Comments interleaved below. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Patrick Gillam" <jpgillam@> > wrote: > > > > This is the "Stranger Comes to Town" story > > (as opposed to the "Man Leaves Home" story), > > in its manifestation as the "Cavalry to the > > Rescue" story. > > Not to mention what I call the "Beam me up > Scotty" approach to enlightenment and/or > salvation. > > The appeal of this story, in whatever form > it manifests, is that someone else does the > work.
Misapplied, yes, someone else does the work, but when the story is told well, someone comes to the rescue, enabling the Hero to continue doing his or her work. Dobby helps Harry Potter here and there, but Harry still has to do the work. > > I wonder if the Stranger in question is > > really a person, or if it's the Self - > > Brahman? > > Does it matter? Well, yeah, it does matter. Because a story about some other person saving us is different from some hitherto-unnoticed aspect of ourselves coming to the rescue. One is external, the other, internal. > The bottom line, as I see it, > is an abdication of personal responsibility > and a reliance on somebody/something else to > make things happen. > > While I understand that this makes sense if > you buy into a philosophy of "I am not the > doer," I wonder how many who believe in that > philosophy ever do anything. In other words, > does the belief that there is a Scotty out > there somewhere whose *job* it is to beam > them up prevent them from noticing that there > is a staircase off to the right that could be > easily climbed instead of waiting for the > Transporter to be invented? That's what I'm getting at - the Self is there all the time.
