Tag: Labors of Hercules

McCall Gathering 2007, Part 43

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 43 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

Mastering the Ego

Audience: It seems to correspond somewhat to fear or to some force that you have a weakness with and Hercules choking it is like the law of attrition where the lion cannot get air anymore and it is now deflated.
Audience: Is the lion the personality?

JJ: Very close, what part of the personality in particular do you think?

Audience: Ego?

Audience: The pride?

JJ: Right, it is the ego, the personality and the faults and imperfections that go along with it. Why was everybody so terrified of the lion?

Audience: Have you ever tried to reckon with someone else’s ego?

JJ: (Laughing) Right, and especially our own. Remember all this is an extension of Hercules so looking at it this way, as disciples, are we afraid of our egos and our own lower personalities? Are we afraid of confronting that within our selves?

Audience: I think we are afraid to let it go – we are so wrapped up and invested in that being who we really are.

JJ: Right we do not want to slay it do we? We do not want to slay it because we identify with the lower self. We think that is who we really are but the truth is that we are really sons of God. We are really not that lion and we have to slay the personality so that what we really are can shine forth. We are really sons of God rather than just animal man.

Remember one of the symbolisms behind all the animals is the lower nature which is the animal self that has to be either mastered or slain. The animal self has to be mastered or slain in all of us. So it is interesting that this ego scared everybody. Externally if a person with a big ego comes in the room – have you ever noticed that nobody challenges the guy? They almost seem afraid if him especially if he is an authority figure of some kind. Have you ever been in a class where a distinguished professor is lecturing and nobody dares challenge him? Nobody dare asks him, “what makes you think you are right on this issue,” or point or whatever. Or a religious authority is visiting or something and no one asks “what makes you think that you are right?” Nobody dares to challenge the guy.

Audience: He is intimidating.

Yes he is very intimidating. Have you ever been around someone very intimidating and you felt like you did not dare ask him a question? Especially when I was younger I encountered a number of people like that and as I get older and wiser I am more prepared to confront the lion of the ego in myself, and others. When you think back to when you were younger in school, college it is amazing how easily people of renown and respect may have intimidated you.

So the lion represents the ego. Say you are having a party and when a dominant personality enters the room. People get the impression he speaks with authority and he speaks with a lot of ego presence. Everybody just listens and if people disagree with him they will say nothing. I have been in situations where nobody was speaking up and I thought, boy does everybody in this room think exactly the same way that this guy is talking? And so I challenge the guy and have an argument with him and later people will come up to me later and say, you know I really agreed with you and disagreed with him all the time and I am really glad that you spoke up and challenged the guy. It turns out that few really did agree with him but nobody challenged him because he was the like the lion that everybody was afraid to challenge.

Audience: Dan: Sometimes there is just doesn’t seem like there is any point though.

JJ: Yes, sometimes there is not any point and I do not do that all the time because it may be seen as rude or not do any good, but I do it when I feel that the guy has a powerful ego and he needs a little humility. I am on the mental plane like Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the physical plane and if the guy deserves it then I am going to let him have it. But if he is just rambling on and not making any point then fine but when I feel that these people are following him like sheep and the guy deserves to be questioned because he has such a powerful ego, then I am going to ask him a couple of little questions that is going to upset his little applecart.

When you do this, these guys usually get very upset and insinuate, “who do you think you are questioning me?” They are like the Nemean Lion in this labor of Hercules. Like I say though, it mostly applies to us because all of us have the ego to be conquered and mastered again and again.

We are told that we not only meet the lion in this labor but we meet the lion again and again as we go throughout our discipleship. It is not just slain once and then put away for good. We slay it and then it is dormant for a while and then in another lifetime it will wind up surfacing again. So all of us have to deal with it over a period of cycles until the ego is completely mastered.

Now what did it mean when Hercules wore the skin of the lion?

Audience: Well you still have to have a personality.

JJ: Right but he discarded the old skin and put on a new skin, what does this mean?

Audience: As you change you discard the old personality and put on a new one?

JJ: Often in different types of initiations in groups like the Masons you are given a new name and in the scriptures Abraham was given a new name, Jacob was given a new name. It was changed from Jacob to Israel.

Audience: Star Wars.

JJ: Star Wars?

Audience: Yea, you know where the dark lord sith says to Anakin Skywalker “I shall call you Darth Vader”

JJ: Yes the dark side copies the light.

Audience: You have seen too many movies!

Audience: Yes, I certainly have!

Audience: Laughter!

JJ: When Hercules was young he had become an aspirant and this caused him to change his personality and to put on a new skin right there. But then when he eventually had strong soul contact he shed his old personality and put on a new one. One of the things the Tibetan says about the personality is the disciple manufactures his own personality after he advances so far.

In other words, he decides what his personality is going to be. And so his personality then becomes developed again to become a useful tool for service, where his old skin was no longer useful and he felt he had no control over it. But the new skin he puts on shows us that he still has a personality that he likes and is useful in the service of mankind. He no longer says, “I am what I am and there is nothing I can do about it.” Have you ever tried to point out a needed change in a person and they say, “Well, that is just the way that I am, that is me.”

