Don’t Look Up - Spiritual Review of the Movie
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In this week’s episode, Chandresh shares a spiritual review of the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up. In this review, he answers a few questions including: Are we on our way to self-destruction? What’s the root cause of our increasing anxiety? What happens when our energy flows in only one direction? Is there a meaning to life and our ambition?
Chandresh also shares spiritual interpretations of some of the lead characters in the movie based on chakra energy. We hope this episode offers you some insight into spiritual wisdom and lessons that can be found by reflecting on the film. If you love this episode, please let us know on Instagram @cbmeditates.
Have any questions or curiosities about your spiritual journey? Email Chandresh at askcb@leelagurukul.com.
Episode Transcript
Are we on our way to self-destruction? What's the root cause of our ever-increasing anxiety. What happens when our energy flows in only one direction. In this episode, I'll be going deeper into these questions and many more as I do the spiritual review of latest Netflix movie, Don't Look Up. I am Chandresh Bhardwaj and this is Leela Gurukul.
Namaste everyone. I hope you are feeling relaxed, safe, and curious wherever you are. If this is first time you're listening to a Leela Gurukul episode, welcome, and those who are listening to me first time on this podcast, you might be surprised why there is a movie review on a spiritual podcast, but I hope the ones who have been listening to me, you might be already aware of my love toward movies, stories. And I don't really know how this really started in my family, no one can go through a movie without sleeping. I also sleep in movies at times if it's just not engaging, but the way I understood world in my small town in India, it was through movies. And even in those days, when I was in just fifth grade, I would request and order movies in different languages, different kind of cinema, because it just kind of inspired me.
It helped me to understand life, humans and what we experience just within this mind. And I always have so much respect for storytellers, artists and I've always said, "An artist is a healer in disguise." But this episode is not about artists or how artists can become healers and healers can become artists. This episode is really about the movie, Don't Look Up on Netflix. This episode is not sponsored by Netflix, although I don't mind if they wish to sponsor the reviews of their movies. This episode is really all about sharing my spiritual interpretation of the movie. If you have been following me on Instagram, you may remember I did this review of their show called, You. You, is very interesting, also disturbing show on Netflix. I did spiritual review of that show long time ago, and it was really well received and I hope I could do spiritual reviews, interpretations more and more in the future.
It kind of helps the teacher, the student, the seekers, to understand chakra, tantra and all of the stuff from the textbooks into a more practical way of understanding. So, this movie, Don't Look Up, I'm going to read the plot of it from IMDB, and then we'll go deeper into the review. So, IMDB says, "Two low level astronomers must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet earth." The movie's not about too low level astronomers. I felt this could be Instagram movie in a way, because what you see on it, if you understand media, if you understand how the entire politics, media and everything works, then this movie could be not at all surprising to you. But, if you really are one of those humans who trust and believe a lot of media, a lot of the messages that we receive, then it might surprise you or make you angry. And I think this is one of the reasons this movie is inviting plenty of polarizing reaction. People are so divided about this movie.
Of course, in these days, these times, everything we do and say, and why it's polarizing reaction, but it doesn't happen so much with the movies, unless the movie is a hard hitting movie. I feel this movie falls somewhere in between, they are trying to say so much in the movie and I'm not going to make a judgment on your behalf, whether you should be watching it or not. Take a call, read the reviews if you want to or just jump into watching it. This episode is not about telling you whether you should watch it or not. It's really about the spiritual glimpses that I felt while watching it. Some people I know they love the movie and they even say that this might get a good bunch of Oscar awards this year.
And many other people felt it was too loud, didn't make any sense and they could not watch it beyond 10 minutes. So, if a movie is bringing in these kind of divided reactions, you could imagine that it might be worth clicking play on your Netflix app. Now, when I started playing the movie, I started wondering what exactly this movie is trying to say. And I realized, it's saying too many things, and maybe at some point, they don't know what they're trying to say because it's a lot of messaging, subconscious messaging happening in the movie. Overall, I feel the characters in the movie are in the search, search for meaning, search for control. The human need to be relevant, powerful, special, useful. You see that in all the characters and while watching the movie, you also feel that as a human, we are on our way to make mistakes, or we are already making mistakes that we cannot recover from.
