In the traditions of no-myth, the emphasis is on stopping the effort to interpret consensus reality, thereby relinquishing all myths. Instead of actively engaging with the symbolic activity of the obfuscated mind to understand its insights, the emphasis is on silence and stillness.
Transcendence with no-myth
The essence of the no-myth traditions is to free the human being from the myriad little myths that imprison us in intellectual cages of delusion. Not every myth is a true religious myth, mind you. Most people—and I am no exception to this—instinctively run an arsenal of delusory codes for interpreting the world, which arise out of past conditioning. If I was conditioned to think poorly of myself, I might interpret the way someone looks at me as a sign of disdain, while the person might have, in fact, looked at me with shy curiosity. My false interpretation of a consensus fact—the particular way the person looked at me—arises from a conditioned, delusory myth of self-worth. If I was conditioned to think of the world as a dangerous and malevolent place, I might interpret an offer of help from a stranger as a threat, while the stranger might have, in fact, genuinely wanted to be of service. My false interpretation of a consensus fact—the offer of help from a stranger—arises from a conditioned, delusory myth about the nature of the world. And so on. Much of what we think to be part of consensus reality is, in fact, delusional interpretations generated by these conditioned myths. The no-myth traditions seek to help us free ourselves from their tyranny.
The most damaging delusory myth most of us adopt has to do with the relationship between outer and inner realms. As I related in an earlier book,80 one of my strongest childhood memories is of a period of a few months during which I slowly accepted the notion that I was separate from the rest of the world. I still remember how weird this notion felt to me at the time. Apparently, I had always only existed inside my own skin; I wasn’t, and had never been, the rest of the world around me; the trees, sky and other people had never been part of me. How could that possibly be? It violated my most innate intuitions. Yet, obviously it was the case, wasn’t it? I remember literally getting a cold shiver down my spine every time I thought of it, so alien the idea was. Until one day it didn’t feel strange anymore. Right there and then, a delusory myth caught hold of me through conditioning.
The delusory myth of personal identity and separateness is at the root of human suffering. It is also at the root of our loss of contact with transcendence. The intellectual reasons I believe this myth to be entirely delusory have been expounded in my earlier books Why Materialism Is Baloney and Brief Peeks Beyond. Those interested in the argument can consult those books. The point I want to focus on here is this: by helping one drop the delusory myth of personal identity and separateness, the traditions of no-myth also bring a form transcendence back into one’s everyday life, just like religious myths do! After all, if one no longer feels limited to the ego and the body, one automatically transcends ordinary human boundaries. Indeed, much of what we refer to as ‘the human condition’ is itself a deprived myth that, if abandoned, opens space for a spontaneous reconciliation with timelessness and boundlessness. In this particular sense, the traditions of myth and no-myth ultimately lead to the same destination through different roads.
This is not all I have to say about the dichotomy of myth versus no-myth. It isn’t even the most important point yet. But before I advance my argument further I want to elaborate on a concrete, illustrative example of how myth and no-myth can lead to the same destination.
By enabling one to drop the delusory myth of personal identity and separateness, the traditions of no-myth also help bring a form of transcendence back into one’s everyday life, just like religious myths do.
Advaita Vedanta and Christianity
There is a striking analogy between, for instance, Advaita Vedanta—a tradition of no-myth—and Christianity—a highly mythical tradition—when it comes to the manner in which they help an individual relate more harmoniously to reality. Before you feel compelled to point out how these two traditions differ dramatically in their respective outlooks, let me emphasize what I said: the analogy I see is in the way they help an individual relate more harmoniously to reality, not in a similarity of outlooks.
