unwillingness to dive into the brook these myths bring one to rather than the myths themselves. The mythical patricide is committed not by Oedipus and Jesus, but by the interpreting followers of these myths who use the infant to destroy the father; followers see only the symbol instead of looking through the symbol and becoming a symbol themselves. The death of each figure is a journey in to the underworld; the blessings of Athens and the resurrection of Jesus are not a reemergence to the day world, they are not repatriating to a mode of literalism. Rather, these two figures invite their followers to die themselves, to delve into the underworld as a means of entering a new mode of existence: an existence where the archetypal force can crucify or humiliate you and through that bring healing to others.

The above interpretation is, of course, a mythical reading, which suggests that it re-mythologizes these myths. Then again, is this not what a myth must do? These stories invite us to journey to the depths of the West’s canyon, and the brook that runs through these stories can nourish the soul, if we choose to get our feet a little wet and muddy.

Works Cited

Crossan, John Dominic. The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean

Peasant. New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991.

—. God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. New York:

HarperCollins, 2007.

Downing, Christine. “Another Oedipus.” An Oedipus—The Untold Story: A Ghostly Mythodrama In One Act. Ed. Armando Nascimento Rosa. New Orleans: Spring Journal Books, 2006. 280-305.

Hillman, James. Re-Visioning Psychology. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.

The New American Standard Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000.

Pucci, Pietro. Oedipus and the Fabrication of the Father: Oedipus Tyrannus in

Modern Criticism and Philosophy. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1992 

            Rose, H. J. “The Evidence of Divine Kings in Greece.” The Myth and Ritual Theory. Ed. Segal, Robert. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998. 381-387.

            Sophocles. The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles. Roche, Paul, trans. New York: New

American Library, 1958.

 

Stewart, Robert, ed. The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and N.T.

Wright in Dialogue. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006.

Digging Deeper through the Hill

The attempt to bridge Western and Eastern thinking has only been as of recent, and this attempt seems to have as many advocates as devil advocates. The depth psychology movement shares in this tug-of-war and depth psychologists likewise differ in their (un)appreciation for inviting Eastern philosophies into their field of study. Carl Jung is well known for his appreciation of Taoism and the I-Ching, though even in the Jungian movement there is no consensus on incorporating Eastern ideas in this prominently Western school of thought. Archetypal psychology cannot avoid the invasion of Eastern thought in the Western world, and using the East’s numerous mythologies solely for the purpose of corroborating a pre-established Western way of understanding the psyche will reveal an Apollonic archetype, though Dionysian they attempt to portray themselves. The focus of the present paper is on the archetypal figure of the Bhagavad-Gita’s Krishna and will be coupled by the earlier developments, specifically those of James Hillman, of that branch of depth psychology termed archetypal psychology. The amalgamation of Krishna as an archetypal source with that of Hillman’s notions of soul will lead us to see similarities between Western and Eastern modes of understanding, and standing under, the soul and how Krishna leads us beyond the radical re-visioning of James Hillman.
