NBC's TV show Community this week was about spiritual awakening, page 1

Alright, Community was awesome this week and a very well done episode. If you watch the show, this is for you. If you missed it, you can find it on Hulu, season 2 episode 5. It was a profound attempt to speak on the global awakening that is happening out in the real world right now. Here's what they were trying to say...

Prof: Annie, we've been through this, anthropology is the study of humanity, nothing is off topic.

Chang: When will the movie be released?
Abed: When is life released?

Richard: Where am I? What year is it? Am I Richard? Am I driving?

These snippets of dialogue tell us what the episode was about this week. The story behind the story was looking at humanity. Abed's film represents life, the life of humanity, the life of a human. It is about the examined life as exemplified by Richard's questions, Who am I, Where am I, What am I doing. And where we all arrive at when we ask these questions. The show contrasts an awakened spirituality (Abed) with religion (Shirley).

-----
God of Farts video on youtube--
Shirley: Who wants to see this?
Prof: 17 million people
Shirley: There were 9 people at my church last night.

Then, a very nice pregnant pause and the camera pans to all of Shirley's friends. They all feel Shirley's emotion. It's not the statement that matters, they are feeling for their friend. It seems the study group could take the moment and go all profundity with it, if they examine it. But they don't, Abed exlaims "Autotune God of Farts!" and everyone descends into silliness; representing humanities general refusal to go deeper than the surface in the matters of their life.

------
Abed, in the library, surrounded by papers, writing his ideas down. He displays that he 'gets it' intellectually.

Abed: Because all of the filmmakers are Jesus and all of their cameras are God.

Abed's statements in this episode are not mumbo jumbo. As a matter of fact, this statement is pretty genius and show's that the Community creators 'get it.'

They are general and do not explain themselves, but they are proverbs, simply stated conclusions that an awakened man can express when he realizes who he truly is. (Note: When Abed speaks of God, he is not thinking of God in the same way that Shirley thinks of God. He is speaking more of the First Source Creator, which is NOT the God of religion or the bible). Abed says, we are the filmmakers and our camera is divine conscious awareness.

Shirley responds to Abed's ideas about the film (life): "I don't like it."

Which is a comment on how religion responds to anyone who examines themselves, asks questions, makes statements that does not conform to the dogma.

Shirley leaves and then Abed realizes it: "This is the movie."

When Abed has a realization, an epiphany, a knowing, an aha!, we get the angel chorus in the background, "Abed Abed Abed!" A very nice touch indeed. Abed goes from an intellectual belief and working, to an intuitive knowing. This is the movie. This is all happening as it happens. This is life. It's not the special moments, or the moments we plan for, or the moments that go our way. It's all the moments all the time. It's all the movie, it's all life.

------
Shirley works on her film with Troy and Britta. A rap, a dance. It's all fake and affectation, a commentary on the life of religion.

------
Abed: I have arrived. I am watched as I am watching. I am audience and creations. The earth shall know my power.
Shirley: Abed, what are you doing?
Chang: Oh great, you blew the take.
Abed: No, no. Keep rolling. This can all be part of it. There are no takes, There is no viewer. The film is the story. The story is us. We are the film.

The enlightened Abed understands that all of the experiences of existence are the life lived. There are no takes. There are no do-overs getting our stories just right. Life's all happening, every moment. [I]Abed: Every minute of our lives is a world premiere, and my father's already bought the popcorn. [/I]This is fleshed out further at the study group table:

Shirley: I'm going to shut you down, you know.
Abed: I do.
Shirley: Oh, I get it. I'm supposed to shut you down. Well, I'm not gonna do it.
Abed: Don't.
Shirley: I won't.
Abed: Good.
Shirley: But I am gonna shut you down.
Abed: Good.

Abed isn't trying to control Shirley. He will experience either, as it comes. A beautiful statement on the awakened life. Most think of their lives as being a storyline. And when life occurs according to that storyline, we are living. But most of the time, we are waiting for it to happen according to the storyline. This is a nice commentary by the show that this is not how it has to be for us and an invitation to examine such things. It's not about controlling others to get our preferred outcomes.

------
Troy: This is totally meta.
Shirley: Well, let's get back to our non-meta production.
Troy: No, I wanna watch this.
Shirley: Troy, there's no time.
Troy: Then we quit, right Britta.
Britta: I don't even believe in God, but I love me some Abed.

