Tree of Life

shekhar

Art often becomes a victim of it’s own genre’. Of the very fashion or new trend it created. and then becomes resistant to change. Film does the same. For too many years it has been stuck in ‘meaning’. While meaning is essential to the viewer, surely Art provokes the viewers to explore meanings for themselves. Through the experience of the Art. So does the Artist give meaning before he/she gives experience, or does the experience of Art come before meaning ? Is experience derived from meaning, or is meaning derived from experience ?

I met Terrence Mallick the evening before the film premiered at Cannes. Without realizing who I was speaking to. I said ‘Tree of life’ was the one film I was looking forward to. He said ‘Come armed with patience’.

I did not need to. From the first moment I caught on immediately that the film maker was asking me to experience, and let meaning evolve out of that experience. If not while watching the film, then later the next day. Or the next. He was offering me his experience and asking me to interpret it my way.

And what an amazing experience. From the birth of the Universe, to the human like instinct of the dinosaurs. That amazing shot of the dinosaur at the beach trying to understand it’s wound, caught as it is between being amphibian to reptilian. Did Malick intend that ? I don’t know, but the shot made me cry for the dinosaur, because somehow, the director had burrowed inside my mind to relate human behaviour to evolution. To an understanding of ourselves as we moved to who we are in evolution. To the tree of life.

I actually wish people would not say this is Brad Pitts best performance. It is a terrific performance. But to say that takes away form the film. For that character is not supposed be seen in context of the individual. He is as an integral part of the dynamics of the Big Bang and the incredible moment where the dinosaur considers crushing the the baby dinosaur under it’s giant claws. What was going on in it’s mind when it decided to leave it alone.

And when was the last time I seriously wondered about the imaginative process of a dinosaur ?

And Jessica Chastain, as an embodiment of all that is nurturing in the Universe. That the Universe in itself is nurture. And in nurture lies creation. In creation lies destruction. The acceptance of the death of her child so gently by the film is the acceptance of the nurturing quality of the film.

So beautifully potrayed by the final scene on the beach. Like a final movement in a symphony. That all of life, all of birth, all of death exists in a single moment of eternity.

The Tree of Life is Eternal.

Thank Terrence. Thank you for reminding us that we are stuck in ‘plot’. That for the art of cinema to survive and continue to be meaningful, it must first destroy it’s narrow minded desire for meaning. That like the Universe it needs to die and be reborn to be eternal.

62 thoughts on “Tree of Life”

  1. wonderful review of a movie.I am looking forward to see this movie. I loved movie poetry.

  3. fabulous post!…almost imaginable but still the visual experience will surprise me to the core for sure!…what an experiment!…its the need of the time!!!…

    at my own small tiny level i am attempting the same thing since last few months…but not at it whole heartedly…either u need tremendous courage to put in 100% into something like this or u need to be financially secure!…lol…well wrote two more plot based scripts( now the number has gone to 20!!!) meanwhile and left the Free flow script half way…i must create a platform for myself, some standing is what i felt at least in local market that too regional!…the main reason could be i am just not prepared in terms of using the form…or i am lazy!…any way will go on floor with a plot based script this year…its a political gangster drama…and trying to keep the sensibilities as universal as possible…and yes its is fucking LOW budget film!…

    but i hardly keep anything unfinished…i will revisit the form soon if not the same theme or story or emotion…!

    And the whole thing kicked off in my mind on a very boring day and over a very insignificant event…i got up that day late ( as usual) with usual smoker’s cough…made tea, toast, read or saw Page 3 pages from new papers…meditated for few min…pretended of exercising…and without taking bath sat in front of the devil- the computer with an internet connection…had completed a script recently and had heard NO from yet another potential financier so had nothing planned…opened the FB page and was pissed to see wall full of VIDEOS…forwarded videos…well clicked on one…baby was laughing…i laughed…clicked on another…a cow was drinking water by pumping a hand pump with her mouth!…clicked on another…a deadly crash…then a magnificent dance number…then a funny news…then a war news…then a gun village near Afganistan or pakistan…then some quantum tips…and one after the other i went on to see several videos…one after the other…and suddenly realized almost one and half hours have gone by…and something clicked…FUCK!…i cried, i laughed, i felt angry, i felt naked, i felt warm, i felt hungry, i felt nauseated, i giggled, i gurgled, i clapped…i had gone through range of emotions in those 100 min of watching some random events unfolding in front of my eyes…and i said FUCK THIS COULD BE A FORM OF A FILM…

