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Transcript

"The Hero's Journey - Our Story, Our Salvation” Ep#25 · Spiritual Hot Sauce

0:00
Chris Jones: The term the hero's journey has found its way into our modern vernacular across movies, video games, music literature, and more.
0:08
Chris Jones: It speaks to us in a primal way that resonates deeply at our core.
0:13
Chris Jones: Joseph Campbell brought this concept to broad attention in his nineteen forty nine book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
0:21
Chris Jones: In it, he describes the hero's adventures and how similar stories appeared in religions and mythologies worldwide, including isolated cultures.
0:32
Chris Jones: The story is as old as humanity itself, coming from oral traditions passed down by the gray hairs.
0:39
Chris Jones: It still speaks to us as powerfully as when it was first spoken and first heard.
0:46
Chris Jones: That's because it's not just a story, it's our story.
0:51
Chris Jones: And in it, our salvation.
0:55
Chris Jones: Welcome.
0:56
Chris Jones: I'm Chris Jones.
0:58
Chris Jones: This is where believers and skeptics alike are invited to embark on a journey of faith, philosophy, and life from a different perspective.
1:06
Chris Jones: Whether we are joined by an insightful guest or we just jump into the deep end, this exploration promises to challenge us all.
1:14
Chris Jones: Are we getting it right?
1:16
Chris Jones: This is Spiritual Hot Sauce.
1:28
Chris Jones: And I can't think of a better way to celebrate it than to roll out the hero's journey.
1:33
Chris Jones: Because I know a lot of you have been waiting on this one.
1:36
Chris Jones: And this may very well be my best episode to date.
1:41
Chris Jones: But I gotta forewarn you, you're gonna need a glass of water because it's really dry for five minutes.
1:49
Chris Jones: I mean, it's Sahara Desert dry.
1:51
Chris Jones: It's a lot of dates and numbers and everything.
1:54
Chris Jones: But I think it's really important that we go through the dates and the origins and the history of this story so we understand the importance of it.
2:03
Chris Jones: But if you can get past those five minutes, it gets really good.
2:08
Chris Jones: I mean really good.
2:10
Chris Jones: You're gonna really like this one.
2:12
Chris Jones: So, without further ado, let's get into it.
2:17
Chris Jones: The oldest human writings that we currently have are primarily for accounting.
2:22
Chris Jones: They come from about 3500 BCE, the Uruk tablets or the Kish tablets.
2:29
Chris Jones: They were discovered in southern Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq.
2:34
Chris Jones: But they're not phonetic words, they're single characters that represent things like barley, beer, sheep, and goats.
2:42
Chris Jones: Now, our first oldest writings that we know of that show up as phonetic words show up in the Kesh Temple hymn.
2:50
Chris Jones: It's from Samaria around 2600 BCE.
2:53
Chris Jones: It's religious praise poems structured as hymns.
2:58
Chris Jones: Now, there's also another writing that shows up the same time in southern Mesopotamia, and they call it the instructions of Sherupak.
3:07
Chris Jones: It's Sumerian wisdom text containing Proverbs, advice from the king of Shirupach to his son Zezudra, and it also dates around 2600 BCE.
3:19
Chris Jones: Now the three oldest surviving written stories are Sumerian compositions from the early dynastic period, around 2500 BCE.
3:28
Chris Jones: Now these would be fragments from Abu Salabi, followed closely by early Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh, around 2100 BCE, and then the Egyptian tale of the shipwrecked sailor in 2000 to 1900 BCE.
3:46
Chris Jones: Now, every one of these stories contained the hero's journey.
3:51
Chris Jones: The fragments, of course, contained a part of the hero's journey, but it's there.
3:55
Chris Jones: Now I think you would agree that we're starting to see a pattern emerge.
4:00
Chris Jones: We start to see how our language evolved, starting with how we manage our resources and how we developed and communicated within our social construct.