I will tell one more story then we will continue. When was on a mission for the Mormon Church every companion I was assigned to had at least one irritating thing about them. On a mission you change people you worked with about every 3 months and I got this new guy and I really liked him and I thought this was somebody that I liked completely except he had one little fault. He sang all day long. He sang Rogers & Hammerstein and at that time I did not like them very well for I liked rock & roll. He would sing this stuff all day long and we would be walking along and he would be singing, “Some Enchanted Evening” (JJ singing the line)

Audience: Roaring with laughter!

JJ: Now I was a little bit intimidated by the Nemean Lion in this guy and I did not say anything for about six weeks and finally I could not handle it anymore for it was just about to drive me crazy. Finally, I said, elder, you are a good singer of classical songs (putting it to him as gently as I could) but your singing is driving me crazy! Could you please not sing so much? And he told me – he said, “That is just who I am, sorry.” Then he began to sing again, “some enchanted evening.” (JJ singing the line again)

Audience: Roaring with laughter!

JJ: I felt like hitting the guy and knocking him out and boy was I ever happy to get transferred away from him! Laughing!

When Hercules finally went to slay the lion he had to chase it around and this is what we have to do with the ego. We have to pursue it because the ego is very elusive and it makes a lot of noise but once it finds out that you are going to master it and destroy its power over you, you find out that all that power was just noise and it is really afraid of you.

So you have to go after the lower self because the lower self wants to remain in control. You know if you pay attention to your lower nature it is almost like it is a separate entity. For instance, have you ever noticed that if you get angry you feel those stirrings inside of you and if you silence yourself down for a moment and let those emotions continue to rumble you will notice that it is like there are little lives inside of you with a life of their own.

There are little deva and elemental lives that are giving the anger that energy and this is an interesting thing to contemplate that when you feel these emotions they really have a life of their own. We are a composite life of many other smaller lives.

The easiest life to feel is the anger and even afterwards it lingers for a period of time, even if you get yourself in the soul. If you separate yourself and be the observer then you can see that your emotions are really not you but they are a vehicle composed of smaller lives, yet very potent. When these lower lives see that you are after them as a whole to master them and dominate them then instead of them coming after you, you must go after them for they become afraid of you.

The lower parts of our selves do not want to be dominated and they will resist domination completely and change shape or do whatever is necessary. Finally the lion goes and enters into a cave and what does this cave mean? A cave is normally symbolic of consciousness and whenever you have a dream and you dream of going into a room or a cave or anything like this it is a symbol of you entering into a conscious state which is hidden from your normal vision. In other words if you dream of entering a basement it is a symbol of lower consciousness. If you are going up stairs then you are going to a higher state of consciousness but there is usually something in these rooms that is hidden from your normal state of consciousness. So if you ever dream about going into rooms or a cave pay attention to what is going there because there will be clues there to what your subconscious mind is trying to give you that you are not catching onto in your physical life.

So the ego goes into this cave and Hercules goes after it in the depths of his own consciousness to try and find the ego but he cannot find it and the ego has disappeared. So the disciple searches for the ego to master and when he goes inside of himself he concludes that maybe my ego is not here after all and maybe I am okay and everybody is okay.

Then he finds the lion roaming around outside again terrorizing the neighborhood and he finds that he does have an ego to master after all. So what he finally does is to seal an exit. He recognizes that the ego is in his consciousness and the lower self has to be dominated and he is going to find it this time and is not going to allow an exit.

He goes into his own consciousness and examines himself and comes face to face with the problems created by his own lower personality. He finally realizes and comes face to face with the fact that his lower personality is creating a lot of problems for himself, his friends, his family, his community and it terrorizes and creates difficulties and problems.

Have you ever noticed that people often want to avoid someone with a very powerful personality? People think that the guy with a strong personality is well-liked but the truth is that few really want to be around him because of a powerful personality. They may want to be around him in maybe a professional relationship that serves their need but in the private intimate relationship the lion has few true friends for himself until he dominates the personality because people are agitated, irritated or scared of the powerful ego.

So the disciple comes face to face with that in himself. You will notice that many people that do become teachers have powerful personalities and many of them are hard to bear in normal or intimate circumstances. I hope I am not too hard for you people bear for I have been accused many times of having a powerful ego myself and I am sure every teacher has, but eventually everybody must come face to face with that ego and not allow it to exit and dominate it and slay it. Then one must take its skin and make clothes for the outer personality in a way that is intelligible and usable for the disciple.

You will notice that when Hercules goes into town wearing the lion’s skin that the lion’s skin is now a usable thing and does not scare anybody because that old life that was in it does not exist anymore. The new life of the soul which is now Hercules is now covered by the skin so when the soul is covered by the personality and within the personality is the dominate soul of Hercules then the people rejoice and are happy to have the skin of the lion there where before they were afraid or they did not like the lion in their community.

Audience: Could this labor correspond to the dweller on the threshold or not?

JJ: It could. Several of the labors in here could correspond to the dweller for the ego could be part of the dweller experience. I would not say it is directly related to the dweller because the ego does not attack us, it feeds us whereas when we go after the dweller it will attack us head with in a full frontal assault. It is a little bit similar but the personality itself is not the dweller. If I remember correctly one of these other labors, maybe involving the hydra, could more correspond to that dweller.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 42

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 42 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Nemean Lion

This next is a very interesting one and it is Curtis’s favorite because he is a Leo and it is about the slaying of the Nemean lion. There was once this land where people lived that was plagued by this giant, terrible, frightful lion. He roamed the countryside and if anyone got into his way he tore them to pieces and ate them and this terrified the people who lived there and they were afraid to go outside. People were starving to death because they could not even plow their fields for fear of getting eaten by this horrible lion. They did not leave their homes unless their life was at stake and this whole land was filled with terror because of this lion. He was a terrible thing and they were praying for some type of deliverer to come and free them from this horrible nightmare they were trapped in.

