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Hey, this is Leo for actualised.org. And in this episode, I'm going to be talking about understanding the highest hero's journey. spoken about the hero's journey before in my life purpose course. And there I speak about it from a certain angle. And the angle I come at it from there is a very practical one, where I show you how to take this framework of the hero's journey and apply it to build your career, to build your business, to find your sense of purpose and the kind of impact you want to have with your life on society. How do you want to contribute to the world. And so we talk a lot about that there. But what I want to talk about here is I want to cover it from a different angle. And this is the perhaps even more important angle of spirituality and non duality. So what is the interconnection between the hero's journey spirituality, and non duality? That's what we're gonna discuss here. Actually, before I did actualize that org, and I was still not clear about my own life purpose, I was toying with all sorts of different ideas of what I could do with my life, career wise. And one of the things I was toying with was seriously considering the idea of becoming a science fiction writer. And to do that, I started studying a lot of stuff, I started to study narrative, how narrative works, how storytelling works. What are the common themes and tropes of storytelling, of drama, I started to study and read books on character development, the psychology of drama, and also the psychology of dictators and villains, I became very interested in that. So I started to read biographies about Hitler, about Saddam Hussein, about other villains, that I would consider villains, these dictators and such to see, you know, what is the psychology of these people that lead them to then abuse, their power, and so forth, because I wanted to create a really good villain for my story, because I felt like my hero in the story could only really be as good as the villain. And I felt like most villains out there that you find in the movies and in the books, they are, aren't as rich and nuanced and psychologically compelling, as I thought I could make mine. So I started to study all that. Because what I thought was that to be a good storyteller, you have to really understand human psychology. And in a sense, that's one of the reasons that I got propelled into personal development is because by studying all this, of course, I couldn't help but also taken a lot of self help information, and then make interconnections between the psychology of these villains, which was so fascinating to me, and the psychology of these heroes, which was fascinating to me, and then my own psychology, and then how do I fit into that picture? You see? But before that was before actualize that org. And one of the things that I was also studying was the development of Star Wars, because Star Wars was sort of the influence that got me interested in this idea of becoming a science fiction writer, of course, very influential IP. So I started to study the way that the original Star Wars was created, started reading about it, watching interviews, and so forth, and looking at the all the source material. So what's all the source material for Star Wars? Where did it come from? What inspired it? So I started reading Flash Gordon comics, because George Lucas said it. That's one of the things that inspired him. I also started reading these valerian comics, which I want to show you these are pretty cool. These are some old school French comics, which few people know about until now, because this summer, there's a valerian movie coming out by Luc Besson, who also did the fifth element. And the fifth element was inspired by these valerian comics. And Star Wars was also inspired by these Alerion comics are some designs that are just like taken straight out of these, these these comic books, and they're, they're quite, quite fascinating to read. It's kind of like going back through time into the 1970s, and 60s and 50s kind of style. And also, it's got this kind of European French flavor to it. So I thought these were cool. I just wanted to show them to you. You can still buy these on Amazon. They're pretty fun to read. But anyways, so there was that. And I was fascinated by all that. And then of course, I stumbled upon Joseph Campbell, who is the American mythologist and scholar of comparative religion, who was one of the inspirations for Star Wars, and he's the guy who came up with the whole concept that we call the hero's journey. He didn't actually invent the hero's journey. He's just the one who made it sort of popular and made it explicit. In our consciousness over the last 50 years. So let's get the foundation here because we need to understand what we're talking about when we mean the hero's journey. So, before I can give you my commentary and how it relates to spirituality, here's my summary for you of what the hero's journey is. And this is a very illuminating thing to understand. Because this here, in a nutshell, is what human life is about. But instead a very sort of stylized and schematic manner. And you have to be able to see how this fits in with your practical, everyday life. So the hero's journey begins just by seeing the hero in his everyday ordinary existence, living with his tribe, or his people, in his village or town, wherever he comes from. And at this point, he's not really a hero, he's just an ordinary guy, or girl. And in this ordinary existence, he's very comfortable. And it's just a very sort of boring, average existence. It's not special at all. Then what happens though, is that the hero is presented with a call to action, the call to action is, what is the opportunity is the window of opportunity that is presented to the hero that tests whether he really wants to go on an adventure. So something new and something