Hillman’s breakthrough work Re-Visioning Psychology revolutionizes what is meant by the “psyche” and painstakingly argues for what he calls a “polytheistic psychology” (167-171). In the preface to the 1992 edition, Hillman explicitly admits that he as not “gone East” but stayed in the “Western tradition” (xxii). The adamancy of staying within the Western tradition of psychology, of studying and theorizing of how to articulate the psyche, is analogous to the West’s tendency to stay within our limited worldview and present it as the way of understanding, the way of seeing. That is, it is Apollonic. If there is to be such a thing as depth-psychology that poses itself to be a field directed towards a way of understanding the human psyche, then it must at least attempt to integrate a worldview that has long existed prior to the West’s and is ever present today in the West. Prior to this conscious decision to stay within the Western tradition, Hillman’s archetypal psychology is tinted time and again with Eastern concepts. This is jumping too far too quickly, though; an examination of what is being referred to as “the archetype of Krishna” will first be delineated.
Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita: A Figure Amongst figures
Krishna’s commentary on reality and how the human fits within reality is found in the Bhagavad-Gita. In the Gita, Krishna is an anthropomorphized figure of Atman, the soul of the cosmos that infiltrates all of existence and, in humans, resides in each individual. Krishna pervades the whole universe by his non-manifested form and all of the cosmos exists in him (12.4). This anthropomorphized archetypal perspective infers that all the multiplicities that abound throughout the cosmos all derive from and are sustained by an infusing and fusing force: “…al that exists is woven on me, like a web of pearls on thread.” Yet, this unifying ideation that infiltrates Krishna’s imagery and teachings does not dismiss the reality of multiplicities. Hinduism assumes a pantheon, but even the gods that make up the constellation of the Hindu pantheon, along with the rest of Nature, derive from this Source (10.2); Heinrich Zimmer reminds us in Myths and Symbols of Indian Art and Civilization that the gods which make up the Hindu pantheon are actually derivatives of, manifestations of, something beyond themselves: “But the gods are themselves the production of a greater maya: the spontaneous self-transformation of an originally undifferentiated, all-generating divine Substance” (25). This “divine Substance” is, in the language of the Gita, that of Krishna: “[Humanity], see my forms in hundreds and thousands; diverse, divine, of many colors and shapes” (11.5).
This all said, it is important to keep in mind that this is not sheer monism. A.C. Commenting on 18.55 of the Gita, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, mentions that, “One should not misunderstand that the word visate, ‘enters into Me,’ supports the monist theory that one becomes homogeneous with the impersonal Brahman” (824). Thus, the innumerable manifestations that are inherently part of reality are really multiplicities of a Source. Simultaneously, they are manifesting multiples of Krishna, which infers they are not ends in themselves, but are images of that which resides behind, beyond and below them. The multiplicities, then, are quite real images that symbolize the vast variation of life: “…the supreme infinite spirit…Its hands and feet reach everywhere; its head and face see in every direction; hearing everything, it remains in the world, enveloping everything” (Gita 13.13). A hand is not a foot, though they are compartments of an entire body—so it is with Krishna. In depth psychology and its pantheon of archetypes, Krishna is typically seen as one archetype amongst a host of others; however, it is argued here that the Krishna of the Gita is, much like “psyche” or “soul”, the container in which all other archetypes manifest. Krishna, then, is the quintessential of what it means to be archetypal: “Archetypal images demonstrate difference, differing from each other and infinitely deferring a fixed meaning” (Post-Jungian Criticism: Theory and Practice, 43).