Hercules was told to go and free the people from the Nemean Lion. So all he takes with him is his trusty club along with his bow and arrows. So when goes to the land where the lion is they see that he traveled light with hardly any weapons. They wanted a man with armor and many weapons because this lion feared nothing. They wanted someone to put the fear of God into it and destroy it.

The people did not have much faith in Hercules because he traveled light but Hercules was sublimely confident and told the people that they did not to worry that he would take care of this lion. One day the lion shows up terrifying the land and its people and he spotted Hercules and he started to run towards him. Hercules did not run from the lion and this was the first man the lion had ever met who was not afraid of him.

Hercules stood his ground, prepared to fight the lion and as the lion approached him he became a little nervous thinking, “Why is this man not afraid of me?” He came very close to Hercules and let out a terrible roar that made the trees shake and Hercules just stood there ready to do battle with the lion. This made lion a little nervous so he took off and hid from Hercules. The story continues where Hercules had to pursue the lion. One time he got the lion within his line of sight and he shot an arrow at him and it just ricocheted off the lion and did not even hurt him.

Hercules wondered how he would kill this lion, he seemed to so powerful, but Hercules was determined to proceed because this was his mission so he had to kill this lion. He pursues the lion through the forest and the lion keeps evading him until finally they come to this cave.

Here Hercules has an idea, he will chase the lion into this cave and then the lion will have to face him. The lion goes into the cave and Hercules follows only to find that there is no lion in the cave and he cannot figure out where the lion went to, so he waits and he chases the lion in the cave again and once again the lion is not in there. So Hercules looks around the cave and he finds that it has an exit out the other side and he figures out that when he chases the lion in the cave, the lion then exits out the other side and escapes.

This time Hercules seals off the exit so that he cannot escape and has the lion cornered. He realizes that his bow and arrow are useless against the lion and the only way for him to kill him was with his bare hands. So he approaches the lion with only his bare hands and a great struggle ensues, after a great struggle with the lion he chokes him to death.

The garb that Hercules wore was made from the lion that he had killed when he was a child and this was very worn by now so he discards it and takes the new skin of the Nemean Lion that he had just killed and he asks his teacher if he could wear it to substitute for the old skin and the teacher said yes. So he put on the skin of the Nemean Lion and goes back to the towns’ people and explains to them that he has killed the lion and they are free. Hercules is wearing the skin of the lion. There is rejoicing throughout the land and Hercules is the hero, and he has accomplished his mission.

JJ: What do you suppose the lion represents?

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 41

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 41 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

Mastering the Intuition

Hercules would hold the doe close to his heart for he did not even have to chase him. Now what does this tell us?

Audience: That we are destined to become a part of the intuition.

JJ: Right the disciples pursue the doe over and over again and it gets easier and easier and eventually they develop the intuition to the extent that they can tune into it whenever they want. They can tune into the oneness principle whenever they want and they can have all the knowledge available but until the great struggle is consummated there is great difficulty. They see a little flash here and another little flash there. For instance, I hear a lot of people say they get soul contact and perceive things that are true a little bit here and there but the knowledge is fleeting and the source seems illusive.

Audience: So what connects the link or the anchor? Is that aspiration or focus? How do you create the link as when Hercules shot the doe in the foot?

JJ: Let us go through the symbolism. The arrow symbolizes the mind stretching and searching for truth at a higher level, so, in other words, to shoot the arrow you have to aim with a sure eye. So you are looking for the intuition but it is fleeting time and time again Then, all of a sudden, you spot it at a time when it is just sitting there. You rise to the intuitive level for the first time in many lifetimes. Perhaps you have gotten a glimpse of reality and it is not going away and you are in a state of consciousness which is just there, so you focus with your mind and anchor that position.

We have to create an anchor to keep the higher things with us. The will of God when perceived is fleeting like the intuition. There has to an anchor made with all higher realities and that is symbolized when Hercules shoots the arrow part where it anchors the higher and the lower in his consciousness and then he can go back and reflect on that moment when he had that higher state of consciousness and anchor it in the mind and secure it in consciousness. This allowed Hercules to capture the doe and keep it with him close to his heart.

Audience: So you basically focus and reflect on that bit of intuition that you had and contemplate it until it becomes anchored.

JJ; Right, in the beginning the doe is just fleeting about and you are not even sure you are seeing it because it fleets about so fast and you think, did I see the doe or did I not? I thought I saw and I saw enough to that I think it is there so I am going to pursue it. Eventually you have some experience come to you where heaven and earth is united within you. You use the intuition and you know you are focused upon it and you are sure of it and keep it in your sights and anchor it to the higher and lower self so you can return to that moment and retrieve the intuition of that thing anytime you want.

But there are all kinds of things to learn through the intuitive level and you will earn them and have to re-capture them. When you do it the second time is easier and the third is easier still and then eventually the intuition of the doe comes to you because it becomes your friend. Eventually you do not even have to search for it and it will come to you.

Audience: What is the meaning of putting the doe on the sacred alter?