As we’ve seen earlier, a major source of human suffering is the claustrophobic interpretation of the world entailed by the deprived myth that we are separate from the rest nature—that is, that we are our egos. It is this interpretation that leads to the existential despair discussed in Chapter 1. Indeed, suffering arises from the ego’s inability, yet compulsive need, to control the world. If it could dictate nature’s behavior, we would all be happy tyrants. Naturally, the ego is well aware that it cannot have everything it wants or avoid all that it doesn’t want. But it can’t stop trying either! Hence, the ego is constantly at war with what is, was and could be. This is why we suffer. Advaita Vedanta and Christianity help us tackle this fundamental cause of suffering in surprisingly analogous ways.
Advaita aims to stop all suffering by dis-identification with the ego. In other words, an Advaita practitioner seeks to drop the myth of identification with his own thoughts, emotions, beliefs and personality. The practitioner has thoughts, but he isn’t those thoughts; he has feelings, but he isn’t those feelings; etc. A successful Advaita practitioner will identify himself only with pure awareness: an impersonal, interpretation-free witness. He will still maintain an ego, but instead of believing himself to be the ego, he will use the ego as a tool for interacting with the world. At the moment this state of ‘enlightenment’ is achieved, suffering—though not necessarily physical pain—stops. In a strong sense, the ego is demoted from king of the hill to a small, limited, yet useful servant of impersonal awareness.
Now let’s look at Christianity. Christians also suffer because of the inability of their egos to control the world: they can’t have all they want, they can’t avoid all adversity and they can’t stop death, no matter how hard they pray. Their myth offers a way to deal with this dilemma through a form of surrender to a higher power: they place their fate ‘in the hands of God,’ as former American president Jimmy Carter said upon announcing his cancer diagnosis. By handing over its responsibilities and struggles to a higher power, the ego withdraws from its war against reality. As a consequence, it also finds itself demoted from king of the hill to a small, limited, yet useful servant of something universal. Do you see the correspondence with Advaita? In the inner realm, the lessening of a tremendous burden is achieved in both cases, as if a huge load were lifted off of one’s shoulders. The futile struggle against reality stops.
Advaita seeks to achieve this result by the rejection of every myth: it entails no narratives or theories of any kind. Its masters simply try to point the way for you to drop the myth of identification with the ego. Instead of trying to describe what enlightenment is, they focus their attention on helping you experience enlightenment directly. As such, Advaita has appeal to me as a skeptic empiricist. It soothes my instinctive fear of falling prey to wish fulfillment. The price, however, seems to be a kind of dryness and aloofness that may come across as non-empathetic. As humans, we crave empathy and reassurance, which is natural and legitimate. Moreover, dis-identification with all thought and emotion may end suffering, but is it really natural, given that thought and emotion are so inherent to the human condition?
Christianity, on the other hand, achieves an analogous result through a plethora of narratives and symbols. Instead of the barren landscapes of Advaita, it provides one with an incredibly rich and meaningful myth that speaks directly to the obfuscated mind.81 Empathy, compassion and reassurance abound. Instead of the elusive concept of impersonal awareness, Christianity offers the idea of a transcendent divinity incarnated as a flesh-and-blood man. How much easier it is for the ego to surrender to such a concrete father figure, handing over its struggles to Him, instead of accepting itself to be a mere illusion! The price of this richness and accessibility, however, is the difficulty faced by any rational person
to accept the narratives of the Christian myth uncritically enough. And make no mistake: the power of the narratives is entirely dependent on their being believed. ‘A myth can only “work” when it is thought to be truth, and man cannot for long knowingly and intentionally “kid” himself,’82 said Watts, an Episcopal priest who knew this problem well. One must, somehow, muster enough faith in the Holy Trinity for it to be of any help in achieving the surrender of the ego. This isn’t trivial in today’s cynical and overly-intellectualized cultural ethos.
Clearly, Advaita and Christianity represent different trade-offs. They may appeal to different people with different proclivities. But they aren’t dissimilar in at least the one aspect discussed above. This alone shows how myth and no-myth can, despite apparent contradictions, lead to the same destination.
