I live with these myths, and they tell me this all the time. This is the problem that can be metaphorically understood as identifying with the Christ in you. The Christ in you doesn’t die. The Christ in you survives death and resurrects. Or you can identify that with Shiva. I am Shiva-this is the great meditation of the yogis in the Himalayas…Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads of India in the ninth century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the worlds, are within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the organs of the body in conflict with each other. ~ Joseph Campbell from Power of Myth With Bill Moyers
This is how I’ve operated my whole life. I was drawn to study religion in school because I understood this from the beginning. We are beings whose psyche’s operate on myths. It’s possible to become fluent in many mythologies and systems. For me the process of learning many myths, religions and systems has enriched my understanding of the psyche…mine and that of all human beings.
Update 2016: I just found this post because it’s getting traffic today. It made me think of a tweet I did a few days ago.
The language of the spirit thrives with metaphor…the only problem with religion and myth are the human beings who don’t understand metaphor.
From this place it’s also become very important for me to practice non-belief…since it’s pretty clear this great variety of myth and religion is simply interpretation of that which cannot be known.