JJ: this is a good question. It means that the things that you received from the intuition, you return to the alter of God. In other words, you give credit to God and you recognize that God is the source of the things that come through the intuitive mind.

Audience: I was thinking sacrificial.

JJ: No it is not a sacrifice but a dedication to God.

Audience: What is the relationship to the sign of Cancer with intuition?

JJ: That is a good question, Cancer is a water sign and Cancer is represented by the crab that sticks his arms and legs out into the feeling world and then brings them back and he does it very cautiously at first. He senses all these feelings for this is a normal thing for him. Now intuition is a higher octave of feeling.

The orthodox interpretation of Cancer concerns dealing with regular emotion, but here in the labor of Hercules we are talking about the higher level of feeling which is intuition so it is a little bit like the crab who explores the feeling world a little bit at time. It explores then withdraws, explores then withdraws, until it is finally able to feel comfortable with all those feelings out there.

He does the same thing on the higher world but he explores and gets a little taste of the intuition withdraws and then explores a little more until he immerses himself in the intuition and it becomes his friend so to speak.

Those who fought Hercules and tried to stop him were Artemis, which is instinct, and Diana the huntress which represents the intellect. Then there is Apollo the sun god who truly owned the intuition. In other words the intuitive level belongs to God within and that is where it rightfully belongs.  Then there is the false God without that is the source of illusion.

But there are two goddesses that claim it who do not have a right to it. In other words, many people think that instinct and intuition are the same thing and they are not. They are two different things. What is the difference between them?

Audience: Instinct is a built in drive of survival and intuition is a developed higher feeling nature that you have to acquire with hard work, attention and focus.

Audience; From my view it seems like instinct is submerged in details and facts of a situation and its nature is to react and respond to a stimulus whereas intuition is all above it and has that overshadowing kind of effect, it can understand and see.

JJ: Natives in the jungle are very instinctive because they are  in tune with the animal nature so they get a feeling when it is going to rain or they may know that there are certain dangers from an animal in the jungle that guys like us would not have a clue about. Or they may have a feeling as to where and find water or something like that.

Animals are very instinctive; they are instinctive as to when there is danger and this where their instinct helps to save their lives. Instinct is not intuition and because they are both kind of supernatural they are often times lumped together but they are two separate things. Intuition is a much higher octave of instinct in the fact that intuition is a super sensory thing that takes us to the intuitive plane where we bring down ideas, concepts and principles so that it is registered in the brain.

When this happens it does not have a lot to do with instinct, but just like instinct keeps us alive physically the intuitive nature keeps us alive spiritually. Now the other person that claimed it was Diana the huntress who represents intellect. She thought that the intellect, especially the higher intellect was the same as intuition. Because many people look at a problem and solve it through the intellect and they compare this to somebody else who has solved it through the intuition they think they are doing the same thing but they are not.

Solving something through the intellect can take you so far but in the teaching state, the mind slays the real and you get to the point where you reach a dead end with the intellect alone. You can solve a lot of problems with the intellect alone but in a lot of areas especially when we get into the spiritual dimension we reach a dead end and the most popular dead end for the intellect lies with a simple question, “Is there a God?”

You can make an intellectual argument for the existence of God and you can make an intellectual argument for their not being a God. The only way you are going to get a higher grasp of it is through the intuition – not through the intellect because you reach a dead end with it. You get into the intuitive level and when you get that flash of that doe you think that doe belongs to God and “if I follow that doe, I can find God.” This turns out to be true.

Many atheists have broken through the veil of atheism by seeing a glimpse of that doe after they hit that dead end and they think I am going to follow that doe to see if it does lead to God and they find out that it does. They discover God and find out the mystery through the intuition rather than the intellect. Then after they find out they use it again and again and again and they go and pursue the intuition and discover many dimensions of learning that was beyond what the mind alone could do. Every time something is discovered through the intuition seekers also find that it is satisfying to the intellect. It is logical and it makes sense and the person will ask, how come my mind could not figure this out because in hindsight it is really pretty simple. But to discover it they needed the intuition.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 40

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 40 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Capture of the Doe

Next is labor four – the sign of Cancer, the capture of the doe or hind. Hercules was told go and capture this doe which is very quick on its feet and runs around in the woods, and it is very fleeting. He says this is a real simple test for you Hercules; all you have to do is go and capture this doe and take it to the sacred alter. Hercules says, well that sounds pretty simple.

There are a couple other problems involved though; there are several other people that claim the doe. Diana the hunter who claimed to have ownership of the doe, Apollo the sun god claimed the rightful ownership and Artemis also claimed ownership as well. So three other gods claimed ownership of the doe and the presiding one says to Hercules that he might have a problem with them but go and find the doe anyway.

Hercules goes to the woods and every time he sees the doe it is very quick and fleeting. It feeds quickly and then jumps into the woods again. So he searches and catches another glimpse of it and pursues it and loses it again. It is just gone, it is really a very fast little thing for it goes through the pastures and it fleets through them very quickly and then it is gone.

On top of this, the other two gods, Artemis and Diana think they own it so they do everything they can to subvert Hercules and they trick him into not finding the doe. And for a long period time he just catches a glimpse here and a glimpse there and he has the hardest time trying to track down this doe – it is not as easy as he thought it was going to be.

