Cleaning the stables of Augias

Cleaning the stables of Augias

The 6th of the 12 labours of Hercules.

the story

Hercules goes to Eurystheus,

Eurystheus is the one who pushes back the limits, so Hercules is going to push back some of his own limits. Eurystheus tells him that somewhere in the Peloponnese, in the kingdom of Elis, there lives a man called Augias. He has a large herd of cows, but he doesn't want to use shovels or buckets to clean the cows of their dung. The dung is scattered all over the country and gives off a very bad smell. So Eurystheus asks Hercules to go to the Peloponnese to clean Augias' stables. Hercules agrees, because every time he listens to his inner drive, it pushes him beyond his limits.

After a long walk, Hercules arrives at Augias' estate and tells him that he has come to clean his stables in one day, and that in exchange he will give him a tenth of his cattle. Augias laughed and exclaimed: "It's impossible to clean my stables in a day!He finally agreed, however, and to reassure himself that the arrangement was sound, he summoned his son Phileas to witness his contract with Hercules.

As soon as the contract was signed, Hercules saw 12 silver bulls approaching and trying to destabilise him. As Hercules is called Hercules, he takes one bull by the left horn and makes it lower its head, thus getting rid of the other 11 bulls. The 12 silver bulls are led by Phaethon, the second son of Augias, who has mistaken Hercules for a lion because he uses the skin of the Nemean lion as a shield.

Hercules wonders how he will be able to undertake this work. In a flash of genius, he breaks through the walls of the stables and diverts two rivers, Alfeios and Pineios, which will clean the stables, the fields and the whole Peloponnese in a single day.

Having accomplished this great task, Hercules went to see Augias and asked him to give him a tenth of his herd as agreed. To avoid having to pay him, Augias began to negotiate, saying that since Zeus had asked him to do it, he should do it. Hercules doesn't know what to say and finally concludes: we'll settle this in court before the supreme judge Radhamante! A trial is organised and the son of Augias, Phileas, testifies that Hercules has made a contract with his father. Faced with Phileas' betrayal, Augias gets up and leaves, slamming the door and saying: it wasn't Hercules who cleaned my stables anyway, but the river gods!

In the end, nobody knows who will win the case. We'll see later why the myth remains ambiguous: should Hercules have been paid?

For our society today, this myth is important because it is the only preserved mythological account of the labours of Hercules that shows that we all need to clean out our stables from time to time. It is no coincidence that this myth remains contemporary, at least in linguistic terms. As we shall see, the case of Augias is still relevant in the modern world.

A little etymology :

Augias means (ray of light.)

Elis is the name of the kingdom of Augias, meaning (of the country) transformed by the Greeks by Helios, which remains phonetically close to the word Elis but which means (Sun.)

Phyleus, one of the sons of Augias, means (tribal chief).

Phaeton, another son of Augias, means (shining.)

Alfeios, one of the two rivers, means (whitish).

Pineios, another river, means (thread).

This myth shows a space of light, awareness and clarity. There is the ray of light and Elis who becomes Helios, the sun. The chief of the tribe is linked to the transgenerational aspect. Phaeton means light, but he is also the namesake of the son of the sun, who is also called Phaeton.

What happens when we find ourselves in a space of light, clarity and awareness? Why does all the work have to be done in one day?

There are 24 hours in a day, 12 hours of night and 12 hours of day. Augias doesn't see the manure because he doesn't see the shadow. Hercules thus reconciles shadow and light, reminding us that exploring the darkness is just as important as perceiving the light, which remains the very essence of this work.

Augias, the myth tells us, doesn't smell the manure poured out by his cows, he doesn't smell the stench. To smell means, res-sentir, res in Latin means "thing" as in res-publica, the public thing, so Augias does not smell the thing. Augias is in the light, he is a sparkling ray of light, in other words, he sees but does not feel. He remains within the philosophy of the scientist, the technician, the economist or the theologian. He sees and manages to conceptualise the thing but he doesn't feel it, he doesn't live it and we see why it will be necessary to divert the two great rivers that are going to clean the stables, because in fact, the river is water, of the emotional and the felt.

This is what is known today as the pathology of Augias, the pathology of denial. We see that the planet is polluted, that there is a lot of mercury in the ocean, that fish is becoming inedible and yet we continue to eat fish and pollute the ocean, this is the pathology of denial. It's seeing that the body of the earth is covered in the manure of industrial production and that no one is taking a bucket and spade to go and collect it, to divert it so that we can penetrate the feeling of the movement of life that is suffocated by this manure. This is a contemporary pathology that requires us to clean out our own Augias' stables.