So, it's how you look at the movie and that's how it will show up for you. There are plenty of interesting characters. And for this at episode, I'm only going to pick just two or three characters that I found really interesting. First one is, Dr. Randall Mindy. He's played by Leonardo DiCaprio. So, Dr. Mindy was interesting to me because he reminded me of many of my male clients that I have worked with in the past. Dr. Mindy is scientist. He knows his stuff, genius at his work, but socially, even his mental health, his physical health, his social energy is kind of all over the place. And when I started watching it, he did remind me of some men that I worked with. I felt at some point, his energy is going to find a very ugly outlet, a very scattered outlet because they didn't show in the movie.
But if I look at it from completely chakra point of view, his energy felt so stuck in the lower three chakras, which means his relationship with food, sleep and sex was just terribly wrong. And at one point in the movie, so little spoiler, he has a affair with the TV reporter and the way it unfolded, you could feel there is no love there. It was just sexual sneeze, one after another. And it doesn't come as a surprise. The men I have worked with in the past, who are brilliantly genius, who are multi-millionaires, they worked so hard during their 20s, 30s, 40s, that by the time they touch their 50, you are even beyond, the sexual energy in them wants to find an outlet. So, they start to look for that passionate love. Because during the time of their 20s and 30s, it did not happen. They didn't even think about it. They were so busy in just one direction.
The lesson here was, if you want to look at any lesson, that this was, Dr. Mindy was a very interesting case of suppressed masculinity. He was thinking completely from his mind, from his head. Information, identity, memory, all of them were working with them and the energy in his lower three chakras, it was so tight, so heavy that it needed to find some outlet. And after it finds the outlet, thankfully for him, he realizes that none of this is bringing him any fulfillment, but that's exactly what happens. If you have been unconsciously or consciously, suppressing a particular energy, there comes a time in your life where all you think about is releasing that energy. It could be suppressed anger, suppressed sexuality, suppression of any other desire. And there comes a point when you just want to release it.
The spiritual answer is, you can go beyond it. Don't worry about releasing it because it's silly and idiotic to even spend time on it. But that's the spiritual answer. It may not work for everyone because you have to be at a certain level of vibration or energy to make that decision. It requires a lot of courage and discipline. The human answer is, go ahead, play with that energy, start releasing it, start playing with it. You might relapse. You might burn your hands. Things may get messy and dirty like it happened for Dr. Mindy. But then he comes back because he learns the lesson. At this point, I am working with certain men who have gone through similar stuff in their time of 20s and 30s. And right now, they are hungry to just release that energy. It could be sexual, could be romantic, could be emotional.
And I realized spiritual advice will not work. What work is, doing it, slipping, relapsing and then learning the lesson in such a deep way that you understand the silliness of it. Even if you don't relapse or get your hands dirty, even if you experience it, indulge it and with awareness, you'll realize this wasn't such a big deal. I'm glad I did that. And finally, I can move on now. And second interesting character was Kate Dibiasky. I hope I'm saying her name right. This was played by Jennifer Lawrence. When I saw her on screen, first of all, I felt she's kind of being stereotyped in a very similar personality type in most of her roles. But yeah, coming back to her story, I felt okay. There is the way she's showing up. And just the first two minutes of her scene, first 30 seconds, when she's talking with Professor Mindy, the way she started speaking, you could feel there is suppression or uneasy, misaligned energy in her throat and heart.
And as the story progresses, you start to see that these two chakras are doing the most circus in her life. Her heart chakra is so unfortunately all over the place. So, there are two relationships, one relationship where the boyfriend cashes on her popularity to sell his blog, get more views and likes. And then there is very interesting fling kind of thing happening with a young boy. But, if you want my personal opinion, which none of you asked for, but I'll still give it. The connection she had with a younger boy, I thought that was really beautiful, really, really innocent. If I could direct the next part of the movie, I'll make a movie on just these two, what happens with both of them.
