Wisdom Tales
Many of the world's most enduring myths, tales and legends are 'Wisdom Tales' - stories crafted to illumine our consciousness with the life-wisdom they proffer. They are designed to speak to our heart, intuition and higher consciousness, awakening within us awareness of life's deeper truths. This awareness, together with the ensuing consequences it births in our lives, is their intended gift, for it is always both edifying and life-transforming, opening the door to ever-expanding happiness, wholeness, mastery and accomplishment, love, inner harmony and freedom.
Wisdom Tales endure because they are repositories of eternal truths, for Truth has its own power. Passed on from one generation to another, their outward form changes according to the style and sensibilities of each age, but their inner core endures intact, indestructible and forever unsullied.
Every nation, culture and spirituality has always savoured the telling of stories to pass on life's wisdom. From fire-side fables to parables, from the written page, the stage and now cinema, it is a timeless tradition enduring precisely because of its value and efficacy.
Wisdom Tales
All Wisdom Tales have one principal feature in common: they use the telling of an outward story to convey some inner meaning. That is, by means of a story, or some sketch of life, they illumine us with a higher understanding and consciousness of life - of who and what we are, of what lies within us, and of the meaning and purpose of an earth life.
Wisdom Tales essentially say to us: "Beyond it's outward forms and appearances, Life at it's core is like this..." - imparting life's higher truths to us, and guiding and awakening us to the full being of all that we are.
The inward truths that Wisdom Tales offer us are usually not that widely known, and until their inner meaning is apprehended, these Tales remain to us but an outward story. Their gift to us - the help they offer us in our individual lives - usually unfolds within three distinct phases.
At first hearing, Wisdom Tales may only sow the seeds within us of the higher consciousness of life they would impart. As these seeds begin to germinate within us, they guide and assist our unfolding understanding of what is true in life - and most particularly, of what is true within us - aiding, informing and encouraging our expanding awareness and capacity for fullness of being. Finally, as their gift becomes a normal part of our now expanded consciousness, they serve to affirm, deepen and strengthen the reality of our new awareness, together with the ever-greater understanding this spawns.
It is important to understand that wisdom tales do not merely tell us things we already apprehend in some way - such as, that love is a good and desirable thing, and that the more we open to and live it, the better life is. Nor do they merely portray and explicate 'popular psychology'. Rather, they seek to awaken within us an awareness of eternal, universal truths about life and the human condition of which we are not yet aware - of what really lies within us, of who and what we actually are.
Styles and Authors
Wisdom tales take many forms. Pre-eminent amongst these are:
● Myths, in the strict sense, such as the great myths of the ancient Greek civilization. These were originally passed on by word of mouth from the great Master philosophers to those ardent disciples intent on seeing and understanding the nature and purpose of a human life.
● Folk Tales. In many cultures these were traditionally recounted at the fire-side.
● Fairy Tales. Most "fairy tales" are usually regarded as holding appeal and value mainly for children, but some of the world's most profound and valuable Wisdom Tales fall within this group.
● Legends. Many of the world's greatest, most beloved and most enduring legends, whose roots in actual human history have often been sought at great length, are in fact Wisdom Tales.
● Parables. The great spiritual Masters of every nation and spirituality have always used parable as a means of teaching and illumination, often in illustrating their discourses.
● Epic poems and narrative prose.
● Drama. The theatre has long been a home for Wisdom Tales, giving a public voice to their recounting beyond their more personal and intimate telling within families or amongst close associates. Staged plays, mime and pantomime, puppet theatre, opera - all these have long been a cherished means of passing on Wisdom Tales, the more cherished and powerful for the entertainment and delight they afford in their artistic telling.
● Written stories and Film. In more recent times, books and films have become a primary means of passing on Wisdom Tales, increasing the potential for their dissemination whilst making their recounting a little more impersonal, but no less powerful or efficacious.
Just as Wisdom Tales take many forms, so are their authors many and varied. They range from those great enlightened Masters of life whose stories and parables are spoken with full conscious awareness of every truth they wish to impart, with every element consciously intended, to authors who do not apprehend the fullness of what their stories contain, but are reaching for those truths themselves, even as they unfold their stories. These latter are like every artist, reaching within for what it is they would birth, but do not yet fully know. Indeed, it is common for authors seeking and attuned to Life's higher truths to learn from their own stories. How and why this is possible will be described below.
'Common' Stories
Many would be surprised to know just how timeless and ubiquitous Wisdom Tales are, how 'common' their form, and just how very many most of us have been exposed to or know in some way. Below is a small list, far from comprehensive, of stories in this number that have been globally disseminated and hold wide appeal. Many may never have thought of these as more than 'mere' stories, or perhaps stories rich and full with 'something to say'.
● Sleeping Beauty
● Beauty and the Beast
● Snow White (and the seven dwarves)
● Rapunzel
● Mulan
● The Snow Queen
● The Little Mermaid
● The Arabian Nights Tales
● Aladdin (and the magic lamp)
● Sinbad
● The Magic Flute (The opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).
● The Ring of the Nibelung (A cycle of four opera by Richard Wagner, based on Nordic mythology).
● The Sword of Xanten/Curse of the Ring (A film based on the same Nordic mythology).
● The Swan Princess and the Swan Lake ballet.
● The story of Hercules, pre-eminent amongst and together with the rest of the great Greek myths.
● The legend of King Arthur of Camelot, together with Guinevere, Lancelot and the famed wizard Merlin.
● Saint George and the Dragon
● Tarzan
● The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Many of the Wisdom Tales in this small list are the common fare of childhood. There is good reason. A child's heart is usually so very much more open to the happy reception and apprehension of the higher truths in these stories, and our imbibing these truths in childhood, even if unconsciously, is a gift towards the happy, positive, harmonious unfolding of our lives that is vast and profound beyond comprehension. How and why this is so is described more fully below.
It is noteworthy that most of the titles listed above have received cinematic treatment. Films are just such a powerful and perfect medium, for many reasons, for telling the story of Wisdom Tales, and most especially for conveying their inner messages.
It is also noteworthy how many of these films have been produced by Walt Disney Studios - films often much loved, especially by children. The great debt of gratitude that humanity owes those responsible for these films, for keeping the wisdom of these tales alive in human consciousness in so wonderful, palatable and assimilable a way, is inestimable.
There exist many other Wisdom Tales, from many cultures, besides these. But if you know, and especially if you cherish, any of these stories, then know that they have already given you, and will continue to birth in you, their great and timeless gifts.