The heritage of Augias

There is another problem that is important to note with Augias. If we look at his stock in detail, we see that he has 300 red breeding bulls, 200 black bulls with white legs, 12 silver-white bulls and several cows.

This herd never falls ill, as there are no epidemics in this world and no attacks from wild animals, thanks to the 12 silver guard bulls.

It's a world without danger, epidemics or disease, and it's a lot like our own! It's also an incredibly creative world, because cows are so fertile.

We have succeeded in creating a paradoxical, safe world where creativity can flourish. Normally, all creativity involves taking risks, but we have created situations where we can be creative without taking any risks.

If we didn't look at the dung that is everywhere in the Peloponnese, we could say that it's a paradise in the kingdom of Augias, but from a symbolic point of view, that doesn't work.

We can see that there are three colours, the red colour of the breeding bulls, the black and white colour and the silver-white colour of the guard bulls. So there are three colours, red, white and black, which represent the three colours that Dumézil gives to the three functions. In other words," says Dumézil, "for an organism to function well, there has to be a balance between the forces of production, the forces of war and the forces of sovereignty. Production is generally black, blue or green, the warrior is red and the sovereign is white or yellow. And we can see that in democratic countries, these functions are separate, legislative, legal and executive, and that they are linked to the colours of the flags, which are tri-functional, the three major functions through the colours they represent.

In other words, a nation that manages both to produce and maintain a defence army and to give meaning and direction to its identity is bound to function harmoniously.

We can see how this works: on a flag that is missing a colour, the function associated with the missing colour will not be represented. For example, Europe with a blue flag and a crown of gold stars without the red has never managed to form a common army or defence system. On the other hand, Europe is a large market with a blue background, i.e. Europe is built on a production background, etc.

Islamic countries where the three functions are not separate but intertwined, where the Koran acts as legislative, legal and executive, have a flag with a plain background and a symbol. The Moroccan flag has a green background with a symbol, while in the USSR the background was red and represented the militant and warlike side of the Red Army with the symbol of the hammer and sickle. In non-democratic nations, the functions are not separated in their representations.

Why is the author telling us this?

In the world of Augias in Elis, these three functions are separated, but they are not in the right place, why? Because the 300 bulls responsible for reproduction are red, not black, blue or white, the colours of production. The warrior is silvery white, which is actually the colour of the moon rather than the warrior's red. The equivalent of the sovereign is black and white instead of the white or yellow of sovereignty. The colours are out of place, the functions exist but are not balanced.

We are not dealing with the psychological logic of the person. We can, however, read this interpretation on an individual level: instead of black, blue or green, we can put physicality and production action.

Emotion and desire in red, the place of the warrior. Vision and the mind in the affirmation of identity, the place of the white or yellow sovereign.

So what happens in the world of Augias?

The economic element is dominant, as everything is based on production and the fertility of the cows. The guardians are not real guardians, there are 12 silver-white bulls, the number 12 referring to the rotation of the sun and the 12 months of the year, but they are the colour of the moon. What happens when the 12 silver-white bulls attack Hercules? He grabs the first bull by the left horn and knocks it to the ground. The curve of the horn evokes the woman and the moon, and reveals his false nature as a guardian.

The true solar hero, Hercules, in the guise of the Nemean lion, reveals the lie of a false sun, which believes itself to be a guardian but is in fact only a moon disguised as a sun.

Finally, the problems of black and white. This world of Elis is amazing because there's manure everywhere and the bulls don't get their feet dirty. It's not just a physical aberration, which is fine because in mythology we're used to physical aberrations, but it's also an aberration from a symbolic point of view.

But it's also an aberration from a symbolic point of view. Why?

Because black and white are the colours of mourning, the only vision here is the vision of death, the fear of death. It's the fear of mourning, of being touched by suffering, because mourning represents the ultimate suffering. The author tells us that Augias, in his clear consciousness, in his ray of light, is in denial about suffering.

Black and white are also the ultimate manifestation of opposites.

What are opposites? Rational and irrational, soft and hard, good and bad, and so on. But the ultimate expression of opposites is black and white, which are no longer colours and which both manifest the presence of mourning, of death.

We are therefore in a state of extreme inner tension, where everything we do consists of distinguishing between good and evil, just and unjust, and so on.