    and still feel this certainly can be!…and its not necessary to plan to create certain kind of emotions but one can just flow and write…and let the emotions emerge out of what ever had been written and then ultimately one can use some form or technique to weave everything together just to create a coherent feel!…that too if one feels like doing…the possibilities are endless…

    lets see…possibilities are always endless…

  5. Tree of Life surely sounds like something special.
    But were you by any chance talking about Indian cinema when you said, “Art often becomes a victim of it’s own ‘genre’…Film does the same.” ? ‘Cause Indian cinema, I mean Bollywood cinema, surely is not even interested in going somewhere close to art. It has a different purpose-making the masses happy. Don’t you think?

  6. Tremendous evaluation. In many ways I think this conflict is between ritual and narrative…

    Do we focus on experiencing the moment and how it is performed, or the ending and what it says?

    The oldest performed stories were ritual, where everyone knew the ending, and – essentially – what it ‘meant.’ Certain performances happened every year/month/day on certain occasions. They were well-known, as were their endings. The important thing was to see how, and how well, they were enacted. How well this moment – as a synthesis of all the various performance elements – penetrates into the consciousness of the audience, as experience, was known to ancient Sanskrit drama as rasa. Bollywood proudly keeps up this tradition with more emphasis on the content than storyline.

    In ritual there is the added belief that, if performed correctly, this enactment will change the course of events for the audience/community in reality. Nothing better could focus an audience’s attention on the moment at hand! If this is done right, we will be able to eat well this winter. Concentration!

    Most Western films are sadly preoccupied with the narrative form; the audience are so disassociated from the action that the only way we can keep their interest is to dangle the carrot of what happens next. The problem is – for those who would champion the other style – is that this one is so incredibly successful. It is the last fight in ‘Cinderella Man’ or ‘Rocky’ where each audience member is in the fighter’s corner, ‘feeling’ every blow and gunning for our hero to deliver the final KO and win forever.

    A pragmatic approach would suggest a synthesis of both, but maybe they are inherently contradictory

  7. Is experience derived from meaning, or is meaning derived from experience ?

    It can happen both-ways. Indian mythology and related pathways have given immense importance in engaging in meaningful dialogue to set a ground for experience.

    Will share more on this later.
    by the way how about straightaway watching Tree of Life on mobile….nah!!!!
    Cinema has its magic – one reason being…its quite life-like, even in size.

    p

  8. art become victim of its own genre spotlight the universal murphy law that things always tend to go wrong:from state of high order into disorder.observation of stephen hawkins:universe genious fits”tree of life”when he casually says that early generation of stars had to form.stars converted hydrogen,helium into elements like carbon,oxygen;out of which we were made.tree of life would be mirror of life.

  9. In childhood and youth, or even up to the third phase of our being fully egoic and socalled intellectual we derive meaning from experience; in the ego or intellectual phase we derive experience from meaning, but since it finally ends up on the wrong side of natural flow of things/life later we again begin to derive meaning from experience.

  10. Inspiring write-up…

    I’ve always wondered, beyond self-expression, what is the *purpose* of art?

    Anthony: loved your observation about penetrating the consciousness…

    I’ve always held art as a means for the artist to elevate and transcend the self. And create shared experiences of that transcendence for the spectator/audience. Beyond *needs* as defined by Maslow. Even beyond the ‘self-actualization’ rung of his pyramid. This perhaps stems from a very classical grooming and may seem to be ‘passe’ on the face of it, but could be very powerful when applied innovatively to contemporary context.

