The Greatest Story Never Told
On the story-view of the universe.
The following is just a short description of a larger thing I’m working on for my book. It’s not supposed to be serious. That is in the very nature of all shows or plays. It’s an intuition, and analogous description of a certain state of affairs, that might or might not be true. The postscript section will contain further information to check out.
Within the running universal themes of ages past traditions, I’ve noticed one that is seemingly as ancient as perception, and yet as present as the noonday sun. It is the relationship between Lost and Found.
This idea is really derived from a more overhead principle than polarity, one I will definitely take on in my upcoming book, but one that seems be more difficult to pin down than polarity. And I think it’s more profound nevertheless. And that is the story aspect of everything.
You see, ever since we have stumbled in the pitch black cave, or stared directly at an open flame, we have been both frightened and drawn into these two aspects of Lost and Found. So much so that we immediately invented stories featuring their subtle and sometimes “absolute” essence or parts in them.
And through polarity, we came to regard their esoteric aspects as being analogous with life itself. That the goal of the human spirit, is, without restricting it to the following, to rise from the ignorant darkness, being oblivious to everything, to ever higher eschelons of existence and knowledge, until reaching the divine light.
And it was the great Leonard Cohen who wrote: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” Hinting, that we are somehow distant from this light towards we’re drawn to, but which isn’t shone directly at us in full strength. Meaning that we somehow have to work our way to it.
And, as I took an interest in creative writing, I learned that all stories, no matter how seemingly complex, can be boiled down to just six main narratives. Of course there can overlaps between them to make the story more interesting. However, all these narratives can be actually boiled down to only just one: the hero’s journey.
Now, as that might sound boring on the off-set, it’s actually the reason why so many people feel like the movies they watch these days, as an example, seem to exhibit the same bloody patterns. And this is basically the reason. There are no other stories than that, anywhere, ever.
Before you close the browser however and say screw this dude, let me try to illustrate the point: take any story you can remember. And imagine, what were the highlights of that story. What made it in other words, interesting to you. Most often, we get carried and absorbed in by the characters in them. And this has to include this principle of Lost and Found.
Because in order for there to be a story in the first place, there has to be at least two things that are required of a “good” one: obstacles, and overcoming them. If not either, no story. And that’s basically the hero in question. It doesn’t have to be an obvious villain either that’s giving the hero a run for their money.
So, the narrative is always leading from one event to the next through the character’s eyes or someone else’s in the story, even in stories where there is no human character! It’s been noticed by our psychology that we tend to take sides with animals, creatures and even inanimate objects when it comes to narratives. It can be anything or anyone, so long as those obstacles exist that are overcome.
So, what does any of this have to do with narratives or the story being an aspect of existence itself? Well, if we trace back the traits of say, the Hindu concepts of Lila and Maya, then the world is a playful illusion being acted by the Supreme Actor.
However, in the Christian concepts of Hell and Heaven, where it’s quite explicit, only tied strongly with out moral behaviour and not so much in play, we come to a world-view where the soul is on a pilgrimage. But the twist is, that if it fails lamentably to be a human being, it has the possibility to being thrown into an eternal damnation full of suffering and anguish. And I think they really threw the baby out with the bathwater because you don’t even have a chance to rework your way up from that.
Nevertheless, the common theme is Lost and Found, and it’s curiously imbedded within the Psalms of the Bible, where one of them says along the lines of, talking about Sophia, The Divine Wisdom, that it was her delight to play in the presence of God. The original Hewbrew translation actually says play, instead of rejoice, such as it is found in the more modern versions.
And so, this idea that the Creation of the universe is indeed a playful drama or an act of Brahman or God, is found in common in both traditions. And as we know through story-telling, all good shows need a great ending. And so what is this “divine light” then, at the top, waiting for the hero? Well, this is strangely the Big Mystery, isn’t it.
The real secret is, that the hero and the Supreme Actor are one behind the curtain, in the greenroom. That is why, The Lost side, is supposed to represent the hero in their lowest point of development, and Found in their highest knowledge, of finding out who they were this entire time. This is why the dream or amnesia analogy is so common in these days in movies. Because the changed world, the resolve, the other side, the ultimate discovery, was all along the true realization of your own identity and the Eternal Self as being one and the same.
P.S. If the reader really wants something to chew on, I suggest looking up the works of cognitive scientist Jerome Bruner and psychologist Valeria Sabater, both of who have studied the self-narrative mechanisms of our brain, and why we create stories out of every experience that we have. I think it’s something that underlies our structure or make-up.
