During the actual production work in Ethiopia, I had some time to walk, observe, meditate and to take in all the sensations that this beautiful environment had to offer. I was returning to Ethiopia for the first time in forty years and this was an exciting time for me.

I have been working on learning to ‘live in the moment’ for quite a few years now through meditation and my work with Holosync. This goal hasn’t always been an easy one to accomplish. However, for some reason or other, I was finding it easy to just ‘be in the moment’ even during a busy production schedule.

In one of my favorite books, The Power of Now, author Tolle relates his experience in dissociating the ‘I’ from the ’self’. This emotional experience led him to his exploration and eventually to a total transformational breakthrough. He came to understand that there is a ‘witness’, a conscious identity he calls the ‘I’ which is observing thoughts in himself, the ‘myself’, who is doing the thinking.
His breakthrough was that he was NOT THE CONTENT OF HIS MIND! When he ‘got’ this truth, he stopped identifying with these thoughts (many of them negative) and he began to understand and observe them as separate from his true self. That’s when he found love and serenity where before there was only depression and suffering. From that moment on, he lived with a deep sense of peace.

In this Ethiopian environment, I found myself completely able to drift to a place such as experienced by Tolle. Out of my head. Out of my mind. Just there in the NOW. In effect, there was a lot going on in my mind but more than ever, it was easy for me to be connected to the fact that no matter what was going on in my mind, it is not really who I am. My mind is a tool of my self and a part of my being but not really the ‘real me’. I could transcend my mind because it appears that my ‘true I’ stands behind the mind and is so much greater than the mind itself. This part of me is also what connects me to every thing and everybody else in the universe. I believe that this ‘freedom’ from being controlled by the mind contributed to my total involvement and joy during this production experience.

“All fear comes from living in the past or the future, which are both in our minds–in reality,it is always NOW! As long as we stay with the NOW, we have peace. Knowing this, we can always choose peace at any moment.”

Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now

“Celebrity culture thrives on two qualities. One is a false intimacy–the belief that a famous person is known to us in the way our friends, family and neighbors might be. The other is blankness–the celebrity is a screen onto which we can project whatever feelings, thoughts or desires we choose at any given time.”

Fintan O’Toole (as reported in the Mtl Gazette, Feb. 23/10)

I recently returned from Ethiopia and nearly 3 weeks of working on The Last Jesuit, a documentary on missionary Roland Turenne who has lived in
Ethiopia since 1951. He will turn 86 tomorrow (St-Valentine’s Day). Roland really is the last of a generation of men who left family and country to go work in remote parts of the world ‘for the greater glory of God’. While in Addis Ababa, the capital, the crew stayed with the Jesuits’ residence near the University. We were welcomed with open arms. Their residence was built in 1968 by the Canadian Jesuits (project leader was Father Pierre Gouin, s.j.). The present superior is Groum Tesfaye, the ‘first’ Ethiopian Jesuit. The film will successfully contrast Fathers Turenne and Groum…two generations of Jesuit, two friends and colleagues in Christ. It had always been planned that one day Ethiopian and other African Jesuits would replace the foreign missionaries. And this will come to pass.
A Rivard Productions documentary for SRC, the crew (cameraman Claude, sound man Jay, director Georges and researcher/coordinator Michel) arrived January 14th, 2010 after a grueling 25 hours trip from Montreal. 12 cases of filming equipment, luggage, etc…We are met at the airport by Fr. Turenne, Fr. Groum and Fr. Ken, a young Kenyan Jesuit teaching high school in Addis as part of this training. What a beautiful welcome. After the mandatory trip to the Duty Free (as suggested by Fr. Turenne) to stock up on scotch and wine, we head into Addis and the residence for a late night supper of pizza and wine. We were made to feel very welcome and at home.
more to come…