    I may not be interpreting your observation correctly, and I may be wrong, but I tend to lean away from the notion that “Bollywood PROUDLY keeps up this tradition with more emphasis on the content than storyline”. The repertoire of Indian Cinema surely has some gems to be proud of. But for the most part, ‘Bollywood’ content appeals to the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. Nothing wrong with that…it’s perhaps a question of how the artist (and the audience) choose to wield art, for what purpose, and where s/he is in the *hierarchy of needs* (or beyond). Just not sure if it is a matter of pride 🙂

    The ability to artistically synthesize the inherent contradictions between “ritual and narrative”…between structure, form and content ….in a way that provokes, evokes, invokes, transcends us, the artist and audience, to a different realm…AND entertain in the process — isn’t that the million dollar challenge? and one that defies *zero-budget* film-making?

    On a more current affair-ish note,

    the purpose of life is not to find yourself, but to lose yourself, as reported in the NY Times
    http://goo.gl/FihS4

  11. Dear Kavitha,

    Thank you kindly for your comments! I’m sure you are quite right when it comes to Bollywood, perhaps I should have chosen my words a little more carefully. I really meant to say there is a tradition where the same stories are told over and over, where the ending is known – it will always be happy – and the audience focus their attention on the moment; how well that moment is recreated.

    Like you, I don’t hold much faith in Maslow. The very concepts of ‘hierarchy’ and ‘need’ are opposite, and any ranking of need always reminds me of King Lear’s famous speech…

    O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
    Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
    Allow not nature more than nature needs,
    Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s…

    I was arguing with some students the other day about Maslow, which they had just learned, presumably in economics class. Together we devised an alternate model for needs, a triangle that consists of Food, Shelter & Love – each equally important and necessary to fostering the other. When art was how well you performed a ritual, these three elements were fused together essentially as we prayed for their fulfillment.

    Your comments on transcendence and the NY times article were very interesting. Perhaps art can help us transcend ourselves, not to some mystical sphere, but simply to love and care for each other

  12. Hello Shekhar;

    nice representation of the film… one might expand this theory into works of Painters, Digital Artists..

    I think in whatever creative process one might be involved; there comes a separation from the artist into the “thing” which desire and passion is already creating which ultimately is beyond our grasp once we see it or force it’s presence.. things necessary to progress once more to it’s own purest form.. be it a film, a painting, a digital design.

    BEST!
    North

  13. Hello Antony!!

    I just commented; and then read through the comments and yours particularly struck me as i create digital photo art. I colleged in graphic design and desktop publishing; but did not enjoy the ridiculous hours necessary for little paycheck!! I then, since 1997-98 became self-taught in many photo editing programs. I have gotten quite good in digital photo art.

    Every piece i create becomes an unbound source unknown to me; i see images.. and become empowered through my passions for color, nature, design, photo.. and combine them to make an image never seen!! Images; i could never “imagine” i could myself, create!

    Digital Photo Art will become our new genre of communication – traditional art will take a back seat to the amazing imagery being created through the combination of photography and photo editing.

    Also, i like your idea on the “Triangle” needs… 3 things a human cannot survive without!! Billions of people have no love in their lives; i think, this is one of our largest human failures, next to poverty and hunger.

    BEST!
    North

  15. Good review of the film, but I just one point I have to add,
    “One is better of being slave of reason, rather than being the stupid master of Universe” – that’s the power of the “desire for meaning” (though not the narrow minded one).

  16. All things human too grow/happen like a tree, for example, these Jasmine revolutions happening all over the world, yet give the impression to humans that it is they who are doing them. As if they could as well avoid doing them.

    All these happenings some day will be fully understood in terms of cycles/fractals of four basic phases in terms of four basic forces/interactions.

  17. Forgot to add, a simple explanation of recent happenings of earthquakes/tsunamis, political unrest, nuclear catastrophe as at Fukushima is given in terms of fractals/these interactions in what has now become the most popular post (see top left) of my blog given above (click name) .

    Hi North, hope everything is OK with you. How is your son doing?

  18. Dear North,

    Thanks for reading my comments! Is sounds like digital photo art has been an inspiring and passionate outlet for you. A journey into artifice that allows you to discover yourself as well as your subjects. This is the one thing that unites all these comments; all these internets; all these expressions -a new aesthetic reality via illusion.

