Cultural Mythology: Myth, culture, and consciousness

To be a Slave of Intensity

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think. . .  and think. . .while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten---
that is all fantasy,
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you
will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is
the intensity off the longing for the Guest that does all the
work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

---Kabir

Loser story

In October, I posted and discussed a Persion story called Abu Kasem's Slippers. Abu is a wealthy miser who suffers a series of reversals because he can't rid himself of his old, shabby slippers. The slippers keep getting into trouble and dragging Abu (and his bank account) into the mess. In the end, the poor man makes a seemingly absurd and somewhat pathetic plea to the judge, who releases him from all further responsibility for his slippers.

(Subscribers refresh your memory and link to Abu Kasem's Slippers or, if you are reading this on site, click on the "Middle Eastern" category for all of the relevant posts).

I told Abu's story at the last meeting of the High Desert Mythological RoundTable Group. People laughed at Abu's foolishness and shook their heads at his bad luck and came up with some wonderful alternative endings to the story. The slippers go to jail, for example, or become secret weapons of the state. Then someone said, "This is a loser's story. This guy is a loser. Why is this roundtable, a Joseph Campbell roundtable with an interest in the hero's journey, spending time with this story?" This is a good question. Stories are powerful. They're told and listened to for a reason, usually for multiple reasons. Understanding the purpose of a story is important. We don't question our motivations, as tellers or listeners, often enough. There is more variety in our cultural narratives than merely "facts" and "entertainment."

So why tell the story of Abu at the roundtable, a gathering interested in personal growth and deepening, even heroism? One answer is that the story is about certain events in a specific time period and maybe, probably, details a part of the process through which a hero can be made. Who knows what Abu went on to become after he stopped being stingy?

Another answer: there is an intimate connection between Campbell's notion of heroism and psychological wholeness. Wholeness involves recognition of the shadow and acceptance of imperfection. On this level, a story about heroism has less to do with literal dragon slaying and beating bad guys, and more to do with learning lessons and acquiring wisdom or mastery over the self. In beloved tales like Perceval and King Arthur and The Holy Grail, the outward acts and the psychological deepening happen together and mirror each other. The multiple levels make the story rich in meaning. J.K. Rowling accomplishes this same layering in the Harry Potter series.

Learning a difficult lesson, confronting one's shadow, is an essential part of heroic development.

But back to Abu Kasem and his slippers. Does Abu learn anything in this story? Not as far as we're told. He's released from the slippers by an outside authority (which may be karma or the laws of the psychological process of persona shedding). He never says "Aha!" But we do.

Learning does take place, in the reflective listener who may be on his or her own hero's journey.

Image is from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Stop Being So Religious

What                                                
Do sad people have in
Common?

It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past

And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.

What is the beginning of
Happiness?

It is to stop being
So religious

Like

That.

---Hafiz

Changing our shoes

By the end of the story, Abu Kasem wants a new pair of slippers. He is able to escape the power of his miserable, old pair. He is a changed man, with a new view of himself and the opportunity to behave differently in his community. He lets go of his precious and delusional persona. We imagine that he now understands the difference between stinginess and thrift, between greed and good business. But as I noted in my last post, Abu did not bring about this change by himself. In fact, his plan to burn the slippers, which signaled his commitment to transformation, was thwarted by the neighbor’s dog.

C.G. Jung said that we experience the unconscious as fate. What we don’t recognize and understand about ourselves becomes the substance of what happens to us in the outer world. What concerns us, our desires and fears, ideas and emotions, unite who and what we are with the events of outer life.

One’s fate is put in motion through an uncountable number of tiny movements, barely conscious actions and neglects. In this way the plot of life thickens. We can make changes. But because we do not have perfect consciousness we are always in dialogue with the mysterious unknown. This is like the Hindu notion of karma, the effects of which are more complex then we can grasp. One’s being and life circumstances are determined by it, but karma can be altered by conscious choices.

Changing our shoes is a kind of death but something has to die for the new self, the new story, the new way of life, to appear. Abu Kasem’s error might seem obvious, but don’t we all resist the growth that must take place and cling to the past, to what we think that we know about ourselves? We aren't taught to accept death and die well. Our culture treats all forms of death as a mistake that technology or positive thinking will someday fix, once and for all.

Whatever it is that has to die is probably something that presents itself as something useful or valuable to life but is actually about death. We can align ourselves with our inner impulse for healing and transformation and uncover our resistance by examining those qualities or principles that we hold most dear, like Abu’s miserable slippers.

Abu Kasem's escape from his old slippers

Abu Kasem is perfectly happy until he takes the wrong pair of slippers from the bathhouse. He takes the Cadi’s beautiful slippers because he’s quick to assume that the other merchant, who actually chastised Abu about his shoes, honored him with the gift of a fine, new pair of slippers in recognition of his business acumen. Abu felt that he deserved a continuous string of little gifts of good fortune, like the acquisition of the crystal bottles and the rose oil. His continuous good fortune was proof that he was right.

