Stories and Metaphors
Some stories are meant to be read as literal. They are descriptions of real world events or events occurring in an imaginary world created by the author. They are meant to entertain or instruct or challenge the reader in ways that do nor require any interpretation of either the characters or events in the story. Things happen and events unfold and what you take away from it depends on what you bring to it. These stories are everywhere in books, movies, plays, shows and theater impacting our lives in both positive and negative ways. They are an integral part of our journey around the Wheel, especially in the South and the West. But there are other stories that are meant to be read metaphorically because they are about ideas and orienting our minds in ways that will allow us to perceive that which is beyond words. These are the stories we are drawn to in the West on the Wheel but they are also available to those in the South and here we encounter trouble because the tendency is for them to be read literally. A good example of this is a story from the Bible about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.
The story is about a woman named Eve who is convinced by a snake to eat an apple in violation of the one rule God has given them and then tempts Adam into also taking a bite of the forbidden fruit. Upon eating the apple, they become aware that they are separate from the garden in which they find themselves and attempt to cover up the nakedness to which they have also become aware. Read as a metaphor, this is obviously a story about the birth of self awareness in the human species with the leaving of the garden as a metaphor for the experience of feeling separate from the world in which you find yourself. If read literally, we have a woman disobeying an almighty God, tempting a man to do the same and being thrown out of a garden as penalty for their actions. Why Eve would even want to risk being evicted from the best place she could ever find herself or why God would even create the apple is not up for discussion because the story comes from the Bible which is, of course, the word of God. What we have instead is the creation of original sin which we must pay for by the denial of any pleasure we might experience in this life and the need to obey all of Gods commandments as they are interpreted by a church intent on controlling peoples lives. On top of this we get the demonizing of women as the temptress who was open to listening to the devils messenger in the form of a snake. Read metaphorically, the snake represents transformation and is the perfect messenger for turning a non self aware ape into a self aware humanoid but, of course, evolution is not in the Bible so it can’t be real. This is the kind of destructive nonsense that can come from reading a metaphor literally.
The Ramayana is a story that has to be read as a metaphor if we are to make any sense of it. This is partly because the characters include gods in the Hindu tradition and animal characters who talk and have extraordinary powers but it is not a fantasy novel. It is a story that is both entertaining and instructive in the esoteric ideas to be found in Hinduism. It is useful to become familiar with what these characters represent in this tradition that gives form to these ideas so we have a device for centering our thoughts when contemplating these ideas. Christianity also gives form to these ideas but then decides the form is real so that there is something separate that can be worshiped and obeyed. So the idea of God becomes an old bearded white man sitting on a cloud judging us on the basis of how well we obey the rules he has given us. And we get to live in a world where no thinking is required and all we need to do is be fearful and believe in an afterlife without any indication in the real world that such a thing exists. A world where self realization is not only impossible but just an illusion not to be believed in. But, no blame here. Not all of us were born with brains capable of contemplating these ideas and connecting the dots and for this they cannot be held responsible. Evolution is not done with us.
There are many editions of this book available. The audio book read by Ram Dass would be a good place to start and can be found by clicking the image above. It is short and perfectly read.