4:10
Chris Jones: From there, we moved on to phonetic words, tackling ideas of spirituality and our idea of God and how we commune with Him through singing.
4:22
Chris Jones: At the same time, we start getting this understanding that we can transfer wisdom generationally through written word.
4:30
Chris Jones: So when we get to a point where we can actually write coherently stories, what is the story that we write about?
4:38
Chris Jones: It's the hero's journey.
4:40
Chris Jones: Let me just quickly go through some of the ancient and more contemporary characters that this story is about.
4:47
Chris Jones: You have Gilgamesh from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
4:50
Chris Jones: You have Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.
4:53
Chris Jones: You have Rama from the Indian Ramayana, Sundiata Keita from West African Epic of Sundiata.
5:00
Chris Jones: From the Anglo-Saxons, you have Beowulf.
5:03
Chris Jones: From the Native Americans, you have Raven.
5:06
Chris Jones: In video games, we have The Legend of Zelda, Geralt of Rivia, The Witcher series.
5:11
Chris Jones: In anime, you have Shonen and Aziikai, Goku, Ichigo Karasaki.
5:17
Chris Jones: In literature, you have Pip from Great Expectations, and Jean Valjean from Les Miserables.
5:24
Chris Jones: In movies, you have Neo from The Matrix, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, Darth Vader from Star Wars, Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings, and Katniss Everdean from The Hunger Games.
5:35
Chris Jones: But if we're being honest, if you take the hero's journey out of literature and out of movies, we don't have any literature movies.
5:43
Chris Jones: There's very little left.
5:45
Chris Jones: So think of it like this.
5:47
Chris Jones: It's been right now 4,625-ish years since we've learned how to communicate ideas in written word.
5:58
Chris Jones: And since we have started doing that, we have been telling the same story.
6:04
Chris Jones: And please note that I haven't even touched religion.
6:08
Chris Jones: So what is the story of the hero's journey, or what some would refer to as the universal monomyth?
6:14
Chris Jones: It starts like this it's an ordinary person that just seems average.
6:19
Chris Jones: They have a normal life, they're just trying to fit in, and they're just trying to be a regular person.
6:25
Chris Jones: But then tragedy usually strikes and the path that they are on ends.
6:30
Chris Jones: In other words, their identity stops.
6:32
Chris Jones: And it's at this point that they are called to an adventure.
6:36
Chris Jones: And there's something about how they are called to the venture that stands out as an extraordinary event or circumstances.
6:44
Chris Jones: The offer will come from a mentor or someone to help and guide them to make sure that they're on their path and get them to their ultimate destination.
6:54
Chris Jones: The person usually rejects this offer one time because they're still trying to figure out how to get back to their identity.
7:02
Chris Jones: Now, while all this is going on, they are given yet another offer from another source that is much darker in nature.
7:11
Chris Jones: This will also be from a mentor or a guide, but help them on their path to becoming a demigod.
7:18
Chris Jones: Now, the hero is going to want to reject all offers and just try to figure out how to get back to their path, their identity of everything they've lost.
7:28
Chris Jones: However, the universe will create circumstances that will force them to go back to these offers and they will have to choose.
7:36
Chris Jones: And our hero doesn't always choose correctly.
7:39
Chris Jones: Either way, this is where the adventure starts.
7:43
Chris Jones: Now, if they choose to go the correct path, it looks like this.
7:47
Chris Jones: Their guide, their helper, their friend will be on this adventure with them, this journey.
7:53
Chris Jones: And on this journey, the hero will be tested and tried.
7:56
Chris Jones: And if they fail to learn the things they need to learn, they'll have to go through those lessons again.
8:02
Chris Jones: And each time they go through these lessons, the lessons are painful and they're difficult and they cause great loss.
8:09
Chris Jones: Now, some of this is avoiding temptations.
8:11
Chris Jones: It's like the siren's call.
8:13
Chris Jones: They will have to stay on the hard path, the hard journey.
