Na'vi spiritual or religious experiences and ethics?

[allrock123]

I would like to make the group Aware there is a man teaching a self development program called "The Avatar Course" they exsisted well before James Camerons film and they charge money for there knowlage and have a huge network of so called masters they have videos on youtube and have often been confused with teaching a spiritual development program people "think" is based on the film even there logo is familer , rember "Harry Palmer" runs this company and videos from him dont relate to the film in any way (though "some" of his teachings have a familer ring to them) here is a link to his site as an example, be mindfull that his courses are taught through so called "masters" and that people are taught That in there actions there is "no posability of failure" to me that just dosent add up , but please form your own opinion, rember this a "company" that profits from what they teach. and this link is just an example not to promote .
(I removed the link I feel its "to direct" a conection simply search on "The Avatar Course" if intrested

[Ja'k Dawsiin]

^ oh geez...you think the dude would change his name. Hairy PALMer lol *rolls eyes*

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[allrock123]

I'm doing research on Avatar and I have come across some possibly interesting facts. One, Avatar is a fantasy film that" runs on top of" a huge amount of very real deep underlying cultural research into the storys and spirituality of quite real indigenous peoples. In fact, if we look at the word " Omaticaya" (which we know means the blue flute people in NaVi) break the word into two parts "Olmec and Maya" (please be aware this is not a 100% confirmed connection) then look at the cultural and spiritual practices of those people, you will find an interesting fact , both those tribes believe in a deep connection to the world through what they call a "World Tree, or Tree of Life. In wishing to demonstrate this connection to the world, James Cameron looked for examples from indigenous peoples that he could not just "talk about" but truly "show in action". He did this because we all know "A problem is there". Its pointless to tell people this again as they will just "deny" it exists. But in using Avatars mirror story he can let us see through another's eyes directly how our actions affect The People" (In this case the NaVi tribe) and their world they live in. These actions directly "mirror" very real world issues that we see on the news every night and still deny. The fact some feel deep sadness when they "realize" this is really not suprising. (I know I went through this myself; trying to explain this to others is like grabbing a handfull of water) as we have been repressing this inside through denial for a long time. Indigenous peoples have as a part of there culture a deep connection to the natural world and an understanding of the mechanisms that run under it to keep things in balance. Finding a way to "show such connection" was in part what James Cameron and crew set out to do with Avatar and there is a lot to learn from the study of this. The fact that "real" indigenous peoples are under serious threat was driven home by news on the BBC this morning with news of gunmen killing Guarani leader Nisio Gomes in Brazil in front of his own people . BBC News - Brazil indigenous Guarani leader Nisio Gomes killed this very sad news is likey to be never heard by our mainstream population yet is becoming all to common on the world stage as native populations get in the way of so called "progress". I am including a video of James Cameron speaking on Avatars take home message
Irayo (thank you)

Olmec Tree of life example image below

[_Omaticaya_]

But in using Avatars mirror story He can let us see through anothers eyes directly how our actions effect The People" (In this case the NaVi tribe) and there world they live in , these actions directly "mirror" very real world issues we see on the news every night and still deny.

Indigenous peoples have as a part of there culture a deep conection to the natural world and an understanding of the mechanisms that run under it to keep things in ballence, finding a way to "show such connection" was in part what James Cameron and crew set out to do with Avatar and there is a lot to learn from the study of this.

.....Well said Allrock, Fantastic post I really enjoyed all of the post, and agree with pretty much everything, but wanted to especially underline these 2 sentences quoted up here^ that I really like, because I think they're really interesting and so True I see you tsmukan, and thankyou for posting

[transcend]

here is something i pieced together from some notes and things i had laying around.. .. and of course the usual disclaimer.. sorry they are way too long..


Pantheism is the notion that the entire universe is God. Pantheism is generally relegated by modern theologians and scholars to an earlier, less advanced, stage of humanity, with a less well-developed notion of divinity. But the Na’vi people of Avatar’s moon, known as Pandora, may well hold the more accurate — and ultimately more helpful — notion of divinity after all. Since the days of Thomas Aquinas, Theism is the basis for most of Christian faith (although what defines Christian faith in the many hundreds of different Christian traditions is itself rather hard to pin down). Aquinas was a 13th-century Italian monk who wrote the authoritative text for Christianity in his era, Summa Theologica. This work remains highly influential today. The basic tenets of traditional theism hold that there is one God and the universe is His creation. God and the universe are separate. God is eternal and uncreated. The universe is created and will one day end — rather soon, according to some of the more fiery theologians. Pantheism, to the contrary, holds that God and the universe are one: it’s all the same stuff. Pantheism doesn’t necessarily require that there be only one god, and the more “primitive” versions of pantheism view the world as containing a multiplicity of gods.



