Because it was the holiday, I had myself watch a movie, "The Life of Pi," expecting the usual Hollywood formula - and was surprised. First, the story (originally a book) was brilliantly original: an Indian boy growing up at his father's zoo in Pondicherry (sp), where he learns about the viciousness of their Bengal tiger, and where he also becomes a follower of all the great religions that are represented in India, from Islam to Christianity to Hinduism. We then have the family begin a move to Canada to start a new life after financial difficulties, where they board a Japanese vessel with all their animals aboard. During the transits, the ship is sunk by a storm, with only the boy, now a teenager, and several animals, including the tiger, left to board the life boat. In time, only the tiger and the boy (Pi) remain alive, and it is Pi's chore to keep from being eaten by the tiger. He does so by learning to train him, and then they float for over 200 days. Near death, they arrive at a strange floating island, which he discovers is carnivorous - like a Venus fly trap - during the night. Leaving the island, the two eventually make it to Mexico, and the story comes to a close - almost.
The story unfolds with Pi telling it to a young Canadian writer who has heard that the tale will "make him believe in God." As we become enmeshed in the story, we find that Pi witnesses amazing things, and has cosmic experiences during his human isolation. We see that he sees that the universe we live in is a "big fish eat the little fish" Darwinian reality, but that behind it is something else - he finds a connection with the stars above that also reflect the stars - the infinity - within. We see in his story the beginnings of belief, of witness to the miraculous, and we wait for the final drop of the shoe, where God makes Its presence in an irrefutable way.
Throughout the movie, I admired the originality of the tale, and the idea that a big Hollywood film would be so overtly theistic, or at least spiritual. I waited for that last shoe to drop, drawn in - only to find that I had been duped. Let me explain.
After his rescue on the Mexican shore, Pi tells the writer (and us) that, once he had recovered enough, two Japanese executives from the shipping company came to him for his account of what happened. Specifically, they wanted to know how the boat sunk - which Pi could not tell them. Instead, he speaks of his adventures with the tiger and the floating island. The execs were not satisfied - could you tell us something more "real" for our bosses, they plead? He then does - a very different story. In this, his mother, the cruel ship's cook, a Buddhist passenger and Pi were the ones to make it to the lifeboat. The Buddhist has a wound which becomes gangrenous, and the cook amputates - resulting in the death of the Buddhist. As Pi's mother protests his cruelty (there is more, but I could not understand everything Pi said, with his Indian accent), the cook kills the mother for her exhortations, which incites Pi to kill the cook. We find, then, that the animals were really people, and Pi, through his revenge of his mother, had become the tiger. Thus, instead of a strange journey of awe, we have a tawdry tale of humans joining the ranks of the animals, locked in the cold reality of the Darwinian struggle for survival.
He tells this other story with tears in his eyes, so you know it is the true one - and then he asks the writer, "which story would YOU prefer to believe?" Of course, the writer, with paternalistic indulgence, chooses the former, that of the Tiger and the floating island.
And so we are left with this: the writer does NOT come to believe in God, but only to understand that religion and spirituality must be indulged, for Man needs such a crutch to make life livable. He does not come to a belief in God, but rather to believe in believing in God. And so, unfortunately, we are again left with a Hollywood ending - where secular humanism, through its great compassion for humanity, comes to indulge the ignorant believers of spiritual reality. Why not leave the suffering masses with this crutch? The worldly, intelligent writer knows better, as does the now worldly, intelligent Pi, but, please, let us live out our fantasies for comfort!
It pained me considerably to see this excellent movie ended this way, and I asked others who had seen it if they came away with a different conclusion. Most said they had reached no conclusion at all - that, in fact, they had let the ending pass to allow themselves to enjoy the story. And so I must conclude that my understanding of the movie is correct - though I, like the ignorant believer, don't want to.
This brings me to the very reason this website exists (besides selling my books, a passing fantasy so far, alas). Like the great, late theologian Frithjoff Schuon, I try not to waste too much time convincing others that the spiritual realm exists. I have and do experience it regularly, and, just as the chair I am sitting on now, I cannot question its reality. Just as I will not spend hours convincing others that my chair exists, so I will not do with spiritual reality. Instead, I point to discovers I and, more likely, others have made about this reality. But I must confront non-belief now and then as it is so pervasive - pervasive enough to have a Hollywood movie ruin its own greatness with this blind ignorance. Yes, religion and spirituality might help us in times of trouble, but as has so often been pointed out, religious belief ALWAYS has a dark or hard side. In Christianity, it is suffering for your sins committed on earth, even to the point of damnation; in Hinduism, one must relive one's selfishness in another body, and another, until it is purged. In others, where the soul is less prominent, transgression of the rules means more suffering on earth in some way. Religion, then, and spirituality in general, is no easy way out.
More so, as the movie shows at times, we must look at the wonder and infinite mystery of even ordinary reality. Using an empiricist's model for determining the real, is there ANY plausible materialistic explanation for existence? For consciousness? And what of the innumerable exceptions to ordinary reality in even our little lives - of miracle cures, of impossible synchronicity, of verifiable out of body experiences, of spirit possession that allow some people to, say, speak fluently in Etruscan, or to know where that old family relic was buried by Uncle Mort? Of ESP such as telepathy and telekinesis? Of unexplainable (in the materialistic view) cures by shamans?
