Kayla has been home on Christmas break for just over a week now. When Kayla is home, we catch up on our movie queue. I love watching movies with Kayla because we both have this sense that movies and books, fiction, so often capture the deeper aspects of life. We watch them together then we have great conversations about what they really mean. I’ve come to believe that a lot of what artists produce is actually channeled, given to them from higher sources. In the same way the authors of the Bible were inspired, Spirit whispers greater truths to people who then express that through philosophy, art, movies, books, etc. As I’ve been watching these movies, I’ve observed something else. The Observer- that being me.
In meditation one of the major goals is to discover who we truly are. The first step is to realize we are not our bodies. In no particular order, we then have to realize we are not our brains. We are not our thoughts. We are not even our minds. As we peel away all of these things that are parts of us, we come to the true us, the one who stands behind it all- The Observer. The Observer is the essence of who were are, the one having this experience. The Observer is never born and never dies. The Observer exists outside of this physical realm. The way I picture it now (and this is based on what science is now saying about physical reality), this is life, this universe is basically a hologram, a projection. It arises out of consciousness, but it doesn’t exist independent of consciousness. Like a movie is a projection of light onto a screen that tells a story, such are our lives.
When we first sit in that darkened movie theater, we are well aware of the people around us and the chair we are comfortably and safely sitting in, but at some point after the movie starts, we find ourselves caught up the action. Our focus has narrowed, our attention has been drawn in. We are that action hero on the screen. When she turns a corner and something jumps out, it’s not just she who is danger, we are in danger. We jump or we scream. We feel the tension of the plot. We cry when characters die. We cheer when they have a victory. But, at the end of the movie, the lights come up and we remember we were never in any danger. None of the actors in the movie are dead because their characters died. They’re home with their families. They’re reading their next scripts. All is well, but we have been thoroughly entertained for those couple of hours.
This is what I have been reflecting on lately and I find it helpful. It’s not that life has no meaning or consequence. It’s just that it’s not as bad or as permanent as it seems while we’re still here immersed in it. My goal is to be able to broaden my picture, at least for a while, even while I am still here in playing my role in the movie. My role is important. The feelings and experiences we have while we are here we are meant to have and to experience fully, but sometimes I need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Sometimes when a shocking moment happens, like the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones (Google “red wedding reactions” and watch the videos on YouTube), we have to remind ourselves that “It’s just a movie.” Everyone who shot that scene is fine. The actor who played Rob Stark isn’t dead, the character wont’ be in that show anymore,but it’s going to be OK. Then, we settle in and enjoy the rest of the show.
