Conversations with God
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[edit] View from Nowhere
One of the few films I know of that details the life of the homeless. The film follows the protagonist into the life of a homeless and then out of that life again. My heart opened, as I saw how the homeless were treated, as if they didn't exist by the primarily "Christian" community that they co-existed with. (Not to imply that the homeless are not ignored in most other places on this planet.) Poignant is the "Christmas spirit" that excludes them. The film is called "Conversations with God" and so its designated content does not seem to intersect with that of a non-deistic Dharma. Yet when Neale Donald Walsch, the protagonist, is asked if God has one message that could be put in a paragraph, Neale says the message can be put in 5 words, "You've got me all wrong."
Neale also writes in the book the movie is taken from,
"To some of you I am pure energy. To some, the ultimate feeling, which you call love.... I AM. I am the wind which rustles your hair. I am the sun which warms your body. I am the rain which dances on your face.... I am the beginning of your first thought....
"Whatever works for you, whatever makes it happen – whatever ritual, ceremony, demonstration, meditation, thought, song, word, or action it takes for you to 'reconnect' – do this. Do this in remembrance of Me."[9, pages 25-26]
The problem is that that "I" is not I at all, and doesn't speak. Still this could be seen as a sort of bridge movie, bridging Christianity and Dharma, almost informing Christianity with Dharma, but the Dharma also being attenuated by the "God talk."
As a side note, Colin Wilson, a good path to the path author, who can help to deconstruct one's ordinary belief systems, was prominently displayed in the tent Walsch lived in.
There is another revelation of Walsch's to consider, revealed by Walsch after having struck up his conversation with a God who speaks, interestingly, in Walsch's own voice. Desire is spoken of as that which prevents one from getting what one desires. Why? Because when one is in desire one is in a space of lack, and it is that space of lack which conditions one's reality, so one's reality becomes, in fact, experienced, and manifested, as lacking precisely what one desires. See the movie for the answer to the correct approach to that problem.
Lastly, there is a wonderful scene in which Walsch, on a book tour, hawking his very successful book, is "preaching" his gospel. Then a woman shows up, and tearfully, angrily, decries his God of love. She explains that her adopted son died at 18 and that he suffered since he was 14, after learning he was adopted. And, he never called her "Mom" after finding out, wounding her deeply. She also relates how she promised her son that she would help him find his "real" mother when he was 18. Well, there are long moments of maximal discomfort, as poor Walsch seems to have another of his moments of dissociation from "reality", and everyone wonders if his bubble is about to be burst. But then shockingly, he emerges from the dissociation with a shocking, penetrating answer. He stands up, walks over to her, and says in a low confident voice, saying something to the effect, "He died because of you. You made a promise that he could meet his biological mother. But she died a few years ago. The only way for your promise to come true was for him to die when he became 18." Well I was taken aback. That answer had the ring of truth. Issues of the logic of manifestation are central to this film.
See this film. If nothing else, it is a tale of impermanance and the transition into and out of a literally hungry, hungry ghost realm, which is that of the homeless.
[edit] Other Views from Nowhere
- Video Conversation with Neale Donald Walsch Part 1
- Video Conversation with Neale Donald Walsch Part 2