It has always appeared to me that secularists are either simply blinded by ordinary reality, such that they cannot admit to anything else, and/or that they are too afraid of the unknown to admit to something infinitely larger than their own understanding.
And so the website will continue. But if anyone has seen the movie and finds my summary conclusion to be false, let me know. I would be delighted to find that I am wrong. FK
The story unfolds with Pi telling it to a young Canadian writer who has heard that the tale will "make him believe in God." As we become enmeshed in the story, we find that Pi witnesses amazing things, and has cosmic experiences during his human isolation. We see that he sees that the universe we live in is a "big fish eat the little fish" Darwinian reality, but that behind it is something else - he finds a connection with the stars above that also reflect the stars - the infinity - within. We see in his story the beginnings of belief, of witness to the miraculous, and we wait for the final drop of the shoe, where God makes Its presence in an irrefutable way.
Throughout the movie, I admired the originality of the tale, and the idea that a big Hollywood film would be so overtly theistic, or at least spiritual. I waited for that last shoe to drop, drawn in - only to find that I had been duped. Let me explain.
After his rescue on the Mexican shore, Pi tells the writer (and us) that, once he had recovered enough, two Japanese executives from the shipping company came to him for his account of what happened. Specifically, they wanted to know how the boat sunk - which Pi could not tell them. Instead, he speaks of his adventures with the tiger and the floating island. The execs were not satisfied - could you tell us something more "real" for our bosses, they plead? He then does - a very different story. In this, his mother, the cruel ship's cook, a Buddhist passenger and Pi were the ones to make it to the lifeboat. The Buddhist has a wound which becomes gangrenous, and the cook amputates - resulting in the death of the Buddhist. As Pi's mother protests his cruelty (there is more, but I could not understand everything Pi said, with his Indian accent), the cook kills the mother for her exhortations, which incites Pi to kill the cook. We find, then, that the animals were really people, and Pi, through his revenge of his mother, had become the tiger. Thus, instead of a strange journey of awe, we have a tawdry tale of humans joining the ranks of the animals, locked in the cold reality of the Darwinian struggle for survival.
He tells this other story with tears in his eyes, so you know it is the true one - and then he asks the writer, "which story would YOU prefer to believe?" Of course, the writer, with paternalistic indulgence, chooses the former, that of the Tiger and the floating island.
And so we are left with this: the writer does NOT come to believe in God, but only to understand that religion and spirituality must be indulged, for Man needs such a crutch to make life livable. He does not come to a belief in God, but rather to believe in believing in God. And so, unfortunately, we are again left with a Hollywood ending - where secular humanism, through its great compassion for humanity, comes to indulge the ignorant believers of spiritual reality. Why not leave the suffering masses with this crutch? The worldly, intelligent writer knows better, as does the now worldly, intelligent Pi, but, please, let us live out our fantasies for comfort!
It pained me considerably to see this excellent movie ended this way, and I asked others who had seen it if they came away with a different conclusion. Most said they had reached no conclusion at all - that, in fact, they had let the ending pass to allow themselves to enjoy the story. And so I must conclude that my understanding of the movie is correct - though I, like the ignorant believer, don't want to.
This brings me to the very reason this website exists (besides selling my books, a passing fantasy so far, alas). Like the great, late theologian Frithjoff Schuon, I try not to waste too much time convincing others that the spiritual realm exists. I have and do experience it regularly, and, just as the chair I am sitting on now, I cannot question its reality. Just as I will not spend hours convincing others that my chair exists, so I will not do with spiritual reality. Instead, I point to discovers I and, more likely, others have made about this reality. But I must confront non-belief now and then as it is so pervasive - pervasive enough to have a Hollywood movie ruin its own greatness with this blind ignorance. Yes, religion and spirituality might help us in times of trouble, but as has so often been pointed out, religious belief ALWAYS has a dark or hard side. In Christianity, it is suffering for your sins committed on earth, even to the point of damnation; in Hinduism, one must relive one's selfishness in another body, and another, until it is purged. In others, where the soul is less prominent, transgression of the rules means more suffering on earth in some way. Religion, then, and spirituality in general, is no easy way out.
More so, as the movie shows at times, we must look at the wonder and infinite mystery of even ordinary reality. Using an empiricist's model for determining the real, is there ANY plausible materialistic explanation for existence? For consciousness? And what of the innumerable exceptions to ordinary reality in even our little lives - of miracle cures, of impossible synchronicity, of verifiable out of body experiences, of spirit possession that allow some people to, say, speak fluently in Etruscan, or to know where that old family relic was buried by Uncle Mort? Of ESP such as telepathy and telekinesis? Of unexplainable (in the materialistic view) cures by shamans?
It has always appeared to me that secularists are either simply blinded by ordinary reality, such that they cannot admit to anything else, and/or that they are too afraid of the unknown to admit to something infinitely larger than their own understanding.
And so the website will continue. But if anyone has seen the movie and finds my summary conclusion to be false, let me know. I would be delighted to find that I am wrong. FK
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