“The boon bestowed on the worshipper is always scaled to his stature and to the nature of his dominant desire: the boon is simply a symbol of life energy stepped down to the requirements of a certain specific case. The irony, of course, lies in the fact that, whereas the hero who has won the favor of the god may beg for the boon of perfect illumination, what he generally seeks are longer years to live, weapons with which to slay his neighbor, or the health of his child.”

A. The Mistaken Boon

1. The hero often mistakes the boon for immortality of the body.

2. However, the body and personality obstruct one’s view of “real” immortality, which is a present fact.

3. To know eternity is to be enlightened—not to recognize eternity leads to disorder and evil.

4. The decay of the body is not to be feared; it is part of the cycle of life—life-death-rebirth—evident in all of nature.

B. Midas (an example of the mistaken boon)

The Greeks tell of King Midas, who had the luck to win from Bacchus the offer of whatsoever boon he might desire.

He asked that everything he touched should be turned to gold. When he went his way, he plucked, experimentally, the twig of an oak tree and it was immediately gold.

He took up a stone, it had turned to gold; an apple was a golden nugget in his hand. Ecstatic, he ordered prepared a magnificent feast to celebrate the miracle.

But when he sat down and set his fingers to the roast, it was transmuted; at his lips the wine became liquid gold…

And when his little daughter, whom he loved beyond anything on earth, came to console him in his misery, she became, the moment he embraced her, a pretty golden statue.

C. Divinities vs. The Source

1. Divinities are symbols representing various stages of the path.

2. They are custodians of the Imperishable Being, but not the Ultimate in its primary state.

3. The gods as icons are not the goal; the goal is not to go up to, but past them into the yonder void.

D. The Ultimate Source

1. The Source is beyond theological dogmas, which are recognized as pedagogical lures—or the “concrete clutter of facts and events” for the unadroit intellects only.

2. Instead, the hero must enter a rarified zone where all existence is recognized as a lightly passing, recurrent, childhood dream of bliss and fright.

3. There the hero lifts his eyes to the one Eternal light (the source behind all divinities)…

4. the imperishable, miraculous energy-substance.

E. The Agony of the Ultimate Boon

1. The pain of breaking through personal limitations is the pain of spiritual growth.

2. To transcend to the “ineluctable void” (past all symbols and divinities)…

3. It is beyond the known and the unknown as well; the single, inscrutable mystery.

4. It is the ultimate crucifixion—not just of the hero himself, but his god as well.

5. The font of life is the core of the individual.