Finally, notice that, although I’ve been using Christianity and Advaita as examples, the point is more generic. Consider, for instance, Islam: the very word ‘Islam’ means ‘surrender;’ to surrender and submit oneself to a universal will—the will of God—much beyond the ego’s petty desires. Here is a religious myth that results in over one and a half billion people worldwide prostrating themselves to a power beyond the ego; not one, but five times a day. It’s easy to see how this, too, reflects the parallel discussed above.
Both Advaita Vedanta (no-myth) and Christianity (myth) help ease suffering by enabling one to drop one’s futile struggle against reality. Advaita does this by dis-identification with the ego. Christianity, by surrender to a higher power. Indeed, this parallel goes beyond Advaita and Christianity alone.
The pitfalls of no-myth
The potential pitfalls of religious myths are well known and publicized in our culture. We have already discussed them earlier: when one adopts a religious myth intellectually as the literal truth, one not only loses sight of the transcendent reality one seeks, but also stokes the fire of fundamentalism. Moreover, the seeming implausibility of religious myths often renders them unpalatable, given our culture’s excessive emphasis on the intellect. However, the traditions of no-myth also have subtle and less-publicized pitfalls. Below, in the interest of balance, I will dare suggest what these may be.
It is as striking as it is undeniable how conducive the human organism is to the myth of separateness. Whatever the ultimate truth may be, we clearly seem to be discrete individuals, separate from the rest of nature. If, in reality, this is not so, then we are left with two alternatives: either the human organism evolved the tendency for this delusion by accident, or the delusion is a side-effect of some other evolutionary pressure.83 Watts offers us a clue:
One can only attempt a rational, descriptive philosophy of the universe on the assumption that one is totally separate from it. But if you and your thoughts are part of this universe, you cannot stand outside them to describe them. This is why all philosophical and theological systems must ultimately fall apart.84
He eloquently expresses the essence of the no-myth traditions: separateness is a delusion and, therefore, all myths ultimately fall apart. There is an obvious validity to what Watts says,85 but I believe he misses a crucially important point.
The human intellect does have the unique ability to ‘stand outside’ its own thoughts in the sense that it can think about its thoughts. We can also stand outside our emotions in the sense that we can ponder our emotions. We can even stand outside ourselves in the sense that we can contemplate our situation in the world as if we were looking at ourselves from the outside. This capacity is what we call self-reflective awareness and it is essential for making sense of nature.86 Without it, we would be completely immersed in the turbulent waters of instinct, unable to even ask ourselves what’s going on. Only through self-reflective awareness can we raise our heads above the water and consciously try to steer our way. Therefore, if it is true that the images of consensus reality point to a transcendent truth—as suggested in Figure 3—then our capacity for self-reflection is nature’s only chance of solving the conundrum. Think about this for a moment: without the capacity for self-reflection embodied in us, nature would stand no chance of groking itself; it would never be able to raise its head above the waters of its own instinctive unfolding.
Now, this uniquely human capacity seems intimately tied to our tendency to think of ourselves as discrete entities, separate from the rest of nature. At the very moment that we become able to ‘stand outside’ our own thoughts and emotions, we also become able to ‘stand outside’ the rest of nature. Do you see how these things come together? Whatever evolutionary pressure pushed the human organism towards self-reflection also rendered it vulnerable to the myth of separateness. Perhaps this delusory myth was never the point. Perhaps the delusion of separateness is merely an unwelcome but natural side-effect.
