(:)(:)(:)(:) for Life of Pi in 3D still in movie theaters everywhere due to Academy Award nominations. I have to confess that I was hoping that today’s abundance meditation would track with what I got out of Life of Pi and I wasn’t disappointed. Life of Pi, an explicitly spiritual experience (since the adult Pi tells the novelist to whom he’s telling his story that it would make him believe in God), is really one long beautiful abundance meditation.
Since most of you have probably seen it by now (or at least those of you who want to), I’m not giving anything away to say that it’s about a boy trapped in a boat with a CGI bengal tiger named Richard Parker for 221 days at sea. Well, he doesn’t know it’s computer-generated imagery. He think it’s real. And thanks to the magic of Hollywood and the beautiful direction of Ang Lee so do we.
The signal narrative moment in the film is when Pi writes in his journal that without the tiger he never could have survived: my fear kept me sharp and keeping Richard Parker alive gave my life purpose. Like Jonah and so many other mythical heroes before Pi, only when he stops fighting and feeding his frenemy and surrenders completely to God is he saved.
His salvation comes in the form of incredible abundance. He washes up on the shore of an amazing island with thousands of meerkats, abundant fresh water and delicious edible roots. He and Richard Parker are replenished here until Pi learns that if he stays on the island long enough, it will eat him. I could come up with some tortured explanation of how God works this way. The only thing that springs to mind quickly is that we have to keep moving. God always keeps us alive for us to fulfill our divine purpose and unless our purpose is to be eaten by an island, sometimes we have to be replenished and move on (no matter how much fear we might have).
I guess I’ll relate that to my own situation. I am currently on sick leave from my job as a high-powered union lobbyist. The meerkats and fresh water on this island come in the form of full pay for no work. I can stop here until I’m well but then if I want to survive, I’ll need to move on.
*If you are just joining our show in progress, meditate on this for 15 minutes today. You can start the meditations any day, don’t worry about the day it says it is, but then do it for 40 days. At any time you can look ahead or behind and see how it works by going to this link: How to do the 40 day Meditation Program