Over the last few days, my unflattering blog response to a recently-produced movie available online has produced a wide range of feedback from my Facebook friends and the co-producer of that movie. If you are thinking about spending well over an hour watching "Love, Reality in the Time of Transition," you may want to take 10 minutes with this article first.
I think that exchange here, particularly between the co-producer and I, is telling. Rather than let it be buried in yesterday's FB wall, I am sharing it with you here because I think that the exchange itself will be enlightening about the importance of awareness when viewing what we perceive to be consciousness-raising movies.
New videos and full on-line movies are coming out with beautiful, enlightening messages. Other movies are produced--either with innocent intention or dark intent--that counterpoint the positive messages. One recent example of this is a movie that came out shortly after the introduction of the marvelous "Ghetto Physics." The right-wing response, called "I Want Your Money," is a mindless, dark response that is very obviously, to me, an insult to any intelligent person who watches it.
My initial review of of the "Love, Reality..." movie was met with some harsh response by a few people who have a very conscious reputation, so I decided to watch the whole 77+ minutes again. And I created another blog posting that partially backed off my initial review in which I had thought I may have been just a little brutal with my first assessment. But I still panned the movie as stirring up a big pot filled with flesh-eating aliens, self-contradicting and no solutions, no heart. This provoked an angry response from the co-producer of the movie that I will share with you here.
We are continuing to receive in our world more and more eye-openers; things are not what they appear to be. So I humbly ask that you be aware of what you are watching when a new consciousness movie comes out.
Here is the co-producer's angry and public note to me that he published on my Facebook wall.
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Humberto Braga Hello. I'm one of the people who made video "Love, Reality, and the Time of Transition", and I'd like to help shed light on some of your issues with the video. In discussing with many people who have read your critique, the objections raised to the video "Love, Reality, and the Time of Transition" seem to be mostly either appeals to personal preference, gross over-generalizations and over-simplifications, or outright lies.
Let's go through your objections:
1.) "The commentator suggests that it is futile to send loving energy to anyone "who didn't ask for it." Sending love to others unannounced is said to be a form of self-deception."
There are finer aspects to this point which are overlooked in your summary. To paraphrase the point, any emotional projections of "Love" (whatever one's concept of "Love" happens to be at the time) on to another must coincide with the other's sincerity in asking for it, through words or actions. Otherwise if they do not truly want whatever is being projected, it can be a sort of violation of free will; a presumptuous invasion in to their lessons, driven either by wishful thinking or the conceit that "I know what's better for them and, despite not being sincerely asked, I'm going to try to change them anyway". This impulse and idea of "Love" is generally driven by wishful thinking, self-gratification, egotistic projection, and/or a disregard for seeking to understand objective reality.
2.) "I guess that shoots prayer out the window as something they see as worth doing. Or maybe we ought to warn folks first if we want to pray for them? Also knocked is the whole idea of karma."
First of all, the video says "there IS some truth to the idea of Karma". This "distorting the message to suit what you WANT to hear" is a consitent theme throughout your critique. We'll see more examples as we go along...
Secondly, if prayer, for you, is trying to get someone to change, then listen to George Carlin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo&t=04m50 s
He explains it pretty well... And the previous response to Objection #1 addresses this as well.
3.) "the movie suggests first that it is wasteful to consider conspiracy theories, and then tells us flat-out that something very fishy was going on with our government on 9-11-01."
This is an outright lie. Nowhere in the movie is it suggested that "it is wasteful to consider conspiracy theories". Here's the part about conspiracy theories and activism.
"Seeking truth and making the darkness conscious needs to happen within AND without, not just one or the other. Activism and spiritual self-work go hand in hand. It’s not separated but interrelated.
The problem that comes with truth seekers and activists who only focus on the outside is that they can easily fall into the trap of disinformation or they resonate with lies because their “Reading Instrument”, the Self, is not “tuned” correctly through sincere self work which would help their critical thinking abilities. It becomes harder to separate truth from lies and one may even spread disinformation unknowingly because one is less likely to see the “unseen” or the “devil in the details” so to speak, resulting in oversimplifications, assumptions, and misconceptions. In other words, I need to understand my “machine”, my habitual way of thinking and how my emotional reactions and attachments can distort things, how I take in information and how my own bias and conditioned beliefs filter information which can result in cognitive dissonance."