Then finally he catches a glimpse of the doe in a pasture and very quietly he pulls his bow and arrow out and he shoots the doe in the foot and that slows it down enough to where he is able to grab it. He grasps it, holds it close to his heart and takes it to the great central alter of the gods. The gods accept the doe and tell him this is good and they will keep it but Hercules wanted to keep it to himself because he had spent so much time searching and tracking the doe. The gods said no, that he had to let it go.

So he left it at the sacred alter and then he came back the next day and found that the doe was not at the alter but fleeting around the woods again. He said boy this is weird what is going on here I took it to the alter and now it fleeting around the woods. I thought they wanted it left at the alter. The great teacher said to him, the doe must be captured again and again and again until it is held close to the heart and you are entirely familiar with it.

Does anyone have any idea what this doe is?

Audience: The soul?

JJ: Close, something discovered through the soul.

Audience: Wisdom?

JJ: No

Audience: Soul contact?

JJ: No

Audience: The mind?

JJ: No

Audience: Intuition?

JJ: Correct, we are all disciples like Hercules and commanded to go and find our intuition and when we first begin to develop it we just see a flash of it like the doe flashing through the woods and we say what was that? And when we first catch a glimpse of it we think that there is something important there but it came and went so fast that we didn’t get it. But you get a sense this is something one must pursue because there is something important in finding the intuition. So he continues to pursue it and he catches another glimpse and another glimpse and another glimpse and he does not get discouraged. He does not quit because the more he catches a glimpse the more the disciple understands that developing intuitive powers is extremely important. So finally he catches a glimpse of the doe in the pasture and he pulls his trusty arrow and he shoots the doe in the foot. Do you have any idea what that would symbolize?

Audience: Attention, focus?

JJ: does anyone remember what the Antahkarana is in the words of the Tibetan?

Audience: The link between the monad and the personality?

JJ: It is the link between the higher and the lower self. He established an anchor with the intuition, an anchor between the material side of life and the intuition. You establish that anchor by striking it in the symbolic foot. He did not strike it in the heart – he did not kill the intuition but it established an anchor or a link and by establishing a link with the intuition he was able to hold it close to the heart as he did when he carried it to the alter of God.

When he took it to the alter of God it seemed like he would then have it forever but it was released and there it was fleeting back in the woods again. This tells us that we have to establish an anchor and then we let it go a little and leave everything in the hands of God and behold all of sudden we pursue another line of endeavor and we find that we have to pursue the intuition all over again with another line of endeavor.

When we pursue the intuition the first time it leads us to the answer of some mystery or question or some principle that we are reflecting upon and then we get a full knowledge of that one thing. Then we have to leave it at the altar but when we want to seek another avenue of learning we find that the intuition is floating about the woods again. We have to rediscover it all over again.

It is interesting the story ends with Hercules staying at this particular place and going in and out of the gate of this particular labor and pursuing the doe over and over again not because he has to but eventually because he enjoys it. After a period of time going in and out of the gate, meaning going in and out of incarnation, he pursues the doe again and again and it says eventually the doe will become a friend to Hercules and later the doe even comes up to him. They become so close together that often times the doe would come up to him and Hercules would hold the doe close to his heart for he did not even have to chase him. Now what does this tell us?

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007, Part 37

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 37 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Golden Apples of Hesperides

The third labor Hercules and this is one of my favorites. It is the gathering of the golden apples of Hesperides. Hercules was commanded to go and gather these golden apples in this elusive field, he was told it would be difficult and he was not given much instruction as to how to do it. He was just told to go and find the golden apples of Hesperides. This was the third great labor and his teacher sent him on this mission.

He was not even sure what he was looking for outside of golden apples and they were well guarded and so he went high and low around the countryside and asked people everywhere he went about the golden apples and nobody seemed to know where they were. In other labors he confined his search to certain areas but in this one he searched throughout the entire earth – searching north and south and east and west even though he had very few clues.

Finally, the teacher thought Hercules was not making much progress “so we are going to send one of our guys to give him some help.” So they sent him Nereus to help Hercules find these apples. So Hercules kept bumping into him and Nereus kept giving him these hints and Hercules was oblivious to them as he bumped into Nereus again and again. He gave him other hints and Hercules ignored him.

This happened repeatedly until they about gave up trying to help Hercules find the golden apples but Hercules did not give up and kept looking and he finally received a clue. He went south and he found the golden apples, but a great and powerful dragon guarded the golden apples. Now Hercules had fought a dragon just after he was born and he thought fighting this dragon would be easy. He wrestled with this dragon and found that he could not overcome it and he struggled and struggled and the dragon kept getting stronger and stronger and then finally he had an idea. He noticed that the dragon seemed to take power from the earth and so he picked up the dragon and held it up in the air and as he held the dragon in the air the dragon seemed to lose its strength. So he kept the dragon in the air until he died and then he continued on his quest for the golden apples.

Then he met this teacher named Busiris and this teacher seemed to have the answers for everything and was so wonderful that he forgot all about searching for the golden apples. This teacher seemed to have great wisdom and completely captivated Hercules. Finally the teacher turned on him and bound and chained Hercules to a chair and kept him there for a full year bound and chained to this chair.

During this period Hercules still loved his teacher and finally after about a year Hercules realized this was not right – that his teacher should keep him bound like this – and he finally lifted himself as a son of God and he broke free from the chains and took his teacher and bound him the chair with the chains and he left him.