Be it as it may, a potential pitfall of the no-myth traditions is the temptation to throw away the baby with the bath water: to reject, along with the myth of separateness, the value of self-reflection for interpreting the phenomenal world, simply because they seem to come together. Moreover, because we cannot derive meaning from the outer realm without interpreting it, by rejecting interpretative effort the no-myth traditions may also mislead us towards the conclusion that consensus reality is meaningless. These potential pitfalls were clear, for instance, in a 1936 dialogue between a truth-seeker and Sri Ramana Maharshi, a sage of the no-myth traditions. The truth-seeker asked: ‘Should we not find out the ultimate reality of the world, individual and God?’ to which Ramana Maharshi replied:
These are all conceptions of the [delusory separate] “I.” They arise only after the advent of the “I-thought”. Did you think of them in your deep sleep? You existed in deep sleep and the same you are now speaking. If they be real should they not be in your sleep also? … So these are only your conceptions.87
Hence, the ‘ultimate reality of the world’ is ‘only’ a conception of the delusory separate ‘I.’ It is easy to conclude from this that self-reflective inquiry about the world is futile. Personally, I do not think that Ramana Maharshi—or any other truly enlightened sage, for that matter—ever meant it quite this way. I believe this is a misunderstanding arising from the ambiguities of language, as well as the specific context of the original dialogue. Whatever the case, however, the potential for such misunderstanding is blatant.
Those seduced by this line of thought reckon that consensus reality is a pointless, useless drama; a cosmic mistake of sorts. They reckon that nothing in consensus reality is important or means anything. Therefore, nothing in it needs to be reflected upon. They see all consensus images as mere illusion, dream, ‘maya;’ nothing we need to pay careful attention to. They overlook the possibility that the transcendent truth may only be able to express itself through the illusions it generates. They fail to see that, even though our nightly dreams are illusions (no, you didn’t really fall from a building last night), they do symbolically reveal something intimate and true about us (perhaps you are afraid of letting go or anxious about losing control).
Even if consensus reality is indeed an illusion, why does the illusion look and feel like this, instead of something else? What does this—in all its details and nuances—say about the fundamental nature of whatever is generating the illusion? Do you see what I am trying to suggest? Something beyond our egos must be giving rise to the illusion of consensus reality, in the same way that a loudspeaker gives rise to sound. For the same reason that the sounds produced by a loudspeaker say something about the loudspeaker’s structure—even though the structure is incommensurable with the sounds—the illusions we call consensus reality may be saying something about a transcendent truth. If they are, it is certainly not futile to actively engage our capacity for self-reflection and inquire into the images of the world.
A potential pitfall of the no-myth traditions is the failure to see that not only may illusions carry symbolic truth, they may embody the only possible expression of transcendence. Those who fail to realize this close their eyes to the clues that nature
so laboriously makes available to us. They forget Nisargadatta Maharaj’s revealing words quoted earlier: ‘When you see the world you see God. There is no seeing God apart from the world.’88 Or even Ramana Maharshi’s paradoxical words: ‘The world is illusory. Brahman alone is real. The world is Brahman.’89 If the universe is essentially an assemblage of symbols, it is up to us to make something out of it through attentive observation and self-reflection. What is the symbolic narrative we call ‘life’ trying to say? What does it suggest about the transcendent character of the loudspeaker generating it? If our capacity for self-reflection is nature’s only chance to address these questions, dismissing the illusion is a nature-denying tragedy.
The no-myth traditions may reject self-reflective interpretations of the world along with the myth of separateness. They may fail to recognize that the illusion of consensus reality may be the symbolic expression of transcendence. If so, self-reflection is crucial for groking the symbolism.
Myth and no-myth working together
All this said, let us also not make the opposite mistake. It is a fact that most of us are constantly consumed by the myriad delusory, deprived myths that distort our apprehension of consensus reality, starting with the myth of personal identity and separateness. It is important to drop these pernicious myths, lest we become unable to see the symbols of consensus reality for what they really are. Without dropping the delusions, our vision remains blocked and distorted. Unable to see the symbols clearly, what chance do we have to properly reflect upon them and articulate new, more powerful myths? In this sense, the no-myth traditions are essential for the advancement of religious myths. Indeed, pre-literate cultures like the Arandan and Uitoto aren’t as severely victimized by the myth of separateness as our Western culture, embodying instead a more collective identity, more integrated with their natural environment. Maybe partly for this reason, their mythology is disproportionately sophisticated for the relative simplicity of their culture.
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