A much belated thought about the series finale of Lost and its spiritual content.
I was one of the people who were thoroughly satisfied with the ending of Lost. Immediately after watching the final episode I knew that while I might not be fully satisfied intellectually, I was certainly satisfied emotionally. And as I contemplated the ending more, I realized that that show had satisfied me spiritually as well.
My spiritual satisfaction came from watching the characters realize what I thought was the essence of the finale, and a potent spiritual teaching. As they become aware that they are dead, that they in some middle place, a purgatory or bardo of some sort, a place of their own creating, they have a realization. That real realization is crystallized in the final scene between Ben Linus and John Lock. They realize that they do not have to be the people they were. They understand that they were like actors in a play, pretending to be these characters with all these flaws and problems, filled with anger and hatred and fear, and finally, they can let go of all of that a just BE.
That is such a profound lesson to me. It is a lesson I keep trying to remind myself of. This life is like a play (or as Buddha said, like a dream). I don’t have to play the role of a person filling with anger or hatred or fear (delusions). I can drop that mask and all the other masks and just Be.
It makes me look forward to re-watching the series one day and looking for other little spiritual lessons I might have missed the first time.
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