Now, how can the motion pictures help man attain this realization? The
character of the film need not be changed. Love, romance and adventure
are themselves fundamental. They should be portrayed as thrillingly, as
entertainingly, as inspiringly as possible. The wider the appeal the
better.
What needs to be changed is the emphasis, or stress. For example,
courage is a great virtue but it may, if misapplied, become a vice. So it
is with love, the mainspring of our lives, which may lead to the heights
of Realization or to the depths of despair. No better example can be
given of the two polarities of love and their effects than that of Mary
Magdalene before and after meeting Jesus.
Between these two extremes are many kinds of love, all of which are
good, but some of which are better than others. I use the terms "good"
and "better" simply to designate the degrees of liberation which they lead
to or confer. Even the love which expresses itself through physical
desire is good to the extent that it frees one from the thralldom of
personal likes and dislikes, and makes one want to serve the beloved above
all other things.
Every human relationship is based on love in one form or another, and
endures or dissolves as that love is eternal or temporal in character.
Marriage, for example, is happy or unhappy, exalting or degrading, lasting
or fleeting according to the love which inspires and sustains it.
Marriages based on sexual attraction alone cannot endure; they lead
inevitably to divorce or worse. Marriages, on the other hand, which are
based on a mutual desire to serve and inspire, grow continually in
richness and in beauty, and are a benediction to all who know of them.
To lead men and women to the heights of Realization, we must help
them to overcome fear and greed, anger and passion. These are the
result of looking upon the self as a limited, separate, physical entity,
having a definite physical beginning and definite physical end, with
interests apart from the rest of life, and needing preservation and
protection.
The self, in fact, is a limitless, indivisible, spiritual essence —
eternal in its nature and infinite in its resources. The greatest romance
possible in life is to discover this Eternal Reality in the midst of
infinite change. Once a person has experienced this, one sees oneself in
everything that lives. One recognizes all of life as his life,
everybody's interests as his own. The fear of death, the desire for
self-preservation, the urge to accumulate substance, the conflict of
interests, the anger of thwarted desires are gone. One is no longer bound
by the habits of the past, no longer swayed by the hopes of the future.
One lives in and enjoys each present moment to the fullest. There is no
better medium to portray this than motion pictures.
