The last labour of Heracles is the Capture of Cerberus in the kingdom of Hades which symbolizes the acquisition of the knowledge of what prevents from a premature transformation.
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Heracles and Cerberus – Louvre Museum
Eurystheus ordered Heracles to go to Hades and bring back Cerberus.
According to Hesiod, it was a monstrous dog with fifty heads (he had only two or three in other traditions). He welcomed the arriving shadows but prevented them from going back towards the light, devouring those which tried to cross the threshold of the underground kingdom.
Hermes and Athena helped the hero achieve this task.
According to Apollodorus, when the hero arrived at Hades’ doors, the shadows fled except for two, that of the Gorgo Medusa and that of the hero Meleagros. Heracles drew his sword at Medusa, but Hermes warned him that it was an «empty shadow».
Penetrating further into the underground kingdom, he met Theseus and his friend Pirithoos who were still «alive» but chained for trying to kidnap Persephone. Some say that he freed Theseus but could not free Pirithoos.
In order to give some blood back to the shadows, the hero killed one of Hades’ bulls. The herdsman Menoetes got irritated and defied the hero to fight. During the fight, Heracles broke one of Menoetes’ ribs and his life was safe only thanks to Persephone’s intervention.
Finally, the hero found Cerberus on the banks of the Acheron (or, according to others, of the Styx).
Besides his monstrous heads, Cerberus had a tail made of a snake and a multitude of snakes’ heads covered his back.
Hades having forbidden Heracles to use weapons, the latter fought the monster with his bare hands. In spite of being bitten by the tail, he controlled him (or persuaded him to obey) and took him to Eurystheus’ house. The latter, terrorised, ordered Heracles to bring him back to Hades.
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If the goal of the first Ten Labours was universalization of mind and vital, thus the abolition of the limits in those planes, the goal of the last Labour is to initiate the body’s transformation in order to ultimately obtain its divinisation and then its universalisation. According to Sri Aurobindo’s usage of words for the different phases of the yoga, the «perfection» of nature or “supramental transformation” must come after the «spiritual transformation» and «psychic transformation», and must lead to the realisation of a divine nature in a divinised body. It is no longer the work in order to obtain the personal liberation of the adventurer of consciousness, but the work of the Divine in a nature purified fully and receptive to the work and influence of the forces put into action.
This work leads to the depths of corporal matter where the union of the Spirit with the involuted Divine ultimately has to happen. This occurs in Hades’ kingdom which, let us recall, represents the force that watches over the union in matter’s unconscious. This god is simultaneously «he who is not visible» (who resides in the human unconscious) and the principle of a future integral union with full consciousness (ΙΔ).
The first stage is the awareness of what is opposing this process, Cerberus’ capture being the image of it.
Unlike the elements chased from the conscious which found refuge in the subconscious (from where they can always come back to consciousness through Poseidon’s action), it is impossible for those that have been rejected from the subconscious into the unconscious to cross the barrier in the opposite direction. Realisations which are no more necessary for evolution will not come back again to the conscious.
This can also indicate that once a victory has been achieved in the body, it is permanent, which is not the case in the mind or in the vital where the same work has to be done again and again until the obstacle is «worn out».
Besides Heracles, the rare exceptions in which heroes could come back from Hades could indicate a work-in-progress or the resumption of a process at a higher level. But it could be a