Power of Myth – The Hero’s Journey

by Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987)

Selections

We are all agents in the structuring of other peoples’ lives.

Eternity is now. Time is our experience.

Later, we will ask: “Who composed this plot?”

The adventure matches the readiness of the hero.

Follow your bliss and doors will open for you where they would open for no one else.

Follow your bliss. The real end is the journey.

Use the force, Luke!

Marriage

Marriage is the reunion of the separated duad. Originally you were one. You are now two in this world. Marriage is the recognition of this spiritual identity. It is different from a love affair. It has nothing to do with that. It is another mythological plane of experience. When people get married because they think it is a long-time love affair, they will be divorced soon, because all love affairs end in disappointment.

But marriage is the recognition of a spiritual identity. If we live a proper life, if our minds are on the right qualities regarding the person of the opposite sex, then we will find our proper male or female counterpart. Our heart tells us who is the right person. There is a flash that comes, and something in us knows that this is the one.

Marriage is a relationship. When you make the sacrifice in marriage, you’re sacrificing not to each other but to unity in a relationship. You’re no longer this one alone; the identity is in a relationship. Marriage is not a simple love affair, it’s an ordeal, and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship in which two have become one.