Such simple and great dialogue. It is meta, yeah, metaphysical. Religion, represented by Shirley, doesn't want you going meta, big picture, exploring the questions that they already have the ready-made answers for. They would prefer you just take the answers, have faith, and be done with it. Don't realize things for yourselves. Be non-meta.

Atheist Britta doesn't accept the God that is presented to her by religion. But, there is an attraction in her to an awakened man. Because...what is in her, dormant, is manifest in Abed and like is attracting like.

------
A nice little scene with Shirley and some extras. The story of the story is the story. I heard it's the same backwards as it is forwards. I heard the deleted scenes are the scenes and the scenes are the deleted scenes. The extras are excited and looking at life anew, willing to explore, inspired to examine. Religion responds with the dogma that effectively shuts such inquiry down:

Shirley: I heard Jesus died for our sins!

-----
Shirley: Abed, are you saying you are Jesus.
Abed: I am who you say I am.

Abed: It's not blasphemous to say we are god, Shirley. First Corinthians says, He who unites himself to the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Chang: say what you will about Abed, but he can't be killed.

Here the show gives a taste of what a man will find when he awakens to his true nature. An immortal eternal, the I Am, one with the Source. Jesus' prayer was that we may be one as he and his Father were one,

-----
Jesus was an awakened man who was one with the Father. Jesus was confronted by the religion of the day, the Pharisees. The show gives their take on what an awakened man faces by the religion of today and concludes the reactions will be the same.

Shirley: Oh, it's all meta now. Here's the thing, I'm a devout Christian and you people are feeding into this poor boy's delusion.
Male in crowd: So cool, she's an actual real life Pharisee.

Abed: That's ok, you're reacting the way the world reacted to Jesus.
Annie: How's the film going, Abed.
Shirley: Blasphemously.

------
Abed goes through a crisis and prays in the garden. He looks at his past life and sees:
Abed: My movie is the worst piece of crap I've ever seen in my entire life. How could I have been so blind. It's a self indulgent adolescent mess.
Abed: Critics are going to crucify me, my career will be over before it begins.

Abed forgets who he is for a moment and goes back to being influenced by the ways of the world, a life manipulated by what others think (critics), a life that is a storyline that needs to by pat and fixed up and acceptable to others (career). Instead of, in this moment I Am. He gets caught up in the mistakes of his past and believes he is that self indulgent adolescent mess.

Shirley overhears and surprisingly, she gets the angel chorus. She has a realization herself, and her actions at the end signify this realization as she helps her friend through his crisis.

She grabs a bat and destroys a few things: the editing station with it's 3 film backups and the camera. The backups represent our past and that while we can appreciate our histories and remember the lessons we have learned, we are not ultimately defined by where we've been. The editing station represents trying to fix our pasts (or futures) which no longer exist (to Abed, the self indulgent adolescent mess). The only thing that exists is now.

The camera represents the God of religion (the filmmakers are Jesus, God is the camera), to whom Abed prayed to in the garden. The external watcher and judger. The show is making the statement that if you destroy the idea of that, you can discover the true essence of yourself, the internal divine connection with Source. (I would like to speculate that the 3 backups represent the 3 major monotheistic religions, Christianity, Judiasm and Islam, but that may be a stretch)

-----
And the show concludes:
Abed: You humble me.
Shirley: You humble me too.

We all have our stories. We all have masks we wear on the outside. We may be a husband and a father, an employee and a supervisor, a traveler, an alcoholic in recovery, a student and a teacher, a liar and a lover. But when we humble ourselves. When we lower ourselves. When we go down below the external masks and descend to our core, we find the divine spark that animates, the I Am, where we are one with the Source of all life. This is the awakening that is happening right now in the real world.

----
2 tidbits I couldn't fit in the above:

Within the episode, Chang and the dean and 2 extras give the Namaste hand gesture. This gesture means, "The divine in me recognizes the divine in you" or "I honor the Spirit in you which is also in me." This subtle addition by the show tells me that my vein of analysis is correct.

The hipsters in this episode represent the majority of humanity who are in it for themselves, lying and stealing, living unaware of Source, disconnected from their fellows, using others as foils in their personal heroic tales when it suits them. Their philosophy of life is represented by Leonard's declaration before he runs away from his enquiring friend, Richard:

Leonard: "Screw Richard, it's every man for himself!"
-----

That's it. A great episode from a great show. Namaste.

edit on 24-10-2010 by ajkesh because: fixed italics, hopefully

edit on 24-10-2010 by ajkesh because: italics