It was said of the Shakyamuni Buddha, Gautama, that he had ‘gone, gone to the other shore’ and when he had been released into Nirvana. The ‘other shore’ stands for the pilgrim’s goal (in the case of the Shakyamuni, ‘other shore’ meant no shore at all).
The trouble is that no other shore exists for the true pilgrim but the one she creates. Shores that already exist, and shine brightly as the stars (actually suns) in the night sky, and which seem to welcome the pilgrim to land, are someone else’s shore. Someone else’s shore is a prison, no matter how beautiful the sights and sounds that welcome the pilgrim to it.
The true ‘other shore’ is the shore of otherness, that is to say, a unit (or island) of (identifiable) difference. If and when it collides with another unit of (identifiable) otherness (or several) it creates a moment (or mass) of absolute realness, i.e. a whole unit of difference, i.e. a different real identity. And that different real identity is the ‘other shore’.
The pilgrim who is lost, or foolish, is tempted by the warm bright welcome of an existing ‘other shore’ to land, tempted by the song and dance of the locals Sirens, and who are all enslaved former pilgrims. Once the unwary pilgrim has landed, she is either taken captive, i.e. deprived of her freedom (to be herself), or eaten (i.e. drained of her energy and identity (i.e. her building materials of her self) by the ruler of that shore.
If the pilgrim is to reach her own true goal so must avoid landing on someone else’s shore/goal, no matter how enticing. However, if she must land in order to replenish her supplies of energy and food, then she must disguise herself as a slave, or pay for the privilege, prior to making her escape. And if that fails, she must kill the ruler of that shore (i.e. the monster or tyrant, and he is always a tyrant) and take his place, thereafter transforming that shore in her own likeness (and when she becomes the monster).
The best description of the return home (or the advance to a new home) and the trials and tribulations that befall the pilgrim, and how the pilgrim overcomes them, is Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’. Never forgetting the goal, the full use of native intelligence, physical mental and emotional resilience, fearlessness, sheer cunning, heightened alertness and distrust and, not least, absolute faith in, and which results in help from the innate genie (i.e. the Goddess) when all hope has gone, those are the means used by the true pilgrim to reach her shore of otherness.
Return