Peace, love, creativity: Hope of mankind; Mythology of love, part one

From the Great Hall of the Cooper Union in New York City. National Educational radio presents the Cooper Union forum series on peace love and creativity the hope of mankind. These programs were recorded by station WNYC. Here now is the chairman of the Cooper Union forum Dr. Johnson he Fairchild. Good evening ladies. Before I'm here tonight to discuss the problems of peace which we think are the hope of the moment the mythology of the low. Obviously great peace love and creativity. Background of mythology was a tremendous amount to

do with the problem. I was speaker of the world famous and the light problems with Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell has spoken here on numerous occasions and I have introduced him so many times that I sometimes feel the entire world must know about Joe and his wonderful works. But in case there are two or three people that do not in our radio audience particularly May I just mention that he is a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College that's in Bronxville New York. His background have something to do with Columbia University. University of Tyrus University of Munich. His contribution was then the enormous and tremendous I would just mention a couple of them. Such is Grimm's fairy folk eristic commentary.

Where the two came to their father awards ceremony over several of the people were to the Navajo ceremonial business. The very famous a skeleton key to Finnegan's Wake which was done with Henry Morton Robinson. The Hero With a Thousand Faces for which he received his famous award from the National Institute of Arts Letters and his great volume works several volumes on the Masks of God. Editor I've known worse things. Contributor to such things as James Joyce two decades of criticism and so forth. You know such a list that a vice should spend the entire time reading them to you and go where he would not hear. Mr. Campbell which is where you came obviously. He's a member of so many societies I would just mention the James Joyce American Orientals who saw it.

Perhaps more important some of you people used to up in almost every place in the world from Japan to the VIII to piracy is very poor Our commentator the man who probably knows more about the philosophy and background of this than most anybody that I can think of who was alive at this time. I didn't mention Sarah Lawrence I hope. Because he does have some activity or several alarms in addition to them says a former Apple and my own opinion a tremendous great joke. On Parade. What a wonderful same. Dr. Fairchild has proposed.

And what a wonderful world of mythology one encounters in celebration of the mystery. You'll recall that the Greeks regarded the god Eros as the oldest of the gods the creator of the gods and the universe all of which is an inflection of his power. And love. Also I was the youngest of the god born Frash and in every loving heart. There are two orders of love according to the Greeks according to the manner of the manifestation of erasure in his terrestrial aspect and his celestial and Dante and following that lead. So the power of love spanning the universe all the way from the pit of Hell to the feet of God.

One of the most amazing images that I know is in a Persian view a Persian Muslim view of the Devil Satan as the greatest lover of God. You are a called The Legend. When God first created the angels he told them to adore art. None but himself. And the prince of the angels Lucifer. So deeply and fully loved God that he found that very congenial to his temple. Then God created man. Whom he regarded as the highest of his creatures and he bade the angels bow in

reverence before man and Lucifer because of his love for God and in obedience to the first order that God had given. I found it impossible to bow before a man. He could not. And because of that act of disobedience God expelled him from heaven. Cursed him to exist forever out of sight of that one whom he loved namely God. And he throw him forth into the pit of hell and their Satan abides and he abides. They're deprived of their view of him whom he loves simply because he loves him and could not bow before anybody else and

deprivation. It is infinitely painful and yet he cannot bring himself to be quit of his love to the extent of bowing before a man. And the poets of the Persian poet to write it that sustains Satan in this exile. This eternal infinitely painful exile because the deepest pain of hell is not the fire or the stench but the deprivation of the true love of the self namely God. And the answer with respect to this Satan is here to stay by his recollection of the sound of the voice of God. When God said be gone. This to me is a terrific image. An extreme statement of that exquisite thing that is at once the pain

and the delight of love. There's another Persian image of the great thank you. Ninth century Sufi mystic crucified for his love of God. It was he who said I and my beloved are one. My beloved is God. I am one with God. I am God. And he was crucified and the image that is given of his love and of his joy in having been crucified if they live up the mark for the flying. Of. The Match. One lovely evening I saw this marvelous thing and he flew into it and

he had his wings. And came back to his companions and told him of the marvelous thing he had found. The flame and the next night he wished to be joined to it and to become one with it and he flew right into the flame and himself became a flame. These images do speak of a mystery that we are all one way or another deeply or are not so deeply have felt or suspected it. The lab also as another aspect of the wonderful Persian story of the first human couple. They grew from a reed kind of tree and they were so closely joined that they could not be told apart. And then in time they separated. And then

they united and a child was born. And a lot of bad child so much they just ate it up. And God said This won't do. And so he reduced the lab 90 percent so that we wouldn't eat our children. Now this image of love as the dynamic of the world is beautifully rendered in Hindu and Indian image of the Creator. This creator is a little different from one that you might have in mind because you can't have this one in mind. This is a being that is now being. You can't say it is

you can't say it is not. It is beyond our conception. And this mystery being that with no being. One time that was now time said I. And as soon as the word I had been pronounced. There came fear into his fear that someone kill him and then he reasoned and thought well since I am the only one there is how can anyone kill me. And I would sooner did he think I am the only one there is. Then he had this second thought. I wish there were another. And with that thought he swelled and became two a male and a female and then he began on the female. All the creatures of the earth. And when they were all being gotten he beheld the underworld. And he said

