Action, It Is Movie Time!

In this post I would like to use another metaphor of you being a movie screen in order to make you realize that what you think to be is a misinterpretation of reality and that this illusion is preventing you to fully appreciate the magic of existence.

Picture Credit: Charles on Unsplash

"Let me tell you something. You're in a hell, and you're gonna die in a hell, just like the rest of 'em! "

- From the movie "Taxi Driver" -

“There’s no nobility in poverty.” - From the movie "The Wolf of Wall Street"-

"I believe in: Death, Destruction, Chaos, Filth and Greed!"

- From the movie "American History X"-

“Behind every successful fortune there is a crime.” - From the movie "The Godfather"-

"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven"

- From the movie "The Devil's advocate"-

"Never underestimate the power of denial".

- From the movie "American Beauty"-

“You have to learn to push the guilt under the rug and move on, otherwise it overwhelms you.”

- From the movie "Match Point"-

In some of my previous posts I have been trying to point to you your true nature through the usage of metaphors ("Your Life is A Truman Show", "Your Life Is A Night Dream", "Like Water"). Since what you are cannot be pointed, metaphors represent a powerful tool to at least visually imagine what I am referring to.

I consider becoming directly conscious of your true nature the first and most essential step towards a more comprehensive understanding of other facets of awakening. I consider this first step to be an effective crack into the belief of reality being physical and material. As long as you consider yourself to be a physical human being or an ethereal soul or a ball of energy you are deceiving yourself. I am sorry if it seems I am repeating myself but I personally know how difficult and challenging is to hold reality differently from how we have been told to for decades without never questioning the obvious. Using different metaphors with different scenarios might be useful for some of you to make the necessary shift to go beyond your current belief system.

Too many people have been overlooking for too long something that is right at the source of our daily life experiences, something that will give to your mundane life experiences a magical touch.

The question we are trying to address is always the same: "Who are you?" because only by answering this question the whole Universe will be seen from a different perspective. The metaphor of you being like a movie screen or a projector is often used in consciousness work because it easily describes how the illusion works. It is then your responsibility to actually do the work and to turn a conceptual understanding in an actual direct experience of what these metaphors are pointing to.

So without further hesitating, let’s get to the point.

Everyone is familiar with a movie screen, like the one you have at home or that you find at cinemas. A movie screen is perfect for pointing to what you truly are because it shares many of its qualities. A movie screen is able to support any kind of content, any kind of stories and any kind of movie's genres. There are no real limitations to what a movie screen can project and its potential is therefore infinite. We could say that a movie screen has infinite power in projecting whatever has been imagined to exist.

A movie screen does not interfere in any way with the content of the movie, it does not judge or blame any movie content, it does not prevent any content to be (no matter how cruel the movie is). The movie screen simply allows the movie to happen. The screen is simply conscious of all the possible infinite stories that are being broadcasting without any interference. We could say that a movie screen is omniscient because is being conscious of anything happening within it and all loving because it allows everything to happen and exist without judgment.

Regardless to what happens to the characters within the movie, the movie screen is always present. Whether or not the movie is being projected or switched off, the existence of the screen is not affected in any way. Life and death, good and bad and all other dualities are existing only from the point of view of the character: the screen will never ceases to exist if one of the characters dies or if an entire city is going to be destroyed. We could say that the movie screen is omnipresent and eternal.

Importantly, the movie screen does not know the content of the movie in term of knowledge, it is simply aware of it. It simply represents the ground on which the show can take place. From the point of view of the characters within the movie, the screen is not recognizable or perceivable, the character cannot point to the screen because it is made out of it. The screen stays in the background without being noticed even though it represents the main factor for the movie to exist. Indeed, without the screen there would not be any support on which the movie with all its characters could be broadcast.

Let’s focus now on the content of the movie.

