The Real Intention and True Message

of  “Creation” Myths

by

Ruchira Avatar Adi Da Samraj

 

Popular traditional religion tends to be associated with
“Creation” myths, or archetypal and allegorical stories (which certainly
do not qualify as eyewitness reports on the origins of the physical world)
that, in their proposed details, try to account for the existence of the
world and mankind as the effects of acts on the part of either one
or many Deities (or cosmically Powerful Beings). The origin of such stories
is in the “primitive” awe of existence experienced by (generally) pre-“civilized”
human individuals and groups. That awe was experienced in relation to the
mysteriously and unaccountably existing natural and human world, and the
“Creation” stories were themselves human psychic creations, or projections
of the human psyche onto (and through) the natural forms of existence.

Indeed, “primitive” myth-making expresses a fundamental
and profound (and, ultimately, Spiritual) Realization, that the
“natural” world is not merely physical, but it is entirely psycho-physical,
or an interplay of the psychic (or the mental, or the “invisible”) and
the physical, and that both the “visible” (or physical) and the (generally)
“invisible” are Rooted In What Transcends both psychic and physical phenomena.
Likewise, that same Realization affirms that human existence (fully embraced)
is not merely a matter of knowing and suffering (or otherwise manipulating)
physical events, but it is a kind of Quest, or Great Ordeal, wherein the
human individual (and human cultures) must ever strive to achieve psychic
unity (or psychic reunification) with the natural world, psychic (and total
psycho-physical) association with the Power that pervades the natural world,
and Ultimate Realization of the Inherently Perfect (or, Inherently, Perfectly
Free and Happy) Condition beyond even the total (or psycho-physical) world.
And this Great Ordeal is (or was, and must be) presumed to involve constant
transcendence of merely physical reality by the constant invocation (or
evocation) of the psyche, the Great Power (or many Great Powers, or many
lesser powers) that can Help it, and the Great (or True and Inherently
Perfect and Perfectly Subjective) Self-Condition That Is its Ultimate Source-Condition.
Therefore, the “Creation” stories (and even all culturally operative myths)
were (or are) intended not merely to account for natural existence, but
to project human beings into a participatory psychic (and not at all abstracted,
or merely intellectual) relationship to the natural world (including its
“invisible” or “inner” dimensions).

“Creation” stories generally communicate via images associated
with the physically (or gross bodily) based psyche (although they may contain
representations of “psychic” contents that are meaningful in the context
of each and all of the first five stages of life). And although one God,
and many Gods, and many Goddesses are described in “Creation” myths as
the Causative Powers (or “Creators”) of the world and mankind, the original
motive and source of these descriptions was not any otherwise independent
experience of either the local or the universal Deity (or Deities), but
the primal (or psychically “primitive”) experience of awe (or fear and
wonder) in the context of gross bodily existence in the “natural” (or conditional
and cosmic) world.

In other words, the “creative” source (or productive motive)
of “Creation” myths was (or is) not “God”, “Gods”, or “Goddesses”, but
the psychically (and psychologically) mysterious and terrible experience
of physical existence and the physical world (or physically defined bodily
existence within the physical periphery, or “outer” limits, of the psycho-physical
world). On the basis of that experience, the human psyche anciently began
(and always presently begins) its “natural” work of generating (or spontaneously
Revealing) psychically effective means for transcending fear (or the separate
and separative ego-self) and for Realizing true (or fearless) participation
in (and Ultimate Unity, or even Inherently Perfect Identification, with)
the apparent world (and the “Beyond”). And once human beings began to participate
psychically (or psycho-physically) even in the gross phenomenal world,
they (or the psyche itself) began to develop complex mythological (or archetypal
and allegorical) representations of the Mana (or Spirit-Power) that (it
was naively presumed) magically, or miraculously, or omnipotently causes
(but, really, only pervades) all effects (and can, therefore, Help human
beings in the Great Quest).

The fully developed ancient “Creation” myths originally
appeared (or began their development) in animistic societies (wherein every
thing, event, person, or process was felt to be a manifestation of its
own individual mana, or spirit, or power). As collective myths (and societies
themselves) developed over time, a hierarchy of powers was conceived (just
as societies themselves were conceived hierarchically— from the chief,
or king, at the top to the slaves at the bottom). Thus, animistic myths
of local powers were progressively enlarged toward a cosmic description
of senior and great Powers. And these descriptions were themselves often
developed to the degree of hierarchical grandness, with the “One” (or the
One “God”, or the One “Mind”) at the top and all multiplicity (of “Gods”,
“Goddesses”, powers, worlds, things, and lesser beings) expanding (by stages)
below. (Therefore, the “One”, even as “Creative God”, was not the exclusive
and original discovery—or, as some would have it, the exclusive and original
invention—of any particular society or culture, although some proponents
like to argue or claim that the Jews were the originals in this regard.
However, the Jews in particular—in reaction to their early historical
disintegration as an independent political collective, and in anticipation
of the dispersal of Jewish people among the peoples of all nations—did
raise their own tribal, or local, God to the status of a universal and
Absolute “God”-King of all nations. And this universalizing, and
rather political, or “civilizing”, tendency of progressive Jewish, and,
later, Christian and Muslim, monotheism eventually provided a basic justification
for all Western political, social, and cultural efforts toward the unification,
and even the universal Westernization, of mankind.)