am I. And so according to this story this being who felt first fear and then a desire let me say is the inherent power the energy of us all. And the next part of this image is that through our own experience of love we participate in the experience of that ground of our own being our separateness here in space and time. Our multitude is but a secondary aspect of our nature our individuality. Each of us separate is the secondary aspect of our nature. The primary aspect is our oneness in that being. And we feel that one. That is to say we got out of ourselves. We go past the

bounds of ourselves. When we experience love. Schopenhauer in a wonderful paper wonderful essay on. The love and the model principle speaks of this remarkable experience when an individual forgetting himself sacrifices his own safety not thinking of himself in order to save another person as though that other person. Trouble. That other person in danger were his own. He had actually participated in that ground substance of being which supports us all. This is certain how it is the only moral principle there is this actual experience. This he says is an actual experience of the

truth namely that we are not separate from each other. That we are all wrong. Participating in or rather we are are totally each of us. That being which is the being of beings. And it is the emotion of love that enables us to experience the truth of that. We actually lose a sense of ourselves and participate. I think of that very often when I'm on the TV these days one sees these marvelous helicopter rescue men who have been wounded and under fire. Their companions absolutely forgetful of their own safety risking everything as well. Their life where that lives. This is a rendition of the mystery

lab. Now in the Indian religion the Vishnu sect. There is a wonderful gradation of love in five stages. Through love we move toward to God which is to say in the Indian sense we move to our own divinity we find in ourselves that Divine Principle which is that I am the world. The first grade of law is that observance for master. This is the normal attitude of the religious person. Our Lord you are the master. I am the servant. That means no dialogue and I will obey. The second grade of love is that of a friend for a friend. And this in the Christian tradition is typified by the relationship of Christ and the Apostles. They were friends they could actually

discuss. Things and even quarrel. And this implies a deep religious readiness than that of the servants to master. In the Indian tradition this is represented by the lab for Krishna and Krishna for his companions there in the far east of the god Krishna. The third stage of lobs is that of parent or child. And this is the lab represented in the Christian tradition by the Christmas crib. Ron in a sense is cultivating in oneself they child which is one down divinity. Bringing it into fulfilment fostering it. There's a wonderful story of the saint Ramakrishna of the last century. A woman came to him and said I cannot say that I

love God I do not. I do not honestly feel love for God. And the master said to her is there nothing that you love in this well. And she said yes I do love my little nephew child. Well said Ramakrishna there is your divinity in your service to that child. You are in the service of God and there in blessing. Fourth degree of lab is that of a husband or wife and wife or husband. There is in the Catholic tradition is symbolized by the love of the nun for Jesus. The nuns wear a wedding ring they are brides of Christ. But also on the human level the love of husband for wife and wife or husband is the degree experience of the divine.

But now as I said there are five degrees of love and one according to this vision. Take view is the highest. And the answer is illicit love. There you are really overtaken assaulting assailed by lob and nothing but love in marriage one has the prestige of the community. One has a job. One has respect. One has the wealth and one has a lab too. But with a little love one loses everything the world can give and one gives up everything for this wild passion. And again to quote a Christian he said. When you have loved God this way all right you have loved the world this way. Giving up everything for it in madness dropping out. You can say God comes through now and show yourself

and let me partake of your being fully and in that there is ultimately the intention to dissolve in love and lose yourself. And while our elected wrapped care beyond the law. Is represented mythologically in the lab Krishna the God incarnate God for an earthly woman Rob. She a married woman. You all know the story probably of Krishna as a young youth playing his flute in the forest of India. And the wives sleeping by their husbands. Wed hear that song and they would sneak out of bed and slip off into the forest and dance the dance of heavenly rapture with Krishna.

The notion there again is the illicit nature of love that goes beyond the law. And when one reads the sermons I've been out of Clairvaux in the 12th century celebrating the law of God the lob of the Virgin for God and of God for the Virgin. We hear echoes of reality of this Oriental theme. In fact the date for Bernard and the oriental stories are exactly the same. That wonderful twelfth century of the troubadours. The same theme is represented in Christ in His crucifixion in certain interpretations of that mystery. It is always been a great problem in Christian theology why Christ was crucified. He accepted crucifixion

according to the belief voluntarily. And I won't go into all the various theories but the one that is most impressive in the 12th century and from there on is the idea that this was a demonstration of God's love lamp for the world which itself is a crucifixion of the Spirit. You know the old saying The body is the tomb of this all. The soul as it were is imprisoned in the flesh. That is a negative approach to the Ministry of the spirit in nature. But when one thinks of the voluntary coming of the Spirit into the world we have a different picture. This is an affirmation of the crucifixion of the spirit the anguish it is that although it were another way of saying that

Satan in his love. And because of his love is bound in hell or. In the flesh. All of these images inflecting the mystery of love one finds as one seeks. As I thought the imagery for this talk tonight they inflect in various ways. The great mystery. In the Orient the highest symbol of this I believe is in the imagery of Buddhism. You know the theme of the Buddha. He came to the tree of the World Center and sat there having reached the point of immobility as it's called the immovable point no longer threatened by fear no longer threatened by desire. That is to

say he had come to the point through which that original being who said I had come. The book had sat there and the original being of whom I spoke earlier came before him in three forms the first form was the form of love the God of love the God of lust love in its earthly aspect. And he paraded before the seated Saint his three beautiful daughters. And if the Buddha had thought. He would have thought De. But there was no either so there was no experience of day. He had transcended that temptation he was unmoved.