8:17
Chris Jones: They'll have to harness their will in order to get to their destination, which at this point they only have a vague idea of what it is.
8:25
Chris Jones: If our hero can't resist the siren's call and changes the direction of their path, and that story of the sirens, which is they're on boats when they hear it, and they can't resist these beautiful voices, and they go towards the voices, their ships will be dashed on the rocks and their journey will be over.
8:47
Chris Jones: They'll never get to their destination.
8:49
Chris Jones: Now there's other testings that's not temptation.
8:52
Chris Jones: It's having to go through over or around challenges.
8:57
Chris Jones: You have to learn new skill sets so you can circumvent them.
9:01
Chris Jones: Sometimes you just have to learn courageous sacrifice and go through it head on and allow it to define you.
9:08
Chris Jones: And not just physically and mentally, but their character is being shaped.
9:13
Chris Jones: That is through losses and through the struggles, they of who they are is being formed.
9:19
Chris Jones: Now, once our heroes reach their destination, it's never what they think it is.
9:24
Chris Jones: This is often referred to as the cave.
9:27
Chris Jones: The cave always represents transformation and change.
9:31
Chris Jones: Our hero in the cave will either have to die and resurrect into something different, or something else will be assimilated to them and they'll be transformed like a caterpillar in this cave, and when they emerge, they'll be the butterfly.
9:48
Chris Jones: But it's in this transformation as they come out of the cave, they'll serve their actual purpose of what all of this has actually been for.
9:56
Chris Jones: And their purpose is always to go back to humanity and serve it and save it, to make it better, to correct it, to take it to a better place in the sacrifice they have given of self.
10:09
Chris Jones: See, this is archetypal.
10:12
Chris Jones: This speaks to us in humanity.
10:14
Chris Jones: And there's something about archetypes that we always fail.
10:17
Chris Jones: It's this intrinsic knowledge that's within us that we never seem to have the wisdom of what to do with it.
10:25
Chris Jones: See, when we hear these stories that we are so drawn to, we don't realize the story is about us, that all of us are on our hero's journey.
10:35
Chris Jones: But Hollywood tells these stories in such a grandiose way, we fail to realize this is about our everyday occurrences, the struggles and the challenges of the mundane that we go through daily.
10:48
Chris Jones: These stories are meant to help us remember what our actual purpose is.
10:54
Chris Jones: See, this speaks to a demi-god culture, and we do have a demigod culture.
11:00
Chris Jones: Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are both on heroes' journeys.
11:05
Chris Jones: However, Luke Skywalker is staying on the path, and Darth Vader chose the path of a demigod.
11:12
Chris Jones: See, the path of a demigod speaks to your ego and your pride.
11:17
Chris Jones: I've called it before the serpent's venom.
11:20
Chris Jones: See, in the Garden of Eden, when Eve chose to take the fruit from the serpent, the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which represents the ideology of how we define good.
11:33
Chris Jones: And that ideology would bring the poison to humanity.
11:37
Chris Jones: But it was the serpent's venom that allowed Eve to choose that.
11:42
Chris Jones: And it was what he said, you'll be like God.
11:46
Chris Jones: Darth Vader in the veneer is a demi god.
11:51
Chris Jones: He is powerful.
11:52
Chris Jones: He has so much resources.
11:54
Chris Jones: He attracts, he draws, he is feared.
11:57
Chris Jones: He has power at his command.
11:59
Chris Jones: From the external, it looks like Darth Vader is in total control.
12:04
Chris Jones: However, Darth Vader is long off of his path.
12:08
Chris Jones: He has been on this path of a demi God going further and further from his actual destination.
12:15
Chris Jones: But in the moment of his redemption, when he chooses to save his son and sacrifice his own life and the life of his mentor that has taken him down the path of the demi God, which will allow Luke Skywalker to go on and save humanity.
12:34
Chris Jones: When we get off our path and we take the path of a demi God, which is our selfishness and our ego of what we want, we can get back to redemption.