Like the character within a dream does not know to be imagined and being made out of mind, the character in the movie has no reason to doubt to be a physical entity living in a world made out of physical objects. From the point of view of the character, its life and existence look to be material and it has no reason to question this model. By trusting its perceptions, feelings, memories, emotions and reasoning the character can prove to itself that it was physically born from its parents, it can tell you everything about its personal history and it will tell you that one day it will physically die. This way of reasoning is supported by all the other characters within the movie and the only idea to question this perspective of reality seems non-sense.

Any character in the movie feels to be limited and separated from others beings and from the world in which they live. By taking for granted this first very assumption, the life of each character in the movie will be mainly focused to survive and fear will be the driving force in achieving this demanding task.

The natural consequence in feeling finite and limited is the urge of protecting itself from being physically hurt. The character in the movie has the natural instinct to fear others and the environment in which it lives in order to construct the illusion to feel less vulnerable and more in control of its life. Even though fear manifests sometimes in form of physical violence, the main channels through which the character defends its own identity is by lying, manipulating, blaming, judging, projecting, denying, naming others or the external circumstances. The character never takes responsibility for its own shit and by self-deception it always finds a way to justify its behavior.

Example of movies where the character feels justified in protecting its own identity and ideology by spreading devilry as a consequence of feeling limited and finite are: “The Devil’s Advocate”, “The Wolf of Wall Street”, “The God Father”, “Taxi Driver”, “American History X”, “American Beauty” and “Match Point”. All the characters in these movies commit some sort of evil action justified by their own self agenda and interests. We could say that the character in the movie knows love only in a selfish way, a form of love aimed to protect its own ideologies and beliefs system.

This is not love, this is fear.

Any character in the movie that insists in believing to be a separate and finite entity will live its life based on survival and it will therefore be bound to suffer and fear the world. Only by looking within the character will be able to free itself from the illusion. Unless the character stops being focused on the external world and starts self reflecting within ("No- Self: The First Step Towards You", "Look Within You"), no real change will ever occur. By looking within itself, the character appearing in the screen will realize to be not physical but made out of many pixels and by looking even further it will realize that its true nature is the movie screen out of which everything seems to appear as physical and material.

By looking within, the character will realize that itself and all other objects that have seemed to exist within the movie are made out of the same substance, and that the feeling to be limited and separate was simply the result of a wrong interpretation of reality. Everything within the movie is equal and unified by the screen. By looking within the character will realize that the fear and the urge of survival were unnecessary because there never was a separate self in the first place. The only thing truly existing is the movie screen projecting infinite stories.

The screen does not know anything about the movies is projecting, it simply allows them to be. The only way for the movie screen to know something about the movie is to identify itself with one of the character and to take a finite point of view. Only through identification the movie screen can know what is going on within the movie.

The movie screen cannot know anything about the content unless it thinks and beliefs to be a limited finite perspective separate from others.

Paradoxically, the infinite potential of the movie screen in projecting whatever it wants does not allow itself to know itself in any finite ways. The infinite cannot know something finite unless it forgets to be infinite and pretends to be finite. One advantage of having infinite power is to be able to fall into the illusion of being a specific character within the movie and enjoy its content. Of course, this limitation comes with a price to pay: feeling stuck into the illusion of being a separate being and suffer from this condition.

The journey of the illusory self is to wake up and to realize its true nature enjoying the movie at best.

Needless to see that in this metaphor you, or better what you think to be, is the character in the movie that seems to exist as an independent entity and that the movie screen is your true nature, Nothingness or Consciousness. Unlike the screen, Nothingness or Consciousness, has no objective qualities whatsoever but it still exists and it is the only reality existing. It is what you are.

Your aim as a human being is therefore to:

1. Realize to be the movie screen.

2. Discover your own features, that is, being omnipresent, omniscient, eternal and all loving (literally).

3. Live this human life according to this understanding rather than from self survival.

So if you are struggling in life and you want a real change, it is time to stop sitting on your comfy sits eating popcorn and being at the mercy of life. It is all about you and only you can do something about it. The hell that some people experience in their life is the direct result of a huge misinterpretation of their true nature and it is your goal to turn this horror or dramatic movie we call life into something more pleasant and joyful to experience.

Thanks for reading.