In any case, the truly original and really “creative”
source of all ancient and traditional “Creation” myths was the native
“interior”, or the archetypal and hierarchical design of the human psyche
itself (which apparently is eternally existing, or is at least existing
prior to, and sometimes coincident with, and not merely subordinate to—or
merely dependent upon, or existing merely as an effect of—gross bodily
existence). And, as it was perceived by shamans and psychic visionaries
and seers of all kinds (for whom the “invisible” sometimes becomes “visible”,
or Revealed even within the interior mechanisms of gross perception), the
“Great Within” is (from the gross bodily point of view) grounded in the
body—and
it extends upwards, even bodily, to the subtler reaches of the body-mind
and the subtler (or higher) reaches of the mind itself (and the psycho-physical
cosmos itself). Ultimately, both high and low are to be Most Perfectly
transcended in the Beyond That Is the Heart Itself, or the One Divine
Reality of Being (Itself).

Clearly, the ancient “Creation” myths (and all myths in
general) were (or are), by virtue of traditional (or otherwise spontaneous
and “natural”) techniques of psychic inversion (or inwardness), psychicallyinspired
(or at least inspired via the psyche)—and, therefore, all types of mythic
“thinking” express the many and various possible levels of traditional
(and possible) human psychic (or psycho-physical) participation in the
apparent world. Therefore, no such traditional myths are Absolute, and
none of them are based on any kind of scientific (or analytical and basically
non-participatory) conception or perception of the physical world. Rather,
all of them are based on a purely psychic (or entirely participatory) urge
toward the total (or psycho-physical) world. And in all such myths, it
is not the physical world (or its array of physical causes and physical
effects) but the innate design of the human psyche (and even the total
psycho-physical and—as it may, in due course, be Realized—Spiritual anatomy
of Man) that is the principal subject displayed by means of myth.

Ancient myth-making was fundamentally an expression of
“primitive” magic (or magical ritual), mysticism, and Spirituality, rather
than an early (or “primitive”) form of science. The myth-makers were not
merely trying to describe how physical forms are (in the mechanical, or
merely physical, sense) produced, but (since physical forms already existed)
the myth-makers were trying to raise human existence to a greater level
of participation (or ecstasy) in the total context of natural (or psycho-physical)
existence. Therefore, myths were, originally (and rightly) psychic tools
(used along with many other cultural and psycho-physical means) for the
achievement of magical, mystical, and (ultimately) Spiritual “intoxication”
and ecstasy, or the Realization of a psychic state of non-separation, non-fear,
and Ultimate Unity (or even the Realization of the Ultimate Identity).
And myths (or myth-making societies) were (or are), therefore, not merely
pre-scientific—and thus, according to the scientific (or, really, materialistic)
view, wrong—but myths and mythmakers represent the specifically
religious
(or non-scientific, and non-materialistic) form of human culture
and individual endeavor, which form of culture and endeavor is, even now,
in its greatest (or most difficult) moment of struggle (in the face of
the worldwide trend toward submission to the materialistic philosophy and
culture of scientism and gross technology).

In the process of the pursuit of hierarchically greater
and greater levels of ecstasy, visionaries (or ecstatics of all kinds)
developed the ancient concepts (or psychic perceptions) of the “chain”
or “ladder” (or innate hierarchical structure) of the cosmos. And the ecstatic
experiences of Ultimate Unity (and even Ultimate Identity) achieved by
certain uniquely great individuals eventually led some cultures to postulate
(or give mythic acknowledgement to) an Ultimate Singleness (described in
theistic cultures as the “One God”).

The ancient and traditional myths have been culturally
transmitted down to the present day via traditional religious cultures
and sects. And each culture or sect tends to value its own myths as exclusive
and final “Truths”. However, now that mankind is gathered as an intercommunicative
whole, the provincialism (or tribalism) of exclusive myth and exclusive
religion has become both obvious and untenable. Therefore, more and more,
mankind must receive all traditions together as a basically single
Great Tradition—and that Great Tradition must be rightly interpreted and
fully understood (and final Truth must be Clearly discriminated from the
progressive display of partial and tentative truths).

