I finally saw Avatar. While I did not love it, I will admit I cannot stop thinking about it. The notion of the avatar itself is my favorite part of this film.
What is an avatar? In internet land, we know it to be a being we select or create to represent ourselves. But the word has much older roots than late 20th-Century computer-generated entity making. The word avatar is ancient, from Sanskrit avatāra, meaning ‘a passing down’. In Hindu mythology, it refers to a deity who descends to Earth in a shape recognizable to humans. Usually, as in many ancient religions, powerful deities/gods/God have long-sent avatars down to us to engage with us, teach us a lesson, and either help us change or preserve our course.
Avatar employs both the contemporary and ancient meanings of the word. The contemporary treatment is obvious, a basic premise of the film that someday might very well be reality: Science advances to the point where science-makers can align one’s human consciousness, personality, and will to the body of a manufactured being—an avatar--and transport that created one into another world to accomplish a mission. In this film, it is mankind sending its own avatars outward rather than deities sending its avatars ‘downward’ to man.
While the contemporary depiction of the avatar in the film is clear, Avatar also treats the ancient notion of the avatar, and this is nothing short of lovely. It is precisely this ancient treatment of the avatar that continues to occupy my imagination.
As I mentioned, the word avatar comes from India’s ancient and spiritual language, Sanskrit. So who were the avatars of ancient India, and what can a glimpse at an ancient avatar tell us about this film? As a yogi and an artist who has always loved India, I am deeply fond of many ancient Hindu deities and of one avatar in particular. It is this avatar, in fact, who appears en masse in the film, much to my delight.
Vishnu is a great and powerful Hindu god. He is the second member of Hinduism’s great trilogy (“trimurti”), the others being Brahma (creator) and Shiva (destroyer). Vishnu manifests himself several times on Earth in the form of avatars. Known as ‘the preserver’, Vishnu sends us one of the most recognizable avatars in all of world mythology: Krishna. The film Avatar seems to me to be a film about Krishna.
Krishna is depicted variously in the many Hindu tales. Sometimes a child, often a prankster, almost always a flute-playing wooer of lovely women, and categorically a protector of cows and of sacred words, Krishna totes the human spiritual and well-being line. He also serves as wise counsel on the topic of war to the soldier Arjuna, bereft on the battlefield in The Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu scripture. Krishna is what humans could be: worshipful, fun-loving, strong, wise, peaceful, and kind. But what is most fascinating is that, in fact, Krishna is something that humans can’t really be. Krishna is BLUE.
He has a human shape and behaves like a human, but he has, simply, deep blue skin. (‘Krishna’ literally means ‘the dark one.’) Krishna, the Vishnu avatar, is both human and a step beyond human. He is not orange or brown or black or yellow or any color even slightly resembling the colors of our world’s many races. Blue humans are cold, sick, or dead. Krishna is nothing but filled with life. As an avatar, he completely embraces all things, including blueness, and thus pays homage to the entire life cycle. Krishna’s blueness, therefore, invites humans to celebrate rather than fear the cooler, darker side of blue. Krishna brings blue to life.
So what better color for our Na’vi to be than blue? By manifesting them as blue, James Cameron has flipped the Krishna myth and the act of avatar-creation on its head to offer us a valuable statement of the contemporary human mindset.
Being charged with blueness and a Krishna-nature, Cameron’s spectacular Na’vi re-tell the tale of the pastoral, of nature respect, and of life as organic, artistic expression. Compared with many of the humans in this film, the Na’vi themselves are almost, in fact, godlike. Certainly, they are close to and regularly commune with their gods. This film provides contemporary audiences with the chance to see mighty blue people living in perfect peace, at one with glorious nature, and in perpetual states of environmentally stable beauty that Krishna would have approved of and enjoyed.
In addition, Cameron has made the avatar creator not a deity but a human, more in keeping with our contemporary notion of the avatar, and the message is much grimmer than what the land filled with Krishna-like beings offers.
Man’s avatars in this film are at first completely alien to Na’vi ways. Deities, on the other hand, are never aliens. (That’s what makes them deities. They are privy to all we do.) Thus, deities’ avatars are filled with know-how and wisdom to act as the effective go-between in the lands of heavenliness and earthliness, but man-created avatars are mere puppets, tools, says this film, and must learn from those they are visiting. In this case, human-created avatars are fairly powerless, mere extensions of human ego, while the Na’vi are enlightened spirits living ego-free and in that regard more resemble the ancient avatar.
The happy ending of this film is not a color transformation but a spiritual one: The blue avatars in our film decide to learn to be true blue, true avatars, and truly good despite their incredibly flawed creators, man.
The Krishna-Na’vi association and the focus on human as avatar-maker in Avatar sends a message that humans, as much as we have power, must use it to help others, not hurt them. The film seems to offer a message of the importance of treating all beings well. In that, this film is yogic.
In a future blog, I will look more closely at the spiritual and militaristic themes in Avatar.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Hater/Haiti: Thoughts on “Slactivism”
I learned a new word today: slactivist. It seems to refer to people who become activists only when it’s trendy. Or, on a more mundane level, it seems to refer to people who when real tragedy strikes rise from their couches and give something or take a stand briefly in order to help. Or feel better. Or both.
My problem with the word ‘slactivist’ is that it is extraordinarily judgmental. It assumes a working knowledge of intention behind others’ acts of giving. It suggests, worse, that those who are giving under self-centered conditions (“only if it’s a tax write-off, lovey”) are to be hated and put down.
*
Even if they were to tell you exactly why they did it, it is not your business to speculate about Brad and Angela’s reasons for writing a whopping check for this cause and that. It’s none of your business how much kick-back they get and how many pictures get snapped of them in their giving moments. They are giving, and that very act needs to be respected. Altruistic giving, no matter what’s behind it, is the business between the giver and receiver.
It is none of your business if those with the biggest bucks give anything at all, or when, or why. It would be a better world those who are well off did give more, but it’s not yet the case that our greed-based capitalistic economy and superficial culture can or will give it up on a free-flowing basis to those most in need. The day will come when resources are more evenly distributed throughout the world, but dissing someone who acts only when tragedy strikes rather than, say, create a life as an agent for long-term change smacks of our greatest shortsightedness: As beings, we tend toward separation rather than unity. Would those who dislike slactivists prefer the slactivists not give, not act? I doubt it.
*
So why the label? Why judge? Are we not all trying to be more loving, giving? Are we all not here to learn how to give from the heart? Some are born knowing how to give the shirts of their backs. Many, however, have to learn it. And many never achieve giving to that degree but rather give when it’s convenient or advantageous. They are still giving. Period.
It is fine with me if slactivists are coming out of the woodwork now to help Haiti when yesterday they might not have been able to find Haiti on the map. And it is fine with me if these slactivists are suddenly moved to give some money or volunteer their time when normally they would not. There is a chance they will never give again, yes. There is that chance. But there is a chance they will.
*
Yes, these dollars and volunteer efforts to help Haiti survive this devastating earthquake are not intended for lasting, long-term change. Current conditions-—the need to rescue and provide water, shelter, comfort, and medical care-—completely trump any past lack of long-term planning and aid intended to raise Haiti from its extreme state of poverty. Save that for another, new day. Complaining that we are suddenly there for Haiti now when in the past we haven’t been is like complaining while someone is trying to keep a child, who’s had an accident, from bleeding to death that no one has given much yet toward the child’s college fund, and how dare that be the case?
Tragedy makes us humble. Tragedy can make us strong. But like anything, I learned today through this word ‘slactivism’ that tragedy can also make us bitter and smart-assy. We cannot—-should not—-strike a bitter chord when tragedy strikes. Rather, we should strike a chord of deeper compassion, deeper unity. We should not divide our ranks and waste our energies wondering who is giving, who is not, and why. We should rise together and trust that we are all doing our best, and ring the bells of unity when doing so. For now, bring on whatever help you can, for whatever reason. Help Haiti.
My problem with the word ‘slactivist’ is that it is extraordinarily judgmental. It assumes a working knowledge of intention behind others’ acts of giving. It suggests, worse, that those who are giving under self-centered conditions (“only if it’s a tax write-off, lovey”) are to be hated and put down.
*
Even if they were to tell you exactly why they did it, it is not your business to speculate about Brad and Angela’s reasons for writing a whopping check for this cause and that. It’s none of your business how much kick-back they get and how many pictures get snapped of them in their giving moments. They are giving, and that very act needs to be respected. Altruistic giving, no matter what’s behind it, is the business between the giver and receiver.
It is none of your business if those with the biggest bucks give anything at all, or when, or why. It would be a better world those who are well off did give more, but it’s not yet the case that our greed-based capitalistic economy and superficial culture can or will give it up on a free-flowing basis to those most in need. The day will come when resources are more evenly distributed throughout the world, but dissing someone who acts only when tragedy strikes rather than, say, create a life as an agent for long-term change smacks of our greatest shortsightedness: As beings, we tend toward separation rather than unity. Would those who dislike slactivists prefer the slactivists not give, not act? I doubt it.
*
So why the label? Why judge? Are we not all trying to be more loving, giving? Are we all not here to learn how to give from the heart? Some are born knowing how to give the shirts of their backs. Many, however, have to learn it. And many never achieve giving to that degree but rather give when it’s convenient or advantageous. They are still giving. Period.
It is fine with me if slactivists are coming out of the woodwork now to help Haiti when yesterday they might not have been able to find Haiti on the map. And it is fine with me if these slactivists are suddenly moved to give some money or volunteer their time when normally they would not. There is a chance they will never give again, yes. There is that chance. But there is a chance they will.
*
Yes, these dollars and volunteer efforts to help Haiti survive this devastating earthquake are not intended for lasting, long-term change. Current conditions-—the need to rescue and provide water, shelter, comfort, and medical care-—completely trump any past lack of long-term planning and aid intended to raise Haiti from its extreme state of poverty. Save that for another, new day. Complaining that we are suddenly there for Haiti now when in the past we haven’t been is like complaining while someone is trying to keep a child, who’s had an accident, from bleeding to death that no one has given much yet toward the child’s college fund, and how dare that be the case?
Tragedy makes us humble. Tragedy can make us strong. But like anything, I learned today through this word ‘slactivism’ that tragedy can also make us bitter and smart-assy. We cannot—-should not—-strike a bitter chord when tragedy strikes. Rather, we should strike a chord of deeper compassion, deeper unity. We should not divide our ranks and waste our energies wondering who is giving, who is not, and why. We should rise together and trust that we are all doing our best, and ring the bells of unity when doing so. For now, bring on whatever help you can, for whatever reason. Help Haiti.
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