As many of you know, I am making a theatrical feature length film on intuition. I’ve been making it now for several years, and very soon it will be finished.

And by very soon, I mean months.

For more than two years I’ve been shooting all around the world, interviewing Sadhus and Saints, Mystics and Psychics, Scientists and Physicists.

And last year I went into editing, with my editor Rishi Shukla. We cut for twenty weeks last year, and got to a 87 min cut that was pretty damn good.

I showed the film to some people whose opinion I respect – got feedback, and then sat on it for 6 weeks over the Christmas / New year break.

Thinking.
Dreaming.
Struggling.
Worrying.
And dreaming some more.

And then I got back into the editing room with Rishi and changed everything. I made some outrageous and bold decisions, taking the film into a completely new direction, not knowing if it would work or not.

Now, some four weeks later, I know it will work. It won’t be to everyone’s taste – some will see the film and hate it. Others will dig it, big time.

(Did I just use the term “dig it?”)

Anyway, about a week into this new cut, I had a dream – or rather a nightmare – where I showed this new cut to some friends who had seen the previous cut, and they said:

Oh no Bill. You have RUINED what was a perfectly good film! 

I thought about this – and saw it as a test.
A test of fear.

Would I trust my intuition, my PGS, and keep going with this new cut? Or would I succumb to the fear that this nightmare was trying to instil in me?

I looked deep into my heart, and I knew this new approach to the film, this new cut, might not appeal to everyone, because it’s really out there – it goes against all the conventions of a “New Agey” film on intuition – but I liked it.

In fact, I loved it.
In fact, it’s really really cool!

Anyway, I was swapping emails with Michael Tamura, who is featured in the film, and who saw the 87 minute cut last year. I told him I was taking the film in a new direction, and about the nightmare I had.

He emailed me back with some sage and well written advice, as usual. I thought it was worth posting here – because it’s full of wisdom, and you might get something from it.

Here is what he said:

MICHAEL TAMURA WRITES: 

Your imagined scenario of that person telling you that you’ve ruined your perfectly good film after seeing the new version is quite an important one.  It’s a bit like analyzing a profound dream to discover a lesson.  After all, an imagined scenario is a dream as well.  Of course, we can imagine a nightmare or a wonderful dream. Hahaha…

It seems to me that your scenario had to do with not only the process of creating and destroying/letting go, but also of letting go of any attachments to the result of what it is that you’re doing at any given moment.  

Krishna offers that wisdom to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita as perhaps the single most important keys to attaining liberation along the way of service and action.  

Interestingly enough, one of my favorite interviews that I’ve seen Michael Jordan give was immediately following him sinking one of his legendary last second 3-pointers to win the championship.  The journalist asked him if he expected to make that basket or if he was worried that he might not and then lose the championship.  

Michael Jordan said that if he worried at all about whether he was going to make the basket or whether he was going to win, he would almost always fail.  He said that he practices intensely when he practices so that when he plays in the game he just has to do what he’s practiced doing so many times.  

He trained himself to never think about whether the ball is going into the basket or whether he’s going to win the game or any kind of expectations of how things are going to turn out.  He focuses entirely on playing the game and doing what he’s practiced doing.  He said that whenever he did that successfully, he almost always made the basket.  In other words: No expectation of results.  Just play.

Jordan wouldn’t be playing basketball if his goal wasn’t to make baskets and win the game.  So, he’s learned not to worry about how things are going to end up.  That’s exactly what Arjuna learned from Krishna on the battlefield.  Both Jordan and Arjuna are warriors – action-oriented souls.  

It’s our ego that seeks results and gets hung up on results.  Even the greatest singers get nervous and worries whether they’re going to perform well before a big event.  They may imagine the same kind of scenario that you imagined for themselves.  Yet, what makes them masters of their art and craft is that they are able to acknowledge that imagined scene and “blow it up” in their mind – or forgive themselves of having imagined it and recognizing that it’s just in their imagination – and shoot for the basket without fear or expectation of results, one way or the other.  

After all, the film that you are making is for the whole of Spirit and not for one small ego or another.  If you do everything that you are doing to make the movie what you envision for the whole of Spirit, then, all those in the world who are seeking what it offers, all for whom this film and its lessons and messages will be answers to their prayers, will flock to see it and embrace it for the miracle that it is.  

Those for whom it isn’t yet time won’t even know that it exists until they are ready.  It will be only a few who will bitch and moan about it because they will be the ones who have been asking for it but still can’t receive of it.  And, it won’t be your job to answer them.  That will have to come from those who are already on-board but closer to them.

I don’t hold any expectations on how this film will turn out.  I already know that whatever you do with it, it will be wonderful.  So, relax.  Take your time, but hurry up and finish it so I can see it! Hahahaha….