The heart chakra of Kate, it needs healing, it needs safety, it needs warmth. That's all she's looking for. She's not looking for lust, not looking for validation really. She's looking for safety, warmth. And then you start understanding that this energy of misaligned heart chakra, it's touching her throat center. And each time she speaks, it's just impulsive release. She does not think before speaking. And that doesn't mean she's speaking the wrong things, but this is something that I think might be really interesting for many of you. When the energy between the heart and throat is not moving well, but it's moving, but not moving in awareness, we say things out of impulsiveness and we might say truthful things, but they come out with so much aggression, anger, and impulsiveness that no one around us takes it seriously or our opinion, our expression will be dominated simply because we said it in such impulsiveness.
And what I've learned in life, if you really wish to make an impact, if you really wish to bring change in the room you're sitting in, then speak the harshest truth with the most calming energy. Express yourself in the most calming clarity. And that will happen when you are constantly bringing love, awareness, trust on your heart, on your throat. For Kate, this stayed with her throughout the movie, the misaligned energy between the throat and the heart. And I wish, she deserved much more applause. She deserved much more love from everyone. In the movie, her character deserved that. And yeah, it was interesting how the energies were moving so rapidly between her throat and heart. When you watch the movie, you'll know.
And coming to the third character, Peter Isherwell, I hope I'm saying his name right. He was the founder, the CEO of the tech company. This one was the most disturbing character to study because people like Peter, they are ingenious on some next level. Their energy on third eye and crown chakra is so amazingly powerful that if it goes in the wrong direction, it could become one of the most dark energy. So, when he first appears in the movie, I think the actor performed it really well because you could see it when he starts talking, if you understand chakra, if you understand spiritual energy, you could see that he has plenty of skeletons in his closet. And one by one, they start to come out. Although they don't come out in a very visible way, but you see that he has a lot of crazy stuff happening in his life.
And this is one person in the movie who single handedly responsible for a lot of damage. But if you look at his plan from a very honest, innocent viewpoint, you'll start to think that he has a point. If it works well, it would change everything the way we think, the way we live, the way there is so much inequality, maybe he has a solution because he presents it with so much conviction. You really want to believe him. But then he also has this dominating heavy third eye energy, which has gone dark, which means he has become much more controlling, aggressive, and he wants to win at any cost. He reminds me of plenty of people that we see around us. I mentioned many names in my previous podcast, where anyone with a strong third eye could create and also be responsible for destruction. It really matters how they're handling it. At this point, the few people that I can quickly think of who are really strong on their third eye, they are, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, the ones who are really, really popular out there.
Warren Buffet, the financial investor, he's not too heavy on third eye. He's somewhere in between third eye and even heart and even naval center. Because in his words, he says, "I'm not the smartest investor. I'm just the most patient investor." And it reflects in his overall energy. And the names I mentioned with strong third eye, you'll see that they get into controversies. They get into crazy stuff because what they create could be a revolution, but whenever they slip, they go here and there. Things start to change and they attract a lot of controversy. Now, this guy, Peter Isherwell, in the movie, his energy has started to go wrong from the lower chakras. It's misunderstood by him, misused by him and I guarantee you, if there was a backstory on him, he was abused on many levels as a child. Could be emotional, sexual, mental abuse, spiritual abuse, who knows, but the foundation is so scattered.
And then his own planetary positions were responsible to make him this kind of genius, smart and he worked on it. And when you start to become successful, then you want to take a revenge. And that's where the third eye starts to go wrong. For example, let's say you were someone who never got love in life as a child. And you had to struggle to simply survive and your family didn't have enough food and you saw plenty of messy stuff in your life, but eventually you become successful and you become really one of the top, one person successful in the country. And after that, there are two paths. If you have a spiritual support, good people around you, good energy around you, you could become amazingly compassionate human and give back to society because you have seen the worse and you don't want that to happen with anyone.
The other side is you could start to take a revenge on everyone you know, because you become bitter by going through these experiences. And that's why when I see these popular names coming out in scandals, doing some really dark, disturbing stuff, my first reaction is, can we get to know his story, so that the story does not repeat itself. By punishing the person, you're also simply burying the story in the ground. Can we see the full story, so that we learn from it, so that the next generation does not repeat it. So, when you start to understand Peter Isherwell on a spiritual level, you will notice things must have gone terribly wrong with him as a child. What started wrong in the lower chakras, then it reaches heart and he really doesn't have too much energy on the heart.