The author tries to give us an idea of the world in which Augias lives. Augias is someone who will answer that everything is fine when asked. In modern language, someone would say: "Good morning, how are you this morning? The answer would be: ha, great, I sold 3 more cars this morning! There's obviously nothing emotional about this answer, there's just an increase in production, an enrichment and at the same time pollution because the cows (the cars) are going to spread their dung. So Augias is someone who should be asking himself how he really feels, what is my current state of consciousness? The myth of Augias invites us to reflect on this mode of mindfulness. From the author's point of view, the problem with mindfulness is never letting the unknown intrude, never being surprised. See only the day and increase the density and duration of the day.

Augias' lucidity is his worst enemy. This is a work linked to Aquarius, which is also associated with the myth of Prometheus. Prometheus refused to open Pandora's jar, or rather he rejected the jar that Pandora offered him. He refused to plunge into darkness because he was a man of light, like Augias. The author associates two myths with Aquarius, the myth of Prometheus on the one hand and the stables of Augias on the other.

Light, consciousness, becomes an obstacle to the realisation of the day, because there are 12 hours of darkness and 12 hours of light, and Augias only wants to live in the light.

How can this problem be resolved?

Hercules is going to pierce the wall of the stables where Augias' cows are kept, divert the two rivers and wash all the stables and the Peloponnese in this powerful current. The first thing is that he doesn't use his shovel and bucket to clean up little by little, which in modern parlance is called psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is good from a personality point of view, but here we're not working on personal development, we're working on the principle that it's already been done, or at least that it's not necessary in the end. We work on what is universal in human beings, not on what is specific to each individual. So how do we get in touch with the universal, and what kind of universal is it?

Speaking of the river, it's also called Draco in ancient Greek, which means dragon, and the river meanders, which means that it reflects the image of a small dragon on the earth.

The river therefore represents vital energy, because the snake is a symbol of vital energy, a symbol of etheric flow in the body. But it's also a symbol of emotion, of the water that conveys feelings, and also the power of joie de vivre in the process of accepting the unknown.

One of the two rivers is called Alfeios, which means (Whitish), and the other, Peneios, translates as (Thread).

White refers to the colour of the moon and we have a Greek word called Alphaneen which means creativity, alpha being the first letter of the alphabet which represents all beginnings. In this context, where Augias is a ray of sunlight, we can associate Pineios thread with the sun, a thread of sunlight or a ray of sunlight. However, Pineios, the sun, and Alfeios, the moon, refer to works that predate the 6th labour of Hercules, the conquest of the moon by the hind of Cerynia and the conquest of the sun by the boar of Erymanth. This is why there is an order to the labours of Hercules: you can't do the next job if the previous ones haven't been done.

In other words, Hercules will use his solar consciousness and his lunar experience to clean out Augias' stables.

The author teaches us the symbolism of the myth on a collective level, but it is obviously functional on an individual level.

If we link these stables to our biopsychic structure, what does it mean? Manure touches the earth and prevents the soil from being fertilised, so it's all the waste that prevents the free circulation of the etheric body, of human vitality, when it touches the body. In the human structure, we have physical matter that is animated by vitality, sometimes called the etheric body. This in turn is motivated and set in motion by the emotions, which are themselves directed and stimulated by thoughts. So the slightest of our thoughts will send out an emotion and a vital energy, sometimes called desire, to set the body in motion. We are here at the level of the earth, of the body, at the level of the blockage, at the level of the movement of life in the body, which is going to be revitalised by putting the rivers back into motion, in other words the snake, which symbolises vital energy and which is going to allow the emotional to recirculate in the body of life. Technically, we are exactly at the moment when the emotional body must reinvest the body of life to give it new impetus. We can see the image of the serpentine rivers that remove all the debris inhibiting the physical body in one fell swoop.

The question is: how can this happen?

It's understandable that we don't want to pick up our spades and buckets and go clean up the beaches.

This can only happen if we've done the previous work, The Birds of Stymphalus, which is why the author mentioned the vibration above.

The birds of Stymphale, in a nutshell:

Only a consciousness capable of landing above the mind will be able to call upon this vibration, which will clear the waste from its etheric body.

It is a question of freeing oneself from any isthmus that signifies a narrow passage between two islands. In other words, it's a narrowing of the world of meaning. To better understand the message of the summary of the myth, we are going to write it in ism, which includes all the functions and ideologies that end in ism. Communism, humanism, socialism, liberalism, symbolism and so on. These isms are not necessarily bad, but they have the unfortunate tendency to want to be right, to seek to convince and to have more and more followers, and they become castrating when others don't think like them. This shows the intellectual pride, proselytising and intolerance that are the beak, talons and feathers of the Stymphalian birds. The contradictory problem demonstrates that, to a certain extent, our representations of the world are necessary: astrology, symbolism, socialism, communism, Christianity, Islamism, etc. We therefore need our representations in order to understand the world. So we need our representations, these birds, to lift us up towards understanding, but at some point these representations of the world prevent us from seeing the whole of heaven, the whole of our nature. So the unresolved question is this: should we represent the metaphysical world, think it, or not think it? According to the author's sense of perception, he tells us that up to a certain point we must think it, and then we must abandon it and see the light directly. So there is a moment in our process when we have to abandon all our isms that have opened doors but which, at some point, risk closing them again.