The mistake in the bathhouse sets the rest of the story in motion. Perhaps someone played a trick on Abu and moved his slippers. We don't really know. But the fact that the Cadi's servants found the nasty slippers so easily suggests that Abu was ready for a new pair of slippers but he wasn't yet ready for a new sense of self. That slip, which revealed the height (or depth) of his delusion, put something powerful in motion.

Abu tries to rid himself of the slippers four times. First he tosses them out of a window. The slippers have become an embarrassing and somewhat costly inconvenience. Throwing the slippers out of the window takes little thought or effort and Abu takes no care to see where they land. But the slippers will not be dismissed so easily. When they come sailing back through his window his bottled rose oil venture comes to an end.

Then Abu buries the slippers but they are mistakenly imagined by the neighbor to be a treasure. And until very recently, they were Abu’s most cherished possession.

At this point, Abu get serious. The slippers are dangerous. He resolves to take the slippers out of town and submerges them in a pond (often a metaphor for the unconscious) but they clog up the pipes that serve the whole community. Abu’s miserliness has poisoned everyone. Again he receives the only punishment that would impress him. The antics of the slippers costs him a great deal of money.

Now desperate, Abu plans to burn the slippers. The introduction of fire signals a move to complete and irreversible transformation. We see how his commitment to destroy the slippers grows.  Each plan requires more conscious intention and involvement then the one preceding. But Abu doesn’t get to realize this plan. Why is he foiled at this point, do you think? Is it possible that he needs to become just a little more frightened, and humble?

There are numerous variations of this story and several different endings. In another version of the story, Abu is required to take the slippers home, where he carefully stashes them in a closet and goes out to buy new slippers for himself and a whole bunch of other people. The display of a newly found generosity pushes the moral message about greed. While that is important, I prefer to focus on the larger idea that Abu’s error was his unwillingness to relinquish, at the proper time, a public mask and idea about himself that was not useful. Avarice is only one of the mistakes that we can make in this regard.

The ending that I chose strikes an ambiguous note. Abu appeals to the judge to release him from further responsibility for the slippers and the judge does so. Abu buys himself a new pair of slippers. There is no heroism. The judge presumably saves Abu and we don’t know the extent of the judge’s power. We don’t know what happens to the tricky old slippers either. Are they still powerful? Do they glow in that closet or are they merely a worn bundle of cloth and leather? Do they stay in the closet forever?

We need to be able to escape the slippers. We need to be able to change. But do we bring this about through our own determination and courage or are we assisted by outside forces? We’ll think about this question in our next post about Abu Kasem’s slippers.

 

What are Kasem's slippers?

The story of Abu Kasem and his slippers could be read as a simple morality tale.  There is a rich miser who has a run of bad luck, faces disgrace, and loses his money. Moral: avarice is bad. Bad things happen to people who love money too much, who don’t know how to share, who take advantage of the misfortunes of others.  The miser gets what he deserves because what he does is not right.

We’ve heard this important message many times. If only more folks would take it to heart. But Kasem’s story is pretty elaborate and outlandish to convey such a straightforward lesson. We’re missing the juice if we don’t question this story more closely.

The miser’s downfall is the result of an absurd chain of events that revolves around a pair of slippers, slippers that almost see to behave don’t you think, in a peculiar manner. When Kasem tosses the old beat up slippers out of the window and they get caught in the nets of the fishermen and rip holes in those nets, we think “bad luck.” When he tries to bury the slippers in his backyard and is reported by a snoopy neighbor, we might think the same thing. But honestly, when the dog tosses the slippers off the balcony and they hit a pregnant woman on the head! And she has a miscarriage! Please.

Kasem tries and tries to get rid of his old slippers and they keep coming back. They keep finding him, like a loyal dog. So what are these slippers?

The clue is in the opening paragraph. The old slippers were inseparable from Kasem’s public character. Indeed, they are so well known and so closely identified with him that every problem they create is immediately traced back to him. The miser is, in a sense, these miserable, nasty slippers. They are his persona, that well cultivated sense of himself that he holds dear. They are other face of his riches, a kind of fetish. We notice that even when he tries to destroy the slippers, Kasem has to hold them in his own hands. He doesn’t ask his servants to dispose of them for him.

Kasem is passionate about the poverty of the slippers. He insists that what others recognize as a vice (his stinginess)  is a virtue. This tells us something about personas and the way our cherished sense of how we appear to others can blind us to the truth. Oh, I shudder to think what others see and understand about me that is hidden from my view. Or worse yet, what I think that I’m hiding that is out in plain view! But then, we are, most of us, in the same boat.