radical comes into his existence, which beckons him to go on this adventure. And, of course, what does the hero do? Does he accept the adventure? No, because to be psychologically accurate here, we have to recognize that the human psyche is very lazy. Because it's stuck in homeostasis, and it wants to maintain its ordinary, comfortable, mundane existence. And it's very risk averse. As very fearful. So if I come to you, and I say, Hey, come on my rocket ship, and I'm going to fly you to a new planet, a new galaxy. And there we're going to battle dragons and space aliens together. What are you going to say? Are you going to say yes, Leo, let's do it. Let's go right now. Now, it might seem at first like yeah, that's what I want to do. That sounds fun. But you got to understand that it's one thing to be watching this on the silver screen. When it's happening, somebody else's another thing to be in the heroes shoes. So I want you right now to put yourself in the hero's shoes. So if I come to you and tell you that, hey, you're coming with me to a new galaxy to fight space, dragons and stuff? What are you going to say? You're going to say? Hell, no. Leo, I got to go to work tomorrow, I got to pay the bills, I got to feed the kids, I got to prepare food, I got all this stuff to do. I got all these commitments, I got all these obligations, I don't have time to fly out there. I'm tired. I was working all day, I was working for 10 hours today, I'm not gonna go out there and fly with you somewhere to risk, what to risk my life, my health, my security, for what to go on some wild goose chase. No way, I'm not going to do that. So you reject the call to action. That's what 99% of people do. And actually including the hero, because the hero is pretty ordinary. What happens next, though, is that finally he's forced to accept the call to action, because the call to action imposes itself upon him. So classically, like in Star Wars, what happened to get Luke to go on the adventure? Well, they had to scrub troopers had to destroy his, his house, his homestead, his farm, and his uncle and aunt. Right. And so now he's got no choice. His whole family and house has been destroyed, he's got nowhere to go. So of course, now he has to go on the adventure. So something like this happens, right? He's forced to accept the call, by extraordinary circumstances. And so he ventures out into unknown territory, which is dangerous. And he's not sure what he's going to find there. It's full of risks. And this is where the adventure really begins. And the first thing that happens to him is he faces the Threshold Guardian, one of many that he will face. The Threshold Guardian is an archetype, which basically is your first obstacle whenever you go on any journey. So I don't know if you've ever encountered this, but have you ever gone on like a road trip and you plan out this road trip, it's going to be this long, faraway destination that you're going to you're excited, you get in there, you're, you're you know, you're driving, let's say you're using your car, you're driving for the first 100 miles and then you get a flat tire. So that's your first Threshold Guardian, is that first flat tire? Because what that does is that tests whether you really want to go on this trip or not, whether you're really serious about it. So most people when they face that first Threshold Guardian, they're defeated and they crawl back to their old existence. But the here rode, he sees that there's a bigger vision here, he knows that there's something bigger he's fighting for. So he tries to overcome that Threshold Guardian. Maybe he succeeds, or maybe he fails. If he fails, then he needs to go and find a mentor that will teach him how to do battle. And train him and maybe give him some secret weapon, a magic potion, a lightsaber, a mirror shield, some kind of armor, some sort of amulet, you know, something that will serve him as a weapon or a tool on this journey for overcoming all the tough obstacles that will be ahead. So he finds this mentor, and he gets his training. And then he goes off to face more threshold guardians. And with this training, and of course, with the mentors advice, he's able to defeat the threshold guardians and go further and further and deeper into uncharted territory. Now, the mentor, this is an important point, what is the mentor? Well, of course, the mentor is a hero himself from a past generation. So he is usually a wise old man, or woman who has already gone through this journey herself. And now she's there to give advice and training to new heroes who come about trying to accomplish the same things. We'll get back to that later. So anyways, the hero with the training goes off, he faces more threshold guardians, he defeats them. And finally, he has to face the final boss. And what is the final boss, the final boss is, let's say, the dragon, the dragon which guards the Holy Grail, and the hero is after the Holy Grail. So he's just not on this adventure. For a lark. He's on this adventure, because he's been promised that there's something valuable at the end of this journey for him. That is what we call the Holy Grail, or the elixir of life. Or he's trying to save the damsel in distress. And she's the Holy Grail. And she's, of course, behind the dragon. So he has to defeat the dragon. Usually, what happens is that the first encounter with the dragon, this is like the final boss in the video game. There are minor bosses before the final boss, but then the final boss is a really tough one. And when you first faced the final boss, you usually fail, you have to go back and lick your wounds. And really rethink your strategy. So the hero does that. And this here leads to the most important aspect, psychologically speaking of the entire journey, which is what's called entering the belly of the whale. This is where the feet the hero has to now face himself. He has to