Lightness of Being

MUKUL SHARMA



The mega blockbuster movie this fall that’s making serious waves around the world is actually a sci-fi flick called Gravity. Informed critics are, even as we speak, busy falling over themselves comparing its implicit spirituality to that other great grand-daddy of all techno-mystic films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is part metaphysics, part godless, and only incidentally human.

Gravity, though, is totally human. It’s about astronauts Dr Ryan Stone, a newbie, and Matt Kowalski, a veteran who’s in charge. Unfortunately, their mission gets terminally compromised due to a sudden debris shower and the two find themselves marooned in space with suddenly nothing under their feet, over their heads or, in fact, anywhere for hundreds of kilometres except for a couple of abandoned space stations and a seemingly inaccessible Earth.

This is when the film begins to echo the poem Dark Night of the Soul by the 16th-century Roman Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross that narrates the soul’s journey from its bodily home to its union with its Maker. It’s called “Dark Night” because darkness represents the hardships the soul meets in detachment from the world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator.

The main idea, however, is the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity. Interestingly, Dr Stone’s spirituality also grows, though she represents an increasing number of people who check None of the Above when given a choice on religious affiliation. That’s because, alone in space, no one can hear you pray.