Then he continued on his quest to find the golden apples again. The next step as he was searching for the golden apples he came across Prometheus and he was bound and chained on this mountain and the vultures were trying to eat him up. They were picking at his liver and he was bleeding and he was in great pain. When Hercules saw that Prometheus was suffering so he said I cannot let this man suffer. So he gave up his quest for the golden apples and decided to help Prometheus and he broke Prometheus free and lead him to safety.

So Hercules began his quest to search for the golden apples one more time, and as he was searching for them again he came across Atlas who was holding the world on his shoulders. This was a great struggle for Atlas because he had the whole weight of the world on his shoulders and he was in great pain and discomfort, but Atlas felt a tremendous responsibility and he continued to hold the world upon his shoulders.

Hercules felt sorry for Atlas so he said, “I will give you reprieve. If you will slide the world over on my shoulders then I will hold it for you and you can go free.” And Atlas said well that sounds like a good deal and so Atlas slid the world over to Hercules shoulders and as he did this the world slid off of Hercules shoulders.

It turned out that the world could take care of itself. Not only was Atlas free but Hercules did not have to carry the weight of the world. After this happened Atlas said, “I have the golden apples,” and he went and picked apples from the tree and he handed them to Hercules. Then three maidens also picked apples from the tree and handed them to Hercules. It turned out that the apples could only be found through the journey that Hercules took.

So let us go through this parable and examine it. What do you suppose the golden apples represented?

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering 2007 Part 30

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 30 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The 12 Labors of Hercules

JJ: Today we are going to teaching about the Labors of Hercules. The principle behind these labors is this, The Labors of Hercules are twelve labors where the disciple has to go against the grain and contrary to where the everyday normal, regular person would go. In other words in each one of the labors there is a tremendously difficult job to be done and many say or think, “I can’t do it, my neighbor can’t do it, no one in the city can do it. It would be nice if some great Herculean or Messiah type person who would come forward and he would do the labor for us.

The everyday person feels that he cannot do this labor. He does not think he is equipped for it and he does not want to do it so he follows the path of least resistance. In the labor of Leo, for instance, the Nemean lion  is very dangerous and will eat anybody that crosses his path. He threatens the whole area. Everybody hides from the lion and nobody thinks, “why don’t I just go wrestle the lion and kill it?”

Nobody thinks this and it is entirely against the grain of everyone’s thought where this lion is terrorizing the community. And of course when Hercules comes along he does not even think of cowering to the lion. His only thought is how to destroy it and get the people out of harms way.

The basic teaching is this, we live many lives, and I believe it is about a thousand, within the system that we are in and during almost all the lives we follow the path of least resistance, learning through trial and error.

Our individual progress seems to correspond to humanity, Look at the beginning of recorded civilization, that which we know about, which was about six thousand years ago. We believe before this that were many other ancient people that lived on the earth but we will stick with what we know for sure. Through trial and error we invented fire, the wheel and all that and progress was really, really slow, and then around the14th, 15th, 16th, centuries progress increased. Finally just over 100 years ago all of a sudden we had an explosion of knowledge take place until we got to say 1930 or thereabouts. Then knowledge began to expand even more. About 95% of our technical progress has been made in the last 120 years and about 50% of that progress was made in the last 60 years or so.

It is amazing how we have just had an explosion of knowledge. This is similar to the way it is in the life of the disciple. He plods along and discovers the fire within and the wheels of life and progress is really slow and it is all by trial and error. Progress is mostly by accident or great need which causes him to discover a little principle here and a little esoteric knowledge there and he discovers that in his elemental lives maybe he will not be such a thief, or quite so cruel or maybe begin to treat those around him a little better. The basic principles takes hundred of lives to drum into his head. Just like in humanity it took thousands of years to just get the basics of civilization down to where we could live half way comfortably.

I know this is kind of uncomfortable thing to talk about but a hundred years ago we did not even have good toilet paper. I remember when I was a child half the time we had to use the Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogs. And what they did before Sears catalog I do not know. I wondered about what they did in ancient times and then I was watching the Discovery channel and they had a show about the ancient Roman bathrooms. If you a were rich you had a personal sponge that you carried around with you and after you used it you rinsed it off and you put it in your little case and if you were not rich then I do not know what they used and I do not even want to think about it!

Look how much better off we are today than the rich Romans or kings. We eat better now than a king ate 200 years ago. This is amazing when you think about it. I have been going through “The History of Civilization” by Will Durant and what those people went through in the old days is amazing and it is also amazing that when someone disagreed with another and they were the one in authority the other guy got tortured in some way like, burned with fire, pulled apart, molten lead poured down his throat, his appendages cut off or worse. Those guys had no mercy for each.

People read in the Bible about ancient times and say, boy those people in the Bible were not all that righteous – look what they did. If you look at the Hebrews and they seem kind of cruel by today’s standards but then you read in ancient history about the people that lived outside the Hebrews and they made the Hebrews look really good in comparison. So you have to look everything in perspective for the Hebrews were a notch above the rest of civilization on how they treated their enemies. At least they had the Ten Commandments to use as guideline and not kill each other in very brutal ways.

They had some freedom of thought but the everyday kings and tyrants that ruled the earth in ancient times were extremely cruel. So we have made a lot of progress since then and, like I mentioned earlier, everything is learned by trial and error and pain. Just like it took us a tremendous amount of pain as a civilization to get away from torturing each other in very cruel ways. Finally in most of the civilized world we do not routinely torture each other.