really rethink his whole life, and whole his whole approach to this journey. And he has to face his own inner demons. Because he recognizes that the things that are holding him back from successfully defeating the final boss is his own inner demons and weaknesses and fears. So that's really where the war gets waged on the inside. So he goes, he turns inside, he faces himself, he conquers his inner demons. That's the hardest point in the journey. Once he gets past that, now he's free, and he can go and he can fight the dragon, defeat the dragon, and get the Holy Grail. Now, an interesting thing happens when he gets the Holy Grail. There is a sort of 180 degree reversal, in his understanding of what the Holy Grail was all about. Originally, he thought that he would go and he would defeat this dragon, get the Holy Grail and then be live happily ever after. Because he would now have this, this, you know, this prize, he would have all the gold, or all the jewels or something like that. And that now that would make him happy. But as soon as he reaches the Grail, and he puts his hands on it, he realizes that the journey was not really about the Grail, the journey was about who he became in order to get the Grail. And that is really what the Grail is. And so in a sense, he surrenders the physical material, Grail, the treasure, that's not important anymore. And he finds his peace and his happiness in who he has become, and simply in being the new, more powerful version of himself that he has become by going on this whole journey. In a sense, this is a journey to find himself. And so he's found himself. And at that point, the Grail becomes insignificant. The real Grail is finding yourself. And so he takes the Grail, both the physical one and the immaterial one, and now he returns home back to his tribe, or to his village or town, to share the lessons that he's learned. But of course, the irony here is that the tribe cannot comprehend his lessons, because they have not gone on this journey themselves. And because they are stuck in complacency, and they are stuck in stuck in group thinking. And so when he tries to communicate and share the lessons with his tribe, it falls on deaf ears. And so the hero then retires, and he now is there and available to any new hero, who, from the tribe decides to accept a new call, as part of a new generation of heroes. And now, the old hero is available as a mentor, to mentor and train and guide, the new younger heroes should they arise. But that's a rare thing. Because very few people from the tribe really want to be heroes. They're comfortable living in their mundane ordinary existence. And so in a sense, the circle completes itself. And that is the hero's journey, as described by Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell, very interesting is very interesting to study Joseph Campbell, and how he arrived at the hero's journey, and his formulations of it, he was a mythologist. And he studied a lot of mythological traditions from cultures, around the entire globe, across various eras and generations. And he just discovered these consistent threads and patterns throughout all the mythologies of human beings, whether it was from Africa, or from Asia, or from Europe or from anywhere. And this is, what he found is that there's the hero's journey, it's always described in slightly different language. And it looks different, you're fighting different monsters. There's different types of mentors. And there's this different threshold guardians, and the Holy Grail is always different. But in the end, the structure here is the same. And this structure is very important for you to understand for your life, because this is the structure of human life in a sense. But it goes deeper than just that. Because the real journey and this is what most people miss. And this is why I wanted to shoot this whole episode is to not just to tell you about the physical journey of fighting dragons and monsters, you know about that you've watched plenty of movies where that has happened. And you've probably heard about the hero's journey already. But what you probably don't really know is that the real journey is all done on the inside. That's the key takeaway that I want you to learn here. Joseph Campbell derived the core of the hero's journey from Vedanta. Vedanta is a Hindu philosophy of non duality. It's one of the oldest spiritual traditions and philosophies that we have. It's several 1000 years old, over two or 3000 years old. Some of the earliest written texts in Sanskrit from India. That's where he derived from and what is the data about the data is about the pursuit of enlightenment. What I want you to get here is that all the external journeys of heroes are just a metaphor for the internal journey towards consciousness and enlightenment. So when you see movies, or comic books, superheroes, TV shows, you're reading novels, and you see all these great heroes, men and women who seemed valiant and they're fighting against forces of good and evil, right? They're fighting evil, they are the force of good. And you think like, yeah, that's, that's the hero. That's kind of how I should be. Understand that all of that is metaphor. In reality, there is no outside battle. There are no outside monsters and there is no outside evil. The battle the monsters and the evil is you. It's not anything other or separate from you. It's you. You are on a journey to fight yourself. What you see in the comic books and in the movies, these are childish caricatures, metaphors that we have confused for the true inner spiritual journey. And that journey basically amounts to you taking a stand and your life on one critical issue. And here's what that is. The issue of siding with ego or siding with truth. This is very important. You're going to have to make this choice in your life. And it will be made whether you make it consciously or not. It