Back to the myth of Augias

In astrology, the myth is associated with the sign of Aquarius. Aquarius is an air sign that pours water. It is represented by a figure with an urn pouring water, which corresponds to the two rivers Pineios and Alfeios. What's happening here is that Hercules is calling on two forces, two gods who are going to clean up the stench. In fact, these are forces of love and life that need to be embraced with determination, because in the purifying tumult of Hercules' labours, the tension in the solar plexus can open fully and bring about a state of awakening. So it's a question of opening up to the power of life, which passes through our solar plexus, and to the power of love, which passes through the space of our heart. The awakening of Aquarius doesn't happen through consciousness as in the case of Leo, which is the opposite in the zodiac, but it's because the situation is so unbearable, that the energy has accumulated so much in the body through psychic tensions, that there's a sudden trigger that allows a change towards energetic transformation. It is the accumulation of energy that allows the release of energy. This is the Aquarian mode of awakening.

There are two ways to awaken, through pure consciousness or through energy. The Self is both pure consciousness and energy.

The stench therefore corresponds to congestion of the etheric body, to blockage of the body, to all the suffering that we do not normally feel and that prevents the free circulation of vital energy in the body. Augias is typically in an Aquarian attitude of denial, pretending that everything is fine, that he's in hyperproduction, wealth, abundance, consciousness, light, and why change all that? With Saturn, the second ruler of Aquarius, he remains in a contractual system and does business. The difficulty for Augias is therefore to recognise his suffering, to acknowledge that he has emotional blockages, particularly physical and etheric ones, and to experience the trigger that can purify and open the consciousness of love and life that runs through him.

But, the author repeats, to do this work, you need to have done the previous work, i.e. to have contacted the Moon, the hind of Cerynia, and the Sun, the boar of Erymanth.

We see that we are in the world of Prometheus of Aquarius, a world that lives in abundance but cannot see the stench of the climatic deluge that is descending upon us. That's why this work is so topical, and why we've kept the expression "cleaning out Augias' stables".

Read appendix 1 "

The author shares two excerpts from the text to help us understand this.

The first was taken from a work by Satprem where he says the following:

"Isn't it so, for us Westerners, everything is like delimited: there's this pebble, there's this chair, there's this gentleman, there's this lady. We have the impression that everything is enclosed in a frame: precise, delimited, defined - everything. Everything is defined. Now that I look at the West from another angle, I have the impression that all intellectuality - Western intellectual training - is something extraordinarily military and legal. Everything is rigid. Everything is boxed up. And even beings are defined. And then, that first contact with Egypt (and in India even more so), all of a sudden, but... this little definition, it was projected into an immense space that was behind this little object that I thought I had defined. Suddenly everything was sinking into depths, depths, depths. And those depths VIBRATED. It VIBRATES.

Here we see this perception of vibration that lies behind all our definitions, all our representations, so precise and intelligent in separating black from white, good from bad, true from false, etc, etc... we understand better why it is important to do the work of the birds of Stymphalus before that of the stables of Augias, just as it was important to do the work of the wild boar of Erymanthe before that of the hind of Cerynia.

The second extract, taken from an interview with Virgil, a person who has received a spiritual awakening, illustrates the perception of this vibration.

What happens when this vibration is perceived?

Question: Virgil, how would you sum up your experience of the opening?

Answer:It wasn't an experience; it just happened. It wasn't an experience for me. I wasn't expecting anything. It was spontaneous, in the morning. I didn't know what it was, but it was something very big, immense. I'd never heard of anything like it. It was beautiful, very beautiful. It was a joy. It was something different, something wonderful.

Did any fears arise at that moment?

No, no, not at all. It was more like joy: great joy. I could feel everything in the room. I could feel everything around me, outside the room, in the universe. It was immense, magnificent. You can't describe it, you have to experience it.

It's difficult to put into words. It lasted several hours?

Yes, it lasted from 5.45am until around 1pm.

Were you always alone during this period?

At first I was alone, but after a while my wife came along. But I was always in that state, in that very strong vibration. Can you describe all that? Because there were so many elements! I can't describe all the phenomena, and they're not important. You can't live in this state in your normal everyday life, it's something extraordinary.