The above paragraphs are a summarization, not an exhaustive description of Krishna in the vast Hindu tradition or even a covering of all the diverse interpretations of Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita. The basic overview of who and what Krishna is a springboard into the body of depth psychology, most notably that of James Hillman’s earlier works. Jung differed from Freud in that Jung was willing to travel East in his psychological experimentation; Hillman, a pupil and yet guru of Jungian ideation, started East but, as noted in the opening paragraph, intentionally turns his attention West and chooses to stay within that tradition. What follows is a transcription of the descriptions of Krishna above into depth-psychological terminology. Following this intertwinement will be a brief exploration of how Krishna, and all that Krishna infers, might be leading depth-psychologists past the idolatrous gods that depth-psychology currently revels in.
Worlds Colliding and Coalescing.

Putting Krishna-consciousness in depth-psychological language immediately leads to one of, if not the, most recognized depth-psychologists today: James Hillman. The attempt to intertwine philosophical worldviews is a precarious endeavor; miss-representation of one or the other is all too common. While anachronisms might occur, an attempt of exchanging the imagistic teachings of Krishna with depth-psychological jargon might prove beneficial. Krishna, representing the soul of the cosmos, is the archetypal source from which all subsequent archetypes stem from. As the psyche contains both the conscious and unconscious, so Krishna exists in manifest and invisible realms, knowable and unknowable. The physical and psychical manifestations of the archetypal source have archetypal backgrounds themselves, evidenced by the mass of depth-psychological literature that juxtaposes Greek mythology with the archetypal diversity found within the psyche (though rarely do users of Greek myths ask if there is something beyond the archetypal images being referenced).
It is Hillman’s first scholarly book, Emotions, where there are obvious parallels between Hillman’s notion of “soul” and the archetypal imagery described of Krishna above. For Hillman, psyche is the banal term that he replaces with the more ambiguous and poetic word soul (Suicide and the Soul, 47). And, as Hillman notes, “The psyche as a whole…is the original text through which all translations and correlations must be referred” (Emotion 273). In the paragraph that follows he delineates this notion of soul: “It is the psyche which is the formal ground of human experience and behaviour [sic]. And emotion, as the energetic stuff of the psyche…is the primary state of activity of the soul” (273). The human experience—conscious or unconscious, awake or asleep, imaginary or empirical, et cetera—is found in the psyche/soul. “We must keep in mind here that the central and total, inner and outer, quality and pattern are ways of talking about a single complex, the psyche. By tradition the psyche is one, even if divisible into many factors” (Emotion 271). In the Gita this is stated Hindu style in 8.3: “Eternal and supreme is the infinite spirit; its inner self is called inherent being; its creative force, known as action, is the source of creature’s existence.” This “infinite spirit”—that which is both inner and outer, immanent and transcendent—is, of course, portrayed through the anthropomorphic figure imaged as Krishna.
The psyche is, “the container of the energetic aspect” (Emotion 275), and yet like Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Hillman adamantly denies that such psychological articulation is akin to monism. Hence, psyche/soul is to be understood as the unity where diversity abides in, the soil from which archetypal forces germinate, blossom, and return to. The plethora of archetypes that most depth psychology illustrates through references to Greek mythology derive from a single Source—call it soul or Krishna—and are not dissolved by their similar originating point. Atman, the Hindu term for “God within”, is personalized through Krishna in the Gita and, as Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj points out, is diversely recognized: ““But here God means in the indwelling principle within you—the atman, which is given various names. These represent this ‘inner-God’ who will respond no matter what names of other Gods you chant” (The Very Fount of Bliss in The Inner Journey: Views from the Hindu Tradition, 299). This is the Hindu way of saying the psyche is the generating container where archetypes stem from, and to which they return. It is for this reason that Krishna, as Atman in person, is seen by Arjuna as having no beginning, middle, or end—that is, the human psyche and its manifesting archetypes are figured in the Gita by and through Krishna. “Lord of All, I see no end, or middle or beginning to your totality” (Gita 11.16).
Parting Ways
The “soul” of Hillman and Krishna of the Bhagavad-Gita are microcosmic representations of a macrocosmic trend—the coalescing of Eastern and Western meta-psychological understanding. However, where Hillman and Krishna both preach of the God within, they part ways as Hillman spends more and more time writing and inter-viewing on his polytheistic campaign. It is difficult to not smirk as one reads the words of Krishna: “Votaries of the gods go to the gods, ancestor-worshippers go to the ancestors, those who propitiate ghosts go to them, and my worshipers go to me” (9.25). The vast amount of time and energy spent on validating the gods within has put an overcast of Hillman’s earlier work on soul. It is noteworthy that while Emotion, first published in 1960, focuses on “the primacy of soul” (272) and yet the 1992 reissue is prefaced with polytheistic language (xi, xii, xiv). The diversity of the psyche, articulated with words like “archetypes”, “gods”, and “goddesses”, has been the focus of depth-psychology since Hillman’s Re-Visioning and little attention has been given to the Source of this re-visioning. Hillman re-visions the psyche through his concept of soul, that perspective which includes all the diversity that manifests itself from a Source.