will be made by default. If you don't know that you're making it. The choice is between Will you serve your time in this life, serving ego, or pursuing the truth with a capital T. That's basically what human life boils down to. And that's what the hero's journey boils down to. What is a hero? A hero is someone who chooses truth over ego. And everybody else who's not a hero, why are they ordinary? Why do we not talk about them or really care about them? Because they're just part of the crowd. And the crowd always serves ego, never serving the truth. That is the fundamental choice. Because what evil is, is evil is literally selfishness. Or ego. And so in the degree to which the hero is good, is the degree to which he breaks loyalty with ego, and he rejects it. And this is a very difficult thing to do. This is one of the most counterintuitive moves you could make in your life. Is this, this choice of truth over ego? Because you know what's going to happen? When you choose truth? At first, it might seem like oh, well, Leo, that's pretty easy. Of course, let's just all choose truth. Not so fast. Because when you choose truth, are you prepared for the consequences of what will happen when the truth butts heads with ego? And what if there is a really fundamental conflict there, in the sense that you can't have both, you can't have yourself and the truth. If you want the full truth, you have to give up yourself completely. Or if you want to hang on to yourself, then you can never get the truth. So when it really comes to a head like that, what are you going to choose? See, most people are quick to choose the truth, before they recognize the full consequences of what that means. Because they think that they can choose the truth and honor their selfishness at the same time. But you can't do that if you do that you become the villain, not the hero. The villain is who maintains the status quo. Selfishness, evil, that's all it is. Evil is not some metaphysical force out there. It's not some dragon or some demons. It's simply selfishness. It's you, it's yourself. It's everything you do to serve yourself agenda. That's what villain he is. And you are the villain. Make no mistake about it. The villain is not living in some other country. He's not some president or ruler. He's yourself. He is the person who has abandoned truth for ego. And he serves to represent the status quo of society and of culture. If you take a look at all these movies, and all these novels that talk about heroes, what do you see, you see the hero battling, usually what some villain who represents what the status quo, or the existing social order, because the existing social order, is always serving the ego, it doesn't care about the truth. So that's the that's the defining characteristic of a hero. And that's why we hold heroes as as remarkable and noteworthy people is because they have summoned something higher within themselves, that allows them to pursue the truth, whereas most people cannot do that. They shrink at that challenge. That's a very big challenge. And that's the decision that you are being left to make in your life. But we'll come back to that. Let me also talk about what the Holy Grail is, what is the holy grail? The Holy Grail is not treasure. It's not some sexy damsel in distress that you get to go start a family with. It's the truth or God, or enlightenment, or consciousness, all of these things are synonymous. With the Holy Grail, and the truth, or enlightenment, or God or consciousness is fundamentally intangible. So you can't cling it, grab it, hold on to it, put it in your bank account. You can't buy a house with it. You can't rule an empire with it. You see, that's why most villains don't care about the truth. Because the villain wants power. Why power, because power allows him to serve the self more better. You see, you can't serve the self with truth with God, you can serve itself with power though. And the villain because he's chosen ego over truth, doesn't want the Holy Grail. He will do everything to try to besmirch, and destroy the Holy Grail, taint, the Holy Grail, convince people that there is no Holy Grail. So the hero has to go fight the villain, in order to let the truth shine forth, so to speak upon the people. Because the villain usually tries to hold back the truth from the people. So that's where you get into this cosmic battle between good and evil, between truth and ego. It's very important that you understand that there is nothing external to be fought in life. There are no demons out there that you are fighting. People get so confused by this. Because I think that even though in our modern consciousness, there is the idea of the hero's journey, people understand it. That's why people love watching all these superhero movies and so forth. They like to see the good guy prevail over the villains. But really, this deludes a lot of audiences, because I don't think they really understand what the journey is about. The journey is not materialistic. It is not about conquering some monster, or stopping some plague or some disease, or stopping some terrorists or defeating some Nazis. That's all metaphor. It's just metaphor. You got to see what the metaphor is telling you. The metaphor is telling you that you need to go on that inner spiritual journey. You, you, you. And the sad part here is that people feel confused about this whole thing is that they spent half their life diddling around, half their life is already over. And they haven't even accepted the call. They haven't even begun their journey on the inside, and they trick themselves with perhaps telling themselves that Oh, no, I am on a journey already, Leo. But really, you're on some materialistic journey, you're chasing a wild goose. So if you fancy yourself as on a real hero's journey, to pursue money, or career success, or a family, this is not a real hero's journey. In a