Overcoming Social Duty and Living Your Own Life

Each scale on the dragon "says thou shalt," is what Nietzsche had said. Who is the dragon? It is the abusive parent's voice in your head. How to remove it? Leave Plato's cave and see the world of the light. 

Politicians, bosses, and harmful lovers can mimic the dragon's voice and lead us into an artificial life. They get into us like the fungi that infects and takes over the reasoning of the ant. When we are outside the cave we find ourselves. In the journey of the hero we learn to overcome selfishness for finding our self. Eschenbach in Perceval leads the Gral Knight to steal a ring from a married woman for he desires a token of love, but social duty prevents him from asking too many questions. He sees a maimed old friendly king and withhold his tongue from showing sympathy by asking what ails him.

Each time he holds his tongue, he lost the grail castle. Castles and mazes in fairy tales represent the labyrinths of our own minds. For the prize of the grail castle is ourselves. In Bruce Lee's Circle of Iron the prize at the end of the Wasteland was a book of mirrors. To have sympathy for others is to love ourselves. The hero in Lee's tale then has sympathy for the world returns to the wasteland to teach others to attain the book.

Who else had to face down social duty. Christ was tempted by the devil to return from the desert, the wasteland of Perceval, to return to his social duty to lead his ministry as ruler of the world. Buddha faced the same challenge. So Buddha just dropped his hand when faced by Dharma (social duty) and touched the earth and said, "Don't try to move me with this journalistic appeal. I'm interested in eternity." Dharma had called this prince to go back and rule his kingdom he left, which Dharma expressed was going through some disaster. He called on the Mother goddess to witness his right to sit under the Bodhi Tree. The goddess Earth answered, "This is my beloved son who has, through innumerable lifetimes, so given of himself, there is no body here." And with that the elephant on which the Dharma was riding bowed, and the army that came to force him to move was dispersed and the Buddha received Illumination. Illumination is the light from within which unveils your true being and self.

Now in Excalibur it was Lancelot who fought a knight in the woods to lift the visor to find he was fighting himself. Then Luke Skywalker faced Darth Vader in a cave. He fought him and struck his head from his shoulders. When he lifted the visor to his helmet he found his own face staring at himself. In ways we all become our parents, until we are conscious to become better. Even children of perfect parents, need to become better than them. It advances us as a whole. Every good teacher wants their students to return to teach them something new. Farmers send their sons to agriculture colleges to return to the farm to teach them something new. That is what a doctorate is, one who returns to add to the art (beauty) or science (truth). We only can return to face our parents, the dragon, in their cave only after we face ourselves. Only then we can move beyond the Thou Shalt Dragon.

For the dragons and Vaders only digest the truth. In alchemy this image is represented through a series where the king eats the prince, digests him, and sweats him out. In the final image the teacher, prince, and king are equals. We only can return to face them once we find our truth. Which is done by overcoming social duty. For social duty can sometimes be the myth of the leming. Society needs the brave selfs who leave the cave who enter the light that return to teach the brave to find themselves as well.

Cheers,
Chris
www.salemloveangels.com