4.) "While we are told that we must balance the identification with the heart with that of the mind, it subtly and consistently tips the scale in favor of giving the balance of our power to the mind. It leans on science and logic."
Many have found the synergy of the imagery and the narration to be a harmonious balance between the heart and mind in getting the points across. Perhaps it is just your own intellectual defensiveness in watching this which didn't allow you to truly feel what was being conveyed as well?
5.) "And on top of all that, maybe we should be afraid of malicious aliens: We should be aware that “UFOs are not signs of our 'space brothers' coming to help us but that we are actually 'food' in many ways....” What is this, some awkward allusion to the old Twilight Zone episode where the aliens had a cookbook called "To Serve Man?""
For the sake of seeking truth and maintaining integrity, if you have any factual objections aside from your own personal smug comments, please present them with sources to well-researched evidence please. Though first, the documentary we released will answer many questions and provide you with sources to find answers to the rest of them.
So if you were watching closely and were truly interested in gathering facts and a full picture, you might have noticed a URL to watch "UFOs, Aliens, and the Question of Contact", as shown in the "Love, Reality, and the Time of Transition" video. Here's the link to the whole thing... Enjoy. http://veilofreality.wordpress.com /2011/03/12/ ufos-aliens-and-the-questio n-of-contact-%E2%98%9E-vid eo/
6.) "It intellectualizes it's refusal to accept the maxim that we create our own reality, embracing a scientific, logical argument and the dismissal of that which is spiritual."
You clearly didn't get the message. People DO create their own reality, within certain parameters. This topic, along with all the finer points, was repeatedly reiterated in many ways.
7.) "It tells us that it is only when we can objectively state a truth regarding the spiritual dimension that we should accept that as truth. And the next thing it tells us is that we are unable to do that. "Don't trust yourself or your experience" becomes the basic message."
These are strawman arguments based on logical fallacies and over-generalizations. Clearly you didn't quite understand the part correlating the importance of networking and esoteric self-work to begin to access a greater awareness and, therefor, work toward deprogramming oneself of conditioning and biases to see things more objectively.
Saying ""Don't trust yourself or your experience" is a grossly over-simplified distortion missing out on the finer points presented repeatedly throughout the video.
8.) "The corrupt money barons of the world will not be conquered by confronting them; they will fade away as we withdraw our attention and support from them.
Interestingly, this is the very same way in which the will and the wisdom of the heart wil swallow up the destructive behavior elicited by identification with the egoic mind. As we completely withdraw our attention and support from ego, its' influence evaporates."
So if someone gets hurt by someone else right in front of you, the best way to make it better is to ignore it, eh?... Wow. Please re-watch the parts including Carolyn Myss (19:50 and on...) and Marianne Williams (45:20 and on...) where they talk about spiritual narcissism and how the trap of complicit self-delusion and ignorance to avoid facing reality.
To summarize, looking at your comments, it's clear that you didn't fully grasp what was presented in the video. Your self-importance decided to vent impulsively, which is extremely irresponsible to those looking to your conduct as a role model, and very telling of your character. You decided to respond hastily with little consideration for the finer points presented, even going insofar as to distort them so grossly that your summaries are outright lies.
Next time something disturbs your sensibilities (and sales pitch, no doubt), it might be prudent and becoming of you to check for your own blindspots before trying to ham-handedly come off as a teacher with your own "spiritual bullshit". It will save you the trouble of having to backpedal and write a follow-up article after the fallout of your initial review.10 hours ago · ·and my response: -
Carlo Ami Thank you for your response, Mr. Braga. The essence of what I do as a spiritual writer is to distill into offer minimal-words spiritual wisdom as I understand it. Much of your movie reprises the work of Gurdjieff, who in many ways was brilliant. And he was also a little mad: By his own admission, he figured that if he made the process of awakening sound too simple, people would not pay attention. So he intentionally muddied it up. The mind tends to complicate and obfuscate that which can be very simple. The heart, as I see it, likes it simple. So, to address your points:
1) Two parts of the movie directly contradict each other in this, as quoted.
