The screening of soul on New Year's Day 2021 seems to echo a line in the book "The Road Less Traveled": people are increasingly dissatisfied with the answers provided by materialism and scientific progress, and they harbor a desire to solve their inner hunger and thirst from the level of the heart. So many people began to seek dialogue with the heart in order to solve their spiritual crisis.
Regarding the concept of the soul (that is, the soul), since ancient times, it seems that Eastern culture has talked more about it, but in today's Western world, in the face of a series of spiritual deprivations brought about by high material development, especially the impermanence of the new crown epidemic, people have begun to think about life and death, material and spiritual problems. And this film came at the right time, and the reason why it is popular is that something has deeply touched people's hearts.
plot
"Journey of the Mind" is about an ordinary music teacher Joe, who lived to middle age, failed to realize his musical dreams, and his life was quite frustrated. Before the film is released, you first hear the entropy "symphony" coming from the classroom, chaotic and lifeless...
However, a phone call changed him, detached him from the original trajectory of life, and rippled like a butterfly effect, starting the magical journey of his soul.
Where misfortunes and blessings depend; where blessings and misfortunes lie. Originally, this call was made by a famous local jazz band, asking him to try his piano skills and temporarily fill the vacancies. He performed very well, was admitted, but fell into the pit in a daze.
This story is obviously not to tell everyone the truth of happiness and sorrow, but the director wants to find a reason to make the protagonist unlucky, so that he can approach the miracle of grace. People often have to be invited to see the treasures of the heart at such times, don't they?
The next scene of the story is that Teacher Qiao is out of his soul, runs to the place where he thinks it is heaven, and then labels a senior psychologist in a confused way and becomes the mentor of Little Soul No. 22.
Speaking of this little guy no. 22, it is quite different, no matter which mentor you are with, you will be rejected, whether it is Mother Teresa, Copernicus, or the famous psychologist Jung, have not been able to cultivate it into a complete personality.
The point is that the 22nd has nothing to love, and without the most important spark ( spark ) , it can't fill in that last square, and the pass to the earth is out of touch. Then again, No. 22 didn't want to go to Earth either, and he wandered around this transit station.
Everything is the best arrangement, this is not another appearance of a god-nagging moon wind, to help Teacher Joe smuggle back to Earth, Shunbei hitched a ride on the 22nd. Infuriating and ridiculous, No. 22 entered Teacher Joe's body, and Teacher Joe fell into the body of a cat.
So from shock, to adapting to the new body, to finding the moon wind, to the soul being forcibly withdrawn, to returning to his body, Mr. Qiao still got his wish, and participated in the performance of the evening on time, successfully winning applause and his mother's appreciation.
But when he walked out of the concert hall full of joy, he found that he still had to live a life of repetition every day.
Suddenly, Mr. Qiao remembered that The 22nd had given him a lot of beauty in life that he had overlooked, and he searched out the things that the No. 22 had collected from his pants pocket: half a piece of bread, a spool, a lollipop, a seed picked up on the ground... In every ordinary thing, there is a memory of love.
It is precisely because No. 22 experienced the beauty of life on earth through his body, produced sparks, and activated the earth pass, that he Qiao teacher had the opportunity to personally participate in the performance and achieve his dream.
At the moment, No. 22 is trapped in that seemingly beautiful transit station, and it is he who gives up the Earth Pass to Joe.
Meditating and playing the piano back to the transfer station, Joe managed to find No. 22, but No. 22 wrapped himself in layers and became a lost soul, wandering in pain. It wasn't until Teacher Qiao sincerely reconciled with it that the monster-like thick shell disintegrated and disappeared, and No. 22 returned to the simple appearance of its former ease and happiness.
This time, Mr. Qiao dropped everything and was ready to die, giving up the pass to No. 22, encouraging it to experience life on Earth. It was precisely this time that he was allowed to return to his body...
Unknown death, An Zhisheng. Teacher Qiao's near-death journey is a process from "not knowing" to "knowing", and this process is like the film "Timeless Contact": you can't prove your experience to the world, this is a process of mental evidence, and the subtlety is here.
Today, Teacher Qiao is no longer the teacher Of Qiao of the past, and every moment of life is so precious and full of meaning for him.
