:: January/February 2005 Volume 4/Number 1

India: Movies, Mind and Mas:

By Bob Belinoff

When we last left the issue of spirituality and film (LA YOGA  November December 2004)ancient wisdom of the Vedas and the tenants of quantum physics were embracing in such contemporary movies as “What The Bleep”, and it was clear that the pharmaceutical companies were stealing our god given thunder - since the bodymind can produce by itself so many of the outcomes promised by prescription drugs.  This second part of “Spirituality and Film” is a series of shorts really, about movies, mind and India.

What is it about India and the movies?  More movies are produced in India than anywhere else in the world; over 23 million people see a movie in India every day. And as yoga and a yogic way of life become part of so many westerner’s routine, we are seeing more movies from or about India. Los Angeles will play host to an Indian Film Festival this spring, a documentary film of the Kumbh Mela, an Indian spiritual festival attended by over 70 million people in Allahabad opens here in January…and then, of course, there’s Mas Vidal.

Mas Vidal is the founder and director of Dancing Shiva Yoga and Ayurveda in Los Angeles. And he is the founder of “Veda Yoga,” a complete practice aimed at achieving balance through both the Ayurvedic Sciences and Yoga. His is a healing center and Ayurvedic clinic as much as a place to learn and practice yoga. As well as yoga classes Mas offers Shirodhara, Gemology, Pancha Karma, Vedic Astrology, Ayurvedic Bodywork…and movies.

On the third Friday of each month Mas, who sees the images we take in as being as helpful or harmful as the foods we eat, does what he can to provide therapy for his students’ overstimulated minds. This is therapy that might be especially appropriate for nervous systems that have been beaten into submission by TV and movie monster truck explosions, blood lust, muggings, rapes and various forms of inhumanity, all spectacularly pounded into our brains at the unrelenting rate of 24 frames per second.

The movies Mas screens are intelligent, often calming for the eyes and brain. People bring their own blankets to Mas’s studio on movie night, drink tea and the whole event is something of an instant dharma cinema community.

An observer of popular culture and a practitioner of Ayurveda, Mas believes that whatever we take in through the senses affects the whole of our life. “Images and impressions matter,” he says. “If you take in through your eyes things that are positive they can be used as tools to heal you. The way you live your life is the way you unfold your consciousness.”

Yoga and the Vedas teach that achieving higher consciousness, being personally connected to the infinite, is a matter of getting inwardly clear. Whatever muddies the waters or gets in the way of us hearing our own souls speak is harmful to our progress and stands in the way of truth.

So it is that yoga pays particular attention to the various states of mind, qualities of mind or “gunas,” calling them rajasic, tamasic and sattvic states of mind. Rajasic is a perturbed state of mind, it is unbalanced, ever seeking, always needing outward stimulation. A muddled, turbulent or restless mind cannot be clear.

Tamas represents an element of dullness, it is heavy and inert, it is the couch potato mind. The way to a spiritual life is through the sattvic state of mind. The sattvic mind represents calmness, intelligence, stability and the appreciation of beauty and harmony.

These three gunas are the subtle elements of nature that define not only our quality of mind – indeed our quality of life. These states of mind are induced by what we eat, what we do and in our increasingly image laden world, what we see on our screens: lap tops, televisions and theater screens.

Visual impressions affect deeper consciousness. “If we take in and cultivate good impressions then bad habits and impulses will have no ground to grow in,”  says Yoga scholar David Frawley in his book “Ayurveda and the Mind.” Consciousness, Dr. Frawley tells us, is like a deep well. “What we take in through the senses and mind go to the bottom of the well and because its so deep we don’t see its effect, but the effect is there and will eventually cause us to act.”

The results will surface eventually over time. Too many of the wrong kinds of movies and too much of any kind of television can make us dull, dependent on external stimuli and even addicted. Brain patterns, in fact, resulting from too many back-to-back situation comedies on television are disturbingly similar to those of a heroin addict.

Scientists even call the television induced brain state “narcotizing dysfunction.” An Ayurvedic healer might call it tamasic.  Too many spectacular special effects blockbusters in a row and you end up with an agitated or rajasic mind. Either way, conscious of it or not, you will have many obstacles to hearing your soul speak or finding your true path.