Panentheismis a religious doctrine that holds that the universe is part of God, but that God also transcends the universe. Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system which posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe. Briefly put, in pantheism, "God is the whole"; in panentheism, "The whole is in God." This means that the Universe in the first formulation is practically the Whole itself, but in the second the universe and God are not ontologically equivalent. In panentheism, God is not necessarily viewed as the creator or demiurge, but the eternal animating force behind the universe, with the universe as nothing more than the manifest part of God. The cosmos exists within God, who in turn "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos. While pantheism asserts that God and the universe are coextensive, panentheism claims that God is greater than the universe and that the universe is contained within God. This is actually the view of Christianity as practiced by Jesus and St Francis; and it is the basis of all mysticism.



Panentheism was also the view taken by Albert Einstein. Einstein, not exactly an intellectual scrub, subscribed to Spinoza’s panentheistic God. Spinoza, a 17th-century Dutch Jew, stated that “matter and soul are the outside and inside aspects, or attributes, of one and the same thing in itself ...; that is to say, of ‘Nature, which is the same as God.’” (Spinoza’s Ethics, 1677).



Avatar takes a firm moral stand on four burning social issues. * The natural world is in dire need of protection. * Economic imperialism is disastrously exploitive. * Pre-emptive wars do not bring peace. * God is also feminine, and nature is infused with her divine spirit. Given the "culture wars" in the U.S., it will come as no surprise that social and religious conservatives are going ballistic over the critically acclaimed movie. They recognize Avatar may end up having more propagandistic clout than even that other grand pop culture spiritual tale, The Da Vinci Code. On the subject of religion, many critics are dismissing Avatar's theology as "pantheistic." By that they mean the movie promotes the worship of nature, which they say is a false God. Cameron's religious critics suggest the Bible offers a much deeper portrayal of the true monotheistic God. Do these conservative voices have a point?



Sully is slowly introduced to the spiritual belief system of the Na'vi tribe, largely through (as befits an adventure romance) a beautiful woman, a warrior who happens to be daughter of the chief and his wife, the tribe's shaman. In the wondrous rainforest, bewildered Sully discovers the Na'vis multidimensional spiritual worldview. The Na'vis' rich lives revolve around a feminine manifestation of divinity (a spiritual theme similar to The Da Vinci Code). The Na'vi worship a sacred transcendent entity, called Eywa, who seems to be both Creator of the universe and Mother Goddess. I'm sure it's not coincidental that Eywa sounds very similar to "Yahweh," one of the names for God in the Bible. By naming his deity Eywa, Cameron appears to be implying spiritual continuity between Jewish and Christian scriptures and the forest dwellers of this futuristic indigenous community. In addition to extolling Eywa, the Na'vi revere a magnificent, spiritually active evergreen called the Tree of Souls, which sends out healing woodsprites that look like airborne jellyfish. Sully learns that the Na'vi practice forms of telepathy and sacred bonding, with both fellow Na'vi and phantasmagoric animals.




A Na'vi tells the increasingly wide-eyed ex-marine that there is a "flow of energy" that inhabits everything. Within this spiritually interconnected eco-system, they reveal the goal of the Mother Goddess is not to "take sides" in any war, but to "protect only the balance of life." This does not do full justice to the many spiritual themes developed in Avatar, including the Christ-like role eventually taken on by Sully and the Na'vi belief that all people must be "born twice." But I hope it provides enough background for a debate on whether Cameron is, indeed, promoting pantheism. Pantheism is taken from the Greek work, pan, which means "all," and theos, which means "God." It is a doctrine that declares nature and God are identical. Pantheism is sometimes equated with animism, which is often described as the belief that not only humans, but trees and animals, have souls.



The Tree of Souls does serve a god-like purpose and the Na'vi's forest is suffused with spirit. But it is also quite possible Cameron is trying to develop a more sophisticated metaphysical worldview. It's one which many Jewish and Christian theologians, and even some scientists, call "panentheism." Panentheism is a challenging concept. It includes aspects of pantheism, but goes beyond it. The respected Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology defines panentheism as: "The doctrine that all is in God. It is distinguished from pantheism, which identifies God with the totality or as the unity of the totality -- for panentheism holds that God's inclusion of the world does not exhaust the reality of God. Panentheism understands itself as a form of theism, but criticizes traditional theism for depicting the world as external to God." In other words, panentheism rejects a classic church belief that God is a distant, unchangeable Supreme Being, like a monarch. Instead, it teaches that God is in all things, but also transcends all things.