sense, it's actually a trap and a distraction. You've misunderstood what the hero's journey is about, you're no hero, in doing that, you're actually very ordinary. And actually, that is the path that produces the villains. So by taking the materialistic path, you will become a villain. This is guaranteed you will become a villain because you can't help yourself, because the only person that's not going to become a villain is the one who spiritually purifies himself through the process of going inside and becoming a hero. by attaining the Holy Grail, that's the only way. See, or you're just gonna be part of the crowd, part of the unknowing masses, the herd of humanity who doesn't have an opinion about anything, and commits evil anyways, simply by by following the villains orders. See, the majority of people aren't really heroes or villains, they are just enablers, and CO conspirators of the villain, the majority of people because we're in your unconscious, you don't know any better, you're gonna do what the villain tells you. Because, hey, you're just as selfish as the villain, basically, maybe a little bit less. So maybe you're not going to go to his extremes to feed his ego, but you're still out there feeding your ego mostly. And so you're going to basically resonate with whatever the villain is telling you to do. So he's going to be your leader, and you're going to be a little minion of the villain. And you're going to be fighting and demonizing all the heroes who come out of the woodwork. So what I want you to recognize is that for your whole life, basically, you've been refusing the call. And you haven't even been conscious of the fact that you've and refusing the call. The call for a deep inner spiritual journey has been presenting itself to you in many ways. But you weren't clear that this was the case. And so you've been refusing it. You've been hesitating. You've been scared, you had a lot of good reasons why not to go on this journey. You didn't even understand as your this journey was being presented to you or you confused it for an external materialistic journey. Also understand that the real heroes are not the athletes and celebrities, the business tycoons and the politicians. These are the false heroes. The real heroes are the Zen masters, the yogi's the mystics and the saints, the hermits, the people who get almost no recognition at all, they are the real heroes, they are the ones who actually went on a true inner spiritual journey, and they actually found the Holy Grail. And the Holy Grail has made them humble and modest. So they don't go flashing it in your face. And even if you if they did, you still wouldn't get it. Because to get the subtlety of the Holy Grail, you need to actually go on the journey, and let it transform you. Before you can even just conceptually understand what the Zen master and the yogi are talking about. You already need to be on the journey. They need to, in a sense, be preaching to the choir, you need to be coming to them, rather than than them coming to you. So why isn't it that everyone is the hero? Why are heroes rare? Precisely because it requires breaking loyalty with yourself. And this is the thing that is common amongst all people amongst all the crowds is that they are fundamentally loyal to themselves. That's what pragmatism entails. And that's what most life is about is about pragmatism. Most people are not very principled people, they just go with the flow. And they do the thing that serves their ego, the quickest and the easiest. That's what they do. And to actually turn your back on yourself, in a self, this is the ultimate sacrilege or heresy as far as society is concerned, because all of society is conspiracy, so that we serve the self together, you see, because if we try to serve the self in isolation, by ourselves alone each of us, then we would start to notice that, hey, I'm serving the self, this isn't right, I should stop doing this. But together, when we come together, we can create a mass delusion, that serving the self is normal. We can normalize each other in the same way that a bunch of Nazis coming together, being Nazis together, can become blind to the evils of their own actions and their own selfishness. You see, so that's what society has done to you. And you're a part of that and the whole mechanism. You, not somebody else, you this is critical for you to grasp. The hardest thing you will ever do in life is to make that critical decision to say no to yourself, and to say yes to truth at the cost of yourself. As soon as you do this, you will become an outcast. You will also be on your way to becoming a true hero. But you will generally be demonized and isolated by the rest of society. Because this is a big no no. Because you're breaking the secret conspiracy. To serve the self. In practice, accepting the call to adventure is very difficult. I want you to pay extra special attention in movies and novels from now on when you read about heroes about this critical phase where the hero accepts the call, and at first refuses the call. Because this is very critical. At first when I read about this, in the hero's journey from Joseph Campbell, I felt like well, why is it necessary that the hero plays coy? Why can't the hero just want to go out on this grand adventure? But that's just not psychologically true. Because most of us, as adventurous as we think we are, we're not nearly as that adventurous. Really. We're very pragmatic and lazy, and we're very risk averse. So the reason it's so rare that people accept the call is because to accept the call, you have to be sort of a romantic because if you do a sort of cool headed rational calculation, and analysis of whether you should or shouldn't accept the call, if you do a sort of pros and cons list of accepting or refusing the call, you'll see that there are 100 excellent reasons why you should not go on this adventure, because