Hercules had no idea what was going on in the mind of Artemis; he didn't notice she was hunting him. In his mind, he was never the prey. Hercules loved and respected Artemis, but this is not what she wanted. Artemis wanted to own him; she wanted to hunt him and be the predator with him. Of course everyone in the forest noticed the difference in Artemis except her. In her mind she was still the divine huntress. She didn't have the awareness that she had fallen. She wasn't aware that the heaven that was the forest had become hell, because after her fall, the rest of the hunters fell with her; they all became predators.
One day Hermes took an animal form, and just as Artemis was ready to destroy Hermes, he became a God and she rediscovered the wisdom she had lost. He let her know she had fallen, and with this awareness Artemis went to Hercules to ask for his forgiveness. It was nothing but her personal importance that brought her to that fall. In talking to Hercules she realized she had never offended him because he didn't know what was going on in her mind. Then she looked around the forest and she saw what she had done to the forest. She apologized to every flower and to every animal until she recovered love. Once again, Artemis became the divine huntress.
I tell this story to let you know that all of us are hunters, and all of us are prey. Everything that exists is both hunter and prey. What is it that we hunt? We hunt to fulfill our needs. I have talked about the needs of the body versus the needs of the mind. When the mind believes it is the body, the needs are only illusions, and they cannot be fulfilled. When we hunt those needs that are unreal in the mind, we become the predators – we are hunting for what we don't need.
Humans hunt for love. We feel that we need that love because we believe we don't have love, because we don't love ourselves. We hunt for love in other humans just like us, expecting to get love from them when these humans are in the same condition as we are. They don't love themselves either, so how much love can we get from them? We merely create a bigger need that isn't real; we keep hunting and hunting, but in the wrong place, because other humans don't have the love we need.
When Artemis became aware of her fall, she went back to herself, because everything she needed was inside herself. It is the same for all of us, because all of us are like Artemis after she fell and before her redemption. We are hunting for love. We are hunting for justice and happiness. We are hunting for God, but God is inside us.
The hunting of the magical deer teaches you that you have to hunt inside yourself. This is, a great story to keep in mind. If you remember the story of Artemis, you will always find the love inside you. Humans who hunt each other for love will never be satisfied; they will never find the love they need in other humans. The mind feels the need, but we cannot fulfill it, because it isn't there. It's never there.
The love we need to hunt is inside ourselves, but that love is difficult prey. It is so difficult to hunt inside yourself, to get that love from inside you. You have to be very fast, as fast as Hermes, because anything can distract you from your goal. Whatever traps your attention distracts you from reaching your goal, from getting the prey that is the love inside. If you can capture the prey, you will see that your love can grow strong inside you, and it can fulfill all your needs. This is so important for your happiness.
Usually humans go into relationships as the hunter. They look for what they feel they need, hoping to find what they need in the other person, only to find that it's not there. When you enter a relationship without this need, it's a different story.
How do you hunt inside yourself? To capture the love inside yourself, you have to surrender to yourself as the hunter and the prey. Inside your own mind, there is the hunter and there is also the prey. Who is the hunter, who is the prey? In ordinary people the hunter is the Parasite. The Parasite knows everything about you, and what the Parasite wants are the emotions that come from fear. The Parasite is a garbage eater. It loves fear and drama; it loves anger, jealousy, and envy; it loves any emotion that makes you suffer. The Parasite wants to get even, and it wants to be in control.
Your self-abuse, as the Parasite, is hunting you twenty-four hours a day; it is always after you. So we become the prey of the Parasite, a very easy prey. The Parasite is the one who abuses you. It is more than a hunter; it is a predator, and it is eating you alive. The prey, the emotional body, is that part of us that suffers and suffers; it's that part of us that wants to be redeemed.
In Greek mythology, there is also the story of Prometheus, who is chained to a rock. During the day an eagle comes and eats his innards; during the night he recovers. Every day the eagle comes and eats his insides again. What does this mean? When Prometheus is awake, he has a physical and emotional body. The eagle is the Parasite that is eating his insides. During the night, he doesn't have the emotional body, and he recovers. He is born again to be the food for that eagle, until Hercules comes to release him. Hercules is like the Christ, Buddha, or Moses who breaks the chain of suffering and gives you your freedom.
To hunt inside yourself, you start by hunting every reaction you have. You are going to change one routine at a time. It is a war for freedom from the Dream that controls your life. It is a war between you and the predator with the Truth in the middle. In all the Western traditions from Canada to Argentina, we call ourselves warriors because a warrior is the hunter who hunts herself. It is a big war, because it's a war against the Parasite. To be a warrior doesn't mean you will win the war, but at least you rebel, and you no longer accept that the Parasite is eating you alive.
Becoming the hunter is the first step. When Hercules went into the forest in search of Artemis, there was no way he could capture the deer. Then he went to Hermes, the supreme teacher, and he learned to become a better hunter. He needed to be better than Artemis in order to hunt her. To hunt yourself, you also need to be a better hunter than the Parasite.
If the Parasite is working twenty-four hours a day, you also have to work twenty-four hours a day. The Parasite has an advantage: It knows you very well. There is no way you can hide. The Parasite is the most difficult prey. It's that part of you that tries to justify your behavior in front of other people, but when you are alone, it is the worst judge. It is always judging, blaming, and making you feel guilty.
In a normal relationship in hell, the Parasite of your partner allies with your Parasite against the real you. You have against yourself not just your own Parasite, but the Parasite of your partner, who aligns with your Parasite to make the suffering eternal. If you know that, you can make a difference. You can have more compassion for your partner and allow her to deal with her own Parasite, You can be happy every time your partner takes another step toward freedom. You can be aware that when your partner gets upset, gets sad or jealous, it's not the one you love that you are dealing with at that moment. It's a Parasite that is possessing your partner.
Knowing the Parasite is there, and knowing what is going on in your partner, you can give your partner the space to deal with it. Since you are only responsible for your half of the relationship, you can allow her to deal with her own personal dream. In that way, it will be easy not to take personally what your partner is doing. This will help your relationship a lot, because nothing that your partner does is personal. Your partner is dealing with her own garbage. If you don't take it personally, it will be so easy for you to have a wonderful relationship with your partner.