The Power of Myth - Bill Moyers [133]
MOYERS: Explain AUM.
CAMPBELL: “AUM” is a word that represents to our ears that sound of the energy of the universe of which all things are manifestations. You start in the back of the mouth “ahh,” and then “oo,” you fill the mouth, and “mm” closes the mouth. When you pronounce this properly, all vowel sounds are included in the pronunciation. AUM. Consonants are here regarded simply as interruptions of the essential vowel sound. All words are thus fragments of AUM, just as all images are fragments of the Form of forms. AUM is a symbolic sound that puts you in touch with that resounding being that is the universe. If you heard some of the recordings of Tibetan monks chanting AUM, you would know what the word means, all right. That’s the AUM of being in the world. To be in touch with that and to get the sense of that is the peak experience of all.
A-U-M. The birth, the coming into being, and the dissolution that cycles back. AUM is called the “four-element syllable.” A-U-M—and what is the fourth element? The silence out of which AUM arises, and back into which it goes, and which underlies it. My life is the A-U-M, but there is a silence underlying it, too. That is what we would call the immortal. This is the mortal and that’s the immortal, and there wouldn’t be the mortal if there weren’t the immortal. One must discriminate between the mortal aspect and the immortal aspect of one’s own existence. In the experience of my mother and father who are gone, of whom I was born, I have come to understand that there is more than what was our temporal relationship. Of course there were certain moments in that relationship when an emphatic demonstration of what the relationship was would be brought to my realization. I clearly remember some of those. They stand out as moments of epiphany, of revelation, of the radiance.
MOYERS: The meaning is essentially wordless.
CAMPBELL: Yes. Words are always qualifications and limitations.
MOYERS: And yet, Joe, all we puny human beings are left with is this miserable language, beautiful though it is, that falls short of trying to describe—
CAMPBELL: That’s right, and that’s why it is a peak experience to break past all that, every now and then, and to realize, “Oh … ah.…”
Bill Moyers would like to thank the following people for making the television series possible:
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Joan Konner, Alvin H. Perlmutter
SERIES PRODUCER: Catherine Targe
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Vera Aronow
SERIES CONSULTANT: Betty Sue Flowers
RESEARCHERS: Lynn Novick, Elizabeth Fischer, Ilisa Barbash
PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS: John Farinet, John Moyers
PRODUCTION EXECUTIVE: Douglas P. Sinsel
VIDEOTAPE EDITORS: Leonard Feinstein, Girish Bhargava
Taped at the Library of Lucasfilm Ltd., Skywalker Ranch, San Rafael, California, and The American Museum of Natural History, New York City.
Produced with the cooperation of Alfred van der Marck Editions.
A production of
Apostrophe S Productions, Inc., in association with
Alvin H. Perlmutter, Inc., and
Public Affairs Television, Inc.
The broadcasts of Moyers: Joseph CAMPBELL and the Power of Myth were made possible by grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television stations, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL (1904–87) began his career in 1934 as an instructor at Sarah Lawrence College, where he taught for almost forty years, and where the Joseph Campbell Chair in Comparative Mythology was established in his honor. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
BILL MOYERS is an acclaimed journalist, widely respected for his work both at CBS News and at PBS. One of his primary efforts has been to bring to television outstanding thinkers of our time, most recently in the immensely popular and highly celebrated PBS series and bestselling book A World of Ideas. His conversations with Joseph Campbell were one of the highlights of television programming in the 1980s.
BETTY SUE FLOWERS teaches poetry and myth at the University of Texas at Austin. She