12:45
Chris Jones: However, the path that is required, what you have to go through, you may have to go over a mountain, you may have to go over an ocean, you may have to go through the thorns dragging and kicking and screaming to get to that place of finding redemption.
13:01
Chris Jones: But there's no kind of redemption that can give you back your time.
13:06
Chris Jones: Once it's gone, it's gone.
13:09
Chris Jones: See, Darth Vader saves his son, and then he tells his son, Take off my veneer, I want to see you.
13:18
Chris Jones: And the moment that Luke takes off Darth Vader's helmet, he realizes that in the internal, Darth is sick, diseased, hurting and pain, alone and suffering.
13:31
Chris Jones: It's suffering without purpose.
13:34
Chris Jones: It's suffering from poor choices.
13:37
Chris Jones: And it's like a cancer in his soul.
13:40
Chris Jones: That this own pride and his ego is what is bringing him death.
13:46
Chris Jones: But don't we live in a demigod culture?
13:48
Chris Jones: Are we not given people that we call stars, actresses, actors, influencers, the rich, the powerful, the influential?
13:58
Chris Jones: Isn't this what we all are taught to strive to be?
14:01
Chris Jones: Do we not allow our children to be taught that their own lust, their own greed, their own desire for power is more important than other people's needs?
14:12
Chris Jones: Do they not see the people we celebrate as demi gods when they go to the nicest restaurants?
14:18
Chris Jones: Not only do they eat for free, they're paid to eat there.
14:20
Chris Jones: They are paid to wear the finest clothes, their stay at the finest hotels are for free.
14:26
Chris Jones: People lavish them with affection because of their love for them and their desire to be like them.
14:32
Chris Jones: Some of us would even step over the homeless, the sick, the diseased, the dying in order to give to these demi gods.
14:40
Chris Jones: And some of us are the diseased, the dying, because we wanted to be a demigod.
14:46
Chris Jones: After all, isn't a demi god just a hero that's refused to go to the cave?
14:51
Chris Jones: This is the poison within us.
14:54
Chris Jones: As we look back over the past 4,600 years across all these stories, from Gilgamesh to Luke Skywalker, we begin to realize something important.
15:04
Chris Jones: These aren't just myths or creative inventions, they are the truth written deep within human consciousness.
15:12
Chris Jones: Across cultures and across time, we've been telling the same story because it points to something greater.
15:19
Chris Jones: It points to the moment when the story itself stepped into history and the truth gave us the wisdom to understand the reason of the story.
15:29
Chris Jones: That if you look at Jesus' teachings of what he taught through discipleship, you'll find the wisdom and the answers to the knowledge that's been embedded in us for 4,600 years.
15:43
Chris Jones: Now, if you approach Jesus through religion as in worship of the deity of Christ, you might miss this.
15:51
Chris Jones: However, if you approach this as a disciple and that through discipleship of his commandment, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free.
16:02
Chris Jones: So keep an open mind, because this message is so strong that if Jesus was nothing more than a culmination of our best ideas from thousands of years of how we heal humanity, or Jesus was a historical figure that had this amazing brilliance, this epiphany, and was willing to sacrifice it all to save humanity, or he was the Son of God who brought us this understanding, any one of those three, and I'm still a disciple of Christ.
16:35
Chris Jones: The message itself is that powerful.
16:38
Chris Jones: Let me show you what I mean.
16:40
Chris Jones: Jesus says to his disciples, deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me.
16:47
Chris Jones: That whosoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
16:52
Chris Jones: Jesus gave us five life cycle stages that he demonstrates and then he says to do.
16:58
Chris Jones: That's what he means when he says, deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me, that whosoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
17:08
Chris Jones: See, Jesus demonstrated when he was facing these overwhelming challenges, that at the first stage was as he went into the Garden of Gethsemane.
17:18
Chris Jones: And it's in the Garden of Gethsemane where he tells God, I don't want to do this.