of all the risks and dangers and all the bad stuff that will happen to you. And why you should stay put, why you should make maintain the status quo be part of the tribe, not shake the boat. So if you're just a totally pragmatic person, you will always choose the status quo, you will never accept the call. So the hero has to be a bit of a romantic, he also has to be a risk taker. Because this choice is fundamentally uncertain, you're going from a place of certainty and security to a place of uncertainty and unsecured it. And this, of course, conjures up fear. So you have to have the faith, to see that that will be worth it in the long run. Another reason it's difficult is because you got to share many of your intoxications. So your culture in your tribe, as intoxicated you see, with all sorts of addictions, addictions to entertainment, to sex, to drugs, to alcohol, to coffee, to food, to fat, to salt, to television, to internet, to social media, all of these are intoxications, specifically designed by society to be tools of this conspiracy of ego over truth. And so you, as a member of the society now have to reach escape velocity, to break out of the orbit of the gravitational pole of this selfish community that you're a part of this unconscious community is sort of like you have this gravitational wave of unconsciousness that you're trying to break through. And it's really hard because you have to undo all your intoxications most heroes never even accept the call because they're just too intoxicated. By modern life. And the more technologically advanced our society gets, the more powerful our intoxicants get, and the harder it is to go on a hero's journey. That's why there's something romantic and simple about the hero's journey. Because we recognize that our technology is doing more harm than good does. Another reason that it's so difficult is because the peer pressure, so you're gonna have a lot of peer pressure from your family, former colleagues, from your friends, all pulling you back down into the everyday mundane existence, they're going to tell you what, are you crazy going on this journey off to some new galaxy to fight some dragon space dragons? That's some dangerous, risky stuff. Why would you be crazy enough to want to do that, don't do that. That's stupid. Stay here, you're safe, you're comfortable, we'll take care of you. And you have to say no to that. Which means you have to risk being ostracized, you have to risk of stepping on some people's toes. And the other reason that it's so difficult to accept the call is because it requires a vision, you have to have a vision of what you're going after, you have to see the holy grail in your mind's eye. Long before you actually see it in real life in your hands. You'll never hold it in your hands until you see it in your mind's eye. And most people are very bad at visioning. They can't vision consistently. They can't see that far ahead. They're myopic, and so they never accept the call. And in fact, they think of people who do accept the call as being foolish and stupid. But that's only because they lacked the vision. Why do we admire heroes as a culture? And why do heroes make us emotional? For example, when you see a great hero in a movie, his actions can bring you to tears. Why is that? Have you ever wondered? It's because the hero shows us our highest potential. In that act of doing something heroic, we see for are a glimmer in ourselves what our life should be about. It should be about not doing heroic acts. That's the superficial material level, I'm talking about the deeper level here. Our mission is to spiritually purify ourselves, to go on this inner journey to tap into everything we've got. And you're going to need everything you've got every ounce of strength and courage you can muster, to go on this inner spiritual journey, it's much more scary than going on some external adventure, to fight some monsters, facing yourself facing the monster that is you, that's the scariest thing of all. It's also very tricky. Because this monster of yourself, you're fighting yourself when you're fighting yourself. Yourself uses all sorts of tricks and sleight of hand and self deceptions against you. You see, it's difficult, because you can't really discriminate which parts of yourself are good, and which are bad, which have to be fought and which not have to be thought, you're in conflict, you're confused. In a sense, it's like the monster has, you know, slap some mud in your face, you can't see, you can't think straight, you can't see straight, you're fighting yourself. It's very difficult. It's confusing. It's disorienting. It's very counterintuitive, because you would never think that you need to fight yourself in life. And that you will be your own greatest enemy. So for that you will need to muster a lot of strength and courage. That's why heroes make us emotional. Why must the hero struggle? You might wonder, you know, why? Isn't it just easy for the hero to go and obtain the Holy Grail? Why does it have to be this epic battle with dragons, the threshold guardians and all this difficulty? Well, because you're opposed by the status quo, first of all, so your entire environment is conspiring against you. Because when you rise up, and you embody your highest potential, that means everyone else will see that that's possible. And that will rub them the wrong way, I mean, the right way, that will rub them the wrong way. Because that means that, hey, they have to admit to themselves, they have to be conscious now of what they've been repressing. They have to acknowledge their own villainy. And they don't want to do that. They don't want to acknowledge their own selfishness, the whole point of society is to be a conspiracy for us not to have to acknowledge our own selfishness, so that we can get away with being selfish. That's the whole point. So society, in a sense