Joseph Campbell

The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed, must not wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. ‘Live,’ Nietzsche says, ‘as though the day were here.’ It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of the redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silence of his personal despair.

At such moments, you realize that you and the other are, in fact, one. It’s a big realization. Survival is the second law of life. The first is that we are all one.

They thought that it would be a disgrace to go forth as a group. Each entered the forest at a point that he himself had chosen, where it was the darkest and there was no path. Where there’s a way or path, it is someone else’s path; each human being is a unique phenomenon.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

I remember Alan Watts asked me one day, ‘Joe, what kind of meditation do you do?’ I said, ‘I underline sentences.

Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials.

As Dr. Daisetz Suzuki, the Japanese Zen master, once said, ‘This world—with all its faults, all its crime, all its horror, all its banality, all its stupidity—is the golden lotus world. But you have to learn to see it in that dimension.

A ritual is an action that puts the individual not only in touch with, but in the place of, being the agent of a power that is not of his intention at all. He has to submit to a power that’s greater than his own individual life-form.

You can get a lot of work done if you just stay with it and are excited and it’s play instead of work. I’m rather pleased with [what I achieved], actually.

You can’t teach Buddhism. You can’t teach illumination. You can give different clues to how to get it. But if a person isn’t willing to paddle his own canoe he’s not going to get across the river.

I got this from the Sanskrit idea, that transcendence is transcendent. Now there are three words that come close to it: sat-cit-ānanda, that is: sat is being, cit is consciousness, ānanda is bliss. So ānanda is the only thing you can be aware of. Follow it and it’ll be alright. The probability is that when you follow it everything will work out, even if you think it won’t.

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path.

I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

The reply to this, of course, is that given by Ramakrishna: God has made different religions to suit different aspirants, times, and countries. All doctrines are only so many paths; but a path is by no means God Himself. Indeed, one can reach God if one follows any of the paths with whole hearted devotion. ... One may eat a cake with icing either straight or sidewise. It will taste sweet either way.

The two—the hero and his ultimate god, the seeker and the found—are thus understood as the outside and inside of a single, self-mirrored mystery, which is identical with the mystery of the manifest world. The great deed of the supreme hero is to come to the knowledge of this unity in multiplicity and then to make it known.

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.

For the mythological hero is the champion not of things become but of things becoming: the dragon to be slain by him is precisely the monster of the status quo: Holdfast, the keeper of the past.

The hero-deed is a continuous shattering of the crystallizations of the moment. The cycle rolls: mythology focuses on the growing-point. Transformation, fluidity, not stubborn ponderosity, is the characteristic of the living God. The great figure of the moment exists only to be broken, cut into chunks, and scattered abroad. Briefly: the ogre-tyrant is the champion of the prodigious fact, the hero the champion of creative life.

Briefly formulated, the universal doctrine teaches that all the visible structures of the world—all things and beings—are the effects of a ubiquitous power out of which they rise, which supports and fills them during the period of their manifestation, and back into which they must ultimately dissolve. This is the power known to science as energy, to the Melanesians as mana, to the Sioux Indians as wakonda, the Hindus as Sakti, and the Christians as the power of God.

Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back—not contaminating the principles of one with those of the other, yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other—is the talent of the master.

The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms. Such a one’s visions, ideas, and inspirations come pristine from the primary springs of human life and thought. Hence they are eloquent, not of the present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source through which society is reborn. The hero has died as modern man; but as eternal man—perfected, unspecific, universal man—he has been reborn. His second solemn task and deed therefore... is to return then to us, transfigured, and teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed.

For when a heart insists on its destiny, resisting the general blandishment, then the agony is great; so too the danger. Forces, however, will have been set in motion beyond the reckoning of the senses. Sequences of events from the corners of the world will draw gradually together, and miracles of coincidence ring the inevitable to pass.

The reach for physical immortality proceeds from a misunderstanding of the traditional teaching. On the contrary, the basic problem is: to enlarge the pupil of the eye, so that the body with its attendant personality will no longer obstruct the view. Immortality is then experienced as a present fact: ‘It is here! It is here!’

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.

Find a place where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.

This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else’s.

I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child.

If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.

The person who thinks he has found the ultimate truth is wrong.

God is an intelligible sphere—a sphere known to mind, not to the senses—whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere.

What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle?

There’s a major difference, as I see it, between a shaman and a priest. A priest is a functionary of a social sort. The society worships certain deities in a certain way, and the priest becomes ordained as a functionary to carry out that ritual. The deity to whom he is devoted is a deity that was there before he came along. But the shaman’s powers are symbolized in his own familiars, deities of his own personal experience. His authority comes out of a psychological experience, not a social ordination.

The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck to its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

I think it was Nietzsche who said, ‘Be careful lest in casting out the devils you cast out the best thing that’s in you.’

Freud tells us to blame our parents for all the shortcomings of our life, Marx tells us to blame the upper class of our society. But the only one to blame is oneself.

The ground of being is the ground of our being, and when we simply turn outward, we see all of these little problems here and there. But, if we look inward, we see that we are the source of them all.

I don’t believe in being interested in a subject just because it’s said to be important. I believe in being caught by it somehow.

The individual must learn to live by his or her own myth.

In the West, you have the liberty and the obligation of finding out what your destiny is. You can discover it for yourself. But do you?

