by Tim Ray

Wouldn’t it be cool if...

Spirit and the City

Ta-ta-ta-ta... ta-ta-ta-ta-ta... Spirit and the City is this year’s hottest and funniest TV series. Not surprising, it’s about four women in their mid- thirties who meet a couple of times a week in New York City’s trendiest cafés, restaurants and nightclubs to talk about deep spiritual questions like “Is it really possible to be in a love relationship with all of humanity?” or “can I have a closet full of Manolo Blahnik shoes without being attached to them?”... The series’ hottest male guest stars include cool enlightened guys like Eckhart Tolle, Neale Donald Walsch, Dalai Lama...

Spiritquest

Press the key on the right to react with compassion, press the key on the left to react with violence... Kids, teenagers and even their parents love Spiritquest, the most popular interactive computer game on the market right now. Spiritquest is so popular it’s even available on Gameboy. In this fast-paced, captivating computer game with stunning visual effects, the quest is to rise from one consciousness level to another by meeting and overcoming daunting obstacles such as selfishness, separation-thinking, fear, anger, violence and negativity. People love the game because it gives players plenty of “weapons” to help them on the game’s heroic quest: Meditations, prayers, an introduction to spiritual principles and their practical application, ways to serve humanity, and plenty of universal love and compassion...

Spirit Academy Awards

And the Oscar for Most Spiritually Uplifting Movie goes to... This year’s Academy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles is hosted by none other than the Dalai Lama, who not surprisingly is most happy to award the Oscar for Most Spiritually Uplifting Movie to an exciting spiritual adventure movie about three young Danes who have just 48 hours to save all humankind from total annihilation. In a breathtaking race against time the heroes accomplish their mission by anchoring a positive New Vision of Life on Planet Earth in the collective consciousness of humanity. Several of the movie’s stars such as Russell Crowe, Elijah Wood and Vanessa Redgrave were also nominated. The movie also received an Oscar for Most Spiritually Uplifting Special Effects because this was the first time special effects of this magnitude have been used to visualize the awe-inspiring splendour of Spirit on-screen...

SMTV - Spiritual Music Television

“I’m a Perfect Creation of the Highest Good - I reflect all the Universe of Good”... All over town kids, teenagers, adults, plus our many elders of excellence are singing, dancing, rapping and hip-hopping to the words to the many spiritual pop songs on SMTV - the new 24-hour Spiritual Music Television channel which plays nothing but songs with positive, happy, uplifting, consciousness-raising lyrics. But hey you don’t mind, cause these are the very words you yourself want to have playing over and over again in your mind like a broken record...

Spiritual Adventure Stories

Aragorn has exchanged his mighty sword for the power of prayer, Luke Skywalker has replaced his light saber with the peace of meditation, and Harry Potter has substituted his magic staff for the power of the mind... Sound too good to be true? In the new wave of spiritual adventure stories, nothing is too good to be true because the latest books just keep readers turning the pages. The biggest complaint about the new wave of spiritual adventure stories is that they cause readers to lose many a good night’s sleep! These new novels have all the ingredients of good old-fashioned adventure stories: Heroic quests, Trying to save people or all humankind from despair and destruction, fascinating journeys through space and time, seemingly insurmountable obstacles… plus a new twist… a focus on spiritual principles and their practical application that inspires and lifts readers to higher levels of consciousness...

Spiritwear

“Kindness is hip” is the motto of Spiritwear, the hottest designer label in town. And truly at Spiritwear fashion’s hippest and kindest designers use their creative talents to make trendy clothes, shoes, accessories, bags and jewellery with positive, uplifting statements and affirmations such as “God Loves Fun”, “My religion is kindness”, and “Be Here Now”. At Spiritwear’s annual fashion shows in Paris, London, New York and Milan, the hip label began every show with a guided group meditation for world peace....

Spiritual Reality TV

Who can be the most compassionate and kind – the most loving and peaceful in the most highly charged stressful situations? Welcome to Spiritual Reality TV where a small group of determined men and women are dumped on a desert island for months on end with nothing to rely on but their own understanding of spiritual principles and their practical application… (Sounds a lot like life on Planet Earth doesn’t it?)

Yes wouldn’t it be cool….

…if we could use the wonders of the modern media as a channel for a positive New Vision of Life on Planet Earth? Wouldn’t it be cool if we used these powerful forms of communication to nourish a more positive vision in the hearts and minds of everyone on earth and in this way start a more positive self-perpetuating cycle?

Of course there are already people on earth who are trying to use the media and the entertainment industry as a channel for Spirit and for a higher, more positive vision of Life on earth. People like good ol’ John Lennon said years and years ago in his song “Imagine” – “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as One...” Today we have people like James Redfield and his super popular “Celestine Prophecy” novels. His books are a good example because he combines adventure stories with important spiritual insights. And in the music industry, we have great musicians like Stevie Wonder, Mike Scott, Krishna Das, Miten and Deva Premal who are all using their musical talents to make music with a spiritual focus. In the movie industry, we have movies like Shirley Maclaine’s “Out on a Limb”, “Little Buddha” by Bernardo Bertolucci, “Kundun” by Martin Scorsese, and of course “Gandhi” by Richard Attenborough. And just recently James Twyman, Neale Donald Walsch and Stephen Simon released a spiritual movie callled “Indigo”.

The power of the media

We all know that unfortunately, most of what comes out of today’s entertainment industry is not very high in consciousness. Everywhere we look we mostly see a focus on violence, greed, sex without love, and materialism. It’s sad indeed. But the reason is obvious. The media is simply reflecting back to us the consciousness of the human beings who are making the movies, writing the books, and creating the music. Which leads to the question – how can we change the way the media is being used? How can we turn the tide and stop the flood of ugly, violent, brain-dead films, computer games and television programs? I believe the answer is amazingly simple – we can only change the way the media is being used by changing our own consciousness and our focus. When we have a more compassionate and enlightened consciousness, the media will automatically reflect a more compassionate and enlightened worldview back to us.

What comes first?

But many will ask – what comes first – the chicken or the egg? The media or our consciousness, especially when it comes to the younger generation? It’s obvious that if we feed the hearts and minds of the younger generation with images of violence, sex without love, greed, materialism, then the world will probably continue to experience this kind of reality since the media has such a powerful effect on the hearts and minds of the young. Because we tend to get what we see and believe in. This is the great spiritual law of mind – our focus creates our reality. So yes unfortunately, we are educating people to focus on the wrong things – things that bring suffering to ourselves and to our fellow human beings. And it’s a self-perpetuating cycle.

All this being said, we still have to start somewhere. One by one. And one by one, someone has got to turn away from the dominant view and present a new vision. Someone has got to make the effort to turn the sinking ship of humanity in a new direction before it’s too late and begin using the media to focus on and affirm good human qualities and the love, peace and the harmony we all seek.

As each one of us individually awakens to our true spiritual nature and begins to discover what it means to practice the brother/sisterhood of man here on earth, we will each in our own way begin to the use the media that is available to us more and more appropriately. Writers will write more uplifting books, musicians will sing more inspiring songs, filmmakers will make more enlightened movies…. and so on… It’s the only way.