You have heard some say that at Guantanamo we are torturing those guys and one of the ways they feel like they are tortured is the female cadets there reveal the outline of their breasts too much and they say, Ah that is torturing me! That is one of the tortures I read about and I thought well, women could torture me all they want in ttat manner and that would be fine with me!

Audience: Laughing!

Audience female member: That is why today the women in India wear shawls so the men are not diverted from their attentions.

JJ: People today do not know what torture is. In North Korea and some other places those poor people there really have it bad if they step out of line. The average person is just trying to survive on grass and tree bark and things like that.

Some think waterboarding is terrible today but in the past kerosene and feces was used instead of clean water. I guarantee you’ll get no volunteers to undergo that type of waterboarding as we have now using water.

So the disciple progresses and as we incarnate we do so around the Zodiac. It is not a completely black and white thing but is the general principle. We incarnate around the Zodiac clockwise and then eventually as we get to the point to where we turn and tread the path with the most resistance, the path less traveled by as talked about the poet,.

As we go on the path less traveled by then our soul reverses us around the Zodiac and instead of going clockwise around the Zodiac, we are now going counterclockwise. So the Labors of Hercules go counterclockwise around the Zodiac beginning with Aries.

The Labors of Hercules covers twelve labors but I believe that many of them cover more than one life. For instance, in the labor where he finds the doe it says he passed through the gate numerous times until the doe got easier to find and the doe learned who he was and became close to his heart. We will tell you what the doe is as we proceed.

So especially in certain signs the disciple may want to go and visit again and again to make sure he is very strong in that particular labor. Whether or not the people in this class are undergoing the Labors of Hercules, it matters not because the principles that allowed Hercules to accomplish these labors can be used by any of us and gives many of us motivation, learning and tools to deal with our lives. Forget about wondering if any of us in this room are under going the Labors of Hercules, or are disciples of that quality. We can all use the tools that Hercules used during the labors even if we are a long way from being like Hercules.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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The Last Life, Part 2

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 19 of 49 in the series JJ Lectures

Perhaps another question would be, is there such a thing as a last life?power and he will have

Audience: I don’t think so; I think that even if you go through the initiations and reach the Christ initiation, which is what, the fifth initiation?

JJ: Yes to be a Master you have to go through five initiations, but the Christ was working on his seventh.

Audience: So even if you were to reach the fifth initiation you could still have another life so I don’t think you could ever be done.

JJ: Okay there is an interesting scripture that talks about the concept that we will have eternal lives on eternal worlds, worlds without end. In the true reality there is no last life but there is a last life to a particular field of endeavor and activity. Now we are under going a human evolution, to learn everything we need to learn going through our human in our sate. It takes many lifetimes and eventually we will reach a life where we will be like Christ and we will have all the mastery that Christ had and we will reach a point where we will say to ourselves well it looks like there is not too much more for me learn by coming back again except for maybe make a second coming somehow.

Now the second coming of the Christ could mean just being born as babe again and this is entirely possible but something that is not revealed and He does not want this revealed, why? Because when He comes He wants people to recognize Him because of what is inside of Him and not because it is proclaimed, “I am Christ obey me, bow before Zog!” You know the guy in superman movie.

That is the way everybody thinks that Jesus is going to be when He comes, destroy all the those wicked son of guns and then everybody will say, just tell me what to do, I will do whatever you say now lord. And then he starts bossing everybody around saying things like, “We are going to change this, we are going to get rid of President Bush and we are going to install a cabinet of zealous born again members and we are going to do this and that.” That is not the way it is going to be at all. If you want to know what it is going to be like the second time then look and see what He was like when He was here the first time. Did He boss anybody around the first time?

Even when He knew Judas was going to betray Him did He do anything to stop him? No He did not do a thing and just let Judas go ahead and betray Him. Did He try to unseat Caesar? No, did He interfere with anyone’s free will? No, the only thing that made Him cantankerous was one thing and does anybody remember what that one thing that He criticized was?

Audience: The profit for moneymakers in the temple.

JJ: But why did He criticize these guys?

Audience: They were making the profit and not doing…

JJ: It is one word and begins with the letter H.

Audience: Hypocrisy?

JJ: Hypocrisy, hypocrisy was the one thing that really irritated Him and He could not stand hypocrites. They brought a woman that committed adultery before Him and they said that they caught her in the act and we know she is guilty and the law says that she must be stoned – and what did He say? Did He say well she is pretty wicked all right and if you caught her in the act then that pretty much proves it. No He said let him who is without sin cast the first stone. And everybody’s own conscience condemn them so nobody could throw that first stone because everybody felt like they had done things within the boundaries of sin.

But when He had come across the religious leaders of His time His patience wore thin and as you know He cleaned the temple out with a whip and being as perfect as He is, we have the image of Jesus as being so mild and meek but He was normal so to speak. If you read the scriptures you get the image of a very kind loving person except when He was confronted with Hypocrisy and then he spoke very decisively about it and completely honest even at the risk of His life because a couple of times they tried to stone him.

He was completely fearless, which is another thing that if a person is on his last life he will have a certain amount of supernatural power and he will have fear under control. He will speak the truth, and this is one of the key ingredients in overcoming all things is the Truth. Not only finding the truth but being the truth so that everything that you teach, everything that you do and say and every time that you give your word it is true and if you can do that it will move you farther along to overcoming all things to being a master than anything else.

