Hollywood’s Gita

[Guest guest]

WARNING: this movie review is not for those gutless egos like

Arjuna who initially refused to fight his battle, his Mahabharata.

This story is for those egos that are willing to go beyond their

Mahabharata and fight society, god and indeed heaven and hell

itself to free themselves from the tyranny of their illusions.

-=-

 

Last night I saw a movie that I had seen bits of before only to turn

off in disgust. The movie personified everything that was

disgusting and decadent to me, and my society.

 

This movie is Fight Club.

This time this same movie was totally different. Not only was this

movie totally different but it was a movie whose message of non-

duality was so obvious and profound that it hit me over the head

with the power of a sledge-hammer.

 

This sledge-hammer did for me what the Bhagavad Gita could not, no

matter how many times I read it. The movie convinced me that life was

my dream.

 

No matter how many times I read the Gita its message of non-duality

could not convince me of much because only about 1% of its text was

the message while 99% was preoccupied with all the Gita's

dualities of duty, devotions, gurus and gods, death and dying.

 

What helped the movie get its non-duality message across was its

DNA. The movie had my DNA.

This movie literally had my DNA so nobody else could have dreamt

this movie but ME. And so either I was dreaming this movie in my

sleep, or, life was my dream and this movie was just a part of this

dream called my-life.

 

When I dream about my school, and then my family, and then my friends

then such a dream has my DNA. This means that nobody else can have

this dream because there is nobody else who has my school, family and

friends in common. This movie is exactly the same story.

All my life I have been seeking and writing to be where I am and this

movie called Fight Club explains exactly where I AM. Nobody else can

be exactly where I am. (This is because in Reality there is no other.)

=-=

 

In the movie Fight Club, Edward Norton plays the narrator who is a

Nothing. The narrator is just one of society's losers, a

Nothing.

Unlike Arjuna who has all sorts of duties, morals and values to

uphold the narrator has no morals and values to uphold. This makes

a huge difference in the movies message. (The Gita's message

would have been as powerful as the movie's but only if Arjuna

would have been a social outcast, a Nothing, like the narrator. )

 

The narrator is a loser until he hallucinates an alias, Tyler

Durden. Tyler is played by Brad Pitt. This hallucination works like

Krishna worked for Arjuna. The hallucination turns the narrator, who

is a Nothing, into a someone that is everything this Nothing wants

to be.

 

Thus the movie has the same exact message as the Gita where Krishna

is literally everything that Arjuna wants to be. And just like in

the movie, in the Gita Krishna is also just a hallucination of

Arjuna.

And if I cannot accept that Krishna is just Arjuna's

hallucination then I totally miss the non-duality message of the

Gita and the Vedas: that Reality = Atman = Krishna = Arjuna = ME

=YOU. THERE IS NO DUALITY. DUALITY IS created by the mind; duality

is a figment of the mind's imagination – dualities are just

hallucinations of the mind.

The rest of the movie is about the narrator seeking to discover that

indeed he has to be this own hallucination. This is the exact same

scenario that the Gita gives us as Arjuna seeks to discover that he

is also just the hallucination of everything he wants to be, called

Krishna.

 

In the Gita, Arjuna has a dualistic " duty " to fight for the

lofty and indeed epic dualistic ideals of good and evil, justice and

injustice right and wrong. In the movie there is ABSOLUTELY NO DUTY

to fight, let alone fight for imaginary dualities.

The Gita tries to give me its non-duality message with a few buried

words like " there is no doer. " But the whole movie hits me

over the head with this message. The movie does this but only

because, unlike Arjuna in the Gita, the club members have absolutely

no duty to fight. They are beyond the social values of morals and

duty. And only because the club members are beyond social-values can

they turn into the " something " they want to be instead of

being society's losers. Thus the words: " It's only after

you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. " (or,

only a total loser can be free to be everything); and " The

next time you feel like complaining to your chaplain or lover about

how miserable life is be thankful you are not cursed with the three

terrible Karmas – Beauty, Riches and Fame. "

 

In the movie the fighting is done for NOTHING. IN the movie fighting

is done for the sake of fighting. And thus the sledge-hammer

message: there are no dualities. And the more a " loser "

lives life as if it has no dualities -- (takes life to be just a

dream) -- the more such a loser has to turn into a Krishna and/or

Tyler who is untouchable, powerful and free to be everything one can

ever want to be. And this total freedom has nothing to do with the

moral, religious and social dualities that plague the Gita.

The battle between fighters in the movie is right from the Bhagavad

Gita. The fights might as well be the Gita's Mahabharata.

 

It is the story of Realization -- that we are our worst enemy and

best friend. Thus I can only kill the enemy that has to be my best

friend, ME, because there is no other; there is no duality; there is

no doer – there is only the hallucinations I think is my enemy,

friend, god, demon... And only when I accept that my mind

hallucinates all its dualities am I free to be everything I want to

be, be it a Tyler or Krishna, Buddha or even Jesus.

 

-- thoughts from Hollywood.