is against you. Because society is all about loyalty to the self. And a lot of it is about power. See, what is power about power is about preservation of the self. A truly secure person never needs power. And insecure person needs more power to preserve the self. So this is why their struggle, there's also struggle, because you're coming to terms with yourself, you've never really met yourself before. You just assume you have. So when you discover that actually you don't know who you are, what you are, why you are the way you are. That in and of itself will be a struggle just to come to terms with that, let alone to start to change that. Why doesn't the tribe just accept the heroes lessons? So why is it the case that when the hero finally returns back home with the Holy Grail, that his tribe isn't just immediately all cured? Precisely because the only way that you can really develop this understanding is by going on a journey yourself. is a very important point to understand. The point is that understanding here is not intellectual understanding. This is not something that a hero can just write in a book. And then you pick up the book and you read and say, oh, yeah, of course. Now I have a simulated all the lessons of the hero. No, the way it's going to work is if a hero writes it down in a book, and they do. You read the book, and you say, oh my god, it's the dumbest thing I've ever seen. This hero was stupid, and you throw the book into the fire, and you go off and you join your friends, in drinking, partying, whoring around and all the other stuff that you do, as part of your tribe. The only way you will understand what the hero wrote in the book is by actually going and encountering all the obstacles that the hero encountered. To learn these lessons. These are hard won lessons. And the ultimate Holy Grail is much too subtle and much Two grand, to me communicated through any kind of symbols, it's literally incommunicable is non symbolic, which means that you cannot put it in symbol form, which means that you can't utter it. You can't write it down. You can't schematize it, you can't model it. You can't subject it to scientific analysis. Which is why science will not solve this problem for you. You see, finding meaning and happiness in your life is not a scientific problem. It's a human spiritual problem, which requires that you go through this process, that's in a sense, why you're alive. You see, you're not alive to breed, and to enjoy yourself with carnal pleasures, and to become successful, that's not why you're alive. You're not alive to work, either. You're alive. So that you can experience the truth, of reality of what life is of what reality is. That is the holy grail. But that's a very big thing. It also turns out to be a very paradoxical and counterintuitive and subtle thing. And the only way to really appreciate the subtlety of it is to go on this journey, and to make all the mistakes, and then learn your lessons that way. So that life or reality teaches you through the school of hard knocks. Which is why you can't outsource the hero's journey to anybody. You can't get your friend to do it for you, your mom and dad can't do it for you. Sort of corporation can't do it for you, despite maybe what they would advertise. And why do mentors become hermits? Why are they usually depicted as these little old men living in little huts far off from the tribe? It's because the Holy Grail leaves them speechless. That's its power. It's so powerful and grand, that you would never believe it, if it was told to you. So the wisest mentors keep their mouths shut. Unless you come to them. And you really ask for their advice. And even then, when they give you advice, they tend to be fairly tight lipped. And they might frustrate you with that sort of Zen approach. You know, you come to a mentor. And then you wonder, why is this mentor not just giving me all the answers? Why is he forcing me to, to do all this hard work and to derive all these answers for myself? That's not because the mentor is an asshole. Or he's just some, you know, crotchety old man, not not because of that. It's because he understands that the only way you can understand is by going through the journey yourself. And he doesn't want you to accidentally fool yourself into a false sense of theoretical understanding, intellectual understanding, without the experience to back it up. So he's going to push you and force you to actually go on the journey for yourself. So he's going to try to be light with his answers. He's just going to give you hints. Because he knows that he can't actually hand over the holy grail to you even though he's got it. He's got the holy grail right here. And yet, he knows that you have to go through all those threshold guardians, go fight that damn dragon defeat the dragon only then after list risking life and limb, only then can you have the Holy Grail to. And so the mentor generally he's happy, he's peaceful, he retires off by himself, also, because he doesn't want to be part of this circus act. It's carnival. That is the conspiracy of society is the he doesn't really want to be part of that game. Because that's just a conspiracy to serve ego, and he has rejected ego. He's accepted the truth. And once he's got the truth, he doesn't need society anymore. Not really. He can live within it, he can mingle inside of it. But it doesn't really excite him that much. So now you start to understand subtle some of the spiritual subtleties of the hero's journey is quite a profound and deep framework. What are the takeaways here practically for your life? Firstly, I want you to understand that society will not lead you to salvation or to happiness or to meaning these are things you have to find on your own. You cannot outsource this, because this is a spiritual problem. It's a problem of not understanding what reality is, you can't get this without the