In this episode, the speakers discuss spiritual awareness and media as tools for positive global change.
(Dr. Gabriel Cousens, do you have a question for Supreme Master?)
(Yes, I do actually. We understand that veganism is clearly a major lifestyle change. What other lifestyle and consciousness change would You recommend – one other one that You would recommend as most important to make that change into the culture of life?)
Master: Thank you, Dr. Cousens. You know already, veganism is just one of the aspects of our lives. The next one, together with veganism, we should also develop spiritual practice. And then because the more we delve deep into our great Self, the more knowledge we have, the more wisdom we will gain. And then nobody needs even to tell us anything. We will go in the right direction in life. And then, once we go into the right direction, everything else will be correct. So spiritual life is very essential, but I’m afraid that that probably is the next phase after veganism.
First, people have to open their heart to be compassionate to all beings, meaning forsake (animal-people) meat-eating and returning to the noble way of life, the vegan diet. Then after that, their heart will be even more open, and then the next we can probably suggest more spiritual developments. Even if they did not want spiritual development per se, after being vegan for a while, they will also become somewhat spiritually elevated and maybe they would want to search more understanding about this subject and go deeper into enlightenment. That’s what I hope and that’s what I think.
(We are delighted to have with us today, John Raatz, legendary film promoter and founder of Visioneering Group and Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment.)
(Tell us how you are shaping the world, John, in terms of how you’re using the media to try to bring a message of peace and compassion?)
Jane: Thank you. Well, first off, I want to thank everybody for being here today and I’m very humbled to be in the presence of such amazing consciousness and presence. And this is a really exciting time, because the nature of media is changing. People are the media today. And we no longer rely only on television, radio, newspapers and such for our information, but we rely on one another, most importantly. The technical term is “word of mouth marketing.”
And it’s the very best, but it’s also the hardest to achieve, and I think that’s something that people have been alluding to today. How do we accomplish many of the ideas that we’ve been speaking about today? And in 1991, my company had the honor to work on a film called “Mindwalk,” that some of you may be familiar with. Yes, it’s a great film. And Mindwalk has been called an eco-spiritual version of My Dinner with Andre. And it explores a kind of “systems view” of the world. And when I was thinking about this presentation today, I pulled out the script, because I remembered a line from the movie and the line is, “Healing the Universe is an inside job.”
And I changed it to, “Healing the environment is an inside job.” Because to me, that idea expresses a connection between our inner state or consciousness and transformation, personal responsibility and action in the outer world. And I view media as a kind of link that can connect those two and can facilitate this. So, we’ve been involved in the marketing of a number of films like What the Bleep Do We Know?, Peaceful Warrior, and The 11th Hour, and the last Francis Ford Coppola film, Youth Without Youth, which is really quite an extraordinary piece of work.
And we’ve noticed over the last several years, that there is such great interest in “transformational” media. And I use the term “media,” in the broadest and deepest sense of the word. So, we’ve been slowly working within Hollywood to try and help Hollywood understand that there is in fact an audience for films and television programming in particular. When “What the Bleep” was first being shopped, every distributor in Hollywood said, “No, there isn’t a market for this film.” “No one will pay $5 to see it.”
And our position was, “Well, just because you don’t know the audience, it doesn’t mean we don’t exist.” And they said, “Prove it.” So we did. And after a few million dollars of box office, of course the distributors came knocking on the door and saying, “Well, we can work with you now.” We ultimately did work with a distributor, and I think one of the reasons for that was because it’s important to build bridges with the media, whether it’s a distributor or a television company or what have you. We’ve got to start bringing our consciousness, our sensibilities of this into the mainstream. Many people are not aware, but the media operate according to a set of values. And one of those values is typified by the expression, “If it bleeds, it leads.”
Negativity is one of the top media values, as is celebrity – we live in a celebrity-oriented culture. And these are the kinds of values that the media are promoting, and we all need to work to help foster and facilitate a new set of media values. There’s a lovely expression, “Only a new seed will yield a new crop.” And if we want the media to begin expressing new ideas, new visions, new models, then we have to be the ones to bring these to them. When I started 20 years ago, knocking on the doors of the media, and I would bring up such ideas as meditation, yoga, vegetarianism, the environment. I’m quite certain that they thought I was from another planet, as many people do today. And yet, after 20 years, we just keep knocking on the door, and little bit by little bit, the media are changing.
This has brought about a realization that we need an organization, which we’ve started called “GATE,” which stands for the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment. And the idea behind this organization is to bring together those conscious people within the entertainment business on the creative and the business sides. People who understand consciousness, who understand transformation – and invite them to this forum to learn, to talk, to share ideas, resources, projects, money, and what have you – to help give birth more easily to these kinds of projects in the context of the mainstream entertainment business.
So, our plan now is to hold an inaugural meeting of GATE in the fall. And the title of the presentation is going to be “Transform the World by Transforming Media and Entertainment.” What we want everyone to do is to come together and begin talking about media values, the need for new media values. And I want to also mention, at one point I was speaking with Fritjof Capra, [author of] The Tao of Physics, The Turning Point, and he mentioned something in some correspondence that I think is really important.
“Imagine if instead of only or primarily using a rational, analytical, reductionist, linear mindset to create the news, what if we used an intuitive, holistic, non-linear and synthesizing mindset.” There are so many projects in the world today, worldwide. And as I’ve travelled around opening films, and I work with Eckhart Tolle, and seeing the response to the Eckhart Tolle – Oprah webcast, 20 million people. As I see this happening, it’s clear and evident that the level of consciousness has sufficiently risen, that we want more than what Hollywood and the corporate news media have given us to this point. So, things are changing. I feel very optimistic.
And I’d like to… because you’ve all been extremely patient today and I’m sure we can spend the next two weeks discussing these various issues. But I want to ask you to think about this: to listen to the media within. A vital source of wisdom is the media in each of us – dreams, reflections, imagination, experience, revelation, reason, insight, emotion, intuitions and inspiration. And while we may draw our data from the outside world, it is our internal processes that give it value. So, in this information age, which is just a big cacophony, don’t overlook the richest source of any age – and that’s us, that’s each of us in media. So thank you. (Very nice... divinely inspired.) Thank you. Yes, it did.
(Supreme Master Ching Hai, would You like to weigh in on the issue of transformational media?)
Master: I think he’s right. It’s very good, Mr. John Raatz – very good idea, very positive direction. It’s very inspiring to hear you. It is true what he said. Nowadays, we have internet, we have email. So, I think he’s right – we could become ourselves the media that we would like it to be. So it’s a very good idea, very good idea. So all of us can become journalists now.
In the CNN system, they also have the iReport, and the people who watch the television, they report it themselves. So why not? That’s why I said we all go out of our way, print all the information that we get about the urgency of the planet and the solution to save the planet. We do the media task. Very good, Mr. John. Mr. John, continue doing that. Thank you so much. By the way, are you a vegetarian? (Yes.) (Great!) Wow, I knew it! Bravo. Why I ask: because you are so enlightened. And the way you talk is very spiritual conscious so I thought you must have been vegetarian for some time, before this. Thank you so much for walking the talk.
They’re beautiful people today, aren’t they? (Yes.) You collect all the beautiful people. I’m so glad to know them. Thank you, Jane. It must be your attraction. You are like a magnet. (Thank You so much, Supreme Master.)
Photo Caption: “Ancient Tiny Seeds Will Be the Giant Protective Trees for the Next Generation.”