Did you feel anything different in your body?

Yes, yes, yes! Inside, all over my body. I really felt that I wasn't alone, that I couldn't create this thing with my mind: it's impossible! I asked myself: "What's happening to me? The energy was so strong that I felt like I wasn't touching the ground. I felt lifted up, light, with a very strong vibration. And joy! And joy! I was crying with joy.

And did you feel good in your body?

Oh, very good. I felt great. I felt great joy in my plexus and in my heart. Within minutes, my whole body was cleansed. Over the next two days, I heard a persistent voice telling me to take care of my body.

It is when the two rivers pass through the heart and the solar plexus that the opening can take place, i.e. the lunar river of the solar plexus and the cardiac river of the heart.

The author wants to show that this is not just a mental vision, but an experience that some people have had spontaneously. They were probably in the posture of the Stymphalus birds, in a non-intellectual consciousness that perceives vibration, and this perception of vibration opened up the body's two channels of purification, the heart and the solar plexus.

To perceive vibration is to get out of the definition of things, to get out of duality, to get out of the affirmation that this is that and that is not that, and so on.

The final point of the myth, the contract.

Eurystheus doesn't count this work because Hercules wanted to be paid for it.

Even Radhamante, the supreme judge, is unable to resolve the problem of the contract.

Basically, the contract is insoluble. Why is it insoluble? That depends on our point of view. It's true that the river gods did the work, but it was still Hercules who made the holes. It's true that Hercules would have done the work anyway because the gods told him to, but he did it anyway. It all depends on whether you look at things from the point of view of the Self or from the point of view of the person. In the space of the Self, there is no compensation to ask for because it is the Universe that does the work through us. The healer who heals heals himself in the process of energy transfer. The teacher who teaches discovers himself in the story he teaches. The Dalai Lama who gives a blessing allows the energy flow of love and healing to pass through him, transforming him at the same time. Those who act receive through their inner attitude, and it is this state of being that becomes their reward.

This is true from a spiritual point of view. There is a spiritual tradition, notably in India and in particular in Vipassana, which operates entirely on the basis of giving, without asking anything of anyone for the setting, the food, the accommodation or the spiritual work. And others get paid, Hercules is trying to get paid. Getting paid is legitimate from the point of view of the personality, because it's the personality that does the work. From a personal point of view, all work deserves to be paid for and not only does all work deserve to be paid for, but all payment frees the receiver from the giver, thanks to the exchange in which each recognises the value of the other. On the other hand, from the spiritual point of view, from the essence of what is transmitted, there is no payment, in the literal and metaphorical sense of the term, there is no price.

So Radhamante couldn't decide, because both positions are legitimate. The person who transmits and lives in the world must be able to cope with the world's economic constraints. But if what he transmits is priceless, it must not be paid for. Hence Aquarius' ambivalence about money. The Aquarian will be in an attitude of service and gratuity, offering his constant goodwill, and at the same time he is a formidable salesman. It's also a sign that can spend a lot at once and at other times be economically restricted, even stingy.

Once again, it all depends on whether you look at things from the perspective of the universals that Aquarius seeks to defend: giving is legitimate, but if you look at things from the perspective of someone who needs to differentiate themselves from the world, being paid becomes legitimate. We are all familiar with the ambivalence of Aquarius, at once introverted and extroverted, a social sign but one that considers itself to be outside the world, social but one that considers itself to be profoundly and viscerally different from others, and which we find in this work from Augias' stable.

In truth, ambivalence is not a contradiction, but a dynamic in an evolutionary process.

1' The physical body is the densest of all, and the one we humans know so well. On the same physical plane, we find what is known as the etheric body. By definition, the ether is considered to be an intermediate state between matter and pure energy.

The etheric body is a body of energy made up of very fine threads of light that intertwine to form a complex network. The etheric body functions as an intermediary between the physical body and the other bodies that make up the human being.

All the information coming from the physical body that needs to reach the higher bodies (or planes) necessarily passes through the etheric body. Conversely, everything that has to manifest itself through the physical body from the most subtle bodies necessarily passes through the etheric body.

Extract from https://grephh.fr/medecine-energetique-corps-etherique/

Translated and adapted from Luc Bigé'shttps://reenchanterlemonde.com/mythologie/#hercule by @SatyamAstro/Nicolas Roessli and supported by DeepL.com

To go further, a book in French has been written by Luc Bigé and translated into English by Google, La voie du Héros : Les douze Travaux d'Hercule.

https://reenchanterlemonde-com.translate.goog/produit/la-voie-du-heros/?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr