A few years ago, we had spent a few days staying with a sadhu (ascetic). Amidst our long discussions on spirituality, he’d rave about his guru, still clearly enchanted by him. One of the things he mentioned, was that his guru would spend hours meditating on movies. He especially liked the ones with a lot of fighting.

I couldn’t believe it. While I had some indications that the guru was quite genuine, this fact had me perplexed. Meditating on a movie? The whole idea seemed ridiculous.

Not anymore.

I’ve mentioned before that meditation shouldn’t be limited to a small practice as part of a daily routine. It has to become your moment to moment state. And when this starts happening, movies can bring about so much healing.

Movie Therapy?

What does any real therapy do? It involves remembering painful incidents, surrendering to the pain and releasing it. What could be better to do this than a movie? One is far more hypnotized in a theater than in a therapy room.

When you have been meditating for a while, you start to slowly detach from the drama of life, while still participating in it. This changes the way you do everything – including watching movies.

I keep saying movies and not soap operas, because so far, I’ve found that soap operas and other programs on TV are too short and inconsistent to allow one to delve deep. Also, serials almost always put the focus on the future and not the present itself, which is a temptation the mind rarely resists.

Movies, more so the Indian ones, have so much drama in them, and drama always triggers strong reactions. Intense movies, especially those covering war or similar painful incidents, present us with an opportunity to witness and transcend trauma that humanity has experienced as a collective – provided you are able to remain in meditation without getting pulled into the drama.

If we can allow ourselves to surrender to the joy and the pain the movie brings, we can relax a bit more when we experience these things in life. When we are in sync with life, we often find ourselves watching a movie which brings up deep, repressed emotions.

Not that we need movies for healing though, there really is enough drama in our own minds to keep us occupied for an entire lifetime.