Harold Davis notes that Hillman is considered a postmodern psychologist, and as such his adamancy on difference verses singularity is not surprising (Jung, Freud, and Hillman: Three Depth Psychologies in Context, 184-187). Perhaps Hillman’s contextual milieu explains his polytheism—authenticating a decentralized, differentiated psyche. However, if Hillman is part of a deconstruction campaign, as Davis notes similarities between Hillman and Jacques Derrida (185), it would only be logical to follow Hillman to his logical conclusion and deconstruct—see through—the pantheon of archetypal gods he so vehemently apologizes for. The past two millennium have been marked by countless monotheistic apologists; Hillman on the other hand—though part of the same body—is a polytheistic apologist.
As Krishna is analogous to the soul, the God within, so his manifestations (Gita, ch. 11) are interchangeable with the hosts of archetypes that stem from the soul of each individual, from the souls of humanity. To interpret Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita through a monistic lens is a fallacy, as mentioned above. Similarly, seeing the teachings of Krishna as transcendental should also be avoided, for Krishna frequently and consistently urges Arjuna to take action (ex. 2.3 and 18.59-60). Thus far Krishna is in line with Hillman’s existential tendencies, as Davis reminds us that, “…the way for [Hillman] is through this world, not around it; psychologizing is about engaging the world, not denying or withdrawing from it or transcending it” (177). The psyche may be more accurately described as hosting many gods, but these gods make themselves known in and through the psyche. It is with the psyche, as with Krishna, that one perceives, experiences, and interacts with the universe; with the dissolution of the psyche comes the closure of one’s experience—inner and outer—of this world. Put simply, without soul, from where would the archetypes, the “gods within”, manifest themselves? Hillman would agree: from the soul.
A Krishna-Conclusion: Looking Beyond the Hill
Krishna of the Gita impersonates what depth-psychology refers to as psyche and soul, and it is with a Krishna-lens that one sees through the depth-psychological-pantheon of Greek mythology. Imaginary as it might be, one must question if Hillman’s looking back East to Greece does not stop short—if he should have kept heading East. Depth psychologies preoccupation with Greek mythology as the backdrop for the human psyche and all its diversity (i.e.—“pathologies”) prevents them from seeing through their own myth. The majority of depth psychology, if not Hillman than his followers, has fallen to Hillman’s own warning: “Archetypal here refers to a move one makes rather than a thing that is. Otherwise, archetypal psychology becomes only a psychology of archetypes” (A Blue Fire, 26-7). Yet credit must be given where credit is due.
Hillman, again in his earlier career, did go East. His commentary on Gopi Krishna’s Kundalini is insightful and re-visionary in itself as Hillman interpolates depth psychological insights to Gopi’s experiences. Hillman critiques the West’s Cartesian pathology of splitting mind and body, material and mental (68). Hillman even praises Kundalini yoga in its conceptual framework that prevents Gopi from having to grapple with what the West categorizes as “pathologies” (70). And yet, Hillman cannot help but conclude his commentary by noting that, “All the Gods are within” (250, emphasis mine). The adamant advocacy of a polytheistic psyche seems to be pathological itself as Hillman is captured by this mythical way of seeing.
Krishna-consciousness enables one to acknowledge the gods within; in fact, Krishna forewarns Arjuna that suppression of the gods’ force is detrimental to the individual for the gods will have their way despite our denying them (18.59). As Krishna comes into being through his own magic (4.6), so the psyche is constituted and sustained by a host of forces that are archetypal, and yet these archetypes are constituted and sustained by the soul. Like Hillman’s soul as perspective (Re-Visioning, x), so Krishna should be seen as a way of seeing. When Krishna-consciousness sets in, though, one realizes that the archetypes that are manifested and capture us are manifestations of one’s self. The manifestations might be articulated as “gods within”, but these gods serve and are served by the God within; they are created by and destroyed by the soul. It must be restated, however, that this does not denigrate, transcend, or belittle the very real heterogeneity that the soul/psyche manifests in each individual. Indeed, “see [the] forms in hundreds and thousands; diverse, divine, of many colors and shapes” (11.5) that reside within and materialize through each individual. Simultaneously, though, Krishna’s imagery and teachings deconstruct the assortments of life and then construct a unification that is constituted by, and could not exist without, the innumerable multiplicities that exist macro and microcosmically; externally and internally; that is, cosmologically and psychologically.
While depth psychology continues to theorize and practice polytheistic psychology, soul is working through their work. As manifestations of the soul, embodying archetypes, they serve and are served by the all-sustaining soul that enlivens us all. It is this soul that the Hindu’s designate in the humanly divine, or is it divinely human, Krishna. Until depth psychology can integrate the psychical understanding of the East, it will remain a strictly Western movement that intentionally sets its limits to its own chosen mythical perspective. One must ask, how deep is depth psychology willing to go? So deep that it looses itself and its hosts of Greek gods? Krishna reminds us, as he has for millions of adherents throughout the millenniums, in such a way that can only be archetypal, that even the archetype has a Source.