In suggesting that sending loving energy to one who didn’t ask for it, you make no distinction between those who did not ask for it and those who have made it clear that they do not want it. Sending love to the latter is certainly not spiritually nurturing to either party, but the movie makes no distinction at all. If it’s about needing to fix anyone, it’s ignorant. Having an attachment to changing anyone else is essentially masochistic.
2) Again, the movie contradicts itself on karma. And as for prayer, noble prayer is about neither attachment or supplication. This includes things like visualization (which you make fun of), trust (which I do not recall being mentioned at all) and genuine compassion.
3) I will meet you half-way on this one. The extensive Richard Dolan scrolled quote makes the case that “conspiracy is a way of life” almost asking the reader to accept that that is just the way it is and will be. Like so much of the movie, it paints the dark picture but offers nothing in the way of solution other than bringing up the dark side to deal with. Yes, indeed we do need to wake up, to face reality, but is it not about more than just bringing up the dark side? Would you suggest that that is going to fix us? No other solution is offered in your movie.
4) You do directly, briefly speak of the balance between heart and head, yet most of the movie has to do with thinking and little has to do with feeling, with being. You say over and over again that we need to be more objective, bring up the dark, think critically and use our heads, never addressing the power and will of the heart which cannot express itself if we are stuck in our heads.
5) OK, the alien thing. This is the one that provoked the initially harsher response to your movie. First, when you drop a bomb like “maybe we are food” for the aliens, and the only explanation is in a link to another move that takes over 80 minutes to see, then you are just whipping up fear and confusion, which seems to be much of what your movie is about doing. I looked at the conclusion segment of your referred link to UFOs, Aliens and the Question of Contact. In that movie, it is suggested that aliens may be the forces behind the corrupt New World Order plan, and we are told these extra-terrestrials may have placed implants in many of us. Speculation of this sort is a form of fear mongering. Without any methodology, the word “confront” comes up multiple times as it did in "Love…Transition". Without some plan---and I am not suggesting that you should have one for dealing with aliens---the movie just serves the intent of the institutions that want us weak and in fear. And even if these did include aliens, so what? What possible strategy might one suggest? Even if the aliens are sinister, that's ust more mirrors for us to see the ego. Government and religion today are just mirrors for the imaginary little beast within. Time for the Serenity Prayer.
6) "Creating our own reality": First the movie calls the idea a half-truth, then does a long ramble of quoting Michael Topper putting the concept in a box, calling it “evangelist fatuous.” Big mixed message.
7) There are again a lot of contradictons on the aspect of self-trust. At points we are urged to bring up the unpleasant, the dark, the suppressed. And yet I did not perceive anything but brief reference in the movie about bringing up loving heart energy or essence. We are told we must confront, unveil, be real about the harsh outer world, but bringing up loving compassion is glossed over.
8) To directly charge that I would endorse ignoring an attack on someone in front of me is what some folks would call a smear. You also call me a liar, “self-important” and imply that I am just doing this so I can sell books to make money. Smears are usually the desperate last resort of those who have nothing of substance to say, no true ground to stand on.
Your movie points out everything that we are doing collectively that is “wrong” and briefly, infrequently barely alludes to the beauty and loving power that resides within each of us. You belittle the “hippies” who want to spread love, telling us that the Beatles sang a naïve lie when they told us that all we need is love.
The emphasis in this movie is not on any call to love. There is no highlighting of inspiration to find deeper beauty, no call to unite with one another, to find common ground and mutual respect. The sum message of the movie is that we are all in a heap of crap and that we need to exert some unnamed “immense effort” to avoid a “deluge of fire” that is just around the corner.
You alert us to the coming fire, but you provide no water, just another kind of fire that fans the flames.
If we focus on all that we are told is wrong with us, we simply amplify our fears, our sense of panic and our sense of separation.
Upon further consideration, I am thinking that my initial review of "Love, Reality in the Time of Transition" was rather kind.
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And that will be the last of any commentary I have about this movie. If you decide to sit through it, notice how you feel when it's over.