When I read this story I feel a sense of fate. I wonder about destiny when I think about how those slippers kept finding their way back into Kasem’s life. How about you? Stay tuned…

Abu Kasem's Slippers

We've taken Narcissus and Echo as far as I can go for right now. Like the hummingbirds that visit our feeder, our mythic investigations are moving onto the next nectar filled flower. I found this Persian tale in a collection by Heinrich Zimmer (edited by Joseph Campbell), called The King and The Corpse: Tales of the Soul's Conquest of Evil. Kind of a heavy title for what I think you'll agree, is a humorous tale. But what are the slippers?

Abu Kasem's Slippers

There was once a wealthy merchant named Abu Kasem. He was very well known in Baghdad for his miserliness and ability to drive a hard bargain. Equally famous were his slippers, which were old, worn, patched, and stained. The lowliest of servants would have been ashamed to wear them but Abu wore them everywhere, even in the bazaar. They were inseparable from his public character.

One day Abu Kasem made two especially good deals in a row. First, he acquired a collection of beautiful crystal bottles. Then he bought a batch of fine, sweet rose oil from a perfumer who had fallen on hard times. Everybody knew about his purchases. Abu Kasem was very excited at the prospect of large profits. Although he rarely spent any extra money on anything, he decided to treat himself and went to the public baths for a soak and a steam.

When he arrived at the baths, Abu meant a fellow merchant in the dressing room. The man lectured him on the state of his slippers and advised him to buy a new pair, lest he become a total laughingstock. Abu contemplated the awful slippers. “I have been thinking about this myself,” he said,” but I do think they have a few more miles in them.” He went in to enjoy his bath.

While the miser was relishing his rare treat, the Cadi of Baghdad also came in to take a bath. Abu finished first, and when he returned to the dressing room he couldn’t find his slippers. They had disappeared, and in their place was a lovely new pair. The new slippers were shiny and beautiful. “Well,” Abu thought to himself, “My friend must have decided to honor me with a gift. Maybe he thinks it’s good business to win the favor of a rich man like me.” Abu put on the new slippers and went home.

When the Cadi emerged later there was quite a scene. His servants looked high and low and could not find his slippers. In their place was a tattered disgusting pair that everyone knew belonged to Abu Kasem. The judge was furious and immediately sent for the culprit and had him locked up. Of course they found the missing slippers on Abu’s feet. He spent a night in jail and paid a very heavy fine—and he got his beloved slippers back.

Abu went home, sad and sorry. In a fit of temper he threw his treasured slippers out of the window and they fell into the river Tigris. A few days later, a group of fishermen thought they had caught a particularly heavy fish but found, to their dismay, that it was Abu Kasem’’s slippers in the net. The slippers ripped holes in their nets and they were very angry. They hurled the sodden slippers though an open window.

The slippers landed smack in the middle of Abu’s dining room table, where he had set up his lovely crystal bottles and was busy filling them with the sweet rose oil. Now the bottles, the oils, and his dream of big profits lay in a dripping, glittering mess of broken shards on the floor.

“Those wretched slippers!” cried Abu. He grabbed them, took a shovel, and went out into his backyard. He dug a deep hole and buried the offending pair. But his neighbor was watching (who isn’t interested in the doings of the rich?) and imagined something quite different. The neighbor thought that the rich miser must have a treasure buried there. A treasure that he did not want to report or pay taxes on. So the neighbor reported Abu to the judge.

No one could believe that a person would dig a big hole in their backyard just to bury a ratty old pair of slippers. Abu was thunderstruck when he heard the amount of his fine.

Now Abu was desperate to get rid of his old slippers. He decided the best plan was to take them far out of town where they could do him no more harm. So he drove far out into the country and dropped the slippers into a deep pond. He watched as they sunk down below the surface and went home with a sense of sweet relief.  But wouldn’t you know it, the pond fed into the town’s water supply and the slippers found their way into the pipes and stopped them up. When the workers came to fix the mess they immediately recognized the slippers. Abu went to jail again for befouling the town’s water supply, and paid another large, large fine. And he got his slippers back.

These once-dear slippers had done enough damage, by god. This time Abu resolved to burn them. Because they were wet, he laid them out on his balcony to dry. A dog on the neighboring balcony saw the slippers and jumped over to play with them. The dog tossed the slippers around and oops—one went sailing into the street below, where it hit a pregnant woman on the head and knocked her down. She had a miscarriage. The husband ran to the judge and demanded damages from the rich old miser, who was no longer so rich. Abu was forced to pay.

Abu was broke and broken. He stood before the judge and raised the slippers aloft in a gesture so solemn and earnest that the judge almost laughed at the absurdity of it. “Please your honor,” begged Abu, “do not hold me further responsible for the evils caused by these slippers.”

The Cadi felt he could not refuse and granted the plea. Abu Kasem bought a new pair of slippers.