Panentheists believe the early Christians were panentheists, in part because they thought Jesus illustrated how God is "incarnated" in the world (which is the definition of the Hindu word, "avatar"). Many philosophers and theologians have endorsed this spiritual view, including, to name a notable few, Georg Hegel, Charles Hartshorne, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Sri Aurobindo, John Cobb Jr., Ken Wilber and the Vancouver School of Theology's Sallie McFague. I think a decent case can be made that panentheism is the kind of spirituality that Cameron puts on display in Avatar. Unlike a pantheist, he is not necessarily preaching: "Nature is God." Instead, the spirit of the divine in Avatar is described as both emanating from the transcendent monotheistic God, Eywa, but also as being embodied in everything that is -- ranging from the Tree of Souls to all living entities.




Even though Avatar over-romanticizes and idealizes the indigenous Na'vi, in its exaggerated way it advances a worldview that many theologians, secular philosophers and even scientists are today endorsing -- that the universe is, in a sense, "enchanted." I don't want to push this too far. Cameron may or may not have realized Avatar could reflect a serious panentheistic worldview. But at the least the movie is becoming a global spiritual discussion starter. Jewish and Christian organizations have already picked up on its themes, in a mostly positive way. That's in part because, like most religions and science fiction itself, Avatar is, at its essence, radical. It turns our normal views of reality on their heads. While attacking the profane values of power, force and wealth - Avatar proclaims that a dramatically different world is possible. One suffused with an intimate sense of the sacred. As with most things in real life, there are more than two flavors possible. In this case, in between traditional theism and pantheism is panentheism, described by one scholar as “the god of the philosophers.” Panentheism — the extra “en” being very important — holds that the universe is within God but not identical with God. So all of the universe is God, but God transcends the physical universe.




Modern proponents of panentheism include the British philosopher and physicist Alfred North Whitehead, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Hartshorne. And, of course, Hinduism has taught a version of panentheism for many thousands of years, based on the Vedas and Upanishads, which were first written about 1800 BCE. In Hinduism, Brahman is the ultimate ground of being, what some describe as God. This takes us back to Avatar’s blue-skinned Na’vi. Cameron’s epic depicts a far-flung moon inhabited by a humanoid race that enjoys a tight bond with nature. This bond can at times be physical, due to a bio-psychic link that allows the Na’vi to literally connect with the global living network they describe as Eywa, by using open nerve endings at the end of their long ponytails.




Eywa, a global network consisting of all life on Pandora, is a clear parallel to Hinduism’s Brahman. Brahman is the source of all things. It is the soil from which every other thing grows. And the Na’vi’s blue skin is a clear parallel to Krishna, Hinduism’s Christ-like figure. Krishna is always depicted with blue skin. Krishna stars in such epics as the Bhagavad Gita, one of the primary books of the Hindu tradition. The third indication that Cameron intentionally mirrored Hindu teachings is the name of the movie itself. In Hinduism, an avatar is an earthly incarnation of a god, such as Krishna. We realize, then, that Avatar does not really describe pantheism; rather, it describes a panENtheistic way of life, made very real for its people due to the actual physical connections the Na’vi enjoy with Eywa.




Avatar, as with all movies, is a metaphor. The metaphor in this case is complex and of course open to interpretation. My personal interpretation is that the Na’vi’s ability to interconnect with Eywa and download the collective wisdom of all life on Pandora is a metaphor for every human’s ability to connect with the ground of being and enjoy that same kind of wisdom.
Ross Douthat, the New York Times columnist who decried Avatar’s alleged pantheism, apparently disapproves of the movie’s religious message, based on his conclusion that this message contradicts Christian teachings. This, however, misses the true meaning of Jesus’ life and message. Interpreting exactly what Jesus’ life and message really were, however, is a veritable cottage industry in this new millennium.





It is possible to interpret Jesus’ teachings as harmonious with the Hindu teachings of Brahman and Atman. Jesus claimed to be God, according to the Gospel of John (interestingly, the only gospel that contains this teaching). Jesus’ claim was considered heretical by not only the Jewish authorities of his day, but also the Roman oppressors. For this and other crimes, he was crucified. To a Hindu, however, the realization that each of us is God is greeted with a hearty ''congratulations!” This is the case because the core teaching of Hinduism — particularly the Vedanta tradition — is that not only is Brahman the ground of being for all things, but that all things constitute a nondual oneness. It’s all just one thing. And when we realize it’s all just one thing, we realize also that we are that one thing. I am the universe, you are the universe, we are the universe. I am God, you are God, we are God. For Jesus to say he is God is not, then, such a stretch. In fact, it becomes rather pedestrian. But it is a pedestrian truth that all of us should internalize and live, each day.




