The true hero takes responsibility for his behavior and becomes the slayer of his false self, not to be admired but to embody his True identity. “To state the matter more precisely, the hero does not merely express a pre-existing soul, is not merely a projection of that soul; the hero belongs primarily to the process whereby the soul emerges, or to the time of testing, reaffirmation, or redefinition of the soul. The myth of the hero, in its higher reaches, is, then, that of the light-bringer, the leader out of the wilderness, the founder of cities, the breaker of horses, the slayer of dragons, the redeemer, the Hanged God, the restorer of fertility. Such a myth and such a hero may appear prematurely—that is, before the full meaning is discernible. In that case, the meaning of the myth is later recognized and the hero later hailed as a dynamic force in creating the social context in which the myth has finally been able to flower in its fullness—and with a new and more appropriate hero.”[i]
As mythology makes clear, our internalizing the Truth of Simple Reality is not so that we may find the meaning of life but instead so that we may experience the gift of life more fully.
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Supplemental Reading: Mythology, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
#50 The Slayer of Dragons
[i] Warren, Robert Penn. “A Dearth of Heroes.” American Heritage. October 1972, p. 6.