The basic story of the hero journey involves giving up where you are, going into the realm of adventure, coming to some kind of symbolically rendered realization, and then returning to the field of normal life.

The scientist knows that at any moment facts may be found that make the present theory obsolete; this is happening now constantly. It’s amusing. In a religious tradition, the older the doctrine, the truer it is held to be.

Consequently, that which religious people call conscience is a social structure that functions as part of the moral system of the culture in which the child is born.

What did I do? I read. I followed the path from one book to another, from one thinker to another. I followed my bliss, though I didn’t know that was what I was doing.

Eternity is not future or past. Eternity is a dimension of now.

Now, that’s the big thing, to activate your imagination somehow. You can’t do this by taking suggestions from somebody else.

What Jung says is that you should play your role, knowing that it’s not you. It’s a quite different point of view. This requires individuation, separating your ego, your image of yourself, from the social role. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t play the role; it simply means that no matter what you choose to do in life, whether it’s to cop out or to cop in, you are playing a role, and don’t take it too damned seriously. The persona is merely the mask you’re wearing for this game.

This gets back to Krishna’s dictum: The best way to help mankind is through the perfection of yourself.

What will they think of me? -- Must be put aside for bliss.

There is no security in following the call to adventure.

The hoarder, the one in us that wants to keep, to hold on, must be killed.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

Follow your bliss. The heroic life is living the individual adventure.

People say that what we are seeking is a meaning of life. I don’t think this is what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive.

Follow your bliss.

The warrior’s approach is to say “yes” to life: “yes” to it all. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.

If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you.  I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.

The ultimate dragon is within you.

Eternity is not the hereafter.. this is it. If you don't get it here, you won't get it anywhere.

The less there is of you, the more you experience the sublime.

People always say what we are looking for is a meaning for life…I don't think that's what we're looking for. I think what we're looking for is the experience of being alive.

Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, 'This is what I need.' It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures, followed by wreckage, were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.

The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.

When everything is lost, and all seems darkness, then comes the new life and all that is needed.

People say that what we are seeking is a meaning of life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeing is an experience of being alive.

Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck to its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.

When I taught in a boy's prep school, I used to talk to the boys who were trying to make up their minds as to what their careers were going to be. A boy would come to me and ask, 'Do you think I can do this? Do you think I can do that? Do you think I can be a writer?' 'Oh' I would say, 'I don't know. Can you endure ten years of disappointment with nobody responding to you, or are you thinking that you are going to write a best seller the first crack? If you have the guts to stay with the thing you really want, no matter what happens, well, go ahead.'

There is an important idea in Nietzsche, of Amor fati, the 'love of your fate,' which is in fact your life. As he says, if you say no to a single factor in your life, you have unraveled the whole thing. Furthermore, the more challenging or threatening the situation or context to be assimilated and affirmed, the greater the stature of the person who can achieve it. The demon that you can swallow gives you its power, and the greater life's pain, the greater life's reply.

All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time--namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors ill open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

But in doing that, you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there’s no doubt about it. The world without spirit is wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who’s on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it’s alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.

When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.

The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.

I think it was Nietzsche who said, “Be careful lest in casting out the devils you cast out the best thing that’s in you.”

Freud tells us to blame our parents for all the shortcomings of our life, Marx tells us to blame the upper class of our society. But the only one to blame is oneself.

The ground of being is the ground of our being, and when we simply turn outward, we see all of these little problems here and there. But, if we look inward, we see that we are the source of them all.

I don’t believe in being interested in a subject just because it’s said to be important. I believe in being caught by it somehow.

There’s a major difference, as I see it, between a shaman and a priest. A priest is a functionary of a social sort. The society worships certain deities in a certain way, and the priest becomes ordained as a functionary to carry out that ritual. The deity to whom he is devoted is a deity that was there before he came along. But the shaman’s powers are symbolized in his own familiars, deities of his own personal experience. His authority comes out of a psychological experience, not a social ordination.

Ramakrishna once said that if all you think of are your sins, then you are a sinner. And when I read that, I thought of my boyhood, going to confession on Saturdays, meditating on all the little sins that I had committed during the week. Now I think one should go and say, “Bless me, Father, for I have been great, these are the good things I have done this week.” Identify your notion of yourself with the positive, rather than with the negative.

God is an intelligible sphere--a sphere known to mind, not to the senses--whose center is everywhere and whose circumference nowhere.

What am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle?

This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else’s.

I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child.

If you want to find out what it means to have a society without any rituals, read the New York Times.

I'll tell you a way, a very nice way. Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time. This realization of life can be a constant realization in your living. When you find an author who really grabs you, read everything he has done. Don’t say, “Oh, I want to know what So-and-so did”--and don’t bother at all with the best-seller list. Just read what this one author has to give you. And then you can go read what he had read. And the world opens up in a way that is consistent with a certain point of view. But when you go from one author to another, you may be able to tell us the date when each wrote such and such a poem--but he hasn't said anything to you.

This is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers this morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you might find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself

Love is a friendship set to music.

Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat, Chit, Ananda. The word 'Sat' means being. 'Chit' means consciousness. 'Ananda' means bliss or rapture. I thought, 'I don't know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don't know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.' I think it worked.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or a path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.

The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.

This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else’s.

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path.