Water and ocean
The saxophonist Dorothea once told a story to Teacher Joe: "A small fish swam to an old fish and said, I want to find the ocean; the old fish replied: You are in the ocean now!" The little fish said, here is the water, I want the ocean. ”
This story is very interesting, just in response to the so-called "beyond" at the beginning of the film, if Teacher Joe has no worries and lets go of everything, he will naturally go to that source, and this source is like the ocean in Dorothea's story.
In fact, each of us is in the ocean of origin, but we don't really know. It may be a grand design of the universe, or an endless game, with self-awareness, forgetting who you really are. Without the experience of life, without the process of moving from separation to unity, we cannot understand that water and the ocean are actually the same thing.
The small fish want to find the ocean, this process of searching, seemingly worthless, but it is a process of witness, otherwise, the knowledge of the old fish will always be only second-hand goods. And in the end, the little fish will understand that it is the ocean itself, which is really a return to the source.
With this goal in mind, life is endowed with meaning and passion (sparks). However, when we look back, we will eventually find that what we are looking for is the light that shines in ordinary things in every moment. Pamela Kripp once said: In a sense, there is no such thing as spirituality, and all experiences are sacred and meaningful.
Only after personal experience can you truly understand and your mind matures. You say I want nothing, I'm not interested in anything, I stay in my comfort zone, I degenerate, I'm entropy- As Scott Pike said: We cannot return to our mother's womb (the Garden of Eden), and we can only walk through the desert of pain to truly grow and be free.
The spark is what we are looking for, but it is not the real purpose of our souls, when we cling to what we think is good, and disconnect from life, we fall into the pit, or we will become lost souls like the monsters in the dark night in the film. Even if we get what we want, as Mr. Joe experienced, life will still force us to return to normal.
In a sense, all that we cling to on the earth will be abandoned, and this body is nothing more than a tool to experience life, by which we can feel the delicacy of pizza, the romance of love, the beauty of family affection, the progress of work, the passion of creation, and thus know ourselves.
The process of life is the process of constantly picking up and letting go, the point is that in this process, we open our hearts, expand the dimensions of life, and achieve transcendence again and again. This is the purpose of the soul as a human being, to find the eternity that runs through it, and to live well in the present, to constantly discover, to be free, and this is the way home.
Inner child
Some people say that the two characters in the film are actually one person, which I agree with very much, which is the metaphor in the movie, through the appearance, you can see the meaning it really wants to express.
In fact, everyone has an inner child in their hearts, which represents the emotions, desires, and creativity in our lives.
If you don't get caresses, the inner child is wandering, and it will become the source of crazy emotions. Anger can evolve into a desire to hate and even revenge; fear can be twisted into defensiveness, neuroticism, and frustration; sadness can deteriorate into frustration and resentment. That's how we see Number 22 as a lost soul later in the film.
The expression of the inner child is pure, always incomprehensible and unacceptable, and it is often suppressed, ignored, abandoned, and denied by popular ideas.
Only when we face our own hearts, embrace and illuminate the inner child, reconcile with it, and through it, know the true desire and passion of the soul, can we find the spark of our own life and unlimited creativity. In this way, life is easy, casual and shining. This is also the return to a pure heart.
Today, too many people go with the flow, using the social values of the masses as the standard to define their lives, and to demand from the people around them, just like the words that Teacher Qiao's mother said to her son. In the film, Joe's biggest change is to let the inner child come out and speak, and finally impress the mother and gain her support.
When you communicate with people with a pure heart, it will arouse the heart of the other party's child, which is the sincere interaction in the relationship, the resonance of the heart to the heart, true love occurs at this moment, you will feel that life is really beautiful.
The inner child is the compass of our lives, and by going inward and honestly facing these feelings, not outside everything as an excuse, we will regain our freedom, be our true selves, and find the meaning of life.
This is the core of this film. In the last scene, when Teacher Qiao pushed open the door, greeted the sun with gratitude, and took a deep breath, didn't you feel that the two souls were one at that moment?
The near-death experience makes Teacher Qiao reconcile with his own inner child, and life shines with sparks from this moment to place, full of infinite strength and passion. At that moment, my heart was full of love and joy.