Suppose you meet a Master and the Master tells you, they have an important mission for you and want you to go down to Albertson’s and run around the store naked and draw attention to yourself and then they are going to bring an angel down and overshadow you with light and everybody is going to see a new vision. Then, after you obey this the Master says he was just joking and was just screwing with you.

Audience: Laughing!

JJ: But, in our minds, if we were to meet God, a Master or a Great Being we just assume what they tell us is true. Why do we assume that?

Audience: Because we give them authority.

JJ: That is part of it but we give them the authority because instinctively within ourselves we know that when a person manifests his god self there is truth in it and we instinctively know that within us. That is why if we were to meet such a being and we felt that divine presence we would have a high amount of trust in what that person would have to say. But many people that feel this way, on the other hand, think that I can deceive here and there myself and it is no big deal and nobody got hurt. Now why does he think that he can be on his last life and deceive when others who preceded him can come to him and he can reply on them 100%? It does not work that way.

We have to follow in the steps of the Great Ones so that what we say can be relied upon. When we reach a point where what we say can be relied upon as truth, truth as we know it to be, then that is a giant step in attaining our last life in this cycle. There are many ideas about how many lives that we have. If we went back clear to our beginning we would find that we went through thousands of lives but in this particular round that we are in right now I believe we go through approximately one thousand lives before we achieve liberation and the reason I believe that is because within our selves we have petals in each one of our chakras and these petals unfold as we master certain types of energies.

In the base of the spine there are four petals, in the solar plexus there are ten petals and in the heart center there are twelve petals and then in the center between the eyebrows for instance there are two major petals and in each one of these major petals there are forty eight on each side making ninety six small ones all together. The ninety six petals in the center between the eyebrows and then below the third eye you have forty eight and that makes a 144 petals in that area of the head. Then at the crown chakra you have approximately one thousand. So you have one thousand times the 144 equals the magic number of the 144,000.

Now in this round of existence I believe that each petal on the crown chakra stands for a lesson learned in one lifetime and in each lifetime we unfold a new lesson and learn a new characteristic a new ability a new piece of wisdom a new realization – something new that we learned and we cause one of the petals at the crown chakra to unfold in each lifetime until the last and then all of them are unfolded.

Now lets take our heart chakra, for instance, when it unfolds we have twelve petals. Six petals are connected with wisdom and six petals are connected with compassion and love. So we have these two groups of petals and when a person begins to understand the Christ love then one of the love petals begins to unfold and when it unfolds you have a new energy come and you may see love in an entirely new light, and an entirely new way of looking at it that you have never thought of before. Then when one of the wisdom unfolds all of a sudden you get more common sense than you have had before and common sense would be related to one of the wisdom petals, and then light and understanding is related to another one of the wisdom petals.

It takes about a thousand lifetimes for all these petals to unfold. Now the person goes through a lot of trial and error for hundreds and hundreds lifetimes and does not seem to make a lot of progress. The curve goes about like this, it is almost straight for one hundred lifetimes, two hundred lifetimes, three hundred lifetimes and then about between seven and eight hundred lifetimes you begin to start making some real progress and then as you are approaching the thousand number in your lifetimes you begin to realize that there are two flows. You have always heard the statement, especially in the new age community, just relax and go with the flow, but there are two flows. There is one that goes toward matter and there another flow that moves toward spirit and you do not pick up the second flow, the spiritual flow, until you near the end of your evolution – until you become a seeker and you hunger and thirst for truth (a disciple).

When you are hungering and thirsting after for truth then you pick up the second flow and you have to go with that and then you complete what is called the “The Labors of Hercules”. In the Labors of Hercules what happens is you pick up the second flow and you reverse the direction of your incarnations around the zodiac. We incarnate through the various signs of the zodiac clockwise as we begin our evolution until we reach near the end and when we reach near the end and perform the Labors of Hercules we go with our spiritual flow and it reverses our flow through the zodiac. We incarnate backwards at this point and incarnating backwards and going against the material flow each lifetime will be a tremendous struggle.

For instance I believe Abraham Lincoln performed one of the Labors of Hercules under Aquarius. He was born in Aquarius and in Aquarius Hercules had to clean the Augean stables and the king promised him a portion of his kingdom (10% of his cattle) if he would clean these out. Hercules cleaned the stables out and then when the king refused to pay him Hercules demanded he keep his promise. The king thought the only way to get rid of him was to kill him so Hercules had to flee for his life. So he did all this work and got no reward. Abraham Lincoln was a great example of that, he did all this work in freeing the slaves and his only reward was people wanting him dead.

Abraham Lincoln performed the quintessential Labor of Hercules in Aquarius. He performed a superhuman effort and cleaned up the slave mess so to speak and received no reward for it while he had lived. Of course he took his reward with him but he did not get much reward while he was alive.

He had a really bad wife too. Historians judge her to be the worst first lady in history. They were at a party one time, a big function with dignitaries and Abraham Lincoln said something a little bit off to his wife and she took a pie and threw it right in his face. She was just a terrible person to get along with. She wanted to be called Mrs. President and she really was into the glory of the office. It is amazing that with the distraction of having his wife being so cantankerous that he was able to be so patient with everyone else as well as fight one of the two greatest wars in our history. Djwhal Khul called him a racial avatar, placing him in similar category as a prophet of ancient times.

 

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

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