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Bhagavad-gita As It Is. New York: Macmillan Company, 1972.

The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War. Trans. Barbara Stoler Miller. New York: Bantam Dell, 1986.

Davis, Harold. Jung, Freud, and Hillman: Three Depth Psychologies in Context. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003.

Hillman, James. A Blue Fire. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.

-Emotion: A Comprehensive Phenomenology of Theories and Their Meaning. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1972.

-Re-Visioning Psychology. New York: HarperCollins, 1975.

-Suicide and the Soul. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.

Krishna, Gopi. Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man, with a Psychological Commentary by James Hillman. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.

Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Ed. Joseph Campbell. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1946.

Post-Jungian Criticism: Theory and Practice, edited by James S. Baumlin, Tita French Baumlin, and George H. Jensen

The Inner Journey: Views from the Hindu Tradition. Ed. Margaret H. Case. Sandpoint, ID: Morning Light, 2007.

Thanks-Giving: there’s a reason that word is an amalgamation of two.

It’s a bit odd that we still celebrate, as a nation, Thanksgiving. We all know, or at least I think we do, that the stories of the pilgrims and Indians are imaginative stories…like Alice in Wonderland, or Robin Hood. And, I actively identify with and participate in a culture that is post-evangelical-Christian, yet here I am all packed and ready to go visit my parents and siblings. I’m not really sure why I’m doing it, other than the socio-familial obligations that weigh so heavy they are more painful than the over-stuffed feeling that is inherently involved in Thanksgiving dinners. Or any Indian-buffet, for that matter.

The critic within wants to deconstruct Thanksgiving and its overt Christian overtones.
The critic wants to mention that with all this “giving thanks for what we have” there is the day that follows, which is the day of more sales at your local, national, and international department stores, than any day of the year.
The critic wants to ask, “how can you say how thankful you are for what you have when soon after this meal you’ll think of what you don’t have?”.
The critic wants to scoff at how Christians all participate in the same rituals—Turkey, potatoes, rolls, pumpkin-pecan-sweet potato pies, apple cider—and yet somehow their ritual is more acceptable than “those pagans” doing the same.
It’s all gluttony. All of it. Even the “giving thanks” part…a day set aside to overstuff our optimism while suppressing the ungrateful bitches that reside within so that, at least for one day, we can appear to be thankful.
And, of course, appearance is where it’s at. (don’t forget to throw up, all you skinny folks, so you can appear to join in the gluttony without losing the skinny).

This has all went through Carl (the name attached to “My brain”—I’m trying to re-train Carl so that so much isn’t “mine”).

Then again, it is a ritual. There is some religion going on, even if it’s not recognized as a religious rite. And, it is a collective ritual enacted by hundreds of millions throughout our country—those at Wal-Mart or your 24/7 customer service centers being the exceptions. The critic is who tends to be more influential on Carl, but I’m proactively stopping it this time. Not because Thanksgiving is anything special to me, not that I will eat turkey or go shopping Friday or even care what others are thankful for. None of this means anything to me, but it means something to others, and that seems to be what this is more about.

Setting aside a time to look back and realize all that is Gift—all that is bound up with existence that can’t be earned or accrued. Like a girl choosing to love you…we all know, guys, you can’t do anything to get a girl to love you. Maybe fuck you, maybe even like you, but for a girl to love you…she has to give that. Admittedly, this existence has been supported and sustained by more Gift than anything ever acquired by my efforts. Countless friends, parents who have been more supportive than any girl, employers, random strangers, a timing belt that seems to never break…yea, there is lots for me to reflect on and let a grin come through after such reflections. But that’s not the point.

The point seems, Mr. Critic, to be that what matters to you doesn’t matter during this holiday. Critique all you want—they really are valid critiques that should be examined; but until you can love what you tend to critique, then it’s most likely that you won’t cross anyone’s mind when they do their own reflecting.

There’s Good Reasons

Time is so precious as you age, and I’m not so sure that is a good or bad thing. Twenty four hours is never enough and it can seem so long, too. It’s all a matter of which emotion is in the driver’s seat any the given time of reflection. I don’t have time for high-school-type friendships where all you do is get together and bitch about others and how nothing seems to go your way. I have all the time in the world to deeply connect with others and thankfully that list is pretty short these days, making the connection all the more thick.
I don’t have time to write blogs too much, because on-line views have been replaced for professor-views. Maybe I will post a paper on here…maybe I won’t even remember to. My attention is thrown in so many directions that I truly, truly feel decentralized, out of control, overwhelmed, and at times paralyzed. The lack of guidance at my school is disappointing for someone whose interests are so separated by institutional-categorization. Furthermore, I am finding myself disgusted with the idea that I can study another religion, say “this is what this means and how it relates to the psychological needs of humanity” without really engaging in the religion myself. It’s a Western privilege to spend our time on these matters; and, it’s an obvious manifestation that there is a lack of personal religion that we need to go and study up on others and trivialize the religious validity of its adherers with our own post-secular, post-modern agenda, which ends up turning on itself. So much shit is being written and talked of today; Mother Earth would make us wash our mouths out with soap.