And throat is the center where physical and the nonphysical start to connect together. And his connection with the nonphysical was pretty strong because he was amazingly financially successful and he had some really unconventional ideas, but all the energy was moving in the wrong direction. So, above the throat center, everything started to go heavily and on a dark level, really, really wrong. And he really becomes responsible for major level of destruction of what you see in the movie. And other than that, there was Meryl Streep as President Orlean and Jonah Hill, her son, I feel they both were alright. I don't have much to say about their characters because it was, I wish there were more layers to president Orlean. She's shown as a very cliche politician who are doing things for power and it's just a classic case of greed, wanting more control, wanting more power. And yeah, that's just third eye energy gone terribly wrong. And Jonah Hill, I thought he was just funny in the movie. And if I have to point out his chakra energy, that would be just only the lower three chakras, that's all.
His character, I believe his name was Jason, let me double check. But his character was so interesting, you feel that this guy never went up from the lower three chakras. It's really that's his personality completely. He did not go above the lower three chakras from first scene till the last one. He was roaming, hanging around the lower three chakras. And finally, why am I talking about the movie? Was there something that I had really, really extracted from it? And yes, I did. And that really inspired me to record this episode.
The lesson that I really decoded from the movie, we got to drop the need to be special. We got to drop the need to find meaning of everything out there. We got to learn how to relax. I feel relaxation is going to become one of the most expensive element, commodity in the future. It already is expensive to relax for humans, but wait till the end of your lifetime. You're going to see plenty of expensive, overpriced stuff around relaxation. And why do I say drop the needs to be special? Because it's the ego that wants to be special. Ego wants to be known. Ego wants to stay relevant. You could call it anything. Your dharma, your purpose, but the truth is, ego is driving plenty of this stuff. Ego will always drive plenty of this stuff, unless and until you really start to understand the drama of your ego, and you start to show up for your purpose in a much more deeper way.
In this movie, you clearly see every single person wants to be relevant, useful, special. It's the degree. Sometimes the degree is very normal and aware. Sometimes it's so intense and so dark. But if you simply could understand how you don't matter so much and you don't have to take it all too seriously. Because once you let go of this need to be special, then you contribute on a different level. Then the fear, anxiety, ego, they all take a backseat and you realize I don't have to create a revolution. I don't have to save everyone. If I simply could do this one thing with right energy, everything else will be taken care of. And also realizing, not everything has a meaning. I've been saying this for years. The problem with new seekers or the ones who read too much or listen too much, they want to decode meaning in everything.
People would send me questions, asking the meaning of consciousness. And they would quote heavy books that they have read this book and that book, and this book says this much about consciousness, but other books says this much and it's kind of confusing. And my answer is, you are trying to understand something which is beyond description. It's almost like you go to a standup comedy show and then you start to sit with a comic and analyze each and every joke, it's going to not sound funny ever at all. It's almost like if you hug someone, if you make love to someone and then you analyze each and every move, trust me, they won't be hanging out with you next time. Not everything has a meaning, my friend.
I would say, if you really want my unapologetic take on meaning, 99.999% things have no meaning in life. The mind gives meaning, the ego gives meaning because we want meaning. We want some sign all the time. Let go of that. This will only build up your ego, your anxiety. This will only build up calculation, competition, comparison in mind. And that's why we are doing it because mind likes it. So, mind keeps repeating that and finally learn to relax. It doesn't matter, what's your system, as long as it's not hurting you or anyone else. Find a mindful way to relax without depending on any external substance.
Have so much reverence and faith and trust in your own body, in your own awareness and then it will give you sources to relax within. You don't need to depend on any external source. You don't need to take a pill. You don't need to do any ceremonies. You could be relaxed without them. You don't need to look for a partner to relax. You could be relaxed in your own way. Redefine your ambition, reimagine your purpose here and stop letting ego take the shots. That's all for today. Be safe, be well. I hope you enjoyed this review. Do let me know on Instagram, what you think of this.
May the teachings of tantra continue to guide you and heal you. And I hope Leela Gurukul helps you to unlearn the old and embrace the unknown, mystical possibility unfolding for you. To support this podcast, share it among the seekers who are ready for the next step in their spiritual path.
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