    Re “back seat” -I don’t underestimate the power of traditional forms to stay alive amidst the new technology. For some reason I resist everything going over to 1’s and 0’s, although I guess that is really the ultimate artifice, and a digital screen should be embraced as the modern canvas or stage

    Best of luck and keep playing 🙂

  19. I hear you, Antony, re: ‘same stories…re-creation of the moment….’, just as it is with the re-telling and re-creating any of the masterpieces of Shakespeare, Mozart etc, I guess.

    The ‘always happy ending’ perhaps is rooted in a sensibility espoused in eastern tradition and philosophy that life ought to be celebratory and joyful. King Lear as well was re-written at one point to project a ‘happy ending’, wasn’t it? All perhaps with the goal of helping observe & transcend the dark side of humanity, of oneself…as you pointed out, not to a ‘mystic sphere’, but to more eternal states of just being human. (Yeah, words like ‘transcendence’ have [wrongly] assumed a cultish connotation) 🙂

    There are nuggets of re-invention even within tradition. Seen any of the *tragedies* in the context of Indian cinema?

  20. Kavitha, your comments are thought-provoking and insightful. It is productive to view Western traditions in the light of the East, especially the ritual re-invention and re-telling of tragedy, and I’m not sure I’ve seen this clearly before. It is funny how ancient Greeks were (presumably) preoccupied with a cathartic tragedy to cure society by purging fear and pity, as Indians attempted to achieve a similar goal through ‘happy’ means.

    The ‘happy Lear’ is generally considered one of the worse aberrations in our theatre history, although I think audiences quite enjoyed it at the time! I guess it would be akin to having the King and Shakuntala tragically die at the end of Kalidasa’s play, to pay tribute to emerging sensibilities and tastes!

    My ‘dark side’ of Indian film experience has only extended to some of Deepa Mehta’s work, and I’m not sure if she is strictly considered Indian cinema?! Any suggestions are most welcome!

  21. hi shekar,Big fan of yours! i watched mr india whn i was 8yrs old and for me it is the best indian superhero movie ever made.krish, chitty or g.one can never match up to mr india.i just want to know whether u still consider yourself as a chartered accountant ? u still have accounting skills?reason why i am curious is because i am a CA myself . how in the world did a creative genius life you study something as rigid and boring as accounting?

  22. Look at yin/yang fig. The white belongs to Yin, body, female, west, day, duality, science, and so to eventual tragedy because in terms of day/duality it will be seem that all will eventually separate.

    Opposite is the case with Yang, mind/soul, male, east, oneness, spirituality, night. Hence to eventual happy ending because in terms of oneness it will seem that all will eventually unite.

    In fact this is also the reason there are more divorces in the west (because they think they can separate by separating just the bodies), and less in the east (they know they just cant separate wholly anyway so why take the bother?)

  23. “I actually wish people would not say this is Brad Pitts best performance.”

    That would undoubtedly have to be his role in Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007). Dominik said, “It’s very difficult to cast a movie star as an ordinary person, and Brad can really only play extraordinary people.”

    I for one am REALLY looking forward to watching Tree of Life! 🙂

  24. Happy to suggest, Antony, but my own flow is quite counter-current, so I’d suggest indugence in any, or all, to be peppered with adequate self-restraints and diligence 🙂

    Since you’ve alluded to Shakespeare & Kalidasa, my mind jumps to suggesting that you start perhaps with

    1) the Indian adaptations of Macbeth & Othello — Maqbool & Omkara by Vishal Bhardwaj

    2) Raavan (Hindi and Tamil language) – made by Mani Ratnam, it is a divergent take on the central characters of the Ramayana, and the virtues they traditionally symbolize. While the film bombed in the box-office, and many watched it for its ‘star power’, I personally found it fascinating to observe the re-interpretation and re-casting of chastity, good & evil as represented by the characters in the film, and as viewed from a different vantage point. It would take at least a minimal exposure to the literary work itself to understand/compare/and mull over it. Of course any art form has its share of purists and re-inventors as critics…if King Lear’s ‘happy ending’ version was an aberration, imagine the risk Ratnam took with re-interpreting Sita, Rama and Ravana in a land where they are extolled and largely epitomized as symbols of chastity, good and evil, respectively! At the very least, the film is to be watched for its stunning cinematography and opulent brushstrokes of breathless visual beauty.