A friend recently went off on me because I told them I don’t know what “who I am means” (my older brother did the same, too). I should have been more careful as to who I disclose such matters to. Just like I should be careful as to what I write. God forbid a bit of honesty get out on a system that broods deceit.
Like several friends I have.

But the reasons that might be good for my discontent all seem superfluous as I gaze at the workings within and realize that it’s my lack of attention to those I love that gets me in situations where all I do is replicate trendy hipster magazines that dog on “normal” society. As if me and my ego-centralized concerns really mattered. The only time I think they do is when they get out of alignment with the larger responsibility of living in harmony with the Life that is within and around this body I exist in.
Too bad you often need a doctor to get re-aligned, and I don’t have health insurance.

Death in a Cab, heard in a hospital

I brew coffee, serve coffee, make and serve espressos and subsequent espresso-bean-drinks at a local hospital to pay the bills. While working, a good amount of caffeine is ingested as well: free and legal drugs are kin to me. I’m an addict, plain and simple.

For the most part, I enjoy the regular customers that come through the line each day. There are, of course, those two hand-full of folks who refuse to look at you in the eye when going through the routine “how are you?” “I’ll have…” “Thanks, have a nice day”—one would be inclined to presume they look at the vending machines with more concern than they’ll look at an actual person.

Then there are those extra-ordinary customers; no, people who you can’t help be assume it’s an ingrained custom to live extra-ordinarily. Admittedly, these are my favorite, they truly make my day when our paths cross. An elderly was coming through every day for about a week, at 15 minutes past opening, without fail. She would order a 12oz coffee: no cream, sugar, or Splenda please and thank you. Her beverage mimicked her: small, thin, and natural with little to no additives. Thankfully, she treated me better than a vending machine as she would force a weak smile that barely curled towards her eyes; it looked like it hurt to smile, or maybe she just had too much hurt to hide, so much hurt that it even leaked through her blue eyes and weathered skin.

She never left a tip—not even a nickel.

I inquired: “You have been coming for a little over a week now. Is there any indications that you might be leaving soon?”

“Maybe. The doctors aren’t confident enough this morning but hopefully we’ll get some good news this afternoon.”

“Well, ma’am, I just want you to know that seeing you come in here everyday to be there for your spouse is really inspiring for a youngster like me. It is so incredible to see folks who have been there for each other so many years and are stronger than many youths today.”

“Thanks, dear. I’ve been around 62 years, figured I might as well see it through till he gets on with it and just dies.”

She smirks; her eyes soften and for the first time her smile seems to have an aroma of refreshment. Perhaps she had been coming for conversation the entire time and not just coffee. For a split second, maybe an entire second, guilt creeps up. I ignore it, feeling guilty never does much good anyhow.

“Are you serious?” (I think to myself: Ok, of course this is a rhetorical question, but come on, is that all I have to offer her?—ask about her story). “How did you meet?”

“Blind date. I met him in late January and by the second week in February, we were married. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. It’s been good, and I’m hoping our deaths are just as lovely as our lives have been.”

I’m flabbergasted. I try to come up with something but all that comes out of my stupefied mouth is, “wow.”

“You have a nice day dear, maybe I’ll back in a while to get one of those cinnamon rolls.”

Of course she never did come back. I haven’t seen her since. I don’t blame her; the cinnamon rolls we serve would most likely make her stomach expand at least six inches if she happened to take a sip of water while eating one. They look heavenly, and anything that looks that good is most likely hellishly experienced. I am curious if her husband is physically better or not; I am curious what his wife would prefer. I am curious what it would be like to be alive long enough to be married to someone for 62 years, let alone actually be married that long.

What I am not curious about is this: there is a Death Cab song entitled “What Sarah Said.” Towards the end of the bridge in that song, he sings, “love is watching someone die—so who’s going watch you die?” This is a rhetorical question used usefully, unlike my usage. I never understood that line, what he was really hinting at besides some biting remark to a girl he didn’t feel reciprocated love from; not until I met a lady who had loved being married for over half a century and was loving life to the point where she embraced every-thing it brings us: even the death of one we fall for after just two weeks of knowing them.

mythopsychosis: an explanation

I am a student. I make this acknowledgement before attempting to post anything; call it a discrepency, call it honesty. Either way I am attempting not to inform you, but to reflect for myself. The world at large is only as interesting to me as the world within, and I firmly belief that whatever we are to make of the world ultimately derives from a psychological foundation that is revealed in our habits, expressions, imaginations, et cetera.

