The New Olympian

The way the kids tell the story … the hero shot the leader of the bandits … after killing all his men … and the bandit leader on his point of death asks … ' who are you? ' … the hero gives his name … and the bandit replies in a tone of disbelief … ' I thought you were dead..' Such a hero would have been viewed an Olympian … they keep working at it until they drop.

In Biblical terms the state of the hero would be viewed as ' death and resurrection ' … but the setting of the story … implied an invitation to understand the mystery of God. In the Gita … the trainer tells his student who wants to quit that ' only in running away will you lose.' In each of these instances … man is schooled into understanding something more about the human condition … that it is stronger than what most people think.

An American actor and film producer was once told that ' he's just a pretty face ' but in the past so many years he proved beyond any doubt … that he had heart and the will to succeed. His situation is entirely representative of our lives … we are all born pretty these days. The advances of medical science … nutrition … grooming and fashion … and the way we raise children with positive attitudes … have all contributed to the phenomenon. Its certainly a hallmark of civilized society.

However the attending influences on good looks and vanity can turn the experience into a dumpster of waste. It ought to be curious to our society that such is the emerging condition of man everywhere … and to create all responses consistent with handling good looks in a way that best preserves the promises of the experience. It may fall easily but it doesn't stay down.

In the mind … its the torch bearer of causes … and leads the way ahead … in a quiet confidence and resilience of its ideals. But in its failure to complete … it takes on an attitude resembling the inactivity of death … and we have vicariously referred to it as such. But the situation can be understood for what it is.

Our dreams emanate from a place in our passions … the Indic refers to as ' Kundalini.' It is in a prone position at the base of the spine. In most individuals who fall from vanity … the impulse is to go back and seek that which they lost … and it allows you to do that … by showing you the prone position and telling you to be absolutely still … without the racuous complaints rising in the passions. In consideration thereof … many healers seek meditation as a way of stilling the mind and to rediscover the original condition of ideals. This may bring us back to the leap of faith.

However the mind insists on something that is knowledge based and retains an element of our boyhood charms and social natures. To achieve that … the individual is persuaded to practice contemplation at night … but during the day … is encouraged to take to a planned series of activities … that stimulates his senses … and keeps them active away from the preponderance over the prone position of the dreamer.

The influence of Saturn on the charts of the individual is an admirable guide on the process. The individual practices contemplation for two years … thereafter in the second two years he takes to random activity … a visit to the mall … beach … park … childhood home … school and so forth. In the third two years … he undertakes a planned activity … such as writing … music … reading … painting … charity … or starting on a business idea. In the final year of Saturn … he improvises and brings himself into integration with social norms and values.

Beyond Saturn's guide he returns to take a look at what good looks mean in a growing social environment in which everyone is good looking. And that may be when he encounters the bandit of dreams who has taken away his will … that was in the engagement of good looks. Where his activities have trained him in good skills … it may substitute for good looks … and challenge the bandit with a new dream.

A good training program would provide for two experiences of falling. The first is the cognition of our integration from birth to the will of dreams … and in having regained that … he may dash it by his own hand … in order to do it again in a new direction that relies on knowledge and skills. He realizes then … how his will is tied in to that of nature and creation. That would indeed be a new dream.