Relative to “Creation” myths themselves, they should not
merely be criticized and dismissed as pseudo-science, but they should be
understood as exoteric artifacts of “primitive” (and even esoteric) magic,
mysticism, and Spirituality (and even Spiritual philosophy). And it is
no longer either necessary or appropriate for religion itself to base itself
on (or otherwise depend on) “natural” or cosmic arguments for the existence
of “God”. As all the Great Seers have proclaimed, God (or Ultimate Reality,
and Truth, and Happiness Itself) is not “out there” (at the beginning of
a long chain of events in the objective context of the merely physical
world). Rather (as the myth-makers themselves were demonstrating in the
very making of “Creation” myths), God, Truth, Ultimate Reality, or Happiness
Itself Is “within” (or In the context of the total—or psycho-physical,
and, also, as it may, in due course, be Realized, Spiritual—world). Indeed,
Real God Is Existence (or Being) Itself. Real God, Truth, Ultimate
Reality, Happiness Itself, or Existence (or Being) Itself Is Self-Evident
(unless the mind interferes and disagrees and seeks). And Real God, Truth,
Ultimate Reality, Happiness Itself, or Existence (or Being) Itself is,
therefore, not to be “proven” by conceptual argument, but God, Truth, Ultimate
Reality, Happiness Itself, or Existence (or Being) Itself is, therefore,
not to be “proven” by conceptual argument—but Real God, Truth, Ultimate
Reality, Happiness Itself, or Existence (or Being) Itself is to be directly
Realized (by ego-transcending psychic participation in the psyche itself,
or the total psycho-physical design in which the personal self inheres—and,
Ultimately, by Inherently Most Perfect transcending of the psyche, or the
total body-mind, itself and the entire psycho-physical world).

The Message of all “Creation” myths is a Call to magical,
mystical, and Spiritual ecstasy, progressively transcending the hierarchies
of “Creation”. Myths themselves (or myths of every kind) are not a call
to mere belief, but a call to ecstatic (and, therefore, effectively ego-transcending)
Real-God-Realization (or to even Spiritual Realization of the Truth, or
Real Condition, of cosmic existence). And, once myths themselves (and all
the categories associated with the first five stages of life) are Out-Grown,
the final Call is to Realization of That Which Is—Beyond all conditional
and cosmic categories. As long as the propagation of “Creation” myths (and
religious myths in general) is limited to the domain of popular exoteric
religion, all myths are used more or less exclusively to support the popular
(and “creaturely”) social, political, and institutional purposes of public
“civilization”—but, if religious myths are visited in the context of the
real process of self-understanding and participation in the esoteric Spiritual
culture of ecstasy (or effective self-transcendence), then they serve as
psychic reminders of the Great Ordeal that leads not to a “Place” above
the stars, but to the Transcendental, Inherently Spiritual, and Self-Evidently
Divine Self-Condition and Source-Condition (transcending both “outside”
and “inside”)—the Beyond That Is the Heart Itself.

And just as that Great Ordeal does not (or should not)
stop either in the world of the gross body or in inner visions of the cosmic
Man, it is not necessary that religion itself begin in (and it is certainly
neither appropriate nor sufficient that it end in) belief in a “Creator”-God
(or even many “Creator”-Gods or “Creator”-Goddesses). Indeed, such “Creator
and creature” beliefs are primarily about the world (and only secondarily
about Real God, Truth, or Inherently Perfect Reality)—and, therefore,
they tend to affirm and idealize gross (or “creaturely”) human and social
existence, rather than to effectively guide human attention to ego-transcendence
in Real God, Truth, Inherently Perfect Reality, or the Ultimate Realization
of Happiness Itself. Therefore, may not religion begin as it (in Truth)
must end—with self-understanding and a (soon direct) Spiritual Awareness
of That Which Merely (or Inherently Perfectly) Contains, Pervades, and
Transcends the world (while the world itself is made and unmade by every
kind of conditional and even Godless cause and effect)? And is it not by
religion itself that Real God, Truth, or Inherently Perfect Reality becomes
“Creative” (when Man opens at the core, and, by psychic participation,
opens the world at the core, thus giving room to Spirit-Power), whereas
otherwise (apart from total, or psycho-physical, and ego-transcending Surrender
to Truth) the world and Man are “Created” and changed by much and all that
is not Divine? Indeed, if Real God, Truth, or Inherently Perfect Reality
were the Direct, Simple, and Only “Creator”, religion would not be necessary
to convert, and raise up, and “Perfect” any one at all, but Perfection
Itself would “Picture” here in the Perfection of all “Creation” (from the
beginning, unchanging, and never ending).

Until the One and Perfect Is Realized (and “Perfected”
in Its “Bright” Demonstration), all the countless imperfections gather
in twos and threes to pester and break the Heart. And this begins at the
“beginning” itself, or in every present instant of perceived (or otherwise
intended) separation between “light” and “dark”, “this” and “That”, “Heaven”
and “Earth”, and the “other” and “I”. Therefore, the true Message of myth
(or of religion itself) is ego-transcendence. If by myth (or by any other
means) the natural (or psycho-physical) world and the human self are conceived
and perceived to arise within the Context of the Spiritual and Transcendental
Divine, then the total world and the human self are not merely to be desired
and clung to for their own sake (as if they were an irreducible necessity),
but the total world and the human self are to be progressively (and directly,
or even immediately) transcended In the Spiritual and Transcendental
Divine (Which Is the Only Necessity).