17:22
Chris Jones: Any way you can think of, shaping and forming and verbalizing this to God.
17:27
Chris Jones: That's what Jesus does.
17:28
Chris Jones: And he says, I don't want nothing to do with this.
17:30
Chris Jones: Take this from me.
17:31
Chris Jones: Let this cup pass from me.
17:33
Chris Jones: But when he realizes God's not going to change the path, he says, Your will be done.
17:39
Chris Jones: That's what he means by deny yourself.
17:42
Chris Jones: Now from here, he goes to the cross.
17:45
Chris Jones: This is where he dies to his immediate identity.
17:50
Chris Jones: And that's where we die to our will, our ego, our pride.
17:55
Chris Jones: It has to die.
17:56
Chris Jones: And we'll take on something different.
17:59
Chris Jones: It's dying to self, is what this is called.
18:02
Chris Jones: That's what he means by take up your cross.
18:05
Chris Jones: Now, the third part of this is Jesus went into the tomb.
18:09
Chris Jones: This is the cave.
18:11
Chris Jones: And we too will go into the cave.
18:13
Chris Jones: This is the longest part of the process.
18:16
Chris Jones: Now, what you need to know is the circumstances of everything that puts you into the cave do not go away.
18:23
Chris Jones: But your circumstances are used to help transform you into something different.
18:30
Chris Jones: See, when Jesus resurrects from the cave, he is not restored, he is transformed.
18:36
Chris Jones: Jesus doesn't do any of the things he did before he went into the cave.
18:41
Chris Jones: In other words, Jesus didn't heal, Jesus didn't feed the multitudes, Jesus doesn't perform any miracles.
18:48
Chris Jones: All Jesus does is witness.
18:50
Chris Jones: And he still bears the scars of what he went through and the process of the cave.
18:56
Chris Jones: But his scars will speak in ways his words can't, call it scars that speak or divine scars.
19:04
Chris Jones: The other people that need to hear that will hear it and they will see it, and you will be a witness to that process that brings life.
19:14
Chris Jones: It's the five life cycle stages.
19:16
Chris Jones: It's the Garden of Gethsemane of accepting the process, going to the cross, dying to self, your ego, your pride, giving up the serpent's venom, going into the cave or the cocoon.
19:28
Chris Jones: It's where your circumstances are used to transform you and change you.
19:32
Chris Jones: And when you come out, you will have scars from the processes that you've gone through.
19:37
Chris Jones: However, your scars will speak in ways that your words can't.
19:41
Chris Jones: That's the fifth life cycle stage of witnessing.
19:45
Chris Jones: That means you become the mentor and you help other people to get on their hero's journey and help them get to their cave.
19:53
Chris Jones: When somebody else is experiencing that kind of crisis in their life, their path stops.
20:00
Chris Jones: They lose their identity.
20:02
Chris Jones: That's when you become the call to adventure for them.
20:07
Chris Jones: That's when you give them the offer.
20:09
Chris Jones: Let me show you, let me mentor you, let me help you.
20:13
Chris Jones: And your scars speak to them on behalf of a way that they could understand no other way that is so counterintuitive.
20:23
Chris Jones: However, it's truth.
20:25
Chris Jones: And that truth heals humanity and it heals us.
20:29
Chris Jones: The hero's journey isn't about the hero, it's about us.
20:35
Chris Jones: It's how we save us.
20:36
Chris Jones: It's how we transform and how we give up the serpent's venom and how we take the commandment of Christ of love and we become the antidote to the poison.
20:46
Chris Jones: And we, humanity, heals humanity.
20:50
Chris Jones: It's not just a story, it's our story.
20:54
Chris Jones: And in it, our salvation.
20:57
Chris Jones: Thank you for joining me today on Spiritual Hot Sauce.
21:01
Chris Jones: Hit that follow button and give us the five stars.
21:04
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21:09
Chris Jones: Guys, again thank you.
21:10
Chris Jones: We'll see you again next time.