    Some others that might be worth considering, specifically for experiences of the ‘dark side’, (assuming your interest is in stories placed in the Indian social-cultural context, and whose creative garb is essentially Indian)…

    — Dil Se, Bombay (Hindi) – both from Mani Ratnam
    — Black, Guzaarish (Hindi) – both from Sanjay Leela Bhansali, most of whose works have anchored around a character with some sort of physical challenge/disability
    — Devdas (Hindi) – also from Bhansali, based on the novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, a contemporary of Tagore. If you REALLY want to do an academic comparative study of cinematic approaches, you might want to watch ‘Dev D’ by Anurag Kashyap –based on the same novel, but a marked variant from any of its earlier adaptations.
    — Chaturanga (Bengali language) – By Suman Mukhopadhyay based on Tagore’s novel
    — 15 Park Avenue (English) by Aparna Sen
    — Maya (Hindi language) – a debut feature by DigVijay Singh with story based on the devadasi tradition…
    — Pazhassi Raja (Malayalam language) – a period film depicting the human drama ensuing greed &loot (by the British East India Company) and the warring forces of the local King &his tribal warriors
    — Nizhalkuthu (English, French, Malayalam) – by Adoor Gopalakrishnan
    — Kanchivaram (Tamil language) – by Priyadarshan, adapted from the Mahabharata

    Surely, this is not a comprehensive compendium of the ‘dark side’, but hopefully represents a range in the cinematic canvas to include originals, adaptations, re-inventions, small/big budget, independent, regional language etc…and, of course I’d be remiss if I did not include Shekhar’s own Bandit Queen 🙂

    Know of any literary works from India taken on by western directors (theater or film) in creating or re-creating the aesthetic experience of ‘rasa’ (that you alluded to earlier) in its truest sublime form? Please don’t quote Brooks’ Mahabharata,

    Anyway, what makes cinema/art one that is Indian, American, British etc.? – the story & its context or who directs/produces it?

  25. Kavitha!

    Would you believe this is my first venture into blogging?! And how rich it is proving! Thank you so so much for this exhaustive list. I will certainly try to obtain as many of those as possible. Actually, my background is theatre, which may be why I am less familiar with Indian film. I do know the Ramayana but am a lot more familiar with the Mahabharata, and not – I’m happy to report – because of Mr Brook!

    Actually, the reason that I’m following Shekhar Kapur is because I was pitching a script to him of a play that I wrote, The Durbar. The play is the result of an extended study into Sanskrit drama; specifically, how modern directors could go about presenting the work to a western audience. The lines are blurred now in our globalized world, as you rightly pointed out; however, I still think there is an aesthetic that works for a Indian audience which a western one would find hard to appreciate because of inherited artistic practice and collective unconscious (if there is such a thing).

    I’m happy that you asked if there were any western artists attempting to recreate rasa, as that is exactly what I have endeavored to do with this play! I had previously noticed from theatre history that our western canon seems to entirely skip the early 20th century period of Modernism, we move straight from realism and naturalism to expressionism and absurdism, and there is no dramatic equivalent of, say, James Joyce’s Ulysses in prose or T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in poetry in 1922. I mention this because what I saw in the aesthetic of Sanskrit drama was what I saw in Modernism. Rasa itself can be neatly defined as what Eliot termed the ‘objective correlative’:

    “The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.”

    I decided that two birds could be caught with one stone: a missing chapter in theatre history could be written, and in doing so a model for Western appreciation of Sanskrit aesthetics could be presented. Before I even knew what would happen, I set the play in 1922, as a nod to Joyce and Eliot, and proceeded from there, to try and recreate a Modernist drama that relied on the Sanskrit rasa theory.

    I have since found out there is a reason theatre missed this chapter: it’s damn hard to get western audiences interested in this type of presentation! Eliot and Joyce were reviled as esoteric and impenetrable in their time, but the joy of the written word is you can take your time with it; it will sit there and wait for you. Drama has to be caught in the moment, and if it doesn’t catch you it’s lost.

    If you are interested in the result please check out the play’s website: http://www.thedurbar.com – I can also email you more of drama itself. I have faith that the message will find it’s medium in time, but at the present I’m just biding my time; waiting for some visionary to see the method in my madness!