So when Mas does movie night he is applying a form of Ayurvedic mind treatment. He is screening movies of an intelligent nature, documentaries like “Ayurveda” or others, that are affirming, positive, inspirational and elevating but, it should be noted, not necessarily movies from India.

Movies from India, it turns out, at least those from Bollywood, which represent the vast amount of Indian film fare, are known for their music, their colors, razzle dazzle, their Hindi bling and wild parent defying love crazed teens. These are simple tales of romantic  turmoil, woe and happy release, all designed to offset the boredom of arranged married life, dire poverty or increasingly, a 9-5 life in a call center.

In other words a country where a sattvic state of mind is a national tradition and treasure for the world, uses movies to produce a tamasic state of mind for its own population.

And what kind of movies do westerners make about the spiritual life in India? Documentaries. And what is the part of the spiritual life in India that most appeals to the rajasic, stimuli addicted, western movie going mind?  Movies like the soon to open “Kumbh Mela,” about a spiritual festival with the spirituality carefully removed.

“Shortcut to Nirvana; Kumbh Mela,” is a film about a massive gathering of sadhus for the purpose of finding bliss and leaving the material world behind. It is the story of a spiritual festival, a cleansing and the 70 million people who gather at the juncture of two holy rivers to dedicate themselves to two things: healing and finding God.  Though it is a delightful chaotic swirl of a film we learn little about either.

We do meet an exotic African Masai shaman sadhu who speaks perfect English. We meet a guru seeking enlightenment by holding his arm stretched over his head for thirty years, another spiritual seeker who buries herself in an enclosed meditation pit for three days, a man who uses a bed of heated spear points as his path to enlightenment and another searching for Nirvana by lifting weights with his penis.

It is clear the film makers had fun, and the film is fun to watch, but this is a movie about achieving a sattvic mind made for westerners, people in a rajasic state, addicted to stimulation, the bizarre, the ever-moving and always sensational.

Astrologically, Mas Vidal says, “We’re in a cycle right now where consciousness is beginning to escalate more quickly. Historically we’ve been blessed with a history of great Indian Avatars…but now we’re a culture that’s spiritually bankrupt. We’ve become so tamasic, indulging in sensory overload – we have to find another way.”

So it’s no surprise that Mas is using movies that do not rattle the brain waves but calm them with information, intelligence and or elevating entertainment.

Yogananda did this many years ago, says Mas. “Monks would view a movie about a monk or sadhu, these would be uplifting images and people would leave inspired. We need to do more of this,” he says.

And we are. Watch for more and more consciousness elevating movies coming to a theater near you. Two are headed this way soon.  One is Steven Simon’s “Indigo,” a tale of children with special healing abilities. Another the big budget Hollywood produced version of Thomas Redfield’s best selling book “Celestine Prophesies” – this will be a cross over spiritual film of sorts, with a beautiful mystical philosophy for those in search of a sattvic mind and a guerilla war for those still addicted to their rajasic mind.

Then there’s The Indian Film Festival, which opens in April at the Arc Light on Sunset. There are many offerings from documentaries to shorts and its Bollywood fare will give us a cross section of the many ways the Indian people use film to rest, distract, and simply aid and abet those with a tamasic mindset.

“Kumbh Mela” opens January 14th at the NuArt theater, rajasic fare for sattvic seekers. And the next movie night with Mas is Jan 21. Mas’s film night starts with a moment of silence and a chant. He offers a lite meal and a feature, tea and conversation after the showing. Cost is $10 . Sattvic fare for the sattvic soul.

And the wisdom of Dr. David Frawley and more information about the gunas and higher consciousness are available at many yoga studios, The Bodhi Tree and other fine bookstores. Stop in on the way to your next movie. Or simply find a nearby mountain stream if you can, and instead of a movie - deal direct, watching the river flow is your most direct connection to a sattvic mind.

                                   

Bob Belinoff is a Los Angeles based documentary filmmaker and can be reached at bob@digitalwkshop.com.

 

 

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