Holy Grail. This is what the Holy Grail is about. That's why it's holy. It's the elixir of immortality is what it really is. And you'll be shocked when you when you get for Far, far enough into this journey, you'll be shocked at how literal some of these descriptions are. Sometimes it'll feel like you're actually fighting a dragon within yourself. Sometimes you'll see like, oh, yeah, today, I really faced a Threshold Guardian. Or I really met my mentor. Or once you get to the very end, and you actually get a taste, a little taste of the elixir of immortality, you will discover Holy shit. It's actually an elixir for immortality. It's not just poetry. This is real. This is literal. It's the elixir of immortality that's available to you. But see, do you recognize that? Can you see what that really means? Can you read between the lines? It's really too good to be true. That's part of the reason that so few people go on the hero's journey, they, they just can't believe that it could be that good. And it is, but the problem is that it takes some investment first, you know that goodness comes at the end, not at the beginning. The second takeaway for you is to understand that this here is a process. This is a framework. And you can save yourself a lot of time by understanding the brain, the framework and process and learn from the lessons of past generations, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. This is how your life is going to unfold. Either you will accept the hero's journey or you won't. And if you accept that you will go through these characteristic phases. They're all going to be there you will recognize them. Perhaps more so in retrospect, than from the beginning. But the more you can see it from the beginning to better because it'll be easier for you. Because then you can remind yourself, when you're in this process on this journey, and you face a Threshold Guardian, and you get your ass kicked by that Threshold Guardian, you can tell yourself, oh, yeah, that was just the Threshold Guardian. I shouldn't worry too much, because I know that I'm supposed to get my ass kicked by the first Threshold Guardian, that just means I need to go find a better mentor, get more training, and then come back and face them again. See, and in this way, you keep yourself on the path. Whereas if you don't understand the overarching big picture of the path, then what's going to happen is that you're going to, you're going to get discouraged. And you're just going to quit when you face that first or second Threshold Guardian. Or when the dragon kicks your ass for the first time you see that dragon and scares the shit out of you. And you just run away and you never look at it again. But when you understand the overarching big picture here, you understand that all I see the dragon, it scares the shit out of me. And what that means is I gotta go to the belly of the whale and face my own inner demons and deepest fears all now I understand how to defeat the dragon, you see. So this is a roadmap here that's being laid out to you so that you can see how to get from point a point A to point Z point A being your mundane everyday existence right now, point z being enlightenment or the Holy Grail, the elixir of immortality. The next takeaway is that what you really got to do is get to the point where you accept the call 99% of people have not accepted even the call. Don't mistake how significant this first step of accepting the call is. Most of your life, you've been refusing the call, what you got to do is find the thing in you, which will make it worthwhile to accept the call and be very explicit and clear about what that is. I don't know what that is for you. Maybe you got to contemplate your own death. Maybe you got to become conscious of the shortness of your own life. Or you gotta get Dissatisfied with your current existence to such an extent that you see that it's unsustainable, it'll never lead you to happiness or meaning. And then once that becomes clear to you, then you can make a clear cut decisions. Okay, I'm accepting the call and all the costs that come with it. Don't think of this adventure as just a carefree fun Lark? No, this involves some very serious emotional labor. Which is why you need to be explicit about your reasons for why you're going on this journey, why it's important to you why it's the most important thing in your life. And you got to be clear with yourself that you're willing to take some sacrifices and to pay the cost and to do the emotional heavy lifting. Otherwise you will have no chance in hell of doing that. The final takeaway is to realize that really what you've been secretly craving, your whole life is to give your life to something bigger than yourself. You just haven't discovered how to do that. You've been hesitating. You've been looking around at all your friends and your tribe. And you've been seeing that they've been giving you signals not to do it. And so you've held back. And so one of two things will happen. Either you will keep hesitating. And you will hesitate for the rest of your life and you will stall and you will die with regrets. Knowing at the end of your life that you hesitated, and that you didn't really go on the journey you were meant to go on. Or at some point you will wise up, you will say no to all the peer pressure, and you will go and you will carve your own path through the dark forest. Face the threshold guardians, defeat the dragon, obtain the Holy Grail, and retire in peace, knowing that you fulfilled the mission of your life. And with that, I want to leave you with one last thing. And that is a haiku by an old Zen master, a true hero. Someone who has done exactly what I talked about here, and his name is Rio Khan. And here's what he says. The village has disappeared in the evening missed, and the path is hard to follow. Walking through the pines, I returned to my lonely hut