    This is what this new world is about, creating bridges of understanding through dialogue. I am very happy I decided to keep checking the comments section of this particular post! Are we creating our own Tree of Life? 🙂

  26. Antony, glad you are enjoying the experience of your maiden blog-ride…it’s quite amazing where it can take you!

    That you are attempting to bridge East and West through theater is terrific. Fascinating that you have formally studied Sanskrit drama. Did you know there’s a little village in the southern state of Karnataka, where people in the community still communicate only in that language? – kind of a village frozen in time! I myself came to know about it only recently through my parents who visited there (my mother did her advanced degree in Sanskrit, so this was a natural attraction for her!)

    …and yes, would be eager to hear more about drama and your rendezvous with India — will drop you a note at the durbar…

  30. Shekhar,

    There are/have been so many movies which leave me with the feeling ‘ so what was the point of that ? ‘ – ‘ did it entertain me ?’ or ‘ that was a depressing ending , biased or the author/director trying to push their agenda on the way we are left thinking’

    I think watching a movie is like combing your hair wet with gel – after a minute you better choose how you want to bend it and terminate it , so it can set that way. I think films , sort of , ‘ comb your thoughts ‘ and leave your thoughts ‘set’ in a particular way , by the end of the experience.

    Sometimes it feels like a horrible waste of time – what was the point of the plot – i would have felt a lot better had i not wached the darned film , etc. I think the origins of the way some Western /European/Hollywood films are made is derived from the philosophy that says ‘ Art is art’s own sake’. It has no purpose , just expression or creativity without a ‘plot’.

    However , we in the highly evolved East , especially in India , all through our many thousands fo highly evolved existance – Art always had a larger spiritual purpose – from divinely inspired music , to music as a means to attain the ‘Purushartha’ – or the aim of life. Art always had a purpose – to be of service to DHarma , society or one’s own personal offering to a chosen form of God.

    So in that context , it is understandable how and why Indians cannot but see some of the creative works of the West as either Childish at worst or a Waste of time at the best. SOme Hollywood works are meant for the American market , which to be frank , is a Childish civilization ( compared to an Indian perspective) with the purpose of the whole movie a simple thought or a feeling , with themes like ‘ family’ or ‘ selfishness to a romantic idea of selflesness’ . Seriously – they are better off reading Jataka tales .

    So there is no one universal perspective on the worldview when it comes to some Films – some of them are genuinely pointless , some have a geo-political agenda ( like Slumdog Millionare) , some have a strategic agenda ( like Lawrence of Arabia) , there are a lot of other examples people can come up with.

  31. This is one that must be watched on the big screen.
    Watched the YT trailer several times over, and read the NYT review.
    What a colossal piece of work. What scale. The light! That shot, the trees in the clearing with the light filtering through- awesome.

    If I could step away from the page, Mr. Mallick’s insistence privacy, on not being photographed, not appearing onstage for the big prize and soundbyte, and astounding focus – three films in three decades. What a story. Shocking amazing. What a brilliant story, in the space between the words.

    *tiptoeing away from genre and suchlike*

  33. To understand the deepest wisdom of Indian civilization is to see Perfection everywhere, even in the so-called West or Western civilizations not to say of their film making. If in some films they look childish in others they attain almost Godly heights so far as it could be reached with material medium.

  34. And to see Perfection everywhere is to see the whole universal scheme of things beginning and ending with One. Not an atom is misplaced, not a breath taken beyond its due reach.

  35. Perhaps you should celebrate the trending of “Qyuki” at Twitter by writing something about that here as well!

    Quick from online dictionary means : Alive; living; animate; opposed to dead or inanimate. Not very different from your word Qyuki.

    Now it has begun to look like Shekharkapur’s Qyuki, something like Harbhajan’s “doosra” lol.

  36. Harb ,

    You are waffling on again. So according to your understanding, you say we should see perfection in everything, yeah?

    As someone who sees perfection everywhere- answer this: is there perfection in the British rule of India? What perfection do you see in the Famines caused by the British, especially by Churchill? What perfection do you see in Raavan or duryodhan?

