I AM--the movie, not the truth

Last night i saw the film, "I AM," another in a recent spate of movies claiming a spiritual message. The movie starts out by asking two questions, "What is wrong with our world?" and "What can we do about it?" Right off the bat this movie has committed two grave errors. The first presumption is that there is indeed something wrong with our world. This is based on the idea that humans are somehow in charge and that we are doing something wrong. I don't deny that not providing health care, food or shelter for the needy in our communities certainly seems twisted in light of multimillion dollar bonuses for CEOs of banks, car companies, insurance companies and the like, but far to often something that seemed "wrong" or "bad" to my little ego mind turned out to be the catalyst for the next step. Observe how the years of oppression in the Middle East have coalesced into sweeping changes for countries like Egypt, Tunisia, potentially Libya and Bahrain.

The second mistake is again assuming that the answer is outside ourselves. "If you want to change the world, change yourself." J. Krishnamurti. It is easy to get distracted by the needs of others and the sense of "doing good." In fact the rest of the movie was dedicated to the two-fold message: we are all connected (yeah, duh, bravo) and doing something for others is good, it is what we are made to do ((insert several authorities and scientific experiments that "prove" this hypothesis) boo, hiss, ego.)

This is not to assert that helping others is bad. It is simply to say that until your own house is cleaned up you probably will just make a mess if you try to clean up someone else's. Once you have cleaned up your house, actions that are kind, considerate and respectful become normal. Hateful, intolerant, exclusive actions don't feel good to someone who is awake. The vibrations are just distasteful. As my teacher once said, "Why would i eat poo, when i can eat honey?"