We all know this cliché story. The hero goes to the dungeon and kills the dragon, saves the kingdom and the princess and so on. It is the same type of story over and over. This can be seen in all the countries, in all of history, in paintings, art and so on. This is because it speaks to the subconscious.
Nintendo created Super Mario Brothers which made them filthy rich with just a simple story of a plumber saving the princess from a dragon. Disney created an empire on these types of stories as well. The Bible has a story about this. Adam and Eve with the serpent. Buddhism has story about this also.
Japanese Anime became very famous for these types of stories as well. The hero goes to the dungeon, levels up and kills the final boss in the deepest part and darkest part of the dungeon.
Not sure about this story
Not sure about how truthful this story but I’ll tell it. I believe that it was Buddha’s father that got a prediction that his son will either become a King or a great spiritual leader. So the King built walls around the palace so that Buddha will not see the outside world. He will be confined to the castle. Buddha was happy. He asked his father to let him go outside the walls. So his father prepared a tour of the outside. He orchestrated that Buddha wouldn’t see any suffering and only happiness in the kingdom. So Buddha toured and all he saw was beautiful things. Everything was beautiful. He came back to the castle feeling good.
One day, Buddha saw an old man dying inside the castle. He was like, what is happening with this person? The servants told him that he is getting old and that he is dying. Buddha was like, what is dying? Servants told him about death. Buddha thought, “so we are all going to age and die? Then what is the purpose of accumulating gold and wealth? Why should I accumulate riches when in the end, I’m going to age and die?” So in that day, he became spiritual. Anyway, the serpent or dragon in that story is the dying old man.
The Serpent Or Dragon Symbolizes
The serpent or dragon symbolizes our unhappy or unloving thoughts. This is called the shadow. Again, I talked about this already so I’m not going to dwell too deeply on this. The shadow are your triggers, insecurities, unloving thoughts, unloving ideas, unloving beliefs and so on. You have to slay your dragons or else they will control you subconsciously.
One Important Thing Common About These Stories
One important thing common about these stories are that the hero is very protected and safe. Such a concept turns out to be a lie because the dragon can penetrate the castle or anywhere the hero is. There is no safe place as long as the dragon exists.
You can be in paradise with Adam and Eve then there will be the serpent on the tree that will mess everything up.
It is the same story or concept over and over that stood the test of time. This basically states that you can have all the money in the world, have all the luxury, build a castle and protect yourself with walls but it will be useless. It is because the dragon is within. You will never be happy as long as the dragon is alive. It can attack and destroy your world or everything that you built in any day it wants. So you can never be peaceful and happy.
You can change the outside world as much as your want. Create a paradise, create a castle, put soldiers, walls, tanks and so on. It will be all useless. The dragon is deep within the dungeon. It lies deep within underground and it can attack at anytime. There is no protection or safe place from it.
Harry Potter And The Basilisk
In Harry Potter, Hogwarts is the safest place to be. It is protected by wizards and protected by the most powerful spells. However, Harry always finds himself in a difficult situation. It is because the threat is not from the outside but from within the Hogwarts. All the enemies came from within.
The basilisk is a great example of this. It is a serpent that lived in the sewers. It lived underground and no one knows when it would attack. No one was safe from it. In order to kill the basilisk, he had to dive deep down the sewers which is really a metaphor for the subconscious. You have to dive deep down and look at the thoughts lying beneath. You don’t know when the basilisk will attack. Best way to defeat it is to confront it in its lair or dungeon.
Mandalorian And The Krayt Dragon
In the TV series Mandalorian, there is this peaceful village. It is pretty nice and without problems until this Krayt Dragon showed up. So they had to go to its lair and kill it.
Black Panther VS Killmonger
Black panther dived into the underground tunnel and took Kilmonger with him. It is basically a battle with himself or past beliefs. In this Killmonger was the serpent.
Jurassic Park
In the movie, everything was pretty safe. They had all the dinosaurs in cages. They built walls, safe places, and was planning to create an amusement park. How it all fall down? Some guy from within the company decided to sell the technology to other people which led to the destruction of the place. They were so busy making the outside safe that they weren’t looking within.
Anime
Anime has lots of stories of the serpent, dungeons, and becoming stronger.
Video Games
Video games is famous to have the same cliché story over and over. Go to the dungeon or lair where the boss lives and defeat it. Nintendo built an empire with just this simple theme.
Kill The Baby Dragons First
So when you start doing your loving practices, you will notice different kinds of serpents and dragons in your inner world. You will have a lot of insecurities, negative beliefs, unloving thoughts, unloving ideas and so on. You will not be able to defeat all of them. You start with the ones you can. You start small.
If you are in the middle of losing an object like a house that you are attached to then you have no choice. It is a big big dragon and it is going to hurt a lot. This attachment will cause you a lot of pain. If you have been doing the loving or spiritual practices for a 1-2 years then maybe you can handle this dragon easily. If you just started, this dragon will be very hard and you are going to feel a lot of pain. However, you don’t have a choice since you are in the middle of it.
By the time you all read this, some of you are going to be in the middle of a fight against your shadow or dragon. You have to analyze your thoughts. If it feels bad, you have to re-evaluate your thoughts or emotions. You are looking at your situation in an unloving way.
Easy Practices
Analyzing your thoughts. Paying attention to the things that make you angry and so on. Remember, if you feel bad, it is bad. If you feel good, it is good. Stop watching movies about death or violence. You start by cleaning your room. Eating more vegetables and so on. You kill the baby dragons first.
There are a lot of people who find waiting in line to be challenging. You go to DMV and the long line could be very challenging for most people. Some find a red traffic light to be challenging or a slow driver to be challenging. Those common things can make people so mad and angry that it is insane. Well, the ego is insane and those dragons are like the ego’s henchmen.
You kill the weak ones first. You forgive the people that annoy you. You make friends with your co-workers that you don’t like. You start listing things that you are grateful for every morning. When you see anger or madness coming out from inside of you, you just look at it and pay attention to it, bring awareness to it, rather than letting it control your whole being. You gain exp as you kill the dragons just like a video game. You get stronger the more baby or weak dragons that you kill. You level up first. Sooner or later, you can kill big dragons.
You can conquer your attachments. You can look at your beliefs about death. Beliefs about politics and so on. But you have to start small.