    It is only a combination of stupidity and intellectual subversion that covers up the tremendous diversity of and in Nature. Secular half baked ideas that sound big are self delusional. if everything is Perfect why do you correct your kid’s homework? Or go to a Doctor?

    There is no perfection in the material world- Only Vedic teaching which is the Esoteric teaching of mankind, will tell you thus. There is nothing but imperfection in this world.

    Wake up, if your brain us still able to register this 😉

  37. To see plants in the world you need to be evolved to plants from minerals; to see animals in the world you need to be evolved to animals; to see man you need to be evolved to man from animals; to see perfection you need to be evolved to the highest stage of man. Then you have an experience of what is known as “Deus Factus Sum (I have become God).” And then you see Perfection.

    Vedas are for masses, upanishadas are for more evolved, then there come rare books of what you call Esoteric teachings like Ashtavakara Gita, these are for the cutting edge, yet all do not and cannot show you what a direct experience can show you. Only through direct experience can you see perfection.

    It is like after much trials and tribulations you are able to meet your lover and then in one orgasmic/love embrace you not only realize the perfection in that embrace but in the whole spectrum of trials and tribulations you went through in the past for the same. Then you can perhaps see that the perfection was all along there in every second of the advancement towards this final experience.

    This poem below from some Russian writer gives an idea of that perfection:

    The event
    Was accomplished
    But reason
    Had yet to absorb it entire.
    It hadn’t burst hot from the lips yet,
    A tale like a swift-spreading fire.
    The moments were not yet near
    To assess it dispassionately,
    But nonetheless
    All was clear
    From the look of the earth and the sky…

    “All was clear” points towards the seeing of that Perfection I am talking about.

    Never mind, your anger shows that you very much hanker for seeing that perfection and that is good.

  38. As this blog is from a film maker not to talk of this post itself being about a film too, and visited by many people interested in films I want to share a post related to film script which I hope will interest some. A part was already written about here: http://t.co/Ht5763w . The next related and perhaps more interesting part is here: http://t.co/3nyY9vh

    Incidently it has some connection to the maker of a Royal movie and owner of this blog, yes, Shekhar kapur.

  39. Forogt to add a related article “Diana at 50” at Newsweek and subsequent critique at Huffingtonpost is upsetting many readers of the respective magazines just as it happened with documentary “Unlawful Killing” at Cannes. My later post above has become sort of corollary to that article and has been equally criticised and even appreciated by some.

  41. in that light..how can even the one who does not hanker for seeing the perfection is not good or any lesser good…

  42. i mean – even the one who does not hanker for seeing the perfection is as good and not any lesser good…isn’t it..

  43. Look at a mango tree growing towards the days when mango will begin to appear on it. Every cell of the tree is good even today but when you will see the first crop of “bur” or small mangoes on it you will find yourself exclaiming, “good!” Were the previous twigs, leaves etc were not good or less good, less than perfection?

  44. Here is the latest on Diana story at my blog. “Princess Diana, Kate and Pippa Middleton reincarnation story -4… http://t.co/66V1diT

    I began the story on Pippa Middleton and in a lighter vein and at the end of the first post even tried to turn it towards Diana’s death and Pippa’s motive as possible revenge. But my subconscious mind is forcing a far greater motive on this story reading which I too am amazed. I have begun to wonder if it does not contain some real truth though only future can really tell it. At least I am getting convinced with each passing day. Tina Brown’s story “Diana at 50” at Newsweek and thedailybeast is further helping to spread it in which it in fact fits nicely. That further makes me wonder if it is not the plot of some greater Force happening through Tina Brown, me and may be in future through maker of Elizabeth.

    I will continue to write as it comes.

  46. I am sick of “harping” in this section of the blog, SK did not post a new blog in 2 months!

  47. Hi
    Congratulations! The Directory of Best Indian Blogs is out and your nice blog figures in that. We thought, let’s announce that to you.
    Since all blogs do not have emails clearly mentioned, we have taken the liberty of telling you of this by making a comment on your latest blogpost. Hope, you don’t mind it.
    Happy blogging!

    ITB team

  50. Waw is imagining , I like it.I have just given link in my site I have bookmarked it and will keep posting my views here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.