It seems appropriate that I’ve come to this point: integrating the study of religious texts with some pseudo-scientific field like “psychology”. With the exceptions of James Hillman, David Miller, and other mytho-psychologists, the majority of psychiatrists still believe that theirs is a scientific field. As if “psyche”—that mental instrument used to for scientific discovery—can fall beneath itself. Conventional psychology—developmental, abnormal, child, adult, et cetera—interests me as much as Bill O’Riley’s opinions matter to me.

As for the latter, I take up what my friend told me last week: “Opinions are like buttholes: everyone has one.” My friend stopped short in that, like buttholes, opinions usually wreak of something awful, especially those from Bill O’Riley.

I became interested in religion at a fairly young age, sometime around 16 years old. Well, let me put that this way: I became interested in studying religious texts at that age, whether I was religious or not depends on what one means by “religious”. Studying the Bible—academically and meditatively—has always been a joy for me.

I don’t think I ever truly enjoyed going to church, though. Except for when there was those few instances of the religious experience; I’ve had those at four in the morning while I was only wearing underwear. Church, from what I can recall, always had a taint of the Badlands attached to it.

I don’t study the Bible too much anymore. At least not proficiently. I read the gospels—canonical and non-canonical—daily, but only for meditative purposes. I don’t believe much dogma. I don’t even know really what I believe, other than what I know. This “knowing” is naïve, though I don’t naively know. I know it’s naïve, therefore it’s not naïve for me to choose to know the way I know what I believe. It has been through a mystical lens that I have always read religious texts. Since my spiritual awareness germinated from the dirtiness of Christianity I seem to always think in typical Christian-mystic fashion. It’s completely intuitive; I’m not trying to convince, because I don’t really care if you believe me. I don’t need your belief for my own.

My interest in psychology is a conundrum. My initial exposure came through the writings of Carl Jung, introduced to me by a (now ex-)girlfriend. The affinity of my thought world with depth psychology culminated in Jean-Luc Marion’s book God Without Being. Even to this day it’s difficult for me to pray, because when I go to pray I immediately anthropomorphize the Divine. I do pray; I mean, wait, no, I don’t know what I mean. I feel God…at least, that’s how I phrase it. I don’t really know what it is though. I don’t think I’m supposed to.

Depth-psychology, then, is of interest—great interest—because it is from within that I feel this thing called “god”. What or who this thing or being (or none of the above) is or isn’t (or either) is beyond me; but I know the feelings that I have regarding that stem from within. Hence, I go to the depths of my psyche and from there the world becomes a mystical land that is often more accurately described by the poet than the scientist or positivistic philosopher.

I don’t expect too many to agree with me with that last statement.

Life has brought me here, to this place where I live in a ultra-conservative, Midwest city and fly once a month to the liberal west coast. As if I’m on a teeter-totter of ambivalence; a refusal to be static, a constancy of fluidity. And, let me just put it out here: I don’t find it as mere coincidence that the last of my friends to remain in academia live on the east coast, studying at a seminary (a liberal one at that, but still a seminary). It’s as if my flying back and forth and not living in California is more of an ambivalence of (lacking) confidence for where I truly am in Life and where those who have encouraged me in my academic and spiritual journey are. I’ve been through a marital divorce; that wasn’t nearly as difficult as divorcing myself from those who have made love with me in our spirits.

But deep inside, in that part of me called “the pits of your stomach” (“Even if I descend to hell, O Lord, there I find you”), I know I can’t distinguish my experience of God and an ontological being of God. I can’t decide if I make up God or if God makes up me. And I don’t really care to make such superficial, if not narcissistic, demarcations, because the last time I checked, life didn’t consist of too many strict categorical separations.

So I enter a mythology and depth-psychology program, because that programmed way of thinking has been how I’ve seen the world since I was old enough to start thinking for my self. Only, my self is more thought for, through the Divine which works through me, than it thinks for itself. It’s always been that way, I’ve just been a bit too arrogant at times to admit to this privilege. This thing called “being alive”…whatever that means.