Paul Tillich, a 20th-century German theologian, has written extensively on a similar interpretation of Christian faith. When we realize that all other people are in fact just pieces of the grand oneness that is us, Brahman, the ground of being, it becomes a lot harder to treat each other inhumanely. And the same realization leads to a renewed reverence for the natural world — because the natural world is just another manifestation of our true identity, the entire universe. And this is, ultimately, a very Christian teaching.

[transcend]

Forests as Sanctuaries

We all know how intricate are the relationships between a single tree and the forms of life that live with it, and around it. But why are trees so important to human beings who are after all--as forms of life--so distinct and different from trees? Though distinctive and different, human beings are part of the same heritage of life.

The reason that trees and forests are so important to us, as human beings, has to do with the natural geometry of the universe. We must therefore distinguish between man-made geometry, stemming from Euclidean geometry, the geometry we learn at schools, from the natural geometry, especially the geometry of the living forms.

When Euclid was inventing his geometry, which has become the basis for man-made forms, the Greek reason was already corrupted by Aristotle's analytical and classificatory approach to the world. With Socrates and Plato the Greek world is still held in unity and harmony. With Aristotle, we begin to divide and chop and atomize--put things into separate compartments, where they are identified by special labels called definitions.

Euclid and his geometry only reinforces the tendency to atomism, separatism, thinking in neat logical categories-..........-here are the axioms, here are the rules of derivation, here are the theorems derived from the axioms through the accepted rules of derivation. All very neatly and rigorously defined. A triumph of the rational Western mind which is going to depend so much on the power of formal reasoning, on the meaning of axioms which will become the ultimate bricks out of which other things are to be constructed.



What should not escape our notice, in particular, is Euclid's emphasis on the importance of the point, and of the straight line. Let us be aware that we never see the point because the point as such is invisible; we hardly meet a straight line in nature. Yet the architecture of the human world, or to be more precise of the world as constructed by modern man, is founded on the straight line and those invisible points.

Let us put the proposition in general terms: the geometry that dominates our lives, when we live in a city, in a modern house, or when we drive an automobile, is the geometry derived from the abstract system of man-made geometry. It is a geometry which, after a while, constrains and suffocates us.

We have distinguished natural geometry from man-made geometry. But what is natural geometry? The forms by which and through which the universe has evolved, the forms by which life has evolved. What are these forms? These forms are circular, spiral, round, womb-like. When we contemplate the architecture of the universe: the galaxies and the atoms, the amoebas and the trees, then we immediately see that the dominant forms and shapes of nature and of the universe are round and spiral and so often amorphous.



The dancing universe does not move in straight lines. It moves in spiral, circular and irregular motions. The life dancing in, and through the universe, is not choreographed by the computer and its linear logic. The quintessential symbol of life is that of the womb.

All life has emerged from the primordial womb which is irregular, amorphous, full of connecting loops and spirals. We individual human beings, were conceived and nursed in the wombs of our mothers. Natural geometry had conditioned our early impulses. Natural geometry has shaped our early growth. Natural geometry has formed our bodies which are but an expression of this geometry. Now, look at your own body and see it in terms of natural geometry. Your body is full of irregular shapes--round, oval, asymmetrical. There is hardly any straight line within the architecture of our body. The head is such a funny irregular egg. The hands and legs are irregular cylinders. The eyes and the mouth, the neck and the stomach are but endless variations on the theme of natural geometry.



Being nursed and conditioned, shaped and determined by natural geometry, we respond to it in an intuitive and spontaneous manner. Why do we rest so well in the presence of a tree? Because in it we find an outlet for our natural geometry. The communion with the trees, being surrounded and nursed by them, is for us a return to the original geometry of life. That is why we feel so good in the act of this communion. We were born and nourished by natural geometry and to this geometry we long to return. By dissolving ourselves in the geometry of the tree, we resolve tensions and stresses accumulated through, and thrust upon us by artificial geometry. We must clearly see that artificial geometry of man-made environments is full of tension and stress.



To dissolve in the primordial matrix of life--this is sanity.

To enter the communion with the shapes which spell out organic life--this is a silent joy.

To lose oneself in the forms soaked in the substance of life--this is a fundamental renewal.




Trees and forests are important for deep psychological reasons. In returning to the forest, we are returning to the womb not in psychological terms but in cosmological terms. We are returning to the source of our origin. We are entering communion with life at large. The existence of the forests is so important because they enable us to return to the source of our origin. They provide for us a niche